It's a truism. You're acting like it's a fact that's being denied, when it's an INTENTIONAL DESIGN DECISION. It's not a bug to be fixed, it's on purpose. "Fixing" it would be deliberately imbalancing the game to make Cruisers better for all purposes than Escorts. What you should be asking for, instead, is for Escorts that are maximized for durability to be less durable, or Cruisers that are maximized for durability to be more durable.
Asking for Cruisers to do more damage is akin to asking that rock beat both paper and scissors, with no other changes to either paper or scissors. It doesn't matter what happened on screen, this is a GAME. It absolutely must have different design goals than a TV series, or it will completely fail as a game.
I have no doubt that was the plan (if rather bluntly put).
Two points for your consideration:
1) Image if you will there was a ship that didn't need a tank. Escort have 80% of a cruisers hull and shields. Ok, but the inverse isn't true. There are not so uncommon escort builds out there that can get by with 5% of that hull. Why?
Nothing survives long enough to be debuffed or in need of tanking. A escort can very readily be a Finger of God. There is little point to have much else, because with a escort nothing survives long enough to need anything else.
Image this ship can have a innate defense so high it doesn't need any other defensive abilities.
Say hello to your average escort.
2) Image if you will that your average escort player or borg elite can do so much damage that even with 80% shield resistance and 80% hull resistance, you don't live longer then 60 seconds, and/or don't do 10% of the damage of your average escort.
Say hello to your average cruiser or science ship.
There is a sliding scale that in a battle with each side having <x> time to live and need <y> time to kill, disable, or flee their opponent.
This scale vastly favors escort or escort like builds.
I think the biggest point everyone arguing doesn't see (or refuses to acknowledge) is that we all have more than one ship slot. Even the F2P'ers. If you think escorts are better than cruisers in STFs, while cruisers and science ships are better suited for solo missions, then by all means equip both and swap them out as needed. Problem solved.
Unlike other MMOGs, you are not tied to a particular ship type for the rest of your character's life. Although particular character types go well with some ship types (Tac in Escort Vs. Engie/Sci in Cruiser/Science), it doesn't influence the outcome as much as equipment and BOffs/DOffs do.
I have a Starfleet Engineer in a Breen ship. A Starfleet tactical in a escort. A starfleet Science in a Vesta with all the Vesta bundle pack consoles. No slow turn rate cruiser yet and don't know when I will get one because when I first started playing the game my first ever character a Engineer I chose a Galaxy as a free ship and after that experience I can say that a slow turn rate cruiser was no fun compared to any science ship or escort.
Starfleet cruisers need to have improved turn rate. Some new fun and useful Engineering bridge officer abilities so that cruisers are fun to fly and better would be another welcomed thing. I hate being in Elite missions that have multiple Starfleet cruisers in them because they take so much longer to complete then when their are more escorts or science ships in them.
Starfleet cruisers are the most boring and time consuming ship to use in the game.
I think the biggest point everyone arguing doesn't see (or refuses to acknowledge) is that we all have more than one ship slot. Even the F2P'ers. If you think escorts are better than cruisers in STFs, while cruisers and science ships are better suited for solo missions, then by all means equip both and swap them out as needed. Problem solved.
Unlike other MMOGs, you are not tied to a particular ship type for the rest of your character's life. Although particular character types go well with some ship types (Tac in Escort Vs. Engie/Sci in Cruiser/Science), it doesn't influence the outcome as much as equipment and BOffs/DOffs do.
If your doing anything other than PvP and your not in an escort or escort like ship you are spending more time to do the content.
In a game that currently revolves around grinding out ten forms of currency why would you subject yourself to that. Ever?
Do people even know there's an ability called "Auxiliary to Dampeners"?
Cruisers love it.
I will agree there should be more competetive engineering boff abilities, tho, instead of the just 3 or 4 abilities that are used at the moment.
Very nearly all Tac abilities are great at their thing, and Science has a mass of good abilities.
The problem with Cruisers aren't beam arrays - it's not the turn rate - no matter how much people whine:
It's the inferior Engineering BOff abilities that Cruisers get swamped with.
Yes, if you stick to purely canon, this makes little sense.
On screen, escorts like the Defiant seemed to have combat capabilities similar to a retrofitted Excelsior or an Intrepid class ship and certainly had less offensive power and defensive shielding than a Galaxy class ship. Similarly, there is no reason to believe that a Prometheus class ship would not have energy shielding equal to or superior to an Intrepid class ship. It was a slightly newer design and presumably was larger in size and had a much larger warp core (three warp cores actually).
But the reality is some concessions have to be made for gameplay's sake. If you wanted to stick to canon, everyone would end up flying a Prometheus, Soverign, Nebula, Galaxy, or one of the 25th century replacements for them (Vesta and Odyssey) because ships were, in canon, far superior to any others in firepower. I think Cryptic did a pretty good job figuring out how to balance the ship classes. The problem is, escorts have slowly become more and more over-powered compared to other classes. The other problem is in order to sell new ships, they have slowly crept up the power of them, so older purchases (like the Galaxy) are completely outclassed.
The best thing to do at this point is buff cruisers and science ships. Cruisers could be buffed by making inertia more meaningful. When a Galaxy gets a Defiant in its tractor beam, it should not be so easy to escape. Cruisers should get slightly better shields too.
Science, on the other hand, is a completely different story. The biggest problem with science ships is that science powers are broken. If a fully buffed energy drain or Tyken's rift could take away 50% or more of a cruisers power. . . If a fully buffed feedback pulse absorbed energy for five seconds and then returned 95% of it with 99% accuracy, science ships could hold their own against escorts by either draining their power or dealing it back to them.
Unfortunately, I think because most players are too impatient to learn how to use science skills, a lot of complaining has led to science power nerfing.
When is the last time a escort actually took on a escort role?
Traditionally a escort was never meant to be a stand alone ship or take on anything bigger then it outside a wolf-pack.
es?cort (esk?rt) - n.
1.
a. One or more persons accompanying another to guide, protect, or show honor.
b. A man who is the companion of a woman, especially on a social occasion.
c. A person, often a prostitute, who is hired to spend time with another as a companion.
2.
a. One or more vehicles accompanying another vehicle to guide, protect, or honor its passengers.
b. One or more warships or planes used to defend or protect other craft from enemy attack.
3. The state of being accompanied by a person or protective guard.
Edit: In STO, unless I'm mistaken, they've taken on the job of cruisers, destroyers, battleships, and sometime carriers all rolled into one.
If you want more dps for cruisers, then you have to severely shave hulls (at least by 1/3rd or by half if you want a significant buff) while decreasing the turnrate and shield modifiers. Deal? :P
All they need to do is balance weapon power usage vs weapon DPS, from this:
Type/Firing Arc/DPS/-x weapon power when firing other weapons
Turret/360/132/-8
Beam Array/250/168/-10
Single Cannon/180/202/-10
Dual Beam Bank/90/219/-10
Dual Cannons/45/244/-10
Dual Heavy Cannons/45/244(+crits)/-12
To this:
Type/Firing Arc/DPS/-x weapon power when firing other weapons
Turret/360/132/-4
Beam Array/250/168/-6
Single Cannon/180/202/-8
Dual Beam Bank/90/219/-9
Dual Cannons/45/244/-10
Dual Heavy Cannons/45/244(+crits)/-12
The escort crowd would still have the highest DPS in the game. The Cruiser and Science crowds would be able to sustain a lower, but constant, DPS without their weapons endlessly choking themselves on power.
In the current system, any weapon with a lower DPS than a Dual Cannon gets penalized twice for having a better firing arc: once by having a lower DPS AND once by having the same power usage as the Dual Cannon. Firing enough beams at the same time turns a lower DPS into an absolutely pitiful DPS (even at max power).
If you want more dps for cruisers, then you have to severely shave hulls (at least by 1/3rd or by half if you want a significant buff) while decreasing the turnrate and shield modifiers. Deal? :P
This gets the most ludicrous post in this thread award.
With a beam overload I average 10,000 damage on a single hit that could miss (an all or nothing attack). Then my remaining beams are less effective due to the drain and I have to wait a minimum of 15 seconds for beam overload to be ready again.
On my JHAS I can buff my forward cannons to over 3,000 DPS each for at least 10 seconds. After you take the slight drop on weapons power that firing causes you end up with over 80,000 damage. That's not including the turrets or any torps, either.
A fair compromise would be to double the firepower of cruisers and take an eighth of their hull. Anything less and you're showing yourself to be a selfish I-want-to-win-at-any-cost person who likes to take advantage of the adventurous people who persevere in trying to make something different.
If you want more dps for cruisers, then you have to severely shave hulls (at least by 1/3rd or by half if you want a significant buff) while decreasing the turnrate and shield modifiers. Deal? :P
I don't want to DPS as a direct action. I want to be able to put a escort and any one of my non-escort ships side by side and be able to ask "Why do I bother?" and actually have a good answer!
There is a sliding scale that in a battle with each side having <x> time to live and need <y> time to kill, disable, or flee their opponent.
This scale vastly favors escort or escort like builds.
A fair compromise would be to double the firepower of cruisers and take an eighth of their hull. Anything less and you're showing yourself to be a selfish I-want-to-win-at-any-cost person who likes to take advantage of the adventurous people who persevere in trying to make something different.
I have no interest in this. I have a sci, a tac, and... an eng. I enjoy playing everyone, when i have time for this. The eng is using a cruiser, and i have a lot of fun playing this guy. The proof of that is that he's T5 omega and rommie rep with all his gear.
So: stop this. Your post is defamatory. I like engs, cruisers, heal boats and the nice fireworks called "fire at will". I just know they are incredibly powerful tools as they are. You need to be willing to play a cruiser as a meatbag/support ship though.
If you like defamation, do you have ego troubles to be willing to be the super DPS hero in games? :rolleyes:
You see, such arguments are pointless, so please stick to facts when you want to quote me.
If you want more dps for cruisers, then you have to severely shave hulls (at least by 1/3rd or by half if you want a significant buff) while decreasing the turnrate and shield modifiers. Deal? :P
If you're willing to say the ridiculous then you must be prepared for others to do the same.
...I like engs, cruisers, heal boats and the nice fireworks called "fire at will". I just know they are incredibly powerful tools as they are. You need to be willing to play a cruiser as a meatbag/support ship though. ...
I'm butting in again, but I have two questions for you, because I'd love the theory a support ship to work in practice:
1) How do you make fire at will compare to even normal cannons and something like cannon rapid fire? My experience is that unless you happen to be in a rare place you only have one maybe two in the entire 10Km sphere of a beam boat's reach. Any more and it spreads the damage so ridiculous thin as to be worthless.
It's fine and nifty for taking out fighter, mines, or torpedoes, but if that what you use it for, there are better abilities. More reliable as well.
2) You can look me in the eye and say that a pure support ship has more affect on a team then just blowing a opponent out of the stars?
right i will admit i haven't read the books BUT just re-rewatched a couple of ds9 episode where they actually say the defient has the strongest weapons known to startfleet.
So using the bigger warp core argument . invalid as you specify the series.
If cruisers get more dps say 50, science will need a bit more dps/hull say 25 of each , and escorts would need 50 more hull to balance it all out .....ohh look back at step 1 with no rock paper scissors but rock rock rock........
If you think escorts are better than cruisers in STFs, while cruisers and science ships are better suited for solo missions, then by all means equip both and swap them out as needed. Problem solved.
I don't think anyone thinks cruisers and science ships are better suited for solo missions than escorts. Aside from a few hybrid ships (like the Breen ship and the Vesta class ships), cruisers and science vessels are of very little use in STO. Why mess around with a slow cruiser when an escort gets things done much more quickly? That's is why people keep asking for higher cruiser turnrates and increased beam array dps.
Really, the argument needs to be made instead that escorts are way, WAY too tanky.
That's pretty much it. Just look at the Jem'Hadar Bug. An Escort doesn't need all those engineering stations or that 11% more shield strength to tank some enemies.
It just needs speed, enhanced through attack pattern omega if possible, and Evasive Maneuvers for emergencies.
The rest is utility, science skills actually, of which most escorts have just as many as cruisers, namely Hazard Emitters and Polarize Hull.
The use of Aux to Battery even enables a permanent Emergency Power to Shields.
What's the advantage of a cruiser? Engineering team? Most players prefer to cycle Tactical Team, with good reason (Borg assimilate is reason enough). Transfer Shield Strength is a Science skill again..
Actually there aren't that many tank abilities in the 'tank' (engineering) department.
Yes, a cruiser can tank better, than an escort. But the difference is not as big as in the damage department.
So yes, cruisers shouldn't deal more dps, cruisers should be better at tanking. Escorts should be worse at tanking, or let's say, evading damage.
And PvE content should require a tank, instead of "Look out! it's that torpedo of.." *Boom*
Yeah, evading attacks you can't even tank actually favors the escorts and isn't a very good concept.
Last but not least it should be noted that min-maxing is quite rampant in STO and minimums and maximums are very far apart. This is no surprise if you look at all those huge modifiers.
Having such an enmormous span between min damage and max damage, as well as min tanking and max tanking (both repairing and avoiding) makes balancing very difficult.
And I'm pretty sure this reflects onto PvP and causes the problems there.
I'm butting in again, but I have two questions for you, because I'd love the theory a support ship to work in practice:
1) How do you make fire at will compare to even normal cannons and something like cannon rapid fire? My experience is that unless you happen to be in a rare place you only have one maybe two in the entire 10Km sphere of a beam boat's reach. Any more and it spreads the damage so ridiculous thin as to be worthless.
FAW isn't designed to deal a lot ot damage, it's design to draw fire on you. A lot of it if it's possible. Then your real job as eng can start.
2) You can look me in the eye and say that a pure support ship has more affect on a team then just blowing a opponent out of the stars?
Yes. Not all players are good. Not all players can tank an elite tac cube, or 6 elite tac cubes in hive onslaught elite. It's my favourite instance to play with my eng so far.
A heal boat is also extremely useful in CSE, where you can just take the aggro (cubes, negh'vars, raptors) to allow others to get at optimal fire range, get neg'vars on you and tank them all day long (very few escorts can do that), you will also need a heal boat in Starbase fleet defense, and you're also a very useful cruiser if you don't let tacs tanking donatra in KASE.
6 points in threat control; FAW to make this meaningful, many heal abilities, some good tanking ones, and you can have a lot of fun while being extremely useful in your team, as long as you stop farming infected space elite like mad. Keeping others safe or alive is also extremely important, as long as you stop playing easy content only.
FAW isn't designed to deal a lot ot damage, it's design to draw fire on you. A lot of it if it's possible. Then your real job as eng can start. ... Keeping others safe or alive is also extremely important
So goes the theory anyway.
In practice? Dead targets don't shoot back. Escorts really that much damage.
It's my original question? Why bother tank when you can remove the need to tank all together by just blowing something up first and faster.
Escorts really that much damage, and not uncommonly.
even in practice... but most of players fail in building their toons and cruisers.
It's my original question? Why bother tank when you can remove the need to tank all together by just blowing something up first and faster.
Escorts really that much damage, and not uncommonly.
have you ever tried to tank a tactical cube using an escort? What if you use CSV against several spheres?
I stopped using CSV because often cruisers do not tank or heal, when I play ISE if the tactical cube is attacking me I can stand just 2-3 seconds, I must start flying away, then turning back fire again and go away to regenerate my shield and hull... so I spend a lot of time healing or flying away, not firing.
The best stf I played I played with real tank/healer and real debuffer.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
One thing that I think could really change cruisers would be for them to have a built in improvement to beam weapons "Staggered Fire"; quite simply they would ensure that when firing multiple beam weapons that only one fires initially, followed by a second, and then third.
The result here is to balance power drain, and ensure that a cruiser deals constant damage, never really giving enemy shields a chance to recharge. They wouldn't do any extra damage; that's what the escorts are for, but they would guarantee that enemy shields are stripped and kept that way, giving torpedo boats and other burst-damage ships a chance to strike.
Currently no-one bothers trying to stagger their fire because it's a huge pain to do, but by letting cruisers do it automatically they shouldn't actually suffer as much as they currently do thanks to the power drain of a full broadside, and gives them a better capacity to do constant damage that only spikes if they have an asymmetric weapon layout (e.g - torpedo launchers, dual beam banks etc.).
I just used the tier 5 Ambassador class with Borg Mk XI set in a Elite STF and that extra turn rate made it much funner to fly then a Galaxy. Also a lt. commander science officer slot helped as well. Their needs to be more Starfleet cruisers similar to the Ambassador. Still wish their was more funner and better Engineering abilities.
Comments
I have no doubt that was the plan (if rather bluntly put).
Two points for your consideration:
1) Image if you will there was a ship that didn't need a tank. Escort have 80% of a cruisers hull and shields. Ok, but the inverse isn't true. There are not so uncommon escort builds out there that can get by with 5% of that hull. Why?
Nothing survives long enough to be debuffed or in need of tanking. A escort can very readily be a Finger of God. There is little point to have much else, because with a escort nothing survives long enough to need anything else.
Image this ship can have a innate defense so high it doesn't need any other defensive abilities.
Say hello to your average escort.
2) Image if you will that your average escort player or borg elite can do so much damage that even with 80% shield resistance and 80% hull resistance, you don't live longer then 60 seconds, and/or don't do 10% of the damage of your average escort.
Say hello to your average cruiser or science ship.
There is a sliding scale that in a battle with each side having <x> time to live and need <y> time to kill, disable, or flee their opponent.
This scale vastly favors escort or escort like builds.
Say hello to PvP.
Unlike other MMOGs, you are not tied to a particular ship type for the rest of your character's life. Although particular character types go well with some ship types (Tac in Escort Vs. Engie/Sci in Cruiser/Science), it doesn't influence the outcome as much as equipment and BOffs/DOffs do.
Starfleet cruisers need to have improved turn rate. Some new fun and useful Engineering bridge officer abilities so that cruisers are fun to fly and better would be another welcomed thing. I hate being in Elite missions that have multiple Starfleet cruisers in them because they take so much longer to complete then when their are more escorts or science ships in them.
Starfleet cruisers are the most boring and time consuming ship to use in the game.
If your doing anything other than PvP and your not in an escort or escort like ship you are spending more time to do the content.
In a game that currently revolves around grinding out ten forms of currency why would you subject yourself to that. Ever?
Cruisers love it.
I will agree there should be more competetive engineering boff abilities, tho, instead of the just 3 or 4 abilities that are used at the moment.
Very nearly all Tac abilities are great at their thing, and Science has a mass of good abilities.
The problem with Cruisers aren't beam arrays - it's not the turn rate - no matter how much people whine:
It's the inferior Engineering BOff abilities that Cruisers get swamped with.
He's dead, Jim.
On screen, escorts like the Defiant seemed to have combat capabilities similar to a retrofitted Excelsior or an Intrepid class ship and certainly had less offensive power and defensive shielding than a Galaxy class ship. Similarly, there is no reason to believe that a Prometheus class ship would not have energy shielding equal to or superior to an Intrepid class ship. It was a slightly newer design and presumably was larger in size and had a much larger warp core (three warp cores actually).
But the reality is some concessions have to be made for gameplay's sake. If you wanted to stick to canon, everyone would end up flying a Prometheus, Soverign, Nebula, Galaxy, or one of the 25th century replacements for them (Vesta and Odyssey) because ships were, in canon, far superior to any others in firepower. I think Cryptic did a pretty good job figuring out how to balance the ship classes. The problem is, escorts have slowly become more and more over-powered compared to other classes. The other problem is in order to sell new ships, they have slowly crept up the power of them, so older purchases (like the Galaxy) are completely outclassed.
The best thing to do at this point is buff cruisers and science ships. Cruisers could be buffed by making inertia more meaningful. When a Galaxy gets a Defiant in its tractor beam, it should not be so easy to escape. Cruisers should get slightly better shields too.
Science, on the other hand, is a completely different story. The biggest problem with science ships is that science powers are broken. If a fully buffed energy drain or Tyken's rift could take away 50% or more of a cruisers power. . . If a fully buffed feedback pulse absorbed energy for five seconds and then returned 95% of it with 99% accuracy, science ships could hold their own against escorts by either draining their power or dealing it back to them.
Unfortunately, I think because most players are too impatient to learn how to use science skills, a lot of complaining has led to science power nerfing.
When is the last time a escort actually took on a escort role?
Traditionally a escort was never meant to be a stand alone ship or take on anything bigger then it outside a wolf-pack.
es?cort (esk?rt) - n.
1.
a. One or more persons accompanying another to guide, protect, or show honor.
b. A man who is the companion of a woman, especially on a social occasion.
c. A person, often a prostitute, who is hired to spend time with another as a companion.
2.
a. One or more vehicles accompanying another vehicle to guide, protect, or honor its passengers.
b. One or more warships or planes used to defend or protect other craft from enemy attack.
3. The state of being accompanied by a person or protective guard.
Edit: In STO, unless I'm mistaken, they've taken on the job of cruisers, destroyers, battleships, and sometime carriers all rolled into one.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Type/Firing Arc/DPS/-x weapon power when firing other weapons
Turret/360/132/-8
Beam Array/250/168/-10
Single Cannon/180/202/-10
Dual Beam Bank/90/219/-10
Dual Cannons/45/244/-10
Dual Heavy Cannons/45/244(+crits)/-12
To this:
Type/Firing Arc/DPS/-x weapon power when firing other weapons
Turret/360/132/-4
Beam Array/250/168/-6
Single Cannon/180/202/-8
Dual Beam Bank/90/219/-9
Dual Cannons/45/244/-10
Dual Heavy Cannons/45/244(+crits)/-12
The escort crowd would still have the highest DPS in the game. The Cruiser and Science crowds would be able to sustain a lower, but constant, DPS without their weapons endlessly choking themselves on power.
In the current system, any weapon with a lower DPS than a Dual Cannon gets penalized twice for having a better firing arc: once by having a lower DPS AND once by having the same power usage as the Dual Cannon. Firing enough beams at the same time turns a lower DPS into an absolutely pitiful DPS (even at max power).
This gets the most ludicrous post in this thread award.
With a beam overload I average 10,000 damage on a single hit that could miss (an all or nothing attack). Then my remaining beams are less effective due to the drain and I have to wait a minimum of 15 seconds for beam overload to be ready again.
On my JHAS I can buff my forward cannons to over 3,000 DPS each for at least 10 seconds. After you take the slight drop on weapons power that firing causes you end up with over 80,000 damage. That's not including the turrets or any torps, either.
A fair compromise would be to double the firepower of cruisers and take an eighth of their hull. Anything less and you're showing yourself to be a selfish I-want-to-win-at-any-cost person who likes to take advantage of the adventurous people who persevere in trying to make something different.
I don't want to DPS as a direct action. I want to be able to put a escort and any one of my non-escort ships side by side and be able to ask "Why do I bother?" and actually have a good answer!
I have no interest in this. I have a sci, a tac, and... an eng. I enjoy playing everyone, when i have time for this. The eng is using a cruiser, and i have a lot of fun playing this guy. The proof of that is that he's T5 omega and rommie rep with all his gear.
So: stop this. Your post is defamatory. I like engs, cruisers, heal boats and the nice fireworks called "fire at will". I just know they are incredibly powerful tools as they are. You need to be willing to play a cruiser as a meatbag/support ship though.
If you like defamation, do you have ego troubles to be willing to be the super DPS hero in games? :rolleyes:
You see, such arguments are pointless, so please stick to facts when you want to quote me.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
If you're willing to say the ridiculous then you must be prepared for others to do the same.
I'm butting in again, but I have two questions for you, because I'd love the theory a support ship to work in practice:
1) How do you make fire at will compare to even normal cannons and something like cannon rapid fire? My experience is that unless you happen to be in a rare place you only have one maybe two in the entire 10Km sphere of a beam boat's reach. Any more and it spreads the damage so ridiculous thin as to be worthless.
It's fine and nifty for taking out fighter, mines, or torpedoes, but if that what you use it for, there are better abilities. More reliable as well.
2) You can look me in the eye and say that a pure support ship has more affect on a team then just blowing a opponent out of the stars?
So using the bigger warp core argument . invalid as you specify the series.
If cruisers get more dps say 50, science will need a bit more dps/hull say 25 of each , and escorts would need 50 more hull to balance it all out .....ohh look back at step 1 with no rock paper scissors but rock rock rock........
That's pretty much it. Just look at the Jem'Hadar Bug. An Escort doesn't need all those engineering stations or that 11% more shield strength to tank some enemies.
It just needs speed, enhanced through attack pattern omega if possible, and Evasive Maneuvers for emergencies.
The rest is utility, science skills actually, of which most escorts have just as many as cruisers, namely Hazard Emitters and Polarize Hull.
The use of Aux to Battery even enables a permanent Emergency Power to Shields.
What's the advantage of a cruiser? Engineering team? Most players prefer to cycle Tactical Team, with good reason (Borg assimilate is reason enough). Transfer Shield Strength is a Science skill again..
Actually there aren't that many tank abilities in the 'tank' (engineering) department.
Yes, a cruiser can tank better, than an escort. But the difference is not as big as in the damage department.
So yes, cruisers shouldn't deal more dps, cruisers should be better at tanking. Escorts should be worse at tanking, or let's say, evading damage.
And PvE content should require a tank, instead of "Look out! it's that torpedo of.." *Boom*
Yeah, evading attacks you can't even tank actually favors the escorts and isn't a very good concept.
Last but not least it should be noted that min-maxing is quite rampant in STO and minimums and maximums are very far apart. This is no surprise if you look at all those huge modifiers.
Having such an enmormous span between min damage and max damage, as well as min tanking and max tanking (both repairing and avoiding) makes balancing very difficult.
And I'm pretty sure this reflects onto PvP and causes the problems there.
FAW isn't designed to deal a lot ot damage, it's design to draw fire on you. A lot of it if it's possible. Then your real job as eng can start.
Yes. Not all players are good. Not all players can tank an elite tac cube, or 6 elite tac cubes in hive onslaught elite. It's my favourite instance to play with my eng so far.
A heal boat is also extremely useful in CSE, where you can just take the aggro (cubes, negh'vars, raptors) to allow others to get at optimal fire range, get neg'vars on you and tank them all day long (very few escorts can do that), you will also need a heal boat in Starbase fleet defense, and you're also a very useful cruiser if you don't let tacs tanking donatra in KASE.
6 points in threat control; FAW to make this meaningful, many heal abilities, some good tanking ones, and you can have a lot of fun while being extremely useful in your team, as long as you stop farming infected space elite like mad. Keeping others safe or alive is also extremely important, as long as you stop playing easy content only.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
So goes the theory anyway.
In practice? Dead targets don't shoot back. Escorts really that much damage.
It's my original question? Why bother tank when you can remove the need to tank all together by just blowing something up first and faster.
Escorts really that much damage, and not uncommonly.
even in practice... but most of players fail in building their toons and cruisers.
have you ever tried to tank a tactical cube using an escort? What if you use CSV against several spheres?
I stopped using CSV because often cruisers do not tank or heal, when I play ISE if the tactical cube is attacking me I can stand just 2-3 seconds, I must start flying away, then turning back fire again and go away to regenerate my shield and hull... so I spend a lot of time healing or flying away, not firing.
The best stf I played I played with real tank/healer and real debuffer.
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
The result here is to balance power drain, and ensure that a cruiser deals constant damage, never really giving enemy shields a chance to recharge. They wouldn't do any extra damage; that's what the escorts are for, but they would guarantee that enemy shields are stripped and kept that way, giving torpedo boats and other burst-damage ships a chance to strike.
Currently no-one bothers trying to stagger their fire because it's a huge pain to do, but by letting cruisers do it automatically they shouldn't actually suffer as much as they currently do thanks to the power drain of a full broadside, and gives them a better capacity to do constant damage that only spikes if they have an asymmetric weapon layout (e.g - torpedo launchers, dual beam banks etc.).
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates