You'd be surprised really. It's all about maxin that GDF bonus
No not yet. The thought of giving cryptic money makes me queasy. did it get an ensign tac or still ens eng?
oh i know, believe me i know. had quite the duals with hilbert the other day, inspired by this thread. when we went excelsior vs excelsior, it repeatedly came down to me damaging him a lot more with my singles, and him being able to use GDF sooner and roasting me with galor beams.
you only need 1 module for that ship, and i think they are only like 1.1 mil on the exchange, or they were. or was that the lock box keys? if they are that cheap i'll just mail one to you, you need to be rolling in style! the 3rd ensign eng is ok, at the very least you can have ET1 to clear VM, the number 1 killer of tac captains.
Those numbers tell nothing. Really, nothing. If you do 500 k damage to a target and it does not die, then your dps was too low to make a difference. Do 60 k damage to the same target and have a kill, and you win. You need to look at what you kill, not at those numbers.
And that's sort of what happens in a SBA/DHC comparison.
But I guess you, being so new, just don't know that yet, right.
for once, you have a point, the same one i was trying to make. but soph for your own good, don't rile up anyone with mav in their name, ok? you have been down that road before lol
The imbalance is there. While, yes, you can sort of clear spam with a FAW build, that is only because spam is, well, rather squishy, and can easy be cleared by, sort of, any damage at all.
Who said anything about it being just a faw situation.
ACT tracks everything, real time DPS, vs healing, Resistance vs raw damage.
I recommend you try it.
And probably stop flying bad builds with only 6 beams or some garbage
FAW is something you switch to, when you see spam. It's not a DPS dealing skill on it's own merit.
But apparently, it doesn't help you thinking about the numbers.
Seriously, do the test I proposed.
I know more about DPS in my pinky toe than you've probably ever dealt there.
I -have- done testing of Cannons vs Beams.
And for fed cruisers, beams are your best bet for damage dealing, due to several overriding factors in 5v5. Especially Range.
KDF cruisers DHCs are better because they operate on average with more tac skills, and the ships are much more agile. However their sustained durability is not what a Fed Cruisers's is.
Which DDIS should know all to well by now.
Also LOL if you think a bortas is better with DHC than beams.
The bortas is garbage either way. But it's less so with beams.
And Fedwise, the Beam Array beats Single Barrel Cannons, Every Time.
Beams work better on fed cruisers, because their turn rate sucks. Which means it is much more difficult to maintain TOT. The Excelsior is pretty much the only one where Single Cannons become comparable in live pvp (not just duels).
Especially when you start Overcapping Weapon Power. Which due to how cannons drain weapon power, compared to beams, cannons get next to no benefit for it, while beams damage output is significantly better at over capped capacity.
KDF side, Bortas and Negvar aside (Neggy does good with Singles, or even all torpedoes upfront though) the DHC wins because they can actually move enough to use them properly. But KDF cruisers have a sacrfice in durability. And against Zippier ships like Escorts you are totally reliant on zone control to maintain damage on an Escort as a KDF Cruiser.
Try this.
Go buy a Failaxy X. Go put DHCs on it. 4 upfront. See how laughably bad your damage will be compared to a Beam Assault Cruiser. Go check it out in ACT so you can see the actual DPS dealt. You'll decloak get maybe 3 volleys in.. and then never be able to hit your target again. If DHCs really were Teh Awesome, the Fail X would be the best cruiser the feds have since it can actually run DHCs. But it's not. Instead it's the worst one you could choose. even if you go down to single cannons. Because it's too slow to use them, and the other cruisers Excelsior aside aren't much better.
I know more about DPS in my pinky toe than you've probably ever dealt there.
I -have- done testing of Cannons vs Beams.
And for fed cruisers, beams are your best bet for damage dealing, due to several overriding factors in 5v5. Especially Range.
KDF cruisers DHCs are better because they operate on average with more tac skills, and the ships are much more agile. However their sustained durability is not what a Fed Cruisers's is.
Which DDIS should know all to well by now.
Also LOL if you think a bortas is better with DHC than beams.
The bortas is garbage either way. But it's less so with beams.
the bortas is basically a galaxy X, only slightly less fail.
only the fleet vorcha has a large amount of tac stations, other kdf cruisers top out at LT for tactical, and might get an extra tac ensign. its the maneuverability and DHC usability that more then make up for their lower number of, or quality of tac station. before doffs, when they used cannons they had pretty bad up time on their 1 available canon ability slot, but now theres several ways to put that at global, doffs have been the best thing that ever happened to kdf cruisers. to fed cruisers too, but to a smaller extent. they cant make up for the terrible maneuverability and inferiors weapons.
i KNOW singles work better then beams, at least on TLC tac equipped fed cruisers. from watching them in action and parsing logs. the benefit from using them with DEM3 alone pushes them far out in front for effective damage dealing. often i have swapped to CSV, stayed a little ways back, and had it always on carriers, eliminating pets as they launched. singles and turrets can direct their cone of fire just about anywhere easily.
remember, i use kdf cruisers as a judgment baseline. fed cruisers ability to deal pressure or effective damage is an order of magnitude lower, due to the inferiority of the available weapons, with their advantages and disadvantages not being balanced correctly.
There isn't really anything wrong with cannons, I don't know where all these threads have come from lately. People just see the cannon numbers and forget that without very precise timing and the work of their team, those cannons might as well be pea shooters.
Healing and resists in STO outstrip damage by a substantial margin. If you play a Sci/(x) or an Engie snoozer properly you'll never fall to a lone cannonscort (at least a Tac) in a one-on-one. Damage buffs with the power to kill just don't come off cooldown nearly as frequently as super powerful BOff-level resists (let alone captain powers).
I can understand most aren't interested in this aspect, but it's worth saying that in 5 v 5 Arenas too much cannons can become a liability, espesh Fed-side. Without grade-A quality Sci wizardry you won't down targets fast enough to justify the durability penalty. A good sweet spot for a meat-and-taters team comp has been two cannonscorts in my experience. If you want more you really need to have a game plan sussed out.
Tactical beamboats are fine, my only real beef is with the lack of solid powers since FAW is so underwhelming. You give up heavy burst damage for the ability to tolerate CC (in a way an escort can't) and not require as much of an arc. I'd say that's balanced to me.
Or use beams on the excels for abit with something that isn't acc2 X beams have a very high innate accuracy, which ruins their output to have double acc on them compared to Cannons.
Also, when you don't run Aux to batt on everything beams suddenly become more appealing as you only have 3 tac slots to work with on an Excels.
Cannons to make them work are very boff intensive.
They are also very very zone control dependent.
You're trading away the ability to mount Extends, and RSP (while keeping ETPS3, and an EPTS1 and a Plas3) on your Excels in order to double your tac skills.
And you're wondering why suddenly your single cannon excelsior is keeping up? :P You're creating the perfect storm for cannon setups there.
I built my Excels with the idea it will have to do team support. As such it only has room for 3 tac slots. Aux to batt can't fit on it, because I would then have to make some pretty serious cuts in my durability, in order to be able to assist team mates regularly.
That's where beam boats excel. Is their ability to do damage while being great support monsters.
DHCs are skill hogs. You end up with a very selfish and fragile ship in the long run to mount them on a cruiser.
In your case you ate 2 LT eng skills, and all your tac slots.
I ate....... my tac slots. For TT, BO2, BO3, or TT, APD1, BO3, TT1, FAW2 FAW3 I can throw down significant burst when necessary with that setup. Or I can maintain decent pressure while overcapped (I run at like 155 weapon power on my excels), or clear spam. With a weapon battery spiked, on a setup Kill Shot from our sci, I can load down a 15 to 30k BO2, and easily that, and change with BO3. At the Right Time. A Beam tac cruiser is what you run when you have a Scort on your team already, and healthy CC. BO2 *weapon bat* BO3. If the targets pretty well held down it's going to be very hard for him to recover afterwards, especially when the 8 beams resume melting him at full power, and then the Escort smacks him around some more with DHCs. You better have an Era in your pocket because no one else is going to save that poor soul.
Also CSV is never better for spam removal than FAW is. CSV only targets a 30 degree cone at a time. While 3 targets at a time in that cone are taking more damage than something I'm making eat my CrtD or CrtH 2 Acc Disruptor beams, I'm murdering a whooole lot more targets, than you are. CSV is good for self clearing spam. It's not so much a battlefield removal tool.
So what solid boff power for beams do you have in mind?
Eh, I don't know, maybe something that gives up firing rate for increased shield pen. I think Target Subsystems would be hard to bring back because it's so easy for it to fast become powerfully annoying.
Old FAW would be nice, honestly there are enough counters to five-snoozer teams as is anyway. But what it comes down to is that I just really can't stand BO2 and running attack patterns is a bit dull.
And Fedwise, the Beam Array beats Single Barrel Cannons, Every Time.
Beams work better on fed cruisers, because their turn rate sucks. Which means it is much more difficult to maintain TOT. The Excelsior is pretty much the only one where Single Cannons become comparable in live pvp (not just duels).
Especially when you start Overcapping Weapon Power. Which due to how cannons drain weapon power, compared to beams, cannons get next to no benefit for it, while beams damage output is significantly better at over capped capacity.
actually, beams are arguably better then cannons in duels, due to superior up time with almost no maneuvering effort. ive used an unseparated falaxy R with singles to hilarious result, shimm has seen it in action and was awed by it
i could proboly post 25 screen shots of my single cannons excelsior dealing the most damage by a factor of 2 in random matches. they fire a staggering number of swings according to the log, more then the next 2 most people combined often enough. it all adds up, and theres very little on target downtime with the forward guns.
the bit about overcaping, it benefits singles and everything else just as much as beams, theres very little difference in drain from what i have seen, and rear turrets cost less energy then rear beams. put that bit about beam array and superior overcaping result out of your mind, myth busted :P the dps from weapons energy over about 150 is very tiny anyway.
Or use beams on the excels for abit with something that isn't acc2 X beams have a very high innate accuracy, which ruins their output to have double acc on them compared to Cannons.
Also, when you don't run Aux to batt on everything beams suddenly become more appealing as you only have 3 tac slots to work with on an Excels.
Cannons to make them work are very boff intensive.
They are also very very zone control dependent.
You're trading away the ability to mount Extends, and RSP (while keeping ETPS3, and an EPTS1 and a Plas3) on your Excels in order to double your tac skills.
And you're wondering why suddenly your single cannon excelsior is keeping up? :P You're creating the perfect storm for cannon setups there.
I built my Excels with the idea it will have to do team support. As such it only has room for 3 tac slots. Aux to batt can't fit on it, because I would then have to make some pretty serious cuts in my durability, in order to be able to assist team mates regularly.
That's where beam boats excel. Is their ability to do damage while being great support monsters.
DHCs are skill hogs. You end up with a very selfish and fragile ship in the long run to mount them on a cruiser.
In your case you ate 2 LT eng skills, and all your tac slots.
I ate....... my tac slots. For TT, BO2, BO3, or TT, APD1, BO3, TT1, FAW2 FAW3 I can throw down significant burst when necessary with that setup. Or I can maintain decent pressure while overcapped (I run at like 155 weapon power on my excels), or clear spam.
Also CSV is never better for spam removal than FAW is. CSV only targets a 30 degree cone at a time. While 3 targets at a time in that cone are taking more damage than something I'm making eat my CrtD or CrtH 2 Acc Disruptor beams, I'm murdering a whooole lot more targets, than you are. CSV is good for self clearing spam. It's not so much a battlefield removal tool.
perfect storm build? or course i am! its called min maxing! oh, it just works because your minmixing, i lol'ed! its actually worked better for quite a bit longer then the AtB 'golden age',. a long time ago i used CRF1 and 2, 2 EPtW and 2 EPtS, and had 3 more eng powers left over. even then cannons beat beams by quite a bit, and this was also when DEM didn't work wile cannons skills were on at all! CSV has 45 degree cone, and hits 3 random targets in that cone every pulse. there are a lot of pulses, more then 1 a second, it works great.
am i going to suggest a heal boat use singles? no, kinda pointless. those take concentration away from throwing heals, you have to concentrate on your positioning more. plus your not going to be a damage dealer, so you might as well be a garbage man. if you try to build a tac and suport boat at the same time, your gonna have a only partially effective at everything ship. AtB swings for the fences on offense, thats why i use it. at the very least i have global RSP uptime, and global use of HE and TSS, at diminished capacity when an aux battery isn't used. it can be selfish, but that just means you have to use your firepower to greater effect to pull your weight.
just for a change of pace, and to be more useful in support, ive been thinking about building the excelsior with 2 cannon recharge doffs, 2 damage control doffs and a TT recharge doff so i can have high aux, and 2 of my stations back. for a more balanced build it would be better, but the AtB build is all about getting 100% of the damage potential out of the thing. it cant be beat for raw damage, and is still plenty hearty. its a fair trade. in eating up those stations for AtB, remember that i basically double every one of my other stations, who has more eaten up now? not to mention AtB overcapes my weapons energy, and nearly caps shield and engine energy.
DHCs on klink boats only run into problems if you don't try to control movement. your ability to tank, hold and strike is devastating when done right. AtB on these guys doubles their threat factor, you get a cannon skill at global, and you get to keep 2 (4) ltc eng stations, and 1 (2) commander stations for eng.
actually, beams are arguably better then cannons in duels, due to superior up time with almost no maneuvering effort. ive used an unseparated falaxy R with singles to hilarious result, shimm has seen it in action and was awed by it
i could proboly post 25 screen shots of my single cannons excelsior dealing the most damage by a factor of 2 in random matches. they fire a staggering number of swings according to the log, more then the next 2 most people combined often enough. it all adds up, and theres very little on target downtime with the forward guns.
the bit about overcaping, it benefits singles and everything else just as much as beams, theres very little difference in drain from what i have seen, and rear turrets cost less energy then rear beams. put that bit about beam array and superior overcaping result out of your mind, myth busted :P the dps from weapons energy over about 150 is very tiny anyway.
perfect storm build? or course i am! its called min maxing! oh, it just works because your minmixing, i lol'ed! its actually worked better for quite a bit longer then the AtB 'golden age',. a long time ago i used CRF1 and 2, 2 EPtW and 2 EPtS, and had 3 more eng powers left over. even then cannons beat beams by quite a bit, and this was also when DEM didn't work wile cannons skills were on at all! CSV has 45 degree cone, and hits 3 random targets in that cone every pulse. there are a lot of pulses, more then 1 a second, it works great.
am i going to suggest a heal boat use singles? no, kinda pointless. those take concentration away from throwing heals, you have to concentrate on your positioning more. plus your not going to be a damage dealer, so you might as well be a garbage man. if you try to build a tac and suport boat at the same time, your gonna have a only partially effective at everything ship. AtB swings for the fences on offense, thats why i use it. at the very least i have global RSP uptime, and global use of HE and TSS, at diminished capacity when an aux battery isn't used. it can be selfish, but that just means you have to use your firepower to greater effect to pull your weight.
just for a change of pace, and to be more useful in support, ive been thinking about building the excelsior with 2 cannon recharge doffs, 2 damage control doffs and a TT recharge doff so i can have high aux, and 2 of my stations back. for a more balanced build it would be better, but the AtB build is all about getting 100% of the damage potential out of the thing. it cant be beat for raw damage, and is still plenty hearty. its a fair trade. in eating up those stations for AtB, remember that i basically double every one of my other stations, who has more eaten up now? not to mention AtB overcapes my weapons energy, and nearly caps shield and engine energy.
DHCs on klink boats only run into problems if you don't try to control movement. your ability to tank, hold and strike is devastating when done right. AtB on these guys doubles their threat factor, you get a cannon skill at global, and you get to keep 2 (4) ltc eng stations, and 1 (2) commander stations for eng.
Yes... since dealing top score in pugs means sooo much.
Actually it's not a perfect storm. It's not even close to min maxing. Not if you are fighting anyone better than some scrub pugs anyway. You're eating all of those eng slots (2 of the more important ones especially on a ship without LTC eng), and eating a large portion of your ability to support your allies. Cannons eat boff skills and or doffs like Pez Candy.
Now -I- am loling. You are lacking one of the best heal skills in the game if not the best assuming you're going for the total swing for the fences and having Plas3 or DEM3 in the Cmdr. (and you probably have EPTS3 in the spot below it) Or, are you going to use the Pathetic version of EPTS, EPTS1 which doesn't even come close to measuring up?
But hey if you wanna confuse being a Pugstar for actually bein usable. Be my guest.
You -still- aren't going to match the burst potential of an Escort, and your spam clearing capability just went into the toilet for going Fed Cannons. Oh and your burst damage? Welcome to The Suck Levels. I hope you enjoy your stay there. The only cannons the Excels can run are Singles, which are far far from being hot shots.
If your enemys are capable of moving around alot, teleporting or using the Z axis you're screwed. My ship on the other hand will just keep chugging along.
You've built a ''great'' (for a cruiser lol) offense platform And ate everything else in the process.
KDF side, the build works better because you have access to 2 tac stations. Lt Cmdr. You don't even need aux to batt to be a real crank monster on the FV. It still eating a healthy portion of it's capabity though as a cruiser if you aren't just rolling your face on the board like an idiot and hoping space bar and DHCs will be enough.
Beams are Low Opportunity Cost Weapons. They also have access to the second best spike damage skill in the game, in Beam Overload. It takes little if not 0 effort to run a hot loaded beam boat.
The OP of this thread thinks that Beams Suck. Because he's just running Aux 2 batt builds. Which tremendously diminish durability.
Let's recap what your boffs look like either
A
EPTS1, A2Batt, (if you're not going Total selfish) ES2, DEM3
EPTS1, A2Batt
Eng Team1
And have total TRIBBLE for SDR in the process.
or
EPTS1, Aux 2 batt, EPTS3, DEM3
EPTA1, Aux2 batt
ET
Now let's look at mine shall we?
EPTS1, Extend1, EPTS3, Plas3
EPTW1, either ET2, or RSP1
EPTW1
Or Alt load.
EPTA1, EPTS2, Extend 2, DEM3
EPTS1, RSP
EPTA1
Your Tac slots.
TT, APD1 (since everything SHOULD be in global) CRF2
SCI: Yours
HE, TSS... with TRIBBLE aux most of the time
Mine
PH, TSS good aux capability.
Or
Tractor, TSS
or, HE1, FPB1
Now in an honest Premade Fight, which one is going to help their team more? Something that's a second rate DPS dealer. Or a second rate DPS dealer, that also has secondary healing capability?
I know which my money is on.
Yes... since dealing top score in pugs means sooo much.
Actually it's not a perfect storm. It's not even close to min maxing. Not if you are fighting anyone better than some scrub pugs anyway. You're eating all of those eng slots (2 of the more important ones especially on a ship without LTC eng), and eating a large portion of your ability to support your allies. Cannons eat boff skills and or doffs like Pez Candy.
Now -I- am loling. You are lacking one of the best heal skills in the game if not the best assuming you're going for the total swing for the fences and having Plas3 or DEM3 in the Cmdr. (and you probably have EPTS3 in the spot below it) Or, are you going to use the Pathetic version of EPTS, EPTS1 which doesn't even come close to measuring up?
But hey if you wanna confuse being a Pugstar for actually bein usable. Be my guest.
You -still- aren't going to match the burst potential of an Escort, and your spam clearing capability just went into the toilet for going Fed Cannons. Oh and your burst damage? Welcome to The Suck Levels. I hope you enjoy your stay there. The only cannons the Excels can run are Singles, which are far far from being hot shots.
If your enemys are capable of moving around alot, teleporting or using the Z axis you're screwed. My ship on the other hand will just keep chugging along.
You've built a ''great'' (for a cruiser lol) offense platform And ate everything else in the process.
KDF side, the build works better because you have access to 2 tac stations. Lt Cmdr. You don't even need aux to batt to be a real crank monster on the FV. It still eating a healthy portion of it's capabity though as a cruiser if you aren't just rolling your face on the board like an idiot and hoping space bar and DHCs will be enough.
Beams are Low Opportunity Cost Weapons. They also have access to the second best spike damage skill in the game, in Beam Overload. It takes little if not 0 effort to run a hot loaded beam boat.
Let me see if I can summarize your disagreement here.
Beams = Good if using few (or no) abilities to enhance them
Cannons = Good if using several abilities to enhance them
To which I must ask the following question. Why are you not just using turrets? Aside from spam cleaning that is.
- No need to overcap
- Better Glider effect
- Better DEM effect
- Better firing arc
- Same raw damage
Let me see if I can summarize your disagreement here.
Beams = Good if using few (or no) abilities to enhance them
Cannons = Good if using several abilities to enhance them
To which I must ask the following question. Why are you not just using turrets? Aside from spam cleaning that is.
- No need to overcap
- Better Glider effect
- Better DEM effect
- Better firing arc
- Same raw damage
Turrets are Cannons, and suffer the same range penalties. That Beams do not have nearly as much issues with. They also don't have access to BO. And you already mentioned spam cleanse.
Turrets are Cannons, and suffer the same range penalties. That Beams do not have nearly as much issues with. They also don't have access to BO. And you already mentioned spam cleanse.
*info from Maelwys always reliable testing*
Beams deal 64% damage at max range, 84% at 5km
Cannons deal 40% damage at max range, 72% at 5km
Not a huge range penalty till you hit extreme range. For pressure damage I would think a CRF with glider and/or DEM would work better than BO but not really sure.
Big question I have is does anyone have an example of an innate beam accuracy bonus test that has established this as a fact? Beyond FaW bug that is.
Yes... since dealing top score in pugs means sooo much.
Actually it's not a perfect storm. It's not even close to min maxing. Not if you are fighting anyone better than some scrub pugs anyway. You're eating all of those eng slots (2 of the more important ones especially on a ship without LTC eng), and eating a large portion of your ability to support your allies. Cannons eat boff skills and or doffs like Pez Candy.
Now -I- am loling. You are lacking one of the best heal skills in the game if not the best assuming you're going for the total swing for the fences and having Plas3 or DEM3 in the Cmdr. (and you probably have EPTS3 in the spot below it) Or, are you going to use the Pathetic version of EPTS, EPTS1 which doesn't even come close to measuring up?
But hey if you wanna confuse being a Pugstar for actually bein usable. Be my guest.
You -still- aren't going to match the burst potential of an Escort, and your spam clearing capability just went into the toilet for going Fed Cannons. Oh and your burst damage? Welcome to The Suck Levels. I hope you enjoy your stay there. The only cannons the Excels can run are Singles, which are far far from being hot shots.
If your enemys are capable of moving around alot, teleporting or using the Z axis you're screwed. My ship on the other hand will just keep chugging along.
You've built a ''great'' (for a cruiser lol) offense platform And ate everything else in the process.
KDF side, the build works better because you have access to 2 tac stations. Lt Cmdr. You don't even need aux to batt to be a real crank monster on the FV. It still eating a healthy portion of it's capabity though as a cruiser if you aren't just rolling your face on the board like an idiot and hoping space bar and DHCs will be enough.
Beams are Low Opportunity Cost Weapons. They also have access to the second best spike damage skill in the game, in Beam Overload. It takes little if not 0 effort to run a hot loaded beam boat.
you swap from lighthearted pug talk to serious premade everything is fail talk so fast my neck herts. i think you believe i take my lol tac excelsior more seriously then i actually do. its a pug toy yes, thats all it is. because bringing a heal boat to a random pug again and again has proven to be a waited effort. you cant help the helpless, no mater how much ES and auxiliary power you have. pugs are escorts online. only when you add a tiny bit of organization does it become lol healz and VM+SNB online.
you dont see me trying to join major fleets, you don't see me in organized premades, im just doing what i find fun, and making things work in a way they are not intended to way better then they should entertains me.
your building beam array healer garbage man ships, and thats good! thats what a cruiser is, thats all they are supposed to be able to amount to, thats what they are most useful for in a premade seting. i have the ships on standby that i would build into actual healers, it sure as hell wouldn't be an excelsior.
as far as the lol cannon excelsior goes, z axis is my best friend. and you brought up score boards first if you remember. EPtS1 works fine when you can actually threaten your opponent and not just hope he goes away after he shoots at you with no effect for a period of time. and as if 8 beam array cruisers have any burst, or as much pressure. just like the rest of their damage, even their BO's are just TRIBBLE in the wind in a serious arena setting. even when there are healers present in an arena setting, with the cannons i can harm someone enough to cause healer panic, and targets to be switched to the guy im mauling. i cant finish anyone off, but my damage is having much more of an effect. ive been in these situations and swapped back and forth with beams and cannons and its the same thing every time. the cannons have more effect, in everything pugmade and below.
if the 2 escorts on your team have a copy of CSV1 all but the spamiest carrier teams are easily handled. 1 sci ship with TBR can fire it off near siphon drones and instantly rescue someone from them. a LTC station used to dirty the play field is extreamly hazordus to spam, and can hold and greatly endanger a player ships too. some cruiser with beams and FAW is not our only spam clearing hope.
the DHC kdf cruiser is also a bit lol, but a lot closer to being serious. the entire faction is lol if you really think about it. it actually CAN do an escorts job for it, in a different way. and if your kdf, you should be using fed pattern orian cruisers or lockbox ships if you want to make healers, kdf cruiser are built to be faux escorts, thats were they are good at something. other wise your flying a ship inferiors to a fed cruiser stat wise with beam arrays, that turns better for no reason or advantage.
this is why i made this thread though. the game would be more interesting if all but the most down the line builds weren't so lol. so beam arrays, singles, and for god sake at least DCs should be buffed, in the way i proposed, IMO.
The OP of this thread thinks that Beams Suck. Because he's just running Aux 2 batt builds. Which tremendously diminish durability.
Let's recap what your boffs look like either
A
EPTS1, A2Batt, (if you're not going Total selfish) ES2, DEM3
EPTS1, A2Batt
Eng Team1
And have total TRIBBLE for SDR in the process.
or
EPTS1, Aux 2 batt, EPTS3, DEM3
EPTA1, Aux2 batt
ET
Now let's look at mine shall we?
EPTS1, Extend1, EPTS3, Plas3
EPTW1, either ET2, or RSP1
EPTW1
Or Alt load.
EPTA1, EPTS2, Extend 2, DEM3
EPTS1, RSP
EPTA1
Your Tac slots.
TT, APD1 (since everything SHOULD be in global) CRF2
SCI: Yours
HE, TSS... with TRIBBLE aux most of the time
Mine
PH, TSS good aux capability.
Or
Tractor, TSS
or, HE1, FPB1
Now in an honest Premade Fight, which one is going to help their team more? Something that's a second rate DPS dealer. Or a second rate DPS dealer, that also has secondary healing capability?
I know which my money is on.
jeeze, with those builds you dont know AtB very well. you only need 1 copy of EPtS, no copies of EPtW, and EPtA is very helpful to make sure you always have about 30 aux at least. on the 100% offense focused lol tac excelsior i have DEM3 and RSP2. both at global. but also ET1, HE2, TSS1 as well, also at global. and a large amount of aux batts on tap. so i can actually throw these heals twice as often, and use a battery to max their effectiveness too. ive takes ES instead of RSP several times, but it doesn't work well with AtB. its unaffected by it during the active 30 seconds, only the inactive 15 seconds can be effected. at most i can use it 5 seconds earlier. and yes i slot and throw APD pretty often too.
so heals twice as often, maybe not the strongest heals, but they can be every 2 minutes, or every 1 minute with a purple batery doff. my SDR is TRIBBLE? well, my ~120 shield power would disagree with you, all that extra power is another bonus from AtB. i also got that steam runner console, 1 or 2 BFI doffs, EPtS at global, TSS at global, RSP at global if i slot it, ya my shields are sooo fail. :rolleyes:
for an LOL ship, its not bad. wile dealing so much more pressure damage then any fed cruiser has a right too. still its not as durable as a non AtB cruiser, hilbert proved that, but it didn't have any illusions that it was.
You can help them. But you have to feed them ES and tac team :P
The Whole of KDF is lulz. The only thing they have -are- their cruisers.
Well it's not like those ensigns are going to be useful for anything else
Might as well stuff them with powers. You might have 120 shield power, but you're not getting the significant difference of EPTS3 to 1. :P There's a pretty large gap there, particularly for damage cruisers fedside.
You can throw twice as often, but how often will you have good aux when you throw them?
My point is, you're saying that DHCs are imba, when you are not looking at the larger picture and the sacrifices you have to make to run them successfully (or even single barrels for that matter).
Beams have super low Opp Costs. And they have access to some of the best spike in the game when properly used. Beams require the least focus, and effort to use correctly, they are a multitasker's dream weapon because of this. They shouldn't be doing as much overall damage (not even comparable) as DHCs do.
Well there is a difference between DHC being imba... and just plain being better then everything else.
I run lots of DHC... yes they take some more work to arc properly ect... still they are way over powered compared to everything else.
Does anyone run DC ? exactly
Does anyone run Singles ? (outside of stupid dot and glider builds) Exactly
There is only one serious option for cannons DHC... why is that... because they are 10x better then everything else plain and simple.
Should beams be = to DHC... of course not...
I also wouldn't say beams are useless.... however there long firing cycles make them a power pig for the return in terms of Dmg.
Honestly the easiest fix is to return the Weapon power system to where it was before some idiot dev decided Weapons should magikly return all power they where using when a cycle ends.... that was a MASSIVE boost to the power efficient short cycle DHC... Power pops back so fast you don't even have to TRIBBLE around with Beam Overloads anymore to get them to hit at 125 weapon power... FULL auto even with overloads poping is fine, the way the system is setup right now.... It is a 100% no skill system as it is now... weapon power management, don't make me laugh this game doesn't have that anymore.
Force the no talent 4 dhc escort players to slot 1-2 EPS units to feed there all energy setups. (YES I know Husanak calling 4dhc players skilless I know the irony)
As it is it is far to easy to just slot 2-3 Neuts or a couple crit consoles... cause power is no issue.
The way I would fix it if I worked for Cryptic...
1) Return weapon power use to the way it used to be and power had to regen at EPS speed.
2) Give ALL weapons a balance pass... in terms of Cycle times, and power use.
The idea being... to Keep Escort BURST up... while forcing build decisions in terms of power management, to keep sustained dmg up. (right now escort sustained dmg is way to high... anyone that crys but but 45 degrees is full of it... I play escorts the chances of someone NOT being in my arc if I want them to be bad enough is about zero)
Also to make other weapons outside of DHC more attractive.
This would also serve to boost the Engi Captain skills back up... there was a time when Nadion and EPS in fact mattered.... now there nice but hardly game changing. Really wth is the point of Nadion... you can get always on versions of the same effect with Omega Amp... and things like the Marion Dem Doff.
Basically we have one spam-clearing AOE power (FAW), and then only powers that are just as useful if you have 1 beam as if you have 8 (BO, TS). There is no "Beam broadside damage enhancement" power like there is CRF for cannons, which would increase damage of the whole broadside.
That is where under the OLD power management system the Engi Skills came into play.
DEM
Emergency Power to Weapons...
And crazy enough
EPS power transfer
and
Nadion
There was a time where running EPTW 3 on a cruiser wasn't a crazy idea... cause the extra power overcaping was a major advantage as power had to regen, and the power didn't stay used up while the weapon was cycling. In other words you fire, the power is drained and then returns at EPS rate... instead of just staying used till the cycled eneded and then boom back it was. This favored broadsides from Engis... cause they could rock EPS and Nadion back and forth with a EPTW 1-3... to keep there broadside doing its thing all the time. Or they could blow there cool downs and in fact spike a little.
Now with the long cycle times on beams and that power being locked out for the entire long cycle of the beam arrays... things like EPS and nadion basicly do nothing at all for DPS... they make broadsiding Engis a joke... frankly they often don't have the fire power to control the spam never mind pressure any heals.
The current power setup basicly penalizes any setup that doesn't have a rapid cycle time... hence DHC are the best weapon option.
The old power setup had a bit of an issue in where say an escort rocking 2 EPS units could provide 110+ power to every Cannon fired pretty much all the time... but lets be honest with the 2 piece KCB + borg console Omega Amp proc... thats the case now anyway... so really going back to that type of system wouldnt' increase Escort DPS... in fact it would drop the DPS on second volleys unless escorts made sure to run an EPS unit... which would be at least a small trade in survivability... it would be a nice boost I think to beam array cruisers.... in that power would not be locked up for excessively long firing cycles... however drain would still be high enough that 1) engi captain skills could shine again... and 2) tac cruisers would have to dedicate the same EPS unit as the escorts would to provide good sustained dmg.
PS... granted the old system basicly had us playing Cruisers Online... and there is a possibility that going back to that system could end us up back there again where 9 out of 10 pugs are in a damn assault cruiser... I do think though with the newer toys escorts aren't as squishy as they where back then and it won't be an issue now.
You can help them. But you have to feed them ES and tac team :P
The Whole of KDF is lulz. The only thing they have -are- their cruisers.
Well it's not like those ensigns are going to be useful for anything else
Might as well stuff them with powers. You might have 120 shield power, but you're not getting the significant difference of EPTS3 to 1. :P There's a pretty large gap there, particularly for damage cruisers fedside.
You can throw twice as often, but how often will you have good aux when you throw them?
My point is, you're saying that DHCs are imba, when you are not looking at the larger picture and the sacrifices you have to make to run them successfully (or even single barrels for that matter).
Beams have super low Opp Costs. And they have access to some of the best spike in the game when properly used. Beams require the least focus, and effort to use correctly, they are a multitasker's dream weapon because of this. They shouldn't be doing as much overall damage (not even comparable) as DHCs do.
There would be 0 point DHCs if they were.
the problem with 3 ens eng cruisers is that you dont really have the option to use EPtS3, plus thats a prety big waist of your only eng LTC console anyway. a 125 aux HE2 will heal just over 1000 a tic, and an accidental use of HE at 5 aux will still heal 400 a tic. they still do a pretty good amount of healing.
i haven't been trying to say DHC are imbalanced or overpowered, they are just a weapon that works well, its not like they are an i win button, i think of all the others as inadequate. what are these sacrifices for running DHCs? i certainly haven't come across any. well maybe 2 things, careful flying is 1, generous use of holds on slower ships being the other.
beams just do their thing on thier own, you right. that thing is next to nothing though, when the equivalent ship on the other faction can use DHCs easily for actual effective damage. thats why the go to weapons for fed cruisers, beam arrays and single cannons, deserve an effectiveness boost. not to be as good, but to have a simmilar advantage/disadvantage relationship as working very well DHCs have. thats what this post here was all about. they would still do much less damage then DHCs, but they wouldn't amount to only really background noise anymore. the beam array buff would only make arrays about as good as they were when faw was accurate, and there was only 1 target around.
the problem with 3 ens eng cruisers is that you dont really have the option to use EPtS3, plus thats a prety big waist of your only eng LTC console anyway. a 125 aux HE2 will heal just over 1000 a tic, and an accidental use of HE at 5 aux will still heal 400 a tic. they still do a pretty good amount of healing.
i haven't been trying to say DHC are imbalanced or overpowered, they are just a weapon that works well, its not like they are an i win button, i think of all the others as inadequate. what are these sacrifices for running DHCs? i certainly haven't come across any. well maybe 2 things, careful flying is 1, generous use of holds on slower ships being the other.
beams just do their thing on thier own, you right. that thing is next to nothing though, when the equivalent ship on the other faction can use DHCs easily for actual effective damage. thats why the go to weapons for fed cruisers, beam arrays and single cannons, deserve an effectiveness boost. not to be as good, but to have a simmilar advantage/disadvantage relationship as working very well DHCs have. thats what this post here was all about. they would still do much less damage then DHCs, but they wouldn't amount to only really background noise anymore. the beam array buff would only make arrays about as good as they were when faw was accurate, and there was only 1 target around.
And how much of a difference does that give you over the full 15 second duration. You're looking at 6k at TRIBBLE Aux levels, versus, 15,000. To say nothing of the large resistance value difference between the two skills. That's a huge hit.
Unless you don't run Aux 2 batt. Then you suddenly get room for EPTS3
Sure there are. Let's look at the Fleet Torkhat for example. Now, in order for it to be -effective- with DHCs it must run the Plas. Either Plas1 or 3. That means it no longer has access to run EPTS3. Or Extend 2, or ASIF2. It's other slot more than likely will also have to be a damage skill which means either a second plas, or DEM. This leaves it with LT and an Ens in order to shield tank effectively. Unless you're trying to run aux 2 batt, that means EPTS2, and 1. With likely EPTE1, or EPTA1 in the last slot.
He will also have to run CRF2, and CRF1. Leaving the Torkat with 2 ens and 1 lt power in tactical. And you're pretty much useless against anything with your turn rate, that has better inertia. (which is every Escort in the game and a good host of sci ships. Namely the Nova, Recon, and probably the Vesta) that's another big hit. Where as a beam boat, can burn them down and not have to worry about arcs nearly as much.
Also, you're vastly underestimating beam damage potential. I can -melt- people, premade v premade in the Old Excelsior (Thanks for the fleet mod to get the newer version by the way ) It also has access to the best spike in the game. Which on a Single Array, can hit for 90k, in the same situations that you -have- to have in order to even use Cannons (singles even) on a Cruiser. What's easier to heal through, a few 5k, to 11k crits or one big 18-90k single shot? I did that without even fully Decked weapons. (which I am working on. at least securing all the proper mods. Acc CrtDX2)
Beams on all but a tac captain yes are a joke. But we both know Eng damage is a complete farce anyway, even with DHCs to steroid him up, and Sci only does damage with DHCs because of Sub Nuke's power. Otherwise beams are -supposed- to be background damage. Also without that ''useless beam damage'' you'd -never- overcome SDR and HDR.
Sure an Escort is going to do 2x damage of a tac beam excelsior, if the excelsior can not effectively setup zone control. But said Escort has less than 1/2 of the effective support ability of the tac excels. And a much less capable setup for establishing zone control at the same time.
Beams on all but a tac captain yes are a joke. But we both know Eng damage is a complete farce anyway
Here I disagree, I fly an engineer in a fleet Excel specced for a nice balance of damage and tank with a small side helping of team support and I perform better in that then my tac does in the RA version of the ship, the eng lasts longer and outputs better which surprised me as my tac is specced for max dmg output from an escort.
You can help them. But you have to feed them ES and tac team :P
The Whole of KDF is lulz. The only thing they have -are- their cruisers.
Well it's not like those ensigns are going to be useful for anything else
Might as well stuff them with powers. You might have 120 shield power, but you're not getting the significant difference of EPTS3 to 1. :P There's a pretty large gap there, particularly for damage cruisers fedside.
You can throw twice as often, but how often will you have good aux when you throw them?
My point is, you're saying that DHCs are imba, when you are not looking at the larger picture and the sacrifices you have to make to run them successfully (or even single barrels for that matter).
Beams have super low Opp Costs. And they have access to some of the best spike in the game when properly used. Beams require the least focus, and effort to use correctly, they are a multitasker's dream weapon because of this. They shouldn't be doing as much overall damage (not even comparable) as DHCs do.
There would be 0 point DHCs if they were.
In addition to the KDF cruisers the KDF Vet ship is a nice option now, fyi. Unfortunately, they gave the Fleet B'rel a 4th Eng console instead of Sci console ...
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
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C&H Fed banter
In addition to the KDF cruisers the KDF Vet ship is a nice option now, fyi. Unfortunately, they gave the Fleet B'rel a 4th Eng console instead of Sci console ...
ya, 4 eng consoles on the brel instead of a 4th sci was pants on head TRIBBLE. especially when we will surly see the kvort in a few months along with the ambassador. out of every bop like thing they could add, the kvort would be the bop deserving of a 4th eng
And how much of a difference does that give you over the full 15 second duration. You're looking at 6k at TRIBBLE Aux levels, versus, 15,000. To say nothing of the large resistance value difference between the two skills. That's a huge hit.
Unless you don't run Aux 2 batt. Then you suddenly get room for EPTS3
so do you run 125 aux at all times on your tac excel? and if so how do you have such a great SDR? or over caped weapons power? 15k isn't ever going to be the average heal of HE2 on what we are flying
Sure there are. Let's look at the Fleet Torkhat for example. Now, in order for it to be -effective- with DHCs it must run the Plas. Either Plas1 or 3. That means it no longer has access to run EPTS3. Or Extend 2, or ASIF2. It's other slot more than likely will also have to be a damage skill which means either a second plas, or DEM. This leaves it with LT and an Ens in order to shield tank effectively. Unless you're trying to run aux 2 batt, that means EPTS2, and 1. With likely EPTE1, or EPTA1 in the last slot.
He will also have to run CRF2, and CRF1. Leaving the Torkat with 2 ens and 1 lt power in tactical. And you're pretty much useless against anything with your turn rate, that has better inertia. (which is every Escort in the game and a good host of sci ships. Namely the Nova, Recon, and probably the Vesta) that's another big hit. Where as a beam boat, can burn them down and not have to worry about arcs nearly as much.
the fleet vorcha didn't need EWP or even a tractor beam to work, 3 turn consoles helped though. i preferred a TBR backed alpha on it myself back in the day. managed to get my first solo bug kill, of what i considered a skilled bug user, with such a tactic.
i'd makes some changes now, AP doff recommendation especially, APO made it agile enough to duel escorts wile it was on, did it all the time. it had shield and hull heals so completely covered that it was extreamly hard to kill, wile hitting about 85% as hard as an escort could. 4 DHCs are a bit out of favor with me at the moment, proboly would recommend HY omega bombing in it too. never did i think to myself, gee, i simply cant get these DHCs pointed worth a damn in this slow thing, i was always able to easily. escort users are spoiled. with how devastating DEM3 can be on a full cannon alpha, id consider dropping AtS on it too.
what originally killed the fleet vorcha with me though is that a fleet ktinga, vorcha R or mirror vorcha with 2 AtB could do everything the fleet vorcha could do tactically, other then run APO, and have no shortage of eng skills. snared in plasma and a TB, and crit chance stacked sky high, the 4th tac console was hardly missed.
Also, you're vastly underestimating beam damage potential. I can -melt- people, premade v premade in the Old Excelsior (Thanks for the fleet mod to get the newer version by the way ) It also has access to the best spike in the game. Which on a Single Array, can hit for 90k, in the same situations that you -have- to have in order to even use Cannons (singles even) on a Cruiser. What's easier to heal through, a few 5k, to 11k crits or one big 18-90k single shot? I did that without even fully Decked weapons. (which I am working on. at least securing all the proper mods. Acc CrtDX2)
Beams on all but a tac captain yes are a joke. But we both know Eng damage is a complete farce anyway, even with DHCs to steroid him up, and Sci only does damage with DHCs because of Sub Nuke's power. Otherwise beams are -supposed- to be background damage. Also without that ''useless beam damage'' you'd -never- overcome SDR and HDR.
Sure an Escort is going to do 2x damage of a tac beam excelsior, if the excelsior can not effectively setup zone control. But said Escort has less than 1/2 of the effective support ability of the tac excels. And a much less capable setup for establishing zone control at the same time.
it was funny, when i first dueled macon with his 6 beam array and 15+pieces of npc spam sci/sci vesta, i was able to kill him in 10 seconds with just CRF2, APB1, APA and DEM3. not making that up ether. better prepared for how much damage i could do with just those buffs up, he was able to tank and bury me in spam and phaser procs, and subnukes when i needed RSP or finally had a GDF opening. grueling match that was. i switched to CSV and kept his spam managed and killed him with that once too i then switched to my beams and was not impressed, they didn't do better, even with BO3 every 15 seconds. if i had EWP instead of the near worthless for beam array DEM3, i proboly could have made it work a bit better, even aceton beam would have been more useful, but bringing EWP to a duel is a kinda dickish.
i know exactly how well beams can melt, and i myself have melted folks with them as well many many times. im not satisfied with their best, and they still don't gun folks down near as well as i can with singles. on most ships, with just the DEM3 damage if i don't breach shields, i can strip 25% of a ships hull with just a non GDF/tacfleet alpha. that gets healer, and my team mate's attention when they see someone suddenly have that kind of damage. with 3 flow cap consoles for glider, DEM3, CRF1 at global thanks to tech doffs, i can even make the falaxy more dangerous then most tac focused cruisers. even with its turn rate i find singles usable, especially when i bring EWP and TB. sure thats all such a galaxy R is good at, but again i favor lol over most other considerations.
then i jump on my klink and make all the beam array and single cannon melting look like the joke that it is. this is the key part, singles and beam arrays are damage dealing jokes even at their best. kdf cruisers point and laugh at it. thus i call for the very thoughtful buff to them, so when we go all out to make them deal damage, its closer to their kdf counterpart. less raw spike damage, but comparable damage because of on target up time, having a higher fireing arc but much less damage per volly. sci ships would be helped by this quite a bit too. most of the time their weapons damage is ether crappy or they don't bother trying to have any.
i do not judge the advantage/disadvantage ratio that DHC's have as equal to the advantage/disadvantage ratio the other weapon types have. i don't think any of the other weapons should deal as much damage as DHCs, its that their disadvantages (their weak damage) is to great compared to their advantage (fireing arc). this simply needs rebalancing. for perspective, beam arrays would just be as dangerous as they were when FAW was accurate, and you were the only one around to shoot at. i seriously doubt the changes i proposed would greatly upset the balance in game, or make this cruisers online, or make escorts unneeded or to squishy to chance taking into matches. they are so much more durable then ever, and so is everything else, so the spike only they can provide is more needed then ever. so, instead of doing any nerfing, just buff what has fallen behind.
Comments
oh i know, believe me i know. had quite the duals with hilbert the other day, inspired by this thread. when we went excelsior vs excelsior, it repeatedly came down to me damaging him a lot more with my singles, and him being able to use GDF sooner and roasting me with galor beams.
you only need 1 module for that ship, and i think they are only like 1.1 mil on the exchange, or they were. or was that the lock box keys? if they are that cheap i'll just mail one to you, you need to be rolling in style! the 3rd ensign eng is ok, at the very least you can have ET1 to clear VM, the number 1 killer of tac captains.
for once, you have a point, the same one i was trying to make. but soph for your own good, don't rile up anyone with mav in their name, ok? you have been down that road before lol
Who said anything about it being just a faw situation.
ACT tracks everything, real time DPS, vs healing, Resistance vs raw damage.
I recommend you try it.
And probably stop flying bad builds with only 6 beams or some garbage
FAW is something you switch to, when you see spam. It's not a DPS dealing skill on it's own merit.
I know more about DPS in my pinky toe than you've probably ever dealt there.
I -have- done testing of Cannons vs Beams.
And for fed cruisers, beams are your best bet for damage dealing, due to several overriding factors in 5v5. Especially Range.
KDF cruisers DHCs are better because they operate on average with more tac skills, and the ships are much more agile. However their sustained durability is not what a Fed Cruisers's is.
Which DDIS should know all to well by now.
Also LOL if you think a bortas is better with DHC than beams.
The bortas is garbage either way. But it's less so with beams.
Overall Match Time comparos have been done too.
And Fedwise, the Beam Array beats Single Barrel Cannons, Every Time.
Beams work better on fed cruisers, because their turn rate sucks. Which means it is much more difficult to maintain TOT. The Excelsior is pretty much the only one where Single Cannons become comparable in live pvp (not just duels).
Especially when you start Overcapping Weapon Power. Which due to how cannons drain weapon power, compared to beams, cannons get next to no benefit for it, while beams damage output is significantly better at over capped capacity.
KDF side, Bortas and Negvar aside (Neggy does good with Singles, or even all torpedoes upfront though) the DHC wins because they can actually move enough to use them properly. But KDF cruisers have a sacrfice in durability. And against Zippier ships like Escorts you are totally reliant on zone control to maintain damage on an Escort as a KDF Cruiser.
Try this.
Go buy a Failaxy X. Go put DHCs on it. 4 upfront. See how laughably bad your damage will be compared to a Beam Assault Cruiser. Go check it out in ACT so you can see the actual DPS dealt. You'll decloak get maybe 3 volleys in.. and then never be able to hit your target again. If DHCs really were Teh Awesome, the Fail X would be the best cruiser the feds have since it can actually run DHCs. But it's not. Instead it's the worst one you could choose. even if you go down to single cannons. Because it's too slow to use them, and the other cruisers Excelsior aside aren't much better.
the bortas is basically a galaxy X, only slightly less fail.
only the fleet vorcha has a large amount of tac stations, other kdf cruisers top out at LT for tactical, and might get an extra tac ensign. its the maneuverability and DHC usability that more then make up for their lower number of, or quality of tac station. before doffs, when they used cannons they had pretty bad up time on their 1 available canon ability slot, but now theres several ways to put that at global, doffs have been the best thing that ever happened to kdf cruisers. to fed cruisers too, but to a smaller extent. they cant make up for the terrible maneuverability and inferiors weapons.
i KNOW singles work better then beams, at least on TLC tac equipped fed cruisers. from watching them in action and parsing logs. the benefit from using them with DEM3 alone pushes them far out in front for effective damage dealing. often i have swapped to CSV, stayed a little ways back, and had it always on carriers, eliminating pets as they launched. singles and turrets can direct their cone of fire just about anywhere easily.
remember, i use kdf cruisers as a judgment baseline. fed cruisers ability to deal pressure or effective damage is an order of magnitude lower, due to the inferiority of the available weapons, with their advantages and disadvantages not being balanced correctly.
Healing and resists in STO outstrip damage by a substantial margin. If you play a Sci/(x) or an Engie snoozer properly you'll never fall to a lone cannonscort (at least a Tac) in a one-on-one. Damage buffs with the power to kill just don't come off cooldown nearly as frequently as super powerful BOff-level resists (let alone captain powers).
I can understand most aren't interested in this aspect, but it's worth saying that in 5 v 5 Arenas too much cannons can become a liability, espesh Fed-side. Without grade-A quality Sci wizardry you won't down targets fast enough to justify the durability penalty. A good sweet spot for a meat-and-taters team comp has been two cannonscorts in my experience. If you want more you really need to have a game plan sussed out.
Tactical beamboats are fine, my only real beef is with the lack of solid powers since FAW is so underwhelming. You give up heavy burst damage for the ability to tolerate CC (in a way an escort can't) and not require as much of an arc. I'd say that's balanced to me.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
It becomes a whole nother ball game then.
Or use beams on the excels for abit with something that isn't acc2 X beams have a very high innate accuracy, which ruins their output to have double acc on them compared to Cannons.
Also, when you don't run Aux to batt on everything beams suddenly become more appealing as you only have 3 tac slots to work with on an Excels.
Cannons to make them work are very boff intensive.
They are also very very zone control dependent.
You're trading away the ability to mount Extends, and RSP (while keeping ETPS3, and an EPTS1 and a Plas3) on your Excels in order to double your tac skills.
And you're wondering why suddenly your single cannon excelsior is keeping up? :P You're creating the perfect storm for cannon setups there.
I built my Excels with the idea it will have to do team support. As such it only has room for 3 tac slots. Aux to batt can't fit on it, because I would then have to make some pretty serious cuts in my durability, in order to be able to assist team mates regularly.
That's where beam boats excel. Is their ability to do damage while being great support monsters.
DHCs are skill hogs. You end up with a very selfish and fragile ship in the long run to mount them on a cruiser.
In your case you ate 2 LT eng skills, and all your tac slots.
I ate....... my tac slots. For TT, BO2, BO3, or TT, APD1, BO3, TT1, FAW2 FAW3 I can throw down significant burst when necessary with that setup. Or I can maintain decent pressure while overcapped (I run at like 155 weapon power on my excels), or clear spam. With a weapon battery spiked, on a setup Kill Shot from our sci, I can load down a 15 to 30k BO2, and easily that, and change with BO3. At the Right Time. A Beam tac cruiser is what you run when you have a Scort on your team already, and healthy CC. BO2 *weapon bat* BO3. If the targets pretty well held down it's going to be very hard for him to recover afterwards, especially when the 8 beams resume melting him at full power, and then the Escort smacks him around some more with DHCs. You better have an Era in your pocket because no one else is going to save that poor soul.
Also CSV is never better for spam removal than FAW is. CSV only targets a 30 degree cone at a time. While 3 targets at a time in that cone are taking more damage than something I'm making eat my CrtD or CrtH 2 Acc Disruptor beams, I'm murdering a whooole lot more targets, than you are. CSV is good for self clearing spam. It's not so much a battlefield removal tool.
Eh, I don't know, maybe something that gives up firing rate for increased shield pen. I think Target Subsystems would be hard to bring back because it's so easy for it to fast become powerfully annoying.
Old FAW would be nice, honestly there are enough counters to five-snoozer teams as is anyway. But what it comes down to is that I just really can't stand BO2 and running attack patterns is a bit dull.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
actually, beams are arguably better then cannons in duels, due to superior up time with almost no maneuvering effort. ive used an unseparated falaxy R with singles to hilarious result, shimm has seen it in action and was awed by it
i could proboly post 25 screen shots of my single cannons excelsior dealing the most damage by a factor of 2 in random matches. they fire a staggering number of swings according to the log, more then the next 2 most people combined often enough. it all adds up, and theres very little on target downtime with the forward guns.
the bit about overcaping, it benefits singles and everything else just as much as beams, theres very little difference in drain from what i have seen, and rear turrets cost less energy then rear beams. put that bit about beam array and superior overcaping result out of your mind, myth busted :P the dps from weapons energy over about 150 is very tiny anyway.
perfect storm build? or course i am! its called min maxing! oh, it just works because your minmixing, i lol'ed! its actually worked better for quite a bit longer then the AtB 'golden age',. a long time ago i used CRF1 and 2, 2 EPtW and 2 EPtS, and had 3 more eng powers left over. even then cannons beat beams by quite a bit, and this was also when DEM didn't work wile cannons skills were on at all! CSV has 45 degree cone, and hits 3 random targets in that cone every pulse. there are a lot of pulses, more then 1 a second, it works great.
am i going to suggest a heal boat use singles? no, kinda pointless. those take concentration away from throwing heals, you have to concentrate on your positioning more. plus your not going to be a damage dealer, so you might as well be a garbage man. if you try to build a tac and suport boat at the same time, your gonna have a only partially effective at everything ship. AtB swings for the fences on offense, thats why i use it. at the very least i have global RSP uptime, and global use of HE and TSS, at diminished capacity when an aux battery isn't used. it can be selfish, but that just means you have to use your firepower to greater effect to pull your weight.
just for a change of pace, and to be more useful in support, ive been thinking about building the excelsior with 2 cannon recharge doffs, 2 damage control doffs and a TT recharge doff so i can have high aux, and 2 of my stations back. for a more balanced build it would be better, but the AtB build is all about getting 100% of the damage potential out of the thing. it cant be beat for raw damage, and is still plenty hearty. its a fair trade. in eating up those stations for AtB, remember that i basically double every one of my other stations, who has more eaten up now? not to mention AtB overcapes my weapons energy, and nearly caps shield and engine energy.
DHCs on klink boats only run into problems if you don't try to control movement. your ability to tank, hold and strike is devastating when done right. AtB on these guys doubles their threat factor, you get a cannon skill at global, and you get to keep 2 (4) ltc eng stations, and 1 (2) commander stations for eng.
Yes... since dealing top score in pugs means sooo much.
Actually it's not a perfect storm. It's not even close to min maxing. Not if you are fighting anyone better than some scrub pugs anyway. You're eating all of those eng slots (2 of the more important ones especially on a ship without LTC eng), and eating a large portion of your ability to support your allies. Cannons eat boff skills and or doffs like Pez Candy.
Now -I- am loling. You are lacking one of the best heal skills in the game if not the best assuming you're going for the total swing for the fences and having Plas3 or DEM3 in the Cmdr. (and you probably have EPTS3 in the spot below it) Or, are you going to use the Pathetic version of EPTS, EPTS1 which doesn't even come close to measuring up?
But hey if you wanna confuse being a Pugstar for actually bein usable. Be my guest.
You -still- aren't going to match the burst potential of an Escort, and your spam clearing capability just went into the toilet for going Fed Cannons. Oh and your burst damage? Welcome to The Suck Levels. I hope you enjoy your stay there. The only cannons the Excels can run are Singles, which are far far from being hot shots.
If your enemys are capable of moving around alot, teleporting or using the Z axis you're screwed. My ship on the other hand will just keep chugging along.
You've built a ''great'' (for a cruiser lol) offense platform And ate everything else in the process.
KDF side, the build works better because you have access to 2 tac stations. Lt Cmdr. You don't even need aux to batt to be a real crank monster on the FV. It still eating a healthy portion of it's capabity though as a cruiser if you aren't just rolling your face on the board like an idiot and hoping space bar and DHCs will be enough.
Beams are Low Opportunity Cost Weapons. They also have access to the second best spike damage skill in the game, in Beam Overload. It takes little if not 0 effort to run a hot loaded beam boat.
The OP of this thread thinks that Beams Suck. Because he's just running Aux 2 batt builds. Which tremendously diminish durability.
Let's recap what your boffs look like either
A
EPTS1, A2Batt, (if you're not going Total selfish) ES2, DEM3
EPTS1, A2Batt
Eng Team1
And have total TRIBBLE for SDR in the process.
or
EPTS1, Aux 2 batt, EPTS3, DEM3
EPTA1, Aux2 batt
ET
Now let's look at mine shall we?
EPTS1, Extend1, EPTS3, Plas3
EPTW1, either ET2, or RSP1
EPTW1
Or Alt load.
EPTA1, EPTS2, Extend 2, DEM3
EPTS1, RSP
EPTA1
Your Tac slots.
TT, APD1 (since everything SHOULD be in global) CRF2
Mine
TT, APD1, Bo3
ALT. TT, BO2, BO3
Alt, TT, FAW2 FAW3
SCI: Yours
HE, TSS... with TRIBBLE aux most of the time
Mine
PH, TSS good aux capability.
Or
Tractor, TSS
or, HE1, FPB1
Now in an honest Premade Fight, which one is going to help their team more? Something that's a second rate DPS dealer. Or a second rate DPS dealer, that also has secondary healing capability?
I know which my money is on.
Let me see if I can summarize your disagreement here.
Beams = Good if using few (or no) abilities to enhance them
Cannons = Good if using several abilities to enhance them
To which I must ask the following question. Why are you not just using turrets? Aside from spam cleaning that is.
- No need to overcap
- Better Glider effect
- Better DEM effect
- Better firing arc
- Same raw damage
Turrets are Cannons, and suffer the same range penalties. That Beams do not have nearly as much issues with. They also don't have access to BO. And you already mentioned spam cleanse.
*info from Maelwys always reliable testing*
Beams deal 64% damage at max range, 84% at 5km
Cannons deal 40% damage at max range, 72% at 5km
Not a huge range penalty till you hit extreme range. For pressure damage I would think a CRF with glider and/or DEM would work better than BO but not really sure.
Big question I have is does anyone have an example of an innate beam accuracy bonus test that has established this as a fact? Beyond FaW bug that is.
you swap from lighthearted pug talk to serious premade everything is fail talk so fast my neck herts. i think you believe i take my lol tac excelsior more seriously then i actually do. its a pug toy yes, thats all it is. because bringing a heal boat to a random pug again and again has proven to be a waited effort. you cant help the helpless, no mater how much ES and auxiliary power you have. pugs are escorts online. only when you add a tiny bit of organization does it become lol healz and VM+SNB online.
you dont see me trying to join major fleets, you don't see me in organized premades, im just doing what i find fun, and making things work in a way they are not intended to way better then they should entertains me.
your building beam array healer garbage man ships, and thats good! thats what a cruiser is, thats all they are supposed to be able to amount to, thats what they are most useful for in a premade seting. i have the ships on standby that i would build into actual healers, it sure as hell wouldn't be an excelsior.
as far as the lol cannon excelsior goes, z axis is my best friend. and you brought up score boards first if you remember. EPtS1 works fine when you can actually threaten your opponent and not just hope he goes away after he shoots at you with no effect for a period of time. and as if 8 beam array cruisers have any burst, or as much pressure. just like the rest of their damage, even their BO's are just TRIBBLE in the wind in a serious arena setting. even when there are healers present in an arena setting, with the cannons i can harm someone enough to cause healer panic, and targets to be switched to the guy im mauling. i cant finish anyone off, but my damage is having much more of an effect. ive been in these situations and swapped back and forth with beams and cannons and its the same thing every time. the cannons have more effect, in everything pugmade and below.
if the 2 escorts on your team have a copy of CSV1 all but the spamiest carrier teams are easily handled. 1 sci ship with TBR can fire it off near siphon drones and instantly rescue someone from them. a LTC station used to dirty the play field is extreamly hazordus to spam, and can hold and greatly endanger a player ships too. some cruiser with beams and FAW is not our only spam clearing hope.
the DHC kdf cruiser is also a bit lol, but a lot closer to being serious. the entire faction is lol if you really think about it. it actually CAN do an escorts job for it, in a different way. and if your kdf, you should be using fed pattern orian cruisers or lockbox ships if you want to make healers, kdf cruiser are built to be faux escorts, thats were they are good at something. other wise your flying a ship inferiors to a fed cruiser stat wise with beam arrays, that turns better for no reason or advantage.
this is why i made this thread though. the game would be more interesting if all but the most down the line builds weren't so lol. so beam arrays, singles, and for god sake at least DCs should be buffed, in the way i proposed, IMO.
jeeze, with those builds you dont know AtB very well. you only need 1 copy of EPtS, no copies of EPtW, and EPtA is very helpful to make sure you always have about 30 aux at least. on the 100% offense focused lol tac excelsior i have DEM3 and RSP2. both at global. but also ET1, HE2, TSS1 as well, also at global. and a large amount of aux batts on tap. so i can actually throw these heals twice as often, and use a battery to max their effectiveness too. ive takes ES instead of RSP several times, but it doesn't work well with AtB. its unaffected by it during the active 30 seconds, only the inactive 15 seconds can be effected. at most i can use it 5 seconds earlier. and yes i slot and throw APD pretty often too.
so heals twice as often, maybe not the strongest heals, but they can be every 2 minutes, or every 1 minute with a purple batery doff. my SDR is TRIBBLE? well, my ~120 shield power would disagree with you, all that extra power is another bonus from AtB. i also got that steam runner console, 1 or 2 BFI doffs, EPtS at global, TSS at global, RSP at global if i slot it, ya my shields are sooo fail. :rolleyes:
for an LOL ship, its not bad. wile dealing so much more pressure damage then any fed cruiser has a right too. still its not as durable as a non AtB cruiser, hilbert proved that, but it didn't have any illusions that it was.
The Whole of KDF is lulz. The only thing they have -are- their cruisers.
Well it's not like those ensigns are going to be useful for anything else
Might as well stuff them with powers. You might have 120 shield power, but you're not getting the significant difference of EPTS3 to 1. :P There's a pretty large gap there, particularly for damage cruisers fedside.
You can throw twice as often, but how often will you have good aux when you throw them?
My point is, you're saying that DHCs are imba, when you are not looking at the larger picture and the sacrifices you have to make to run them successfully (or even single barrels for that matter).
Beams have super low Opp Costs. And they have access to some of the best spike in the game when properly used. Beams require the least focus, and effort to use correctly, they are a multitasker's dream weapon because of this. They shouldn't be doing as much overall damage (not even comparable) as DHCs do.
There would be 0 point DHCs if they were.
I run lots of DHC... yes they take some more work to arc properly ect... still they are way over powered compared to everything else.
Does anyone run DC ? exactly
Does anyone run Singles ? (outside of stupid dot and glider builds) Exactly
There is only one serious option for cannons DHC... why is that... because they are 10x better then everything else plain and simple.
Should beams be = to DHC... of course not...
I also wouldn't say beams are useless.... however there long firing cycles make them a power pig for the return in terms of Dmg.
Honestly the easiest fix is to return the Weapon power system to where it was before some idiot dev decided Weapons should magikly return all power they where using when a cycle ends.... that was a MASSIVE boost to the power efficient short cycle DHC... Power pops back so fast you don't even have to TRIBBLE around with Beam Overloads anymore to get them to hit at 125 weapon power... FULL auto even with overloads poping is fine, the way the system is setup right now.... It is a 100% no skill system as it is now... weapon power management, don't make me laugh this game doesn't have that anymore.
Force the no talent 4 dhc escort players to slot 1-2 EPS units to feed there all energy setups. (YES I know Husanak calling 4dhc players skilless I know the irony)
As it is it is far to easy to just slot 2-3 Neuts or a couple crit consoles... cause power is no issue.
The way I would fix it if I worked for Cryptic...
1) Return weapon power use to the way it used to be and power had to regen at EPS speed.
2) Give ALL weapons a balance pass... in terms of Cycle times, and power use.
The idea being... to Keep Escort BURST up... while forcing build decisions in terms of power management, to keep sustained dmg up. (right now escort sustained dmg is way to high... anyone that crys but but 45 degrees is full of it... I play escorts the chances of someone NOT being in my arc if I want them to be bad enough is about zero)
Also to make other weapons outside of DHC more attractive.
This would also serve to boost the Engi Captain skills back up... there was a time when Nadion and EPS in fact mattered.... now there nice but hardly game changing. Really wth is the point of Nadion... you can get always on versions of the same effect with Omega Amp... and things like the Marion Dem Doff.
That is where under the OLD power management system the Engi Skills came into play.
DEM
Emergency Power to Weapons...
And crazy enough
EPS power transfer
and
Nadion
There was a time where running EPTW 3 on a cruiser wasn't a crazy idea... cause the extra power overcaping was a major advantage as power had to regen, and the power didn't stay used up while the weapon was cycling. In other words you fire, the power is drained and then returns at EPS rate... instead of just staying used till the cycled eneded and then boom back it was. This favored broadsides from Engis... cause they could rock EPS and Nadion back and forth with a EPTW 1-3... to keep there broadside doing its thing all the time. Or they could blow there cool downs and in fact spike a little.
Now with the long cycle times on beams and that power being locked out for the entire long cycle of the beam arrays... things like EPS and nadion basicly do nothing at all for DPS... they make broadsiding Engis a joke... frankly they often don't have the fire power to control the spam never mind pressure any heals.
The current power setup basicly penalizes any setup that doesn't have a rapid cycle time... hence DHC are the best weapon option.
The old power setup had a bit of an issue in where say an escort rocking 2 EPS units could provide 110+ power to every Cannon fired pretty much all the time... but lets be honest with the 2 piece KCB + borg console Omega Amp proc... thats the case now anyway... so really going back to that type of system wouldnt' increase Escort DPS... in fact it would drop the DPS on second volleys unless escorts made sure to run an EPS unit... which would be at least a small trade in survivability... it would be a nice boost I think to beam array cruisers.... in that power would not be locked up for excessively long firing cycles... however drain would still be high enough that 1) engi captain skills could shine again... and 2) tac cruisers would have to dedicate the same EPS unit as the escorts would to provide good sustained dmg.
PS... granted the old system basicly had us playing Cruisers Online... and there is a possibility that going back to that system could end us up back there again where 9 out of 10 pugs are in a damn assault cruiser... I do think though with the newer toys escorts aren't as squishy as they where back then and it won't be an issue now.
the problem with 3 ens eng cruisers is that you dont really have the option to use EPtS3, plus thats a prety big waist of your only eng LTC console anyway. a 125 aux HE2 will heal just over 1000 a tic, and an accidental use of HE at 5 aux will still heal 400 a tic. they still do a pretty good amount of healing.
i haven't been trying to say DHC are imbalanced or overpowered, they are just a weapon that works well, its not like they are an i win button, i think of all the others as inadequate. what are these sacrifices for running DHCs? i certainly haven't come across any. well maybe 2 things, careful flying is 1, generous use of holds on slower ships being the other.
beams just do their thing on thier own, you right. that thing is next to nothing though, when the equivalent ship on the other faction can use DHCs easily for actual effective damage. thats why the go to weapons for fed cruisers, beam arrays and single cannons, deserve an effectiveness boost. not to be as good, but to have a simmilar advantage/disadvantage relationship as working very well DHCs have. thats what this post here was all about. they would still do much less damage then DHCs, but they wouldn't amount to only really background noise anymore. the beam array buff would only make arrays about as good as they were when faw was accurate, and there was only 1 target around.
And how much of a difference does that give you over the full 15 second duration. You're looking at 6k at TRIBBLE Aux levels, versus, 15,000. To say nothing of the large resistance value difference between the two skills. That's a huge hit.
Unless you don't run Aux 2 batt. Then you suddenly get room for EPTS3
Sure there are. Let's look at the Fleet Torkhat for example. Now, in order for it to be -effective- with DHCs it must run the Plas. Either Plas1 or 3. That means it no longer has access to run EPTS3. Or Extend 2, or ASIF2. It's other slot more than likely will also have to be a damage skill which means either a second plas, or DEM. This leaves it with LT and an Ens in order to shield tank effectively. Unless you're trying to run aux 2 batt, that means EPTS2, and 1. With likely EPTE1, or EPTA1 in the last slot.
He will also have to run CRF2, and CRF1. Leaving the Torkat with 2 ens and 1 lt power in tactical. And you're pretty much useless against anything with your turn rate, that has better inertia. (which is every Escort in the game and a good host of sci ships. Namely the Nova, Recon, and probably the Vesta) that's another big hit. Where as a beam boat, can burn them down and not have to worry about arcs nearly as much.
Also, you're vastly underestimating beam damage potential. I can -melt- people, premade v premade in the Old Excelsior (Thanks for the fleet mod to get the newer version by the way
Beams on all but a tac captain yes are a joke. But we both know Eng damage is a complete farce anyway, even with DHCs to steroid him up, and Sci only does damage with DHCs because of Sub Nuke's power. Otherwise beams are -supposed- to be background damage. Also without that ''useless beam damage'' you'd -never- overcome SDR and HDR.
Sure an Escort is going to do 2x damage of a tac beam excelsior, if the excelsior can not effectively setup zone control. But said Escort has less than 1/2 of the effective support ability of the tac excels. And a much less capable setup for establishing zone control at the same time.
Here I disagree, I fly an engineer in a fleet Excel specced for a nice balance of damage and tank with a small side helping of team support and I perform better in that then my tac does in the RA version of the ship, the eng lasts longer and outputs better which surprised me as my tac is specced for max dmg output from an escort.
In addition to the KDF cruisers the KDF Vet ship is a nice option now, fyi. Unfortunately, they gave the Fleet B'rel a 4th Eng console instead of Sci console ...
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
ya, 4 eng consoles on the brel instead of a 4th sci was pants on head TRIBBLE. especially when we will surly see the kvort in a few months along with the ambassador. out of every bop like thing they could add, the kvort would be the bop deserving of a 4th eng
so do you run 125 aux at all times on your tac excel? and if so how do you have such a great SDR? or over caped weapons power? 15k isn't ever going to be the average heal of HE2 on what we are flying
the fleet vorcha didn't need EWP or even a tractor beam to work, 3 turn consoles helped though. i preferred a TBR backed alpha on it myself back in the day. managed to get my first solo bug kill, of what i considered a skilled bug user, with such a tactic.
DDIS's fleet vorcha
i'd makes some changes now, AP doff recommendation especially, APO made it agile enough to duel escorts wile it was on, did it all the time. it had shield and hull heals so completely covered that it was extreamly hard to kill, wile hitting about 85% as hard as an escort could. 4 DHCs are a bit out of favor with me at the moment, proboly would recommend HY omega bombing in it too. never did i think to myself, gee, i simply cant get these DHCs pointed worth a damn in this slow thing, i was always able to easily. escort users are spoiled. with how devastating DEM3 can be on a full cannon alpha, id consider dropping AtS on it too.
what originally killed the fleet vorcha with me though is that a fleet ktinga, vorcha R or mirror vorcha with 2 AtB could do everything the fleet vorcha could do tactically, other then run APO, and have no shortage of eng skills. snared in plasma and a TB, and crit chance stacked sky high, the 4th tac console was hardly missed.
it was funny, when i first dueled macon with his 6 beam array and 15+pieces of npc spam sci/sci vesta, i was able to kill him in 10 seconds with just CRF2, APB1, APA and DEM3. not making that up ether. better prepared for how much damage i could do with just those buffs up, he was able to tank and bury me in spam and phaser procs, and subnukes when i needed RSP or finally had a GDF opening. grueling match that was. i switched to CSV and kept his spam managed and killed him with that once too
i know exactly how well beams can melt, and i myself have melted folks with them as well many many times. im not satisfied with their best, and they still don't gun folks down near as well as i can with singles. on most ships, with just the DEM3 damage if i don't breach shields, i can strip 25% of a ships hull with just a non GDF/tacfleet alpha. that gets healer, and my team mate's attention when they see someone suddenly have that kind of damage. with 3 flow cap consoles for glider, DEM3, CRF1 at global thanks to tech doffs, i can even make the falaxy more dangerous then most tac focused cruisers. even with its turn rate i find singles usable, especially when i bring EWP and TB. sure thats all such a galaxy R is good at, but again i favor lol over most other considerations.
then i jump on my klink and make all the beam array and single cannon melting look like the joke that it is. this is the key part, singles and beam arrays are damage dealing jokes even at their best. kdf cruisers point and laugh at it. thus i call for the very thoughtful buff to them, so when we go all out to make them deal damage, its closer to their kdf counterpart. less raw spike damage, but comparable damage because of on target up time, having a higher fireing arc but much less damage per volly. sci ships would be helped by this quite a bit too. most of the time their weapons damage is ether crappy or they don't bother trying to have any.
i do not judge the advantage/disadvantage ratio that DHC's have as equal to the advantage/disadvantage ratio the other weapon types have. i don't think any of the other weapons should deal as much damage as DHCs, its that their disadvantages (their weak damage) is to great compared to their advantage (fireing arc). this simply needs rebalancing. for perspective, beam arrays would just be as dangerous as they were when FAW was accurate, and you were the only one around to shoot at. i seriously doubt the changes i proposed would greatly upset the balance in game, or make this cruisers online, or make escorts unneeded or to squishy to chance taking into matches. they are so much more durable then ever, and so is everything else, so the spike only they can provide is more needed then ever. so, instead of doing any nerfing, just buff what has fallen behind.