Good thing I never considered them op or broken. They do their jobs but I always see it as this. Like a few other MMOs, metagamers would prefer max dps output over the chance of tanking because why have to tank when you can take things out in a matter of seconds to minutes? With DPS as king, the power drain on beams shouldn't be so severe that the DPS dood would tell you to walk out the door because you can't do the job that could have been filled by another escort. Especially science vessels. Beams will never match the power of cannons but that doesn't mean that they should be so sad to look at in terms of damage and with how iconic they are in the shows.
Im not saying that the community has gotten like that. It's just a looming thought.
I agree. Beams should not be so sad in comparison that they do not appeal to the players in general. It also should not be so sad of a design of PvE play that they escorts can oneshot as easily as the NPCs. Blasters blasting for high damage is nothing new in gaming but usaully the game is designed so its not so onetime effective all the time.
Tanking should have a place in anygame as much as blasting and CC. Currently the fault woth STO is that only DPS is needed. STFs and the other endgame content should actually require a varied team skill effort.
I have something I think might complicate things a bit more for you all. Throughout this thread people have been saying over and over again that beams are too underpowered compared to cannons because cruisers armed with beams have a harder time dealing damage than escorts armed with cannons.
BUT, I would like to inject this into the arguement: I fly an escort WITH beams, and NO cannons. Because I am a Tac VA flying an Escort, it removes the "what ship I'm flying" and "what career officer I am" from the equation of "beams are weaker on a cruiser than cannons are on an escort". The fact remains that my beams on my escort are weaker than other peoples cannons on their escorts.
When I play STFs, I sit there firing my beams at a Borg ship, unloading my Torps at them too, only to have a fellow escort kill the thing in seconds with their cannons. Granted, there are other factors to consider in this scenario - I run a 2 dual beams: 2 torps (fore) & 2 turrets (aft) setup and they probably run 3/4 cannon: 1/0 torps (fore) & 3 turrets (aft), and I'm armed with anti-Borg Phasers rather than their anti-Borg Anti-Proton beams, but even so the contrast between the beams and the cannons is evident and vast.
(I know people will be scrambling over themselves now, telling me what I should or shouldn't be armed with, but I'm afraid I am not interested - this post, nor this thread, is a "what do you think my ship loadout should be" topic, it is a "beams are far too weak compared to cannons" topic, to which my experience as an escort with beams verses any escort with cannons is relevant.)
Now, I'm not saying that beams nor cannons should be altered, especially not just to please my own opinions. I am merely confirming that beams are weaker than cannons, when fired from the same classification of ship.
Ironically enough, you didn't complicate anything. And I can respect a beamscort, mostly because you are using DBBs which are very powerful and quite effective (anyone who's been on the receiving end of a de-cloaking alpha strike BO3 from a mk XII purple DBB on a fleet defiant can attest to this).
But it just goes to show, ship class isn't an issue in this particular area, since even escorts that run beams get gimped hard (as is to be expected, since the problem being discussed here is not the ship, but the weapon). Now I was looking over Momaw's and Roach's posts, and I am inclined to throw in a comment.
Imagine an 8 BA cruiser with 8 beams that drain NO weapon power. I know I can hit for 1250 easily on my opening shots with my Oddy (without critting). By the end of my 7 beam salvo, that damage is usually down around 6-700 (depending on a few factors). Now imagine 1250 (base damage) x8 (for each BA) x4 (for each shot). That brings your total salvo to 40000. That's 8.5k DPS. Easily. That is the kind of firepower you would be looking at from CASUAL offensive cruisers if you completely removed the power drain from beams.
Now add in the ~20% bonus from EPtW3, and another 10% damage from using mk XII purple tactical consoles. Then add in another 30% for another tactical console (since the tac Oddy can only have 3 tac consoles, whereas purely tactical cruisers i.e. FAC can have 4), and then another 20% from random crits, and you will get 72000 as your total salvo.
72000 over the space of 4 seconds (~15k DPS once you put recharge time in). That's approaching maximized escort level damage. From a cruiser. With beams. And this is even WITHOUT APA3 and other major damage enhancing/boosting APs and abilities. This is just an engineering ability and skills alone. That would be the result of no power drain.
And now to put it into real perspective, take that 72000 and multiply it by 2.2 for APA3, APO1, GDF, FOMM3, and more random crits as a result of APA3 and APO1. 158400 (~35k DPS). In one salvo. Can you say... ouch?
Anyways, my figures might be whacked and probably slightly exaggerated, but you get the general idea. As much as I would be HIGHLY entertained to see this happen (and the summary MAJOR rage on the forums), that's broken, even to me, a very biased pro-cruiser player (pro being for, not pro as in good).
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I
Imagine an 8 BA cruiser with 8 beams that drain NO weapon power. I know I can hit for 1250 easily on my opening shots with my Oddy (without critting). By the end of my 7 beam salvo, that damage is usually down around 6-700 (depending on a few factors). Now imagine 1250 (base damage) x8 (for each BA) x4 (for each shot). That brings your total salvo to 40000. That's 8.5k DPS. Easily. That is the kind of firepower you would be looking at from CASUAL offensive cruisers if you completely removed the power drain from beams.
Actually I do know. Eight base Mk 0 beam arrays with no energy drain would deal 1,600 DPS. With current drain four base Mk 0 dual heavy cannons and three turrets deal 1,202 DPS. Combine that with the extra crit multiplier bonus of the DHCs, superior boff abilities, and ability to put the better procs on the turrets at point blank range the beams might do the same damage. The superior falloff though would give those beams advantage at long range engagements though.
Pretty mess up no?
Oh and just for reference 8.5k DPS is not that impressive now days. For kicks my tac fleet defiant kills ISE spheres as the spawn on the first side. Those things have 200k hull and not a single one lives long enough to even become 'active' and that is at 8km distance so I don't agro the gate.
I agree beams need to have a pass over to check balance.
Though maybe when they finish fixing FAW that'll go part the way to fixing things up.
I don't think power levels is the only answer though, cruisers can keep weapons power high through various abilities and doffs (DEM one for example).
I'd like to see BO changed to be something that drains ALL weapons power for say 3 seconds, and that it applies the BO effect to all arrays for 2 seconds after attacking before draining weapons power completely. That way cruisers can do a massive 8 beam broadside BO attack. Power drain resists like nadion wouldn't negate the 100% power loss. The 3 sec, 0 weapons power, is to deter escorts from being OP with it. Maybe there's another way of doing that better.
Then, I'd buff EPtW3 to give more power back, so something only cruisers typically have access to can be used to recover the huge power loss of the BO sooner. Perhaps also give only EPtW3 a bit of a weapons drain resist component too.
I also want to see DEM buffed big time, mainly DEM2 and importantly DEM3. Only DEM3 can be put on full on cruisers, yet it is such a rubbish ability. The weapons drain boff for DEM is a good addition, but I want to see DEM3 penetration damage doubled or tripled. My DEM3 damage only equates to 46 DPV! Considering the slower volley rate of beams I think that's kinda sad imo.
I agree with needing beam turrets. Why not? Would help those using DBB's have beam abilities that buff all weapons, not just their forward facing ones. Though FAW on beam turrets from an escort would be funny. Maybe FAW on beam turrets can be focussed into forward arcs or something.
Also, innate energy type procs (phaser disable, disruptor hull debuff etc), their proc severity needs to be doubled or at least increased on beams I think. They fire slower and need compensation for that fact by procing harder.
DEM does not list the proper damage that it truely deals unless you have phasers equipped. Or atleast it used to be that way. It seems to add roughly 10% ish more damage strait to hull and is effected by current weapon power when the shot is made.
DEM would be total trash even if it did increase your damage by 10%.
Why?
Because it's an ability with a gratuitously long cooldown that provides significantly less performance than Attack Pattern Beta 1, which slots lower and cycles faster. And you're not going to realistically kill anything with the increased bleedthrough which is the only thing it does better. There's no DOFF that reduces the cooldown time, there's only one DOFF that affects it at all and that's only for a fraction of its already-poor up time. You can't specialize in this to make it worthwhile. I cannot think of a practical situation in which a full blooded cruiser with the high level engineering to spare wouldn't be better served by Extend Shields or Aux2SIF.
My Engineer in a Steamrunner disagrees. He tanks tac cubes and still does more damage than a beam boat is capable of.
For that matter my Tac in a Fleet Defiant also disagrees, he can tank tac cubes for about a minute without a sweat and does more damage than my steamrunner and a beam boat combined! If said cube isn't dead after a minute well that just means I disengage for about ten seconds and groan about bad PuGs before going in to finish the job.
Because you see, the two most important parts about tanking in STO would be Emergency Power to Shields and a solid amount of shield power. Oh and Hazard Emitters. And the Yo-Yo manuever. That's about all one needs.
If you read my post I said an engineer in a cruiser, not an eng or a tac in escorts. I made no mention of escorts.
How about this, give beams more range then cannons. Like 2km extra
This will help against escort style targets that move out of range in less then a firing cycle and gives beams a distinct advantage over cannons without increasing their damage.
Then beams need a CSV like ability beside the total discoball that shots everything in range. Something more targetable that is not a single target beam overload.
The utility of beams is less then with cannons simple because you only have unbuffed fire, single target punch or shot everything that moves, all around you.
Well I tried really really hard to stay away from this thread but I have to put my 2 cents in lol.
Beams are for ranged attacks, Cannons are for close combat.
Beams at close range do next to no dps and the same can be said for Cannons at a distance.
The OP started this thread winging about beams in close combat, (main reason I didn't won't to post because the whole beams vs cannons often ends up as a flame fest).
I have ships with beams and they all stay over 5km from the target any closer and I loose to much dps only time I do get close if I'm chasing a team mate to heal them lol.
I also have ships with cannons that attack up close and personal and stay less than 5km to target if I get to far away from the target my cannons do minimal dps.
Don't believe me test it out for your selves, jump in your ship and start an attack run on a single target 10km away if your using cannons watch how your dps increases as you get closer and the opposite can be said for beams watch how your dps drops as you get closer.
Don't believe me test it out for your selves, jump in your ship and start an attack run on a single target 10km away if your using cannons watch how your dps increases as you get closer and the opposite can be said for beams watch how your dps drops as you get closer.
Strange then that my cruiser (Running BAs) does max damage hugging a target (admittedly base turn of 8deg/s helps but my point still stands)
Because it's an ability with a gratuitously long cooldown that provides significantly less performance than Attack Pattern Beta 1, which slots lower and cycles faster. And you're not going to realistically kill anything with the increased bleedthrough which is the only thing it does better. There's no DOFF that reduces the cooldown time, there's only one DOFF that affects it at all and that's only for a fraction of its already-poor up time. You can't specialize in this to make it worthwhile. I cannot think of a practical situation in which a full blooded cruiser with the high level engineering to spare wouldn't be better served by Extend Shields or Aux2SIF.
You mean serve you better with team buff/heal abilities
My tanking cruisers with Com and LTC engy boffs doesn't need the Com and one LTC slot for tank/heal abilities, I can quite happily tank anything (bar borg queen :} ) whilst having EWP3/DEM3 and EWP1/DEM2 available.
In my experience, just using beams it takes quite a while to whittle away an stf borgs shields. In PvP I've no hope of downing a shield facing one on one. Thats why I think direct to hull damage should be the cruisers speciality. They have 3 such abilites that do this, Aceton beam, eject warp and DEM.
Aceton beam is more about the enemies energy weapons debuff than it is the radiation DoT. EWP3 is the ONLY direct hull damage engy Com ability that does any sizable damage. DEM3 does nothing noticeable. No one uses it at the moment for a reason, it is currently rubbish.
I'd go as far to say that with my setup, Aceton 1 does more DoT per tick (80 to hull off the top of my head) than DEM does per pulse (~40 according to tool tips).
That's why I reckon DEM, mainly DEM3 a cruiser only ability needs a makeover. Get through the shields and apply some meaningful direct to hull dps. Become a proper cruiser dps ability.
I wouldn't call the active time bad. 30 seconds it remains active for, but yeah the cool down is bad at 1min 30s. Would be happier if it was just 1min flat.
I also wouldn't go comparing it to attack patterns, cruiser typically can't slot attack partterns anyway, DEM is the only Com lvl energy weapon ability engies have, it should at least be effective.
beams work fine for what they were intended for, however they could do with a retooling on their power drain per fire, its rather silly to hit spacebar and the lights on the bridge dim...
DEM would be total trash even if it did increase your damage by 10%.
Why?
Because it's an ability with a gratuitously long cooldown that provides significantly less performance than Attack Pattern Beta 1, which slots lower and cycles faster. And you're not going to realistically kill anything with the increased bleedthrough which is the only thing it does better. There's no DOFF that reduces the cooldown time, there's only one DOFF that affects it at all and that's only for a fraction of its already-poor up time. You can't specialize in this to make it worthwhile. I cannot think of a practical situation in which a full blooded cruiser with the high level engineering to spare wouldn't be better served by Extend Shields or Aux2SIF.
thats why you combine both. DEM+Beta+disruptor proc+harpeng/plasma dot. It hurts.
Once again the misconception that player versus player denotes a one versus one interaction is perpetuated. Successful PVP is always balanced around team interaction which leads to the second point.
Also perpetuated is the fallacy that every ship/character/weapon/skill must be able to perform every function of every other ship/character/weapon/skill in an equal or even roughly equal fashion. When differentiation is removed, choices no longer exist and tactics become unnecessary.
It doesn't take a team effort fo an escort to out gun a cruiser and take it out by itself. Why is it that the cruiser need team help but the escort don't?
Actually I'm beginning to wonder if beams are underpowered.
Or are turrets overpowered? I vote we remove turrets, or increase their power drain to 10 and cut their damage in half. This is half sarcastic.
Turrets? I think you mean cannons. Turrets are the weakest weapons in the game. I was in PVP and was escaping a bttle so i can write a bug report to the GM and some KDF player followed me to the end of the map with his tier 5 Vorcha. He was armed with all turrets. While I was buys writing the complaint letter, he was hammering away at my Galaxy Dreadnought. I didn't bother to move, attack him or heal myself. My shields were withstanding his onslaught without effort and my hull was healing itself faster than the bleed-through damage. I had no time to respond to him, I was just hoping he would get the message that i was not interseted in playing against him and he was not match for me. Get rid of turrets of do something with them so they are effective.
We are talking about Beams and cannons, not turrets.
What is the sense of equiping DHCs on a KDF battle cruiser if you don't have the turn rate to use them in PvP? Every escort will simply park in your back, where only the turrets tickle their shield, while the majority of firepower, the DHCs in the front, cannot unload their damage. Even normal cannons are useless, because they also don't fire backwards.
Sure, in PvE, the KDF battle cruisers are superior in damage compared with the Fed ones, because of cannon damage. In PvE you can even equip the BortasQ with DHC. PvP is a quite different thing.
In PvE, only if Fed cruiser using the Aux2Bat build, they can match the damage with beam arrays. However, for this they need to give up alot of tanking ability, while KDF battle cruiser can go heavy tank and do good damage.
Don't use turrets as your rear weapons. I learned this the hard way. Torpedos or all beams is the best you can do in rear. Unfortunately torpedo damdage is deminished by shields and beams don't drain shields as good to discourage escorts from parking on your rear.
If I might bring your attention to this, keep it clean though as the devs are officially reading it but we can have a good beam discussion there as even the PvPers have brought it up.
I don't think they are BS. My Fed cruiser uses 4 of them, granted I PVE solo most my gaming time. With that set up it can do damage from broadside. I focus all 4 on a target, drop speed down to a crawl, and just rain down on it. Soon as the shields drop, turn head on and fire torpedoes. Using this I blown up all kinds of ships. It all matters how your play style is. Also very handy on those pesky fighters and multiple smaller ships you fight. I use the "Fire at Will" on those to help take those out faster as well.
Now my KDF Battlecruiser is different. That one is packing DHCs and DBs in the front. So that ship is totally different on how to attack. That one you don't want it to be facing you. As it will literally eat ships of any size up. Even the Battleship ones, I call those easy targets.
Beams has their place in use, and different play styles. I don't have any problems with them.
PVE doesn't really show the true potential of your ship's capabilities. Most NPC's aren't buffed up like players when they fight you. Its always easier to drop NPC's shields faster than player because there is no buff running. NPC's rarely heal themselves, as well.
Well I tried really really hard to stay away from this thread but I have to put my 2 cents in lol.
Beams are for ranged attacks, Cannons are for close combat.
Beams at close range do next to no dps and the same can be said for Cannons at a distance.
The OP started this thread winging about beams in close combat, (main reason I didn't won't to post because the whole beams vs cannons often ends up as a flame fest).
I have ships with beams and they all stay over 5km from the target any closer and I loose to much dps only time I do get close if I'm chasing a team mate to heal them lol.
I also have ships with cannons that attack up close and personal and stay less than 5km to target if I get to far away from the target my cannons do minimal dps.
Don't believe me test it out for your selves, jump in your ship and start an attack run on a single target 10km away if your using cannons watch how your dps increases as you get closer and the opposite can be said for beams watch how your dps drops as you get closer.
No idea where you get this information from.
Cannons do more than beams inside 6-7km. Outside that, beams do more than cannons.
All energy weapons do more damage as range to target decreases. This is due to dropoff at range. Beams suffer slower rate of dropoff as range increases, hence the previous statement.
I've used cannon builds and beam builds. Currently using dual beam arrays. I do way more damage up close than far away.
So... I have no idea what beams you use that do less damage as you approach, but I wouldn't use them anymore if I were you.
One thing I could say is fix the power drain on beams and come up with a second version of FAW. The new version would rapid fire all facing beam arrays at your target instead of wasting DPS on other enemy flying objects. FAW as it is, only an anti fighter/mine ability and actually hitting your target 30% of the time. The only time it is effective against your target is when you are 1 on 1 and there are no other hostile objects within 10km.
Just like there are BOFF powers for Rapid cannon scatter fire for AOE damage on multiple targets and there is Rapip Cannon Fire fore direct damage on one target, there should be two BOFF powers for FAW, one FAW will rapid fire beams in all directions at every hostile target, and the other would rapid fire all facing beams diractly at one target.
my main charc flys a beam boat assult cruser as cannons just out be pointless as I can't keep the thinks facing in the right direction anyways..
with all eight firing it sometimes feels like I m doing nothing...its quite annoying as my eng charc has got the weopons skill quite high ( plan to fly other ship types with it) plus multiple consoles.
However on my other charc a level 21 tactical with escort out fitting with all heavy duals on the front different story.
Cannon Focused Charge: Basically Beam Overload for cannons. Combines all shots from one firing cycle into one large high damage shot. Drains weapon power. Level 1 starts at Lt, like all other cannon abilities.
Beam Focus Fire: Increases rate of fire of all beams on target for X sec. Basically Cannon Rapid Fire for beams.
Beam arrays do decent dmg, but what kills them is the power drain from using alot of them together and their slow fire rate. Any beam array fires a 4 shot cycle with the same 4 sec cooldown till next cycle, but during the 4 shot cycle they fire slowly and together. The major issue is their lack of fast cycling rates in comparisson to cannons, less dmg than cannons, and poor energy management vs cannons.
Also comparing FAW vs CRF the BA's take again a heavier hit to the wp by causing all the arrays to fire at once vs cannons faster recycle rates, killing the ba's dmg rate more than what little is lost from a crf attack. I could never understand why they designed BA's to fire a chain volley of attacks that would simply kill themselves and each others dmg rates by draining power so heavily. They would be better suited if they made them fire a simple 1-2 shot cycle per array this way they can recycle power more quickly for the next volley.
DBB's or beam&1/3 are also a joke as they get 1&1/3 the dmg rate of a single BA with almost 1/3 the FArc.
I agree. Beams should not be so sad in comparison that they do not appeal to the players in general.
This is something I agree wholly with, nothing should be useless; but I always wonder.... why don't people use DBBs? Even my ultra-space-whale-Vo'Quv uses DBBs to great effect in PvE. DBBs do considerably more damage while benefiting greatly from BO... all the while having a fire arc most cruisers can easily keep up with. DBBS in the front and turrets/KCB inteh back.
Unless people want to not turn or worry much about movement, in which case the standing still or ultra slow moving broadside would be the method of attack of choice.... but then to also want to do lots of DPS sounds kinda silly.
Comments
I agree. Beams should not be so sad in comparison that they do not appeal to the players in general. It also should not be so sad of a design of PvE play that they escorts can oneshot as easily as the NPCs. Blasters blasting for high damage is nothing new in gaming but usaully the game is designed so its not so onetime effective all the time.
Tanking should have a place in anygame as much as blasting and CC. Currently the fault woth STO is that only DPS is needed. STFs and the other endgame content should actually require a varied team skill effort.
R.I.P
I have something I think might complicate things a bit more for you all. Throughout this thread people have been saying over and over again that beams are too underpowered compared to cannons because cruisers armed with beams have a harder time dealing damage than escorts armed with cannons.
BUT, I would like to inject this into the arguement: I fly an escort WITH beams, and NO cannons. Because I am a Tac VA flying an Escort, it removes the "what ship I'm flying" and "what career officer I am" from the equation of "beams are weaker on a cruiser than cannons are on an escort". The fact remains that my beams on my escort are weaker than other peoples cannons on their escorts.
When I play STFs, I sit there firing my beams at a Borg ship, unloading my Torps at them too, only to have a fellow escort kill the thing in seconds with their cannons. Granted, there are other factors to consider in this scenario - I run a 2 dual beams: 2 torps (fore) & 2 turrets (aft) setup and they probably run 3/4 cannon: 1/0 torps (fore) & 3 turrets (aft), and I'm armed with anti-Borg Phasers rather than their anti-Borg Anti-Proton beams, but even so the contrast between the beams and the cannons is evident and vast.
(I know people will be scrambling over themselves now, telling me what I should or shouldn't be armed with, but I'm afraid I am not interested - this post, nor this thread, is a "what do you think my ship loadout should be" topic, it is a "beams are far too weak compared to cannons" topic, to which my experience as an escort with beams verses any escort with cannons is relevant.)
Now, I'm not saying that beams nor cannons should be altered, especially not just to please my own opinions. I am merely confirming that beams are weaker than cannons, when fired from the same classification of ship.
Ironically enough, you didn't complicate anything. And I can respect a beamscort, mostly because you are using DBBs which are very powerful and quite effective (anyone who's been on the receiving end of a de-cloaking alpha strike BO3 from a mk XII purple DBB on a fleet defiant can attest to this).
But it just goes to show, ship class isn't an issue in this particular area, since even escorts that run beams get gimped hard (as is to be expected, since the problem being discussed here is not the ship, but the weapon). Now I was looking over Momaw's and Roach's posts, and I am inclined to throw in a comment.
Imagine an 8 BA cruiser with 8 beams that drain NO weapon power. I know I can hit for 1250 easily on my opening shots with my Oddy (without critting). By the end of my 7 beam salvo, that damage is usually down around 6-700 (depending on a few factors). Now imagine 1250 (base damage) x8 (for each BA) x4 (for each shot). That brings your total salvo to 40000. That's 8.5k DPS. Easily. That is the kind of firepower you would be looking at from CASUAL offensive cruisers if you completely removed the power drain from beams.
Now add in the ~20% bonus from EPtW3, and another 10% damage from using mk XII purple tactical consoles. Then add in another 30% for another tactical console (since the tac Oddy can only have 3 tac consoles, whereas purely tactical cruisers i.e. FAC can have 4), and then another 20% from random crits, and you will get 72000 as your total salvo.
72000 over the space of 4 seconds (~15k DPS once you put recharge time in). That's approaching maximized escort level damage. From a cruiser. With beams. And this is even WITHOUT APA3 and other major damage enhancing/boosting APs and abilities. This is just an engineering ability and skills alone. That would be the result of no power drain.
And now to put it into real perspective, take that 72000 and multiply it by 2.2 for APA3, APO1, GDF, FOMM3, and more random crits as a result of APA3 and APO1. 158400 (~35k DPS). In one salvo. Can you say... ouch?
Anyways, my figures might be whacked and probably slightly exaggerated, but you get the general idea. As much as I would be HIGHLY entertained to see this happen (and the summary MAJOR rage on the forums), that's broken, even to me, a very biased pro-cruiser player (pro being for, not pro as in good).
Don't feel bad. I know all of mine got reset when I converted to PWE login.
Actually I do know. Eight base Mk 0 beam arrays with no energy drain would deal 1,600 DPS. With current drain four base Mk 0 dual heavy cannons and three turrets deal 1,202 DPS. Combine that with the extra crit multiplier bonus of the DHCs, superior boff abilities, and ability to put the better procs on the turrets at point blank range the beams might do the same damage. The superior falloff though would give those beams advantage at long range engagements though.
Pretty mess up no?
Oh and just for reference 8.5k DPS is not that impressive now days. For kicks my tac fleet defiant kills ISE spheres as the spawn on the first side. Those things have 200k hull and not a single one lives long enough to even become 'active' and that is at 8km distance so I don't agro the gate.
Though maybe when they finish fixing FAW that'll go part the way to fixing things up.
I don't think power levels is the only answer though, cruisers can keep weapons power high through various abilities and doffs (DEM one for example).
I'd like to see BO changed to be something that drains ALL weapons power for say 3 seconds, and that it applies the BO effect to all arrays for 2 seconds after attacking before draining weapons power completely. That way cruisers can do a massive 8 beam broadside BO attack. Power drain resists like nadion wouldn't negate the 100% power loss. The 3 sec, 0 weapons power, is to deter escorts from being OP with it. Maybe there's another way of doing that better.
Then, I'd buff EPtW3 to give more power back, so something only cruisers typically have access to can be used to recover the huge power loss of the BO sooner. Perhaps also give only EPtW3 a bit of a weapons drain resist component too.
I also want to see DEM buffed big time, mainly DEM2 and importantly DEM3. Only DEM3 can be put on full on cruisers, yet it is such a rubbish ability. The weapons drain boff for DEM is a good addition, but I want to see DEM3 penetration damage doubled or tripled. My DEM3 damage only equates to 46 DPV! Considering the slower volley rate of beams I think that's kinda sad imo.
I agree with needing beam turrets. Why not? Would help those using DBB's have beam abilities that buff all weapons, not just their forward facing ones. Though FAW on beam turrets from an escort would be funny. Maybe FAW on beam turrets can be focussed into forward arcs or something.
Also, innate energy type procs (phaser disable, disruptor hull debuff etc), their proc severity needs to be doubled or at least increased on beams I think. They fire slower and need compensation for that fact by procing harder.
Anyway, my 2c.
Why?
Because it's an ability with a gratuitously long cooldown that provides significantly less performance than Attack Pattern Beta 1, which slots lower and cycles faster. And you're not going to realistically kill anything with the increased bleedthrough which is the only thing it does better. There's no DOFF that reduces the cooldown time, there's only one DOFF that affects it at all and that's only for a fraction of its already-poor up time. You can't specialize in this to make it worthwhile. I cannot think of a practical situation in which a full blooded cruiser with the high level engineering to spare wouldn't be better served by Extend Shields or Aux2SIF.
If you read my post I said an engineer in a cruiser, not an eng or a tac in escorts. I made no mention of escorts.
This will help against escort style targets that move out of range in less then a firing cycle and gives beams a distinct advantage over cannons without increasing their damage.
Then beams need a CSV like ability beside the total discoball that shots everything in range. Something more targetable that is not a single target beam overload.
The utility of beams is less then with cannons simple because you only have unbuffed fire, single target punch or shot everything that moves, all around you.
Beams are for ranged attacks, Cannons are for close combat.
Beams at close range do next to no dps and the same can be said for Cannons at a distance.
The OP started this thread winging about beams in close combat, (main reason I didn't won't to post because the whole beams vs cannons often ends up as a flame fest).
I have ships with beams and they all stay over 5km from the target any closer and I loose to much dps only time I do get close if I'm chasing a team mate to heal them lol.
I also have ships with cannons that attack up close and personal and stay less than 5km to target if I get to far away from the target my cannons do minimal dps.
Don't believe me test it out for your selves, jump in your ship and start an attack run on a single target 10km away if your using cannons watch how your dps increases as you get closer and the opposite can be said for beams watch how your dps drops as you get closer.
Strange then that my cruiser (Running BAs) does max damage hugging a target (admittedly base turn of 8deg/s helps but my point still stands)
My tanking cruisers with Com and LTC engy boffs doesn't need the Com and one LTC slot for tank/heal abilities, I can quite happily tank anything (bar borg queen :} ) whilst having EWP3/DEM3 and EWP1/DEM2 available.
In my experience, just using beams it takes quite a while to whittle away an stf borgs shields. In PvP I've no hope of downing a shield facing one on one. Thats why I think direct to hull damage should be the cruisers speciality. They have 3 such abilites that do this, Aceton beam, eject warp and DEM.
Aceton beam is more about the enemies energy weapons debuff than it is the radiation DoT. EWP3 is the ONLY direct hull damage engy Com ability that does any sizable damage. DEM3 does nothing noticeable. No one uses it at the moment for a reason, it is currently rubbish.
I'd go as far to say that with my setup, Aceton 1 does more DoT per tick (80 to hull off the top of my head) than DEM does per pulse (~40 according to tool tips).
That's why I reckon DEM, mainly DEM3 a cruiser only ability needs a makeover. Get through the shields and apply some meaningful direct to hull dps. Become a proper cruiser dps ability.
I wouldn't call the active time bad. 30 seconds it remains active for, but yeah the cool down is bad at 1min 30s. Would be happier if it was just 1min flat.
I also wouldn't go comparing it to attack patterns, cruiser typically can't slot attack partterns anyway, DEM is the only Com lvl energy weapon ability engies have, it should at least be effective.
Agreed. Beams do more damage the closer you are. Though they peak further away, like 3-4km rather than cannons 2km or something.
thats why you combine both. DEM+Beta+disruptor proc+harpeng/plasma dot. It hurts.
It doesn't take a team effort fo an escort to out gun a cruiser and take it out by itself. Why is it that the cruiser need team help but the escort don't?
Turrets? I think you mean cannons. Turrets are the weakest weapons in the game. I was in PVP and was escaping a bttle so i can write a bug report to the GM and some KDF player followed me to the end of the map with his tier 5 Vorcha. He was armed with all turrets. While I was buys writing the complaint letter, he was hammering away at my Galaxy Dreadnought. I didn't bother to move, attack him or heal myself. My shields were withstanding his onslaught without effort and my hull was healing itself faster than the bleed-through damage. I had no time to respond to him, I was just hoping he would get the message that i was not interseted in playing against him and he was not match for me. Get rid of turrets of do something with them so they are effective.
We are talking about Beams and cannons, not turrets.
Don't use turrets as your rear weapons. I learned this the hard way. Torpedos or all beams is the best you can do in rear. Unfortunately torpedo damdage is deminished by shields and beams don't drain shields as good to discourage escorts from parking on your rear.
PVE doesn't really show the true potential of your ship's capabilities. Most NPC's aren't buffed up like players when they fight you. Its always easier to drop NPC's shields faster than player because there is no buff running. NPC's rarely heal themselves, as well.
No idea where you get this information from.
Cannons do more than beams inside 6-7km. Outside that, beams do more than cannons.
All energy weapons do more damage as range to target decreases. This is due to dropoff at range. Beams suffer slower rate of dropoff as range increases, hence the previous statement.
I've used cannon builds and beam builds. Currently using dual beam arrays. I do way more damage up close than far away.
So... I have no idea what beams you use that do less damage as you approach, but I wouldn't use them anymore if I were you.
U.S.S. Ultima, NCC-100101-X, Fleet Recon Science Vessel
U.S.S. Demi, NCC-100101-Z, Peregrine Fighter
U.S.S. Spaceball 1, NCC-123456, Tuffli Class Freighter
Glorious Melee Combat
Just like there are BOFF powers for Rapid cannon scatter fire for AOE damage on multiple targets and there is Rapip Cannon Fire fore direct damage on one target, there should be two BOFF powers for FAW, one FAW will rapid fire beams in all directions at every hostile target, and the other would rapid fire all facing beams diractly at one target.
my main charc flys a beam boat assult cruser as cannons just out be pointless as I can't keep the thinks facing in the right direction anyways..
with all eight firing it sometimes feels like I m doing nothing...its quite annoying as my eng charc has got the weopons skill quite high ( plan to fly other ship types with it) plus multiple consoles.
However on my other charc a level 21 tactical with escort out fitting with all heavy duals on the front different story.
Cannon Focused Charge: Basically Beam Overload for cannons. Combines all shots from one firing cycle into one large high damage shot. Drains weapon power. Level 1 starts at Lt, like all other cannon abilities.
Beam Focus Fire: Increases rate of fire of all beams on target for X sec. Basically Cannon Rapid Fire for beams.
U.S.S. Ultima, NCC-100101-X, Fleet Recon Science Vessel
U.S.S. Demi, NCC-100101-Z, Peregrine Fighter
U.S.S. Spaceball 1, NCC-123456, Tuffli Class Freighter
Glorious Melee Combat
Also comparing FAW vs CRF the BA's take again a heavier hit to the wp by causing all the arrays to fire at once vs cannons faster recycle rates, killing the ba's dmg rate more than what little is lost from a crf attack. I could never understand why they designed BA's to fire a chain volley of attacks that would simply kill themselves and each others dmg rates by draining power so heavily. They would be better suited if they made them fire a simple 1-2 shot cycle per array this way they can recycle power more quickly for the next volley.
DBB's or beam&1/3 are also a joke as they get 1&1/3 the dmg rate of a single BA with almost 1/3 the FArc.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
This is something I agree wholly with, nothing should be useless; but I always wonder.... why don't people use DBBs? Even my ultra-space-whale-Vo'Quv uses DBBs to great effect in PvE. DBBs do considerably more damage while benefiting greatly from BO... all the while having a fire arc most cruisers can easily keep up with. DBBS in the front and turrets/KCB inteh back.
Unless people want to not turn or worry much about movement, in which case the standing still or ultra slow moving broadside would be the method of attack of choice.... but then to also want to do lots of DPS sounds kinda silly.