Better idea still: Make engineering consoles less pathetic, and actually give them straight out percentage values like tac consoles and have them cap at X% (which I know they already do, so keep that).
That still fails to balance healing from ship to ship, hull healing on cruisers is too low because it is a fixed number (Based on certain factors, max hull not being one) and as such you have to find a balance where cruiser healing is enough while not making escort healing too good.
Make all healing a percentage of maximum X stat (Hull, shield etc.) then apply whatever variables and cruiser healing is good and escort healing not so good.
With regard to consoles, flekh and I proved in this thread that tac consoles, like eng consoles suffer diminishing returns, what I would like to see is the damage output from NPCs made reasonable so that engineering consoles feel like they have some effect rather than being overwhelmed in 1 hit.
It is official, I have to my satisfaction found that an escort will out-tank a cruiser for high end challenging PvE gameplay.
Assumption: If the encounters are so difficult that a dedicated tank is required then so will be a dedicated healer. In addition efficiency will become the deciding factor in tanking capacity. Otherwise anyone could just cross-heal with a few copies of standard abilities.
Tank Goal: To hold agro and to be capable of mitigating/avoiding more damage than anyone else.
Abilities: A combination of Emergency Power to Shields 1, Extend Shields 1, Transfer Shield Strength 1, combined with a maco shield and 125 shield power grants a ship 73% shield resists vs Plasma. 75% is the cap and the only ability listed there that needs to be on the tank would be the Epower. In addition any of those skills could be used at a higher rank to close that gap a bit. That makes the deciding factor between the cruiser or escort in tanking capacity the bonus defense score, and the escort wins that contest. In addition they would be better at holding agro and with a combination of attack pattern delta and omega be even better at mitigating damage and debuffing the enemy at the same time. Sadly a Tac captian would be better as the escort tanker due to the ability to keep the above two attack patterns active during difficult encounters and being more capable of holding agro as well. Finally while you would assume a cruiser would be the default healer for this role that would be a mistake as well, a Sci Vessel would do just as well if not better.
Best Tank = Steamrunner (2x Epower, 2x RSP)
Runner Up = Fleet Patrol
That still fails to balance healing from ship to ship, hull healing on cruisers is too low because it is a fixed number (Based on certain factors, max hull not being one) and as such you have to find a balance where cruiser healing is enough while not making escort healing too good.
Make all healing a percentage of maximum X stat (Hull, shield etc.) then apply whatever variables and cruiser healing is good and escort healing not so good.
With regard to consoles, flekh and I proved in this thread that tac consoles, like eng consoles suffer diminishing returns, what I would like to see is the damage output from NPCs made reasonable so that engineering consoles feel like they have some effect rather than being overwhelmed in 1 hit.
No they do not have diminishing returns, each one adds a FLAT amount to the damage. Always have always will, granted they do function similarly to eng consoles as far as the damage increase being measured as a % goes but that is not the same thing. Granted they do mirror the increase of EHP that eng consoles give also measured as a % and its why eng consoles must have diminishing returns or things get broken.
I don't think cruisers are underpowered in general. Okay the old assault cruiser and star cruisers were a bit lacking but the newer hulls certainly aren't.
A cruiser will usually not outdamage an escort ship, as least on single targets, but in a target rich environment they are not that far behind in total numbers. The strength of cruisers is simply that they not only deal some damage but unlike escorts, can also withstand some punishment.
I don't find that cruisers are under powered, they do an amazing job of tanking and healing, I think the problem really lies in the complete LACK of Tac options.
For both the science and engineering consoles you have several different viable options available for every ship but only one, MAYBE two, tactical. In addition, these consoles were originally balanced around massive diminishing returns and a max of 4 consoles per ship, both of these are things of the past.
I'd really like to see some variation introduced into the tactical consoles and some serious diminishing returns on the current damage consoles. I'm really not sure why there aren't base tactical consoles for things like Accuracy, Crit-H/Crit-D, or Increased Proc chance, anything to add some new options.
I don't think cruisers are underpowered in general. Okay the old assault cruiser and star cruisers were a bit lacking but the newer hulls certainly aren't.
A cruiser will usually not outdamage an escort ship, as least on single targets, but in a target rich environment they are not that far behind in total numbers. The strength of cruisers is simply that they not only deal some damage but unlike escorts, can also withstand some punishment.
A standard cruiser will never out damage an escort ship. And they can withstand exactly 10% more damage than an escort typically which is in reality a wash because the escort will get hit 10% less often. There is a minor difference thanks to the console arrangements but in the end any more than 3 armor consoles gets silly. So no, they cannot, by virtue of being a cruiser, take much more punishment. They do have a tendency to have more engineering boff slots that can be used for that purpose but that is not the ship, it is the boff abilities. Meanwhile the escort wins on damage because of its capability to pack dual cannons, console layout, and ability to have good positioning in addition to its tac boffs.
I don't find that cruisers are under powered, they do an amazing job of tanking and healing, I think the problem really lies in the complete LACK of Tac options.
For both the science and engineering consoles you have several different viable options available for every ship but only one, MAYBE two, tactical. In addition, these consoles were originally balanced around massive diminishing returns and a max of 4 consoles per ship, both of these are things of the past.
I'd really like to see some variation introduced into the tactical consoles and some serious diminishing returns on the current damage consoles. I'm really not sure why there aren't base tactical consoles for things like Accuracy, Crit-H/Crit-D, or Increased Proc chance, anything to add some new options.
The current damage consoles are not the sole reason for the cruiser's current status as 'underpowered'. And they are not even the best tanks, nor healers that would be escorts and a handful of sci vessels in PvE not that either role is required in the slightest for it anyway. Lets compare them this way:
Cruiser
+Hull HP
Pretty much not a factor. 10% hull hp will not save your bacon, resists and heals will.
-Turn Rate & Speed
This is huge. Makes bonus defense harder to get, makes combat positioning more difficult, and in the end is extremely annoying.
+ 1 Weapon Slot
This is a wash thanks to weapon drain mechanics and ends up being next to useless most of the time.
Escort
+Turn Rate & Speed
+Bonus Defense
This is mitigation. The more damage you avoid/resist/mitigate the less damage that needs healed. Due to this factor the escort can and will out-tank a cruiser with a dedicated healer if this was a standard MMO trinity style.
+Dual Cannons
While this has been the 'go-to' thing to slap on every new ship it is still primarily an escort feature (and battlecruiser) and I don't think I need to go into details on it.
-Shield HP/Regen
While this does hurt to a point in the end 10% will not save you. As I have stated before resists are what matters not total shield amount. And in the end a Transfer Shield Strength boff ability used on an escort heals the same amount as it would on a cruiser.
Science Vessel
+Shield HP
+Sensor Scan
+Subsystem Targeting
-Hull HP
-1 Weapon
That makes the deciding factor between the cruiser or escort in tanking capacity the bonus defense score, and the escort wins that contest. In addition they would be better at holding agro and with a combination of attack pattern delta and omega be even better at mitigating damage and debuffing the enemy at the same time.
I don't know what game you're playing, but my cruiser already uses APO and APD.
Also, I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of uptime (all you new kids and teenyboopers that never did proper WoW raids never seem to take it into consideration) but an escort ziping around like a bee is not going to be doing much of anything DPS-wise, while a cruiser can simply do circles around its target never letting up the damage.
But, if you insist that escorts are the best tanks, feel free to fly on and try serious tanking.
P.S. If your cruiser isn't ranking up the threat talent you're doing it wrong!
P.S. x 2. If you're a cruiser enthusiast that STILL feels wronged might I direct you to the KDF cruiser selection? Their cruisers are generally acknowledged to be the best and more fun to fly.
This is mitigation. The more damage you avoid/resist/mitigate the less damage that needs healed. Due to this factor the escort can and will out-tank a cruiser with a dedicated healer if this was a standard MMO trinity style.
No kidding! Now how do you think that cruiser will tank if he had a dedicated healer on his six-o-clock too? Trying to kill a whole team of cruisers that know what they're doing is an absolute nightmare.
Escorts are not the be-all end-all you seem to think they are and snoozers are far from useless, in fact the stronger your opponents, the less you'll see escorts, because they tend to become more of a liability than an asset. From what I understand of STO's history this used to be even worse in the past, and given how many anti-escort strategies there are out there right now I thank my lucky stars every game for having a healer to keep me safe.
In all honesty I'm still convinced that people have a poor impression of snoozers simply because the overwhelming majority of players, good and bad, gravitate towards them.
Both an escort and cruiser with a dedicated support/healer can hit the shield resistance cap. That means the only variance in damage mitigation is the bonus defense score, or avoidance. Keep in mind I am speaking from a purely optimal point of view assuming that STO actually had content that put out enough damage to require a true dedicated tank like some think STO should have. Once again it does not have any content that would require or desire that style of play PvE.
PvP is a completely different beast due to the human factor. In PvP with burst being king along with focus fire and the fact that a human is intelligent enough to not shoot the tank but instead the person that is healing/buffing the tank the entire metagame changes and having buffer tank becomes more useful. As does having a healer who is tanky.
The fact remains, however, that as a ship hull a cruiser does not inherently have any additional tanking capacity over an escort beyond having a more engineering heavy boff layout that tends to increase the quantity of healing and resist abilities on the ship. At the same time the escort does have inherent qualities that increase it's own damage output those being the increased weapons power, dual cannons, and a higher maneuverability and speed that allow it to keep favorable positioning.
That means that cruisers are 'under-powered' in the PvE aspect of the game. Not useless, not junk, underpowered. As in 'not as good' as other ships. Once again I am referring to cruisers, not battle cruisers nor dreadnaughts.
And the simple reason for that is the role they find themselves filling in PvE. That is as a hybrid. They are a mix of damage, tank, and support/healing. Hybrids always tend to be underpowered in MMOs. This is complicated by the fact that every hull has hybrid qualities to an extend with the ability to self heal, tank, etc. It is just that the escort is capable of packing just enough self heal/tank with boffs/gear to get the job done and the cruiser need to pack the same amount.
Strangely enough as well in the end the proper Science Ship does make the best self-sustaining tank. Or tank without a healer backup that is. This is thanks to the much higher self regeneration capability of the vessel, along with an improved capacity to still fill a very useful role with various CC abilities. For you see while it does lack a bit of hull buffer compared to the cruiser it does having a much higher shield regeneration capability.
And I do fly battlecruisers I do not find them to be underpowered. Mostly due to the turn rate and DHC factor.
I don't know what game you're playing, but my cruiser already uses APO and APD.
Also, I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of uptime (all you new kids and teenyboopers that never did proper WoW raids never seem to take it into consideration) but an escort ziping around like a bee is not going to be doing much of anything DPS-wise, while a cruiser can simply do circles around its target never letting up the damage.
But, if you insist that escorts are the best tanks, feel free to fly on and try serious tanking.
P.S. If your cruiser isn't ranking up the threat talent you're doing it wrong!
P.S. x 2. If you're a cruiser enthusiast that STILL feels wronged might I direct you to the KDF cruiser selection? Their cruisers are generally acknowledged to be the best and more fun to fly.
This would be true if the escort HAD to be zipping around like a bee to stay alive. Instead it is actually common practice for the Escort to park it's butt right in front of the target and just unload while cycling TT1 and the occasional shield heal. While much more effective as a tactic for an Engineering captain the damage boosts available to a Tac mean that most enemies are dead before you are even if you do take a much higher amount of damage.
As for your comment about speccing into threat control? Aside from being offensive in the extreme (you do not sound as if you actually PLAY cruisers much) it is a waste of skill points in its current position on the skill tree. Would you support having it's position swapped with Attack Patterns if it meant more cruiser captains wold be speccing into it? (as 1,000 skill points per level is much less of a burden than 2,500 per)
As for your comment about speccing into threat control? Aside from being offensive in the extreme (you do not sound as if you actually PLAY cruisers much) it is a waste of skill points in its current position on the skill tree.
I'm sorry, you have just proven you have no idea of what a tanking cruiser is supposed to DO. The threat control skill is possibly the MOST important skill points you can spend for a tanking captain because its what allows tanking to occur. Otherwise how do you plan to hold agro? You're not going to out-dps an escort (or possibly even a sci vessel). So if you're not tanking you just became a healing cruiser.... how well can tanking cruisers heal will depend on the build but if you want to tank it won't be satisfactory.
A cruiser is not valued for its DPS alone, a cruiser is valued because it allows escorts and sci vessels to totally ruin an NPCs day with impunity. If you're not doing that, your tanking cruiser is simply not doing its job. A healing cruiser can work differently but they usually also tank or DPS.
I'm sorry, you have just proven you have no idea of what a tanking cruiser is supposed to DO. The threat control skill is possibly the MOST important skill points you can spend for a tanking captain because its what allows tanking to occur. Otherwise how do you plan to hold agro? You're not going to out-dps an escort (or possibly even a sci vessel). So if you're not tanking you just became a healing cruiser.... how well can tanking cruisers heal will depend on the build but if you want to tank it won't be satisfactory.
A cruiser is not valued for its DPS alone, a cruiser is valued because it allows escorts and sci vessels to totally ruin an NPCs day with impunity. If you're not doing that, your tanking cruiser is simply not doing its job. A healing cruiser can work differently but they usually also tank or DPS.
Cruisers where never meant to "tank" in the trinity sense. The threat control was added after the change to skill trees. A cruiser doesnt have to take the extra threat skill as each ship class has plenty of options to keep their survivability high. Escorts have high maneuverability and turn rate to maintain high defence and dps.
I'm sorry, you have just proven you have no idea of what a tanking cruiser is supposed to DO. The threat control skill is possibly the MOST important skill points you can spend for a tanking captain because its what allows tanking to occur. Otherwise how do you plan to hold agro? You're not going to out-dps an escort (or possibly even a sci vessel). So if you're not tanking you just became a healing cruiser.... how well can tanking cruisers heal will depend on the build but if you want to tank it won't be satisfactory.
A cruiser is not valued for its DPS alone, a cruiser is valued because it allows escorts and sci vessels to totally ruin an NPCs day with impunity. If you're not doing that, your tanking cruiser is simply not doing its job. A healing cruiser can work differently but they usually also tank or DPS.
So your proposal/stance is that a cruiser is just fine because they can tank without a healer in endgame PvE group encounters. That is false for several reasons.
1) Tank what for whom? Any decently built ship can handle anything end game pve can throw at it without a 'dedicated' tank in the group. This is especially true when people cross-heal.
2) A Science Vessel can fill that role better than a cruiser.
3) An Escort can fill that role just as well as a cruiser.
4) A heal-boat would be more useful than a tank typically.
What does the cruiser ship hull itself have that helps it self tank? Nothing beyond Engineering boff slots which can be found on other hull types if desired. The two important factors that matter for self tanking are simple, how much damage can you mitigate via resists and bonus defense, and how much self healing/sustain are you capable of. The cruiser hull does not have an advantage in either of those categories. In addition they have a much more difficult time establishing and maintaining proper positioning and thanks to crew mechanics suffer from those as well.
Cruisers where never meant to "tank" in the trinity sense. .....
I agree, the system STO uses is a very loose one where you can do all content without "needing" any one class, but specific ship classes are better at their specialties than others. Cruisers are clearly designed to lean towards damage mitigation/absorption. Personally I prefer this design philosophy over a hard trinity like you might find in WoW.
So your proposal/stance is that a cruiser is just fine because they can tank without a healer in endgame PvE group encounters. That is false for several reasons.
1) Tank what for whom? Any decently built ship can handle anything end game pve can throw at it without a 'dedicated' tank in the group. This is especially true when people cross-heal.
"dedicated" DPS like escorts and "dedicated" CC like Sci ships are not specifically needed either... this is actually a strength of the design Cryptic has used.
2) A Science Vessel can fill that role better than a cruiser.
What? We will just have to agree to disagree on that one. My Sci cap in a Sci Vessel is still too new for me to comment on this, but from what I know so far this is pretty much flat out wrong.
3) An Escort can fill that role just as well as a cruiser.
Not "just as well". Have you piloted both types of ships? I have, there's no way I can say my escort is as tanky as my cruiser. Bear in mind I build my ships to be as independent as survivable as possible, and I tell you.. my cruiser tanks better.
4) A heal-boat would be more useful than a tank typically.
A heal boat can allow an escort to tank with almost no risk... but a tanky cruiser can tank and heal itself much more easily. Different playing styles I'd say.
What does the cruiser ship hull itself have that helps it self tank? Nothing beyond Engineering boff slots
and a better shield mod if memory serves.... and those extra Eng Boff slots are HUGE for survivability, which again, is the cruiser's specialty. If all you care about is out DPS-ing an escort you're doing it wrong
I'm sorry, you have just proven you have no idea of what a tanking cruiser is supposed to DO. The threat control skill is possibly the MOST important skill points you can spend for a tanking captain because its what allows tanking to occur. Otherwise how do you plan to hold agro? You're not going to out-dps an escort (or possibly even a sci vessel). So if you're not tanking you just became a healing cruiser.... how well can tanking cruisers heal will depend on the build but if you want to tank it won't be satisfactory.
A cruiser is not valued for its DPS alone, a cruiser is valued because it allows escorts and sci vessels to totally ruin an NPCs day with impunity. If you're not doing that, your tanking cruiser is simply not doing its job. A healing cruiser can work differently but they usually also tank or DPS.
As to what a tanking cruiser is supposed to do? Not have fun :P In seriousness I do know what a TANK is supposed to do, it's supposed sit there and take it up the TRIBBLE while everybody else does damage. It is, quite frankly, a boring thing to do and I, like most cruiser pilots, fly them because we either like the look of the ships, want to fly the Enterprise, or both. What bugs us is that when we try to do anything OTHER than tank or heal we have people telling us to either get lost or get an escort. And a lot of the time we get the same reaction even when we do try to fill the tank/healer role because there's really not much use for it in the endgame content. You can argue the point, but when the optimal solution to a mission is to have five escorts specced for raw firepower a tank/healer is completely superfluous.
Actually skill points put into threat control are wasted, at least in skill tree's current form because those skill points can be used to greater effect in other places and putting even three points into that skill is 7500 that can be used elsewhere to buff various subsystems, science skills, shield strength or healing, hull strength or healing, critical damage and hit chance, or just straight damage.
It's not so much that Threat Control is a bad skill, but that the return on investment into the skill is so very, very low that any benefit is massively outstripped by the penalties of skilling into Threat Control as opposed to virtually any other skill you could name.
I'll also note you said absolutely nothing about my thought that Threat Control and Attack Patterns should be swapped to encourage people to skill into Threat Control by reducing the opportunity cost of taking points into Threat Control. It's almost as if you think that making it less of a burden to skill into Threat Control is a bad idea? Or is it that you don't want to have to pay more for a boost to your nifty and powerful attack patterns, skills that only escorts/raptors/BoPs can truly use to effect?
I did spend the points on Threat Control because I do tank, and wanted to take the heat off our escorts while they did what they are specced to do, incinerate the enemy. I don't put out anywhere near the firepower they do, and that, in our team, isn't my job. I keep the escorts flying and delivering the hurt. Have you ever tried boosting an escort with EPS Transfer 3 right before they delivered an alpha strike? Or a Sci when it's about to dump a Gravity Well? That will get even a tactical cube's attention. I also dump warp plasma and radiation clouds, after our science officer has immobilized a cluster of enemies with a gravity well or Tyken's Rift. Then the aforementioned escorts come in and it's cleanup on Aisle 3.
tl;dr Get a consistent group of people you can work with and know your role!
"Susse-thrai" had been the name bestowed upon her, half in anger, half in affection, by her old crew on Bloodwing; the keen-nosed, cranky, wily old she-beast, never less dangerous than when you thought her defenseless, and always growing new teeth far back in her throat to replace the old ones broken in biting out the last foe's heart. Romulans: left one homeworld, lost another, third time's the charm?
I did spend the points on Threat Control because I do tank, and wanted to take the heat off our escorts while they did what they are specced to do, incinerate the enemy. I don't put out anywhere near the firepower they do, and that, in our team, isn't my job. I keep the escorts flying and delivering the hurt. Have you ever tried boosting an escort with EPS Transfer 3 right before they delivered an alpha strike? Or a Sci when it's about to dump a Gravity Well? That will get even a tactical cube's attention. I also dump warp plasma and radiation clouds, after our science officer has immobilized a cluster of enemies with a gravity well or Tyken's Rift. Then the aforementioned escorts come in and it's cleanup on Aisle 3.
tl;dr Get a consistent group of people you can work with and know your role!
^^^^ This guy knows what's up. Listen and learn, folks.
I will try this one last time for you Skyranger. Tanking is about avoiding taking damage, or healing away the damage when you do not have someone else healing you.
An Escort will take less damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher bonus defense score.
A Science Vessel will heal more damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher shield modifier.
Now it is true that engineering boff abilities tend to be really good at healing and resisting damage. It is also true that cruisers tend to have more of these than any other hull. But that is the boff ability that is granting it tank not the ship.
Any escort that has a few engineering boff slots for things like Emergency Power to Shields and the like and maintains a high speed will be able to tank just as well, if not better, than the cruiser would. The only reason the cruiser could out-do it would be it could have a higher tier of Epower to shields active that grants more resistance to make the increased avoidance of the escort a wash. Try flying an escort tank sometime for kicks it will really open your eyes I would think.
Any science vessel that has a few engineering boff slots can do the same exact thing. Except they will passively regenerate more shields than the cruiser would.
Do not confuse what the ship type adds, and what the boff abilities add. The simple fact is an escort is better at avoiding damage than the cruiser, and the science vessel is better at regenerating than the cruiser leaving the cruiser with nothing but a bit more hull that in the end has no true bearing on the ability to tank. In most MMOs the warrior is not the tank because he has the most hit points. It is because he is the best at a combination of reducing and avoiding incoming damage. The cruiser ships themselves do not do this in any way, shape, or form.
Also keep in mind I am talking about a small difference. It is plainly obvious that Cryptic does not care one bit about ships being truely balanced they just want them close enough. Otherwise either the Vesta is over powered or nearly every other Sci Vessel is under powered. That is the level of disparity that bothers me, although it is a bit more of a disparity between standard cruiser hulls and escorts IMHO.
I will try this one last time for you Skyranger. Tanking is about avoiding taking damage, or healing away the damage when you do not have someone else healing you.
An Escort will take less damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher bonus defense score.
A Science Vessel will heal more damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher shield modifier.
Now it is true that engineering boff abilities tend to be really good at healing and resisting damage. It is also true that cruisers tend to have more of these than any other hull. But that is the boff ability that is granting it tank not the ship.
An Escort will deal less damage in a fight than a Cruiser. This is because of its (<- pay attention) lower number of Weapons.
Now, it's true that Tactical BOFF abilities tend to be really good at DDing and it is no less true that Escorts do tend to have more of these than any other Ship type; but that is inherent to the BOFF ability, not to ship.
(wow, typing that reductio ad absurdum made me realise: you really hate commas!)
The claim that Cruisers can take less punishment than Escorts or SVs is ludicrous. Ok, ok some SVs built purely for tanking can indeed survive extremely well (especially with an Eng Captain), mostly because of the Field Generator issue: stick 5 of those things on a Ship, add heals/resists (of which Sci isn't short on) and you've got a "tough little Ship".
But:
1. That Ship can only tank/heal, no CC - it's a pseudocruiser more than a SV at that point.
2. If those outtank Cruisers (not sure, never formally tested), the problem lies squarely in stacking Field Gens.
Escorts on the other hand? No, just no.
SVs that actually try to CC/debuff? No.
I play (welll, played, been away the last few weeks) all types of Ships and Captains and I can tell you, my Escorts and SVs are a lot more fragile than my Cruisers. Even Tac/Cruiser.
You dismiss a 11% advantage in Shields as meaningless, a ~26% advantage in Hull as meaningless, many more survivability-oriented BOFFs as somehow irrelevant and blow a small (70% vs 60%) Defense advantage way out of proportion, that practice has a name: intellectual dishonesty.
Another bit of intellectual dishonesty you keep exhibiting: if you've ever played this game, you know that the Escorts never have the best Defense in practice: an Escort/front-firing SV that keeps its Defense maxxed isn't pointing its Cannons/DBBs/Torpedoes on targets for very long, therefore not doing much damage; a Cruiser/broadside SV can keep its Arrays on target while maintaining its Defense.
Edit: lol at whoever claimed Threat Control is a waste.
Because of how energy drain heavily impacts DPS the 8th weapon slot of a cruiser is typically a waste. And yes I do entirely dismiss the hull advantage because it only adds a bit more buffer which is not that important in the long run if the damage output is high enough to require a tank. On the other hand an escorts increased maneuverability and speed combined with the ability to mount dual cannons will by itself allow it to out damage the cruiser. That is before boffs are considered. The only aspect that is important is the higher shield multiplier that does grant the cruiser a slightly higher passive shield regeneration rate I will grant you that but it does not outweigh the bonus defense.
When tanking your maximum health is not the most important factor, infact it typically is not even a factor other than it needs to be high enough for you to live long enough for the heals to begin working their magic. What does matter is how much incoming damage you can mitigate with resistances or avoidance. When you have to tank 10k or 20k raw DPS having an extra 6k hull points is not going to mean squat. What will matter is if you can reduce that incoming damage by 3/4ths with your resistance and then by 1/4th with your bonus defense. Why is that so difficult to understand?
And for the idea that a science vessel or escort is wasting its potential by being setup as a tank just makes me laugh. If that is the case then any ship being setup as a tank is a waste, which is true. But even if it were not the cruiser would not be the best tank. The best self sustaining tank would be the Science Vessel and the best tank with a healer would be an escort. Yes it is true they would not be putting out their standard DPS or CCs with those setups but that would not be the role that they would be filling in the group. So if you think such a setup for those ships is silly now you know how I find your tank cruiser. Although I do personally enjoy silly setups and fly many myself so that is not meant as an insult you should fly what you enjoy I just want them to be more effective is all. I want the cruiser to have an advantage as the tank.
*edit add*
Just to illustrate what I mean by I enjoy silly setups I have flown a tank escort, Torpedo boats of all types, energy drain/support escorts, dps cruisers, support cruisers, every type of sci setup I could before they would end up getting nerfed, pretty much the only builds I haven't had much experience with are bomber/mine builds. It just saddens me that with the ship sale going I would love to buy the regent but cannot bring myself to do so as I know it will never be flown. I have a galor, I find it lacking and I know the regent is even weaker.
I will try this one last time for you Skyranger. Tanking is about avoiding taking damage, or healing away the damage when you do not have someone else healing you.
You're proving you really don't understand what tanking is about either. The idea is not only to be unkillable and keep yourself alive.... you ALSO need to HOLD AGRO. If you're not HOLDING AGRO all your invincibleness is wasted. So you end up with a super tough ship that isn't taking advantage of its most beneficial traits because it never gets targetted! If you do end up getting targetted at all it probably happens when the escort that was actually tanking finally pops and the NPC baddies look for other targets.
How often do we hear this very same incorrect statement "tanking is about not getting killed"? How is it that holding agro is missed so often?
.......... What bugs us is that when we try to do anything OTHER than tank or heal we have people telling us to either get lost or get an escort. And a lot of the time we get the same reaction even when we do try to fill the tank/healer role because there's really not much use for it in the endgame content. You can argue the point, but when the optimal solution to a mission is to have five escorts specced for raw firepower a tank/healer is completely superfluous.
I can honestly say I've done hundreds of ESTFs and I've only seen anyone critrisize another player once, and I've never done it myself. That's the true beauty of the design Cryptic has made, you don't NEED to have optimal builds to get through anything. So if you want to play a non tanking cruiser... more power to you, you can still get through anything. You must realize though, that you are purposevely NOT using your ship's strengths, and therefore you will be comparatively underpowered when you compare yourself against others that DO try to play to their ship's strengths.
Actually skill points put into threat control are wasted, at least in skill tree's current form because those skill points can be used to greater effect in other places and putting even three points into that skill is 7500 that can be used elsewhere to buff various subsystems, science skills, shield strength or healing, hull strength or healing, critical damage and hit chance, or just straight damage.
... like I said above, if you choose to ignore your ship's tanking potential you are wasting a lot of your ship. You can do it and still contribute, but don't expect to be as amazing at content as people that build to their ship's strengths.
I'll also note you said absolutely nothing about my thought that Threat Control and Attack Patterns should be swapped to encourage people to skill into Threat Control by reducing the opportunity cost of taking points into Threat Control. It's almost as if you think that making it less of a burden to skill into Threat Control is a bad idea? Or is it that you don't want to have to pay more for a boost to your nifty and powerful attack patterns, skills that only escorts/raptors/BoPs can truly use to effect?
I didn't comment on this because I was hoping you might catch on as to WHY its done that way. You are looking at attack patterns, but fail to realize that not only escorts use them. Every ship and captain type should at least consider taking that skill. If it had a higher opportunity cost how many Sci Vessel and Cruiser pilots would take them? Its like asking why are shield systems so low?.... the answer is the same, so that everyone takes it!
Looking beyond that, the threat skill is pretty much on its own. You don't need to spec into several skills to hold agro. This is done by DESIGN so that players like you that choose to fly non-tanking cruisers can do so. Compare that to something like survivability or damage dealing that are spread over several skills. As to why its so high up on the tree.... its THE defining skill for a tanking ship, by itself it enables tanking builds to fulfill half of their primary functions, it even adds a resistance bonus! I see nothing wrong with it being so high up.
I did spend the points on Threat Control because I do tank, and wanted to take the heat off our escorts while they did what they are specced to do, incinerate the enemy. I don't put out anywhere near the firepower they do, and that, in our team, isn't my job. I keep the escorts flying and delivering the hurt. Have you ever tried boosting an escort with EPS Transfer 3 right before they delivered an alpha strike? Or a Sci when it's about to dump a Gravity Well? That will get even a tactical cube's attention. I also dump warp plasma and radiation clouds, after our science officer has immobilized a cluster of enemies with a gravity well or Tyken's Rift. Then the aforementioned escorts come in and it's cleanup on Aisle 3.
tl;dr Get a consistent group of people you can work with and know your role!
We need more tank pilots like you! Too many try to fly their cruisers like.... pre-aircraft carrier battleships and the game just isn't built like that. I know its a little heartbreaking to realize the giant uber cruisers aren't so ultimate at everything but that hardly means cruisers are useless. It just means people need to learn how to play them.
It's in the interests of the CASUAL player for cruisers to get a slight DPS boost just so it's easier for casuals to compete in a DPS race.
Cryptic screwed up their ships, we all know this, the evidence is the fact that we all know we're playing in the remnants of balance
Ok I said 2 things but they are both equally valid points
I agree that they need an overall boost yes. I think the best method would be for them to use 40 or 45 energy as a base instead of 50 for subsystem power bonuses.
That would strait up increase their DPS a tad, tank, support, heal, speed, turn rate, well everything. But just by a tad which should be enough.
I can honestly say I've done hundreds of ESTFs and I've only seen anyone critrisize another player once, and I've never done it myself. That's the true beauty of the design Cryptic has made, you don't NEED to have optimal builds to get through anything. So if you want to play a non tanking cruiser... more power to you, you can still get through anything. You must realize though, that you are purposevely NOT using your ship's strengths, and therefore you will be comparatively underpowered when you compare yourself against others that DO try to play to their ship's strengths.
It's funny you should mention STFs, especially ESTFs. I've played them in a tanky cruiser that did in fact have points skilled into Threat Control before. My performance suffered there. I struggled to contribute in any kind of meaningful way and was more hindrance than help. Part of it was inexperience, I'll admit that, but part of it was also that those missions are not designed with tanking in mind. I'm struggling to think of any part of them where a ship that does little but draw fire and soak damage makes any kind of appreciable contribution and I'm having a great deal of difficulty coming up with anything other than the Donatra boss fight.
... like I said above, if you choose to ignore your ship's tanking potential you are wasting a lot of your ship. You can do it and still contribute, but don't expect to be as amazing at content as people that build to their ship's strengths.
Have really said all I can on this particular one above.
I didn't comment on this because I was hoping you might catch on as to WHY its done that way. You are looking at attack patterns, but fail to realize that not only escorts use them. Every ship and captain type should at least consider taking that skill. If it had a higher opportunity cost how many Sci Vessel and Cruiser pilots would take them? Its like asking why are shield systems so low?.... the answer is the same, so that everyone takes it!
Actually I do use attack patterns on ships other than escorts/raptors. They're just that powerful, even at Level 1 which is the highest you're going to have access to if you don't fly an escort/raptor or dish out real money to pay for C-Store ships (and even from those you're limited to three cruisers fed side and one KDF side) that can utilize a level two. And that's the reason why I feel it should be higher on the skill tree. Attack Patterns ARE powerful and they're limited to higher level slots (Lt. Power at minimum & all of them have at least one level that's a Commander power).
As for Shield Systems being low, you're right. It's a no brainer power. A straight up boost to shield HP? You'd be crazy to pass that up. And since every ship has shields then it makes sense to make it available at lower levels.
A better comparison would have been Starship Shield Emitters which improves the performance of shield heals. The powers that this skill boosts all have Level 1 versions as Ensign powers. They're powerful, potent, and more importantly accessible. The most powerful versions are reserved for Science or Engineering ships yes, but you can still get multiples on any ship even if it's just stacking a Level 1 and Level 2 in the same Bridge Officer slot. You can't do that in anything but an Escort or Raptor unless, again, you want to pay real money for a C-Store ship.
Looking beyond that, the threat skill is pretty much on its own. You don't need to spec into several skills to hold agro. This is done by DESIGN so that players like you that choose to fly non-tanking cruisers can do so. Compare that to something like survivability or damage dealing that are spread over several skills. As to why its so high up on the tree.... its THE defining skill for a tanking ship, by itself it enables tanking builds to fulfill half of their primary functions, it even adds a resistance bonus! I see nothing wrong with it being so high up.
That damage resistance bonus? Not even close to worth it, especially when Starship Hull Plating is on the same level in the skill tree. I don't really see anything untrue with what you're saying...I just continue to disagree with you that Threat Control is where it needs to be on the skill tree. And I have no doubt I'll continue to disagree, so I'll like as not leave it at this. Thanks for keeping this a pretty civil discussion though. It has given me some food for thought, but not enough to change my mind
It's funny you should mention STFs, especially ESTFs. I've played them in a tanky cruiser that did in fact have points skilled into Threat Control before. My performance suffered there. I struggled to contribute in any kind of meaningful way and was more hindrance than help.
Inexperience has a significant effect. What you want to do is to get to a point where you can balance out holding agro, survivability, and damage dealing. My own cruiser tends to be the least survivable it needs to be while still managing to hold agro, everything else goes into DPSing. Unless its an emergency I always keep my weapon power maxed out.
Inexperience has a significant effect. What you want to do is to get to a point where you can balance out holding agro, survivability, and damage dealing. My own cruiser tends to be the least survivable it needs to be while still managing to hold agro, everything else goes into DPSing. Unless its an emergency I always keep my weapon power maxed out.
exactly what i do with my oddy build. i have an engi so certain heals are already there...which means i can further focus on dmg abilites. Now the oddy is perfect for this, since you hae the opportunity to have one ship that is capable of doing it all, just by switching boffs.
Not every ship is suited for that, so the ship choice is essential to begin with. since some are just made for tank/support and not for tank/DD
Inexperience has a significant effect. What you want to do is to get to a point where you can balance out holding agro, survivability, and damage dealing. My own cruiser tends to be the least survivable it needs to be while still managing to hold agro, everything else goes into DPSing. Unless its an emergency I always keep my weapon power maxed out.
Try parking your cruiser and trying out a beam array escort. Watch your capability to hold agro increase, loose no tanking capacity, and your DPS increase. You can even pack AP:D x2 to really help out those DPS machines of the group hit even harder. Or even jump into a Science Vessel and slap in a few shield regen consoles and see what happens. In reality the +skill science consoles are fairly weak sauce and not needed for most Sci abilities.
What your doing has very little (nearly nothing) to do with the ship hull and instead your boff abilities and flying style. The abilities being Epower to Shields 1, Hazard Emitters, and possibly another pair of tank abilities.
Cruisers suffer in the game because Escorts are nearly as tough yet pack so much more punch. Escorts are tough enough to survive everything in the game about as well as a cruiser. So why give up the very high damage and maneuverability for a cruiser? The main reason why Escorts are so tough is Tactical Team. I can't believe I haven't seen it come up in this thread (may have missed it).
This one ability turns any ship into a beast of a tank. And with two copies you've got 66% up-time with only a 5s window of downtime between TTs, during which your normal shields are able to hold. Plus TT makes your other shield heals better. Without TT, if only one shield facing has been damaged and you hit a shield heal, you're restoring one facing. With TT, you have re-balanced from 3 other facings so your shield heal has full effect on those 3 facings.
TT is so powerful that I do not fly a ship without 2 copies, be it escort, crusier, or sci. I only need rank one. If I only fit one, I slot 2 Purple Conn Officers to bring it down to cooldown. I can never take Eng Team or Sci Team, because the TT is so much better. I've run tank spec/build, and TT gives more to that end than ET. Which is too bad, since ET and ST are both great abilities on their own.
The auto shield rebalancing on TT needs to go. It should not be in the game anywhere (maybe a 2-3m cooldown somewhere). It's too powerful of an ability. It should be replaced with an offensive component besides the skill pluses.
Then the system cooldown between the teams should also be removed. I don't see a good balance reason for it, and all it does is severely limit build and action choices.
If TT had the shield balancing component removed, escorts would become a lot more fragile without the Eng and Sci slots to selfheal like a crusier or sci could. Then we would get the high DPS/low survivability of escorts back, and cruisers would do better due to the old "can't DPS while dead" maxim being restored.
Sweeping changes to the game aren't needed, just a few tweaks to key abilities that everyone relies on.
Cruisers suffer in the game because Escorts are nearly as tough yet pack so much more punch. Escorts are tough enough to survive everything in the game about as well as a cruiser. So why give up the very high damage and maneuverability for a cruiser? The main reason why Escorts are so tough is Tactical Team. I can't believe I haven't seen it come up in this thread (may have missed it).
This one ability turns any ship into a beast of a tank. And with two copies you've got 66% up-time with only a 5s window of downtime between TTs, during which your normal shields are able to hold. Plus TT makes your other shield heals better. Without TT, if only one shield facing has been damaged and you hit a shield heal, you're restoring one facing. With TT, you have re-balanced from 3 other facings so your shield heal has full effect on those 3 facings.
TT is so powerful that I do not fly a ship without 2 copies, be it escort, crusier, or sci. I only need rank one. If I only fit one, I slot 2 Purple Conn Officers to bring it down to cooldown. I can never take Eng Team or Sci Team, because the TT is so much better. I've run tank spec/build, and TT gives more to that end than ET. Which is too bad, since ET and ST are both great abilities on their own.
The auto shield rebalancing on TT needs to go. It should not be in the game anywhere (maybe a 2-3m cooldown somewhere). It's too powerful of an ability. It should be replaced with an offensive component besides the skill pluses.
Then the system cooldown between the teams should also be removed. I don't see a good balance reason for it, and all it does is severely limit build and action choices.
If TT had the shield balancing component removed, escorts would become a lot more fragile without the Eng and Sci slots to selfheal like a crusier or sci could. Then we would get the high DPS/low survivability of escorts back, and cruisers would do better due to the old "can't DPS while dead" maxim being restored.
Sweeping changes to the game aren't needed, just a few tweaks to key abilities that everyone relies on.
I...reluctantly must agree that removing the auto-balancing of shields from Tactical Team does seem to be the easiest way to rebalance things. That or adding the rebalancing effect to the other two teams, though that would make Science Team the go-to must have since shield heal+shield auto-balancing would be massively OP. Making it's removal from TT the only real way do it.
As for the shared cooldown? That should stay. Each Team power heals an entire class of debuffs/status conditions.
I...reluctantly must agree that removing the auto-balancing of shields from Tactical Team does seem to be the easiest way to rebalance things. That or adding the rebalancing effect to the other two teams, though that would make Science Team the go-to must have since shield heal+shield auto-balancing would be massively OP. Making it's removal from TT the only real way do it.
As for the shared cooldown? That should stay. Each Team power heals an entire class of debuffs/status conditions.
Comments
That still fails to balance healing from ship to ship, hull healing on cruisers is too low because it is a fixed number (Based on certain factors, max hull not being one) and as such you have to find a balance where cruiser healing is enough while not making escort healing too good.
Make all healing a percentage of maximum X stat (Hull, shield etc.) then apply whatever variables and cruiser healing is good and escort healing not so good.
With regard to consoles, flekh and I proved in this thread that tac consoles, like eng consoles suffer diminishing returns, what I would like to see is the damage output from NPCs made reasonable so that engineering consoles feel like they have some effect rather than being overwhelmed in 1 hit.
Assumption: If the encounters are so difficult that a dedicated tank is required then so will be a dedicated healer. In addition efficiency will become the deciding factor in tanking capacity. Otherwise anyone could just cross-heal with a few copies of standard abilities.
Tank Goal: To hold agro and to be capable of mitigating/avoiding more damage than anyone else.
Abilities: A combination of Emergency Power to Shields 1, Extend Shields 1, Transfer Shield Strength 1, combined with a maco shield and 125 shield power grants a ship 73% shield resists vs Plasma. 75% is the cap and the only ability listed there that needs to be on the tank would be the Epower. In addition any of those skills could be used at a higher rank to close that gap a bit. That makes the deciding factor between the cruiser or escort in tanking capacity the bonus defense score, and the escort wins that contest. In addition they would be better at holding agro and with a combination of attack pattern delta and omega be even better at mitigating damage and debuffing the enemy at the same time. Sadly a Tac captian would be better as the escort tanker due to the ability to keep the above two attack patterns active during difficult encounters and being more capable of holding agro as well. Finally while you would assume a cruiser would be the default healer for this role that would be a mistake as well, a Sci Vessel would do just as well if not better.
Best Tank = Steamrunner (2x Epower, 2x RSP)
Runner Up = Fleet Patrol
No they do not have diminishing returns, each one adds a FLAT amount to the damage. Always have always will, granted they do function similarly to eng consoles as far as the damage increase being measured as a % goes but that is not the same thing. Granted they do mirror the increase of EHP that eng consoles give also measured as a % and its why eng consoles must have diminishing returns or things get broken.
A cruiser will usually not outdamage an escort ship, as least on single targets, but in a target rich environment they are not that far behind in total numbers. The strength of cruisers is simply that they not only deal some damage but unlike escorts, can also withstand some punishment.
For both the science and engineering consoles you have several different viable options available for every ship but only one, MAYBE two, tactical. In addition, these consoles were originally balanced around massive diminishing returns and a max of 4 consoles per ship, both of these are things of the past.
I'd really like to see some variation introduced into the tactical consoles and some serious diminishing returns on the current damage consoles. I'm really not sure why there aren't base tactical consoles for things like Accuracy, Crit-H/Crit-D, or Increased Proc chance, anything to add some new options.
A standard cruiser will never out damage an escort ship. And they can withstand exactly 10% more damage than an escort typically which is in reality a wash because the escort will get hit 10% less often. There is a minor difference thanks to the console arrangements but in the end any more than 3 armor consoles gets silly. So no, they cannot, by virtue of being a cruiser, take much more punishment. They do have a tendency to have more engineering boff slots that can be used for that purpose but that is not the ship, it is the boff abilities. Meanwhile the escort wins on damage because of its capability to pack dual cannons, console layout, and ability to have good positioning in addition to its tac boffs.
The current damage consoles are not the sole reason for the cruiser's current status as 'underpowered'. And they are not even the best tanks, nor healers that would be escorts and a handful of sci vessels in PvE not that either role is required in the slightest for it anyway. Lets compare them this way:
Cruiser
+Hull HP
Pretty much not a factor. 10% hull hp will not save your bacon, resists and heals will.
-Turn Rate & Speed
This is huge. Makes bonus defense harder to get, makes combat positioning more difficult, and in the end is extremely annoying.
+ 1 Weapon Slot
This is a wash thanks to weapon drain mechanics and ends up being next to useless most of the time.
Escort
+Turn Rate & Speed
+Bonus Defense
This is mitigation. The more damage you avoid/resist/mitigate the less damage that needs healed. Due to this factor the escort can and will out-tank a cruiser with a dedicated healer if this was a standard MMO trinity style.
+Dual Cannons
While this has been the 'go-to' thing to slap on every new ship it is still primarily an escort feature (and battlecruiser) and I don't think I need to go into details on it.
-Shield HP/Regen
While this does hurt to a point in the end 10% will not save you. As I have stated before resists are what matters not total shield amount. And in the end a Transfer Shield Strength boff ability used on an escort heals the same amount as it would on a cruiser.
Science Vessel
+Shield HP
+Sensor Scan
+Subsystem Targeting
-Hull HP
-1 Weapon
I don't know what game you're playing, but my cruiser already uses APO and APD.
Also, I don't know if you're familiar with the concept of uptime (all you new kids and teenyboopers that never did proper WoW raids never seem to take it into consideration) but an escort ziping around like a bee is not going to be doing much of anything DPS-wise, while a cruiser can simply do circles around its target never letting up the damage.
But, if you insist that escorts are the best tanks, feel free to fly on and try serious tanking.
P.S. If your cruiser isn't ranking up the threat talent you're doing it wrong!
P.S. x 2. If you're a cruiser enthusiast that STILL feels wronged might I direct you to the KDF cruiser selection? Their cruisers are generally acknowledged to be the best and more fun to fly.
No kidding! Now how do you think that cruiser will tank if he had a dedicated healer on his six-o-clock too? Trying to kill a whole team of cruisers that know what they're doing is an absolute nightmare.
Escorts are not the be-all end-all you seem to think they are and snoozers are far from useless, in fact the stronger your opponents, the less you'll see escorts, because they tend to become more of a liability than an asset. From what I understand of STO's history this used to be even worse in the past, and given how many anti-escort strategies there are out there right now I thank my lucky stars every game for having a healer to keep me safe.
In all honesty I'm still convinced that people have a poor impression of snoozers simply because the overwhelming majority of players, good and bad, gravitate towards them.
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[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
PvP is a completely different beast due to the human factor. In PvP with burst being king along with focus fire and the fact that a human is intelligent enough to not shoot the tank but instead the person that is healing/buffing the tank the entire metagame changes and having buffer tank becomes more useful. As does having a healer who is tanky.
The fact remains, however, that as a ship hull a cruiser does not inherently have any additional tanking capacity over an escort beyond having a more engineering heavy boff layout that tends to increase the quantity of healing and resist abilities on the ship. At the same time the escort does have inherent qualities that increase it's own damage output those being the increased weapons power, dual cannons, and a higher maneuverability and speed that allow it to keep favorable positioning.
That means that cruisers are 'under-powered' in the PvE aspect of the game. Not useless, not junk, underpowered. As in 'not as good' as other ships. Once again I am referring to cruisers, not battle cruisers nor dreadnaughts.
And the simple reason for that is the role they find themselves filling in PvE. That is as a hybrid. They are a mix of damage, tank, and support/healing. Hybrids always tend to be underpowered in MMOs. This is complicated by the fact that every hull has hybrid qualities to an extend with the ability to self heal, tank, etc. It is just that the escort is capable of packing just enough self heal/tank with boffs/gear to get the job done and the cruiser need to pack the same amount.
Strangely enough as well in the end the proper Science Ship does make the best self-sustaining tank. Or tank without a healer backup that is. This is thanks to the much higher self regeneration capability of the vessel, along with an improved capacity to still fill a very useful role with various CC abilities. For you see while it does lack a bit of hull buffer compared to the cruiser it does having a much higher shield regeneration capability.
And I do fly battlecruisers I do not find them to be underpowered. Mostly due to the turn rate and DHC factor.
This would be true if the escort HAD to be zipping around like a bee to stay alive. Instead it is actually common practice for the Escort to park it's butt right in front of the target and just unload while cycling TT1 and the occasional shield heal. While much more effective as a tactic for an Engineering captain the damage boosts available to a Tac mean that most enemies are dead before you are even if you do take a much higher amount of damage.
As for your comment about speccing into threat control? Aside from being offensive in the extreme (you do not sound as if you actually PLAY cruisers much) it is a waste of skill points in its current position on the skill tree. Would you support having it's position swapped with Attack Patterns if it meant more cruiser captains wold be speccing into it? (as 1,000 skill points per level is much less of a burden than 2,500 per)
I'm sorry, you have just proven you have no idea of what a tanking cruiser is supposed to DO. The threat control skill is possibly the MOST important skill points you can spend for a tanking captain because its what allows tanking to occur. Otherwise how do you plan to hold agro? You're not going to out-dps an escort (or possibly even a sci vessel). So if you're not tanking you just became a healing cruiser.... how well can tanking cruisers heal will depend on the build but if you want to tank it won't be satisfactory.
A cruiser is not valued for its DPS alone, a cruiser is valued because it allows escorts and sci vessels to totally ruin an NPCs day with impunity. If you're not doing that, your tanking cruiser is simply not doing its job. A healing cruiser can work differently but they usually also tank or DPS.
Cruisers where never meant to "tank" in the trinity sense. The threat control was added after the change to skill trees. A cruiser doesnt have to take the extra threat skill as each ship class has plenty of options to keep their survivability high. Escorts have high maneuverability and turn rate to maintain high defence and dps.
So your proposal/stance is that a cruiser is just fine because they can tank without a healer in endgame PvE group encounters. That is false for several reasons.
1) Tank what for whom? Any decently built ship can handle anything end game pve can throw at it without a 'dedicated' tank in the group. This is especially true when people cross-heal.
2) A Science Vessel can fill that role better than a cruiser.
3) An Escort can fill that role just as well as a cruiser.
4) A heal-boat would be more useful than a tank typically.
What does the cruiser ship hull itself have that helps it self tank? Nothing beyond Engineering boff slots which can be found on other hull types if desired. The two important factors that matter for self tanking are simple, how much damage can you mitigate via resists and bonus defense, and how much self healing/sustain are you capable of. The cruiser hull does not have an advantage in either of those categories. In addition they have a much more difficult time establishing and maintaining proper positioning and thanks to crew mechanics suffer from those as well.
I agree, the system STO uses is a very loose one where you can do all content without "needing" any one class, but specific ship classes are better at their specialties than others. Cruisers are clearly designed to lean towards damage mitigation/absorption. Personally I prefer this design philosophy over a hard trinity like you might find in WoW.
Added a few things in green.
As to what a tanking cruiser is supposed to do? Not have fun :P In seriousness I do know what a TANK is supposed to do, it's supposed sit there and take it up the TRIBBLE while everybody else does damage. It is, quite frankly, a boring thing to do and I, like most cruiser pilots, fly them because we either like the look of the ships, want to fly the Enterprise, or both. What bugs us is that when we try to do anything OTHER than tank or heal we have people telling us to either get lost or get an escort. And a lot of the time we get the same reaction even when we do try to fill the tank/healer role because there's really not much use for it in the endgame content. You can argue the point, but when the optimal solution to a mission is to have five escorts specced for raw firepower a tank/healer is completely superfluous.
Actually skill points put into threat control are wasted, at least in skill tree's current form because those skill points can be used to greater effect in other places and putting even three points into that skill is 7500 that can be used elsewhere to buff various subsystems, science skills, shield strength or healing, hull strength or healing, critical damage and hit chance, or just straight damage.
It's not so much that Threat Control is a bad skill, but that the return on investment into the skill is so very, very low that any benefit is massively outstripped by the penalties of skilling into Threat Control as opposed to virtually any other skill you could name.
I'll also note you said absolutely nothing about my thought that Threat Control and Attack Patterns should be swapped to encourage people to skill into Threat Control by reducing the opportunity cost of taking points into Threat Control. It's almost as if you think that making it less of a burden to skill into Threat Control is a bad idea? Or is it that you don't want to have to pay more for a boost to your nifty and powerful attack patterns, skills that only escorts/raptors/BoPs can truly use to effect?
tl;dr Get a consistent group of people you can work with and know your role!
Romulans: left one homeworld, lost another, third time's the charm?
^^^^ This guy knows what's up. Listen and learn, folks.
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[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
An Escort will take less damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher bonus defense score.
A Science Vessel will heal more damage in a fight than a cruiser. This is because of it's higher shield modifier.
Now it is true that engineering boff abilities tend to be really good at healing and resisting damage. It is also true that cruisers tend to have more of these than any other hull. But that is the boff ability that is granting it tank not the ship.
Any escort that has a few engineering boff slots for things like Emergency Power to Shields and the like and maintains a high speed will be able to tank just as well, if not better, than the cruiser would. The only reason the cruiser could out-do it would be it could have a higher tier of Epower to shields active that grants more resistance to make the increased avoidance of the escort a wash. Try flying an escort tank sometime for kicks it will really open your eyes I would think.
Any science vessel that has a few engineering boff slots can do the same exact thing. Except they will passively regenerate more shields than the cruiser would.
Do not confuse what the ship type adds, and what the boff abilities add. The simple fact is an escort is better at avoiding damage than the cruiser, and the science vessel is better at regenerating than the cruiser leaving the cruiser with nothing but a bit more hull that in the end has no true bearing on the ability to tank. In most MMOs the warrior is not the tank because he has the most hit points. It is because he is the best at a combination of reducing and avoiding incoming damage. The cruiser ships themselves do not do this in any way, shape, or form.
Also keep in mind I am talking about a small difference. It is plainly obvious that Cryptic does not care one bit about ships being truely balanced they just want them close enough. Otherwise either the Vesta is over powered or nearly every other Sci Vessel is under powered. That is the level of disparity that bothers me, although it is a bit more of a disparity between standard cruiser hulls and escorts IMHO.
An Escort will deal less damage in a fight than a Cruiser. This is because of its (<- pay attention) lower number of Weapons.
Now, it's true that Tactical BOFF abilities tend to be really good at DDing and it is no less true that Escorts do tend to have more of these than any other Ship type; but that is inherent to the BOFF ability, not to ship.
(wow, typing that reductio ad absurdum made me realise: you really hate commas!)
The claim that Cruisers can take less punishment than Escorts or SVs is ludicrous. Ok, ok some SVs built purely for tanking can indeed survive extremely well (especially with an Eng Captain), mostly because of the Field Generator issue: stick 5 of those things on a Ship, add heals/resists (of which Sci isn't short on) and you've got a "tough little Ship".
But:
1. That Ship can only tank/heal, no CC - it's a pseudocruiser more than a SV at that point.
2. If those outtank Cruisers (not sure, never formally tested), the problem lies squarely in stacking Field Gens.
Escorts on the other hand? No, just no.
SVs that actually try to CC/debuff? No.
I play (welll, played, been away the last few weeks) all types of Ships and Captains and I can tell you, my Escorts and SVs are a lot more fragile than my Cruisers. Even Tac/Cruiser.
You dismiss a 11% advantage in Shields as meaningless, a ~26% advantage in Hull as meaningless, many more survivability-oriented BOFFs as somehow irrelevant and blow a small (70% vs 60%) Defense advantage way out of proportion, that practice has a name: intellectual dishonesty.
Another bit of intellectual dishonesty you keep exhibiting: if you've ever played this game, you know that the Escorts never have the best Defense in practice: an Escort/front-firing SV that keeps its Defense maxxed isn't pointing its Cannons/DBBs/Torpedoes on targets for very long, therefore not doing much damage; a Cruiser/broadside SV can keep its Arrays on target while maintaining its Defense.
Edit: lol at whoever claimed Threat Control is a waste.
Because of how energy drain heavily impacts DPS the 8th weapon slot of a cruiser is typically a waste. And yes I do entirely dismiss the hull advantage because it only adds a bit more buffer which is not that important in the long run if the damage output is high enough to require a tank. On the other hand an escorts increased maneuverability and speed combined with the ability to mount dual cannons will by itself allow it to out damage the cruiser. That is before boffs are considered. The only aspect that is important is the higher shield multiplier that does grant the cruiser a slightly higher passive shield regeneration rate I will grant you that but it does not outweigh the bonus defense.
When tanking your maximum health is not the most important factor, infact it typically is not even a factor other than it needs to be high enough for you to live long enough for the heals to begin working their magic. What does matter is how much incoming damage you can mitigate with resistances or avoidance. When you have to tank 10k or 20k raw DPS having an extra 6k hull points is not going to mean squat. What will matter is if you can reduce that incoming damage by 3/4ths with your resistance and then by 1/4th with your bonus defense. Why is that so difficult to understand?
And for the idea that a science vessel or escort is wasting its potential by being setup as a tank just makes me laugh. If that is the case then any ship being setup as a tank is a waste, which is true. But even if it were not the cruiser would not be the best tank. The best self sustaining tank would be the Science Vessel and the best tank with a healer would be an escort. Yes it is true they would not be putting out their standard DPS or CCs with those setups but that would not be the role that they would be filling in the group. So if you think such a setup for those ships is silly now you know how I find your tank cruiser. Although I do personally enjoy silly setups and fly many myself so that is not meant as an insult you should fly what you enjoy I just want them to be more effective is all. I want the cruiser to have an advantage as the tank.
*edit add*
Just to illustrate what I mean by I enjoy silly setups I have flown a tank escort, Torpedo boats of all types, energy drain/support escorts, dps cruisers, support cruisers, every type of sci setup I could before they would end up getting nerfed, pretty much the only builds I haven't had much experience with are bomber/mine builds. It just saddens me that with the ship sale going I would love to buy the regent but cannot bring myself to do so as I know it will never be flown. I have a galor, I find it lacking and I know the regent is even weaker.
You're proving you really don't understand what tanking is about either. The idea is not only to be unkillable and keep yourself alive.... you ALSO need to HOLD AGRO. If you're not HOLDING AGRO all your invincibleness is wasted. So you end up with a super tough ship that isn't taking advantage of its most beneficial traits because it never gets targetted! If you do end up getting targetted at all it probably happens when the escort that was actually tanking finally pops and the NPC baddies look for other targets.
How often do we hear this very same incorrect statement "tanking is about not getting killed"? How is it that holding agro is missed so often?
I can honestly say I've done hundreds of ESTFs and I've only seen anyone critrisize another player once, and I've never done it myself. That's the true beauty of the design Cryptic has made, you don't NEED to have optimal builds to get through anything. So if you want to play a non tanking cruiser... more power to you, you can still get through anything. You must realize though, that you are purposevely NOT using your ship's strengths, and therefore you will be comparatively underpowered when you compare yourself against others that DO try to play to their ship's strengths.
... like I said above, if you choose to ignore your ship's tanking potential you are wasting a lot of your ship. You can do it and still contribute, but don't expect to be as amazing at content as people that build to their ship's strengths.
I didn't comment on this because I was hoping you might catch on as to WHY its done that way. You are looking at attack patterns, but fail to realize that not only escorts use them. Every ship and captain type should at least consider taking that skill. If it had a higher opportunity cost how many Sci Vessel and Cruiser pilots would take them? Its like asking why are shield systems so low?.... the answer is the same, so that everyone takes it!
Looking beyond that, the threat skill is pretty much on its own. You don't need to spec into several skills to hold agro. This is done by DESIGN so that players like you that choose to fly non-tanking cruisers can do so. Compare that to something like survivability or damage dealing that are spread over several skills. As to why its so high up on the tree.... its THE defining skill for a tanking ship, by itself it enables tanking builds to fulfill half of their primary functions, it even adds a resistance bonus! I see nothing wrong with it being so high up.
We need more tank pilots like you! Too many try to fly their cruisers like.... pre-aircraft carrier battleships and the game just isn't built like that. I know its a little heartbreaking to realize the giant uber cruisers aren't so ultimate at everything but that hardly means cruisers are useless. It just means people need to learn how to play them.
It's in the interests of the CASUAL player for cruisers to get a slight DPS boost just so it's easier for casuals to compete in a DPS race.
Cryptic screwed up their ships, we all know this, the evidence is the fact that we all know we're playing in the remnants of balance
Ok I said 2 things but they are both equally valid points
I agree that they need an overall boost yes. I think the best method would be for them to use 40 or 45 energy as a base instead of 50 for subsystem power bonuses.
That would strait up increase their DPS a tad, tank, support, heal, speed, turn rate, well everything. But just by a tad which should be enough.
It's funny you should mention STFs, especially ESTFs. I've played them in a tanky cruiser that did in fact have points skilled into Threat Control before. My performance suffered there. I struggled to contribute in any kind of meaningful way and was more hindrance than help. Part of it was inexperience, I'll admit that, but part of it was also that those missions are not designed with tanking in mind. I'm struggling to think of any part of them where a ship that does little but draw fire and soak damage makes any kind of appreciable contribution and I'm having a great deal of difficulty coming up with anything other than the Donatra boss fight.
Have really said all I can on this particular one above.
Actually I do use attack patterns on ships other than escorts/raptors. They're just that powerful, even at Level 1 which is the highest you're going to have access to if you don't fly an escort/raptor or dish out real money to pay for C-Store ships (and even from those you're limited to three cruisers fed side and one KDF side) that can utilize a level two. And that's the reason why I feel it should be higher on the skill tree. Attack Patterns ARE powerful and they're limited to higher level slots (Lt. Power at minimum & all of them have at least one level that's a Commander power).
As for Shield Systems being low, you're right. It's a no brainer power. A straight up boost to shield HP? You'd be crazy to pass that up. And since every ship has shields then it makes sense to make it available at lower levels.
A better comparison would have been Starship Shield Emitters which improves the performance of shield heals. The powers that this skill boosts all have Level 1 versions as Ensign powers. They're powerful, potent, and more importantly accessible. The most powerful versions are reserved for Science or Engineering ships yes, but you can still get multiples on any ship even if it's just stacking a Level 1 and Level 2 in the same Bridge Officer slot. You can't do that in anything but an Escort or Raptor unless, again, you want to pay real money for a C-Store ship.
That damage resistance bonus? Not even close to worth it, especially when Starship Hull Plating is on the same level in the skill tree. I don't really see anything untrue with what you're saying...I just continue to disagree with you that Threat Control is where it needs to be on the skill tree. And I have no doubt I'll continue to disagree, so I'll like as not leave it at this. Thanks for keeping this a pretty civil discussion though. It has given me some food for thought, but not enough to change my mind
Inexperience has a significant effect. What you want to do is to get to a point where you can balance out holding agro, survivability, and damage dealing. My own cruiser tends to be the least survivable it needs to be while still managing to hold agro, everything else goes into DPSing. Unless its an emergency I always keep my weapon power maxed out.
exactly what i do with my oddy build. i have an engi so certain heals are already there...which means i can further focus on dmg abilites. Now the oddy is perfect for this, since you hae the opportunity to have one ship that is capable of doing it all, just by switching boffs.
Not every ship is suited for that, so the ship choice is essential to begin with. since some are just made for tank/support and not for tank/DD
Try parking your cruiser and trying out a beam array escort. Watch your capability to hold agro increase, loose no tanking capacity, and your DPS increase. You can even pack AP:D x2 to really help out those DPS machines of the group hit even harder. Or even jump into a Science Vessel and slap in a few shield regen consoles and see what happens. In reality the +skill science consoles are fairly weak sauce and not needed for most Sci abilities.
What your doing has very little (nearly nothing) to do with the ship hull and instead your boff abilities and flying style. The abilities being Epower to Shields 1, Hazard Emitters, and possibly another pair of tank abilities.
This one ability turns any ship into a beast of a tank. And with two copies you've got 66% up-time with only a 5s window of downtime between TTs, during which your normal shields are able to hold. Plus TT makes your other shield heals better. Without TT, if only one shield facing has been damaged and you hit a shield heal, you're restoring one facing. With TT, you have re-balanced from 3 other facings so your shield heal has full effect on those 3 facings.
TT is so powerful that I do not fly a ship without 2 copies, be it escort, crusier, or sci. I only need rank one. If I only fit one, I slot 2 Purple Conn Officers to bring it down to cooldown. I can never take Eng Team or Sci Team, because the TT is so much better. I've run tank spec/build, and TT gives more to that end than ET. Which is too bad, since ET and ST are both great abilities on their own.
The auto shield rebalancing on TT needs to go. It should not be in the game anywhere (maybe a 2-3m cooldown somewhere). It's too powerful of an ability. It should be replaced with an offensive component besides the skill pluses.
Then the system cooldown between the teams should also be removed. I don't see a good balance reason for it, and all it does is severely limit build and action choices.
If TT had the shield balancing component removed, escorts would become a lot more fragile without the Eng and Sci slots to selfheal like a crusier or sci could. Then we would get the high DPS/low survivability of escorts back, and cruisers would do better due to the old "can't DPS while dead" maxim being restored.
Sweeping changes to the game aren't needed, just a few tweaks to key abilities that everyone relies on.
I...reluctantly must agree that removing the auto-balancing of shields from Tactical Team does seem to be the easiest way to rebalance things. That or adding the rebalancing effect to the other two teams, though that would make Science Team the go-to must have since shield heal+shield auto-balancing would be massively OP. Making it's removal from TT the only real way do it.
As for the shared cooldown? That should stay. Each Team power heals an entire class of debuffs/status conditions.
Good point on the cleansing. Forgot about that.