Any reducing effectivness of tac captains will ruin my favorite class and ruin the fun for my game. I play other captains and they have their abilities to offset its dps.
If anything its sci captains abilities that needs to be changed around. Subnuc is far too powerful, it should be reduced in effectiveness, and other sci captain powers boosted. Sci captain should have an ability that adds some buffs to sci skills so sci captains will actually be able to use sci better then other classes.
Eng is mostly fine but maybe MW should have its cooldown lowered slightly.
Any reducing effectivness of tac captains will ruin my favorite class and ruin the fun for my game. I play other captains and they have their abilities to offset its dps.
If by effectiveness you mean the ability to sit, in the weakest shield/hull ship, in front of a tac cube and blow it up just by clicking three things then yes. You will and should be reduced in effectiveness. To the point where you actually have to USE your speed and turn rate as part of your combat routine.
If anything its sci captains abilities that needs to be changed around. Subnuc is far too powerful, it should be reduced in effectiveness, and other sci captain powers boosted. Sci captain should have an ability that adds some buffs to sci skills so sci captains will actually be able to use sci better then other classes.
Eng is mostly fine but maybe MW should have its cooldown lowered slightly.
If by effectiveness you mean the ability to sit, in the weakest shield/hull ship, in front of a tac cube and blow it up just by clicking three things then yes. You will and should be reduced in effectiveness. To the point where you actually have to USE your speed and turn rate as part of your combat routine.
I cant do that in my Tac, so I assume Im and other like are exempt from the nerfing? I mean I can almost get a tac Cube solo but I can kill regular cubes fairly easy.
I do use my speed and turn rate to get behind targets and its frowned upon it seems.
Nerfing tacs is not the answer. Buffing Sci, beam arrays, adding new BOff abilities, etc. Those lead to a balanced play instead of nerfing.
If by effectiveness you mean the ability to sit, in the weakest shield/hull ship, in front of a tac cube and blow it up just by clicking three things then yes. You will and should be reduced in effectiveness. To the point where you actually have to USE your speed and turn rate as part of your combat routine.
You obviously were not around pre-F2P. :P
I was off and on at times before then but remember there were sci captain nerfs yes. Even with that its still easy for sci to shut tacs down on space and ground. Tac captain doesnt need nerf. Its sci that needs to be balanced by toning subnuc down in pvp and boosting all their other captain abilities and adding sci ability buff so their other abilities besides subnuc are more effective in pvp and pve.
And while it is possible for a tac in an escort to tank a tac cube on elite you cant just sit there most of the time. Also most tac escorts I see in elite can't do this, I can, and I'm sure you probably can, but it is a minority of tac escorts that do this. All this mean is boss enemies like cubes need an additional ability to make the escort rely on team to survive, reduce its cooldown on tractor beam, or give the tac cube grav pulse or something.
Still a blitz-speed mass of spam-clicking and very little if any tactics in gameplay. The problem *is* the boosts that are given in the ranking up process and the skill boxes (primarily tac captain boxes since the other 2 career ones are already nerfed into uselessness).
Why do you think the AI NPC's have moronic amounts of hull hitpoints and shoot weapons that hit for insane damage at times? Its because they were upped and upped and upped to match player boosts. Pre-F2P a single regular cube was a challenge for a whole group of people simply because they did not have so much boosts available to them and the AI was, back then, using a mix of tactical, science and engineering buffs/debuffs/attacks that made it really dangerous.
For example they used to fire the shield draining attack. Back then it would literally shut your shields off if you didn't clean it out of your ship fast enough. It would use torpedo barrages after it tractored you. It would use the kinetic beam when your shields were low/down. AI back then was pretty darn smart...or the entire mechanics/combat pace permitted its limited capability to make it seem smart. I think the latter. Now it too just has to spam like mad, it too has had all its sci abilities nerfed to hell (shield disruptor? LOL it does nothing now) and it too has had its tac abilities as the only things left that it can use.. so it spams them.
The changes im asking for is not a tac nerf. Its a global return to pre-f2p combat pace. One where the escort ship and the tactical captain class returns to its intended role as heavy damage, fast & maneuverable strike ships...in an environment where their speed and turn rate is impressively better than all the other ships.
Okay...maybe I am WAY off base here...some observations...one caveat - perhaps I am just misunderstanding the argument.
First, I think your argument is flawed in regards to "tac captains". The Tactical class of character is not what I think you are talking about...I think you are pointing to the Tactical class of SHIPS -- those vessels which have Commander and LTC Tactical BOFF slots as well as the tactical bridge officer skill set...but you have merged/mixed the two issues together...when in fact they are separate problem sets that likely need to be addressed individually.
In regards to tactical vessles, the truth is that an engineer or a science officer can pilot these vessels as well -- and probably be nearly as effective as a Tac officer in one with the right set up. Engineers would make a Tac vessel more survivable in combat...Sci officers would provide debuffs and holds, etc. A prime example of this is the Klingon Bird of Prey class of vessels -- many Sci captains on the Klingon side pilot these vessels with an incredible degree of success.
Now...it is possible that what you are actually talking about are bridge officer skills -- tac, sci, and eng. Maybe that should be the thrust of your argument. In that sense, I would agree with you to some extent. Sci bridge officer abilities have been nerfed repeatedly...and yes, I have played the game since Beta...and I remember how effective Viral Matrix USED to be....now nobody uses it.
In any case, your argument jumps around from ship design to skill sets...probably need to clarify a bit.
My own position is -- as has been stated in this thread at an earlier point -- sci and engineer bridge officer abilities should be buffed to be on par with tac damage dealing capabilities-- that makes sense to me...and I also think that they need to maybe relook some aspects of ship design as well...but to be honest, it is far too late to make sweeping changes in that respect...although Cryptic is capable of doing the right thing with future vessel designs moving forward...
We dont need spiteful nerfing of ships just because one person has a beef against the other.
What we do need is greater modification options of ships so if you are a cruiser jock you have greater flexibility to put a lot more power into weapons or turn rates if you wish.
We need more missons where you have to employ certain abilities to proceed further into the game not just pew bang pew.
A friend of mine made a cruiser tank. Just through clever boffs training and consoles he made a tank that was virtually invincible. I put my best tac against to to test it for him. A defiant retrofit with all MK XII anti P's I couldn't touch him his shields stayed up and what bleedthrough damage was sorted almost immediately. In PvP i could barely scratch some of the cruisers us tacs had to go 3-1 against cruisers to kil them.
Complain at us tac boys for being overpowered, cruiser jocks are too well protected.
Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey flings Feathered Monkey poo...
Nerfing tacs is not the answer. Buffing Sci, beam arrays, adding new BOff abilities, etc. Those lead to a balanced play instead of nerfing.
This^ I also think we need to bring all EPtX skills up to the standard of EPtS thus meaning two cruisers will be less likely to orbit eachother for hours only hurting eachother evry 15/30 seconds
The only thing I would ask for with regard to a tac nerf is enough reduction in escort tanking (still looking at the borg set and other insta-heal procs) that allow the yoyo technique to be a successful one.
The main problems with buffing sci though are AP:A and GDF, which (having checked the tooltip) I know buff all damage which would include exotic so that currently isn't a fix to science so we need to limit non-team tac buffs to energy and kinetic damage only and then make all sci damage exotic with a good buff to EVERYTHING science based.
First, I think your argument is flawed in regards to "tac captains". The Tactical class of character is not what I think you are talking about...I think you are pointing to the Tactical class of SHIPS...
The issue comes from two places: The skill-set bonuses from the player's skill base (which tactical has been super-boosted since F2P) and tactical captain's innate atk pattern alpha/go down fighting abilities boosting non-weapon damage sources (aka gravity well).
The ships themselves are not an issue. There is only one issue with a boff ability Atk Omega due to its all-in-one absurd bonuses.
I mention escorts in my examples because they are the poster child of how the stat boosts throw gameplay, tactical play and ship class roles/weaknesses out of whack.
In regards to tactical vessles, the truth is that an engineer or a science officer can pilot these vessels as well -- and probably be nearly as effective as a Tac officer in one with the right set up. Engineers would make a Tac vessel more survivable in combat...Sci officers would provide debuffs and holds, etc. A prime example of this is the Klingon Bird of Prey class of vessels -- many Sci captains on the Klingon side pilot these vessels with an incredible degree of success.
Captain career type abilities are independent of ship type. When you think about it, the four 'big' abilities each captain has are:
Tactical:
3 huge damage boosts (Atk Alpha, Go down Fighting, fire on my mark)
1 half-timer ability (Tactical Initiative)
Engineer:
1 power-boost : EPS power transfer
1 power-resist : Nadion inversion
1 super-heal : Miracle Worker
1 damage resist: Rotate Shield Frequency
Now, when you have a tac captain in any ship type, his triple damage boosts and half timer ability make any ship, even if doesnt use weapons to deal damage, outperform the sci/engineer in their own ships. Tanking? Tanking is a function of boff abilities and captain skill set.... which the tac captain, thanks to his really dumbed down point requirement for weapons, has full access to tanking abilities. Half timer ability is insanely powerful tool when tanking as well...and the best way to reduce incoming damage when tanking is to remove the damage source..triple dmg boost say HI!
Put an engineer or sci on their own ships or into other class ships and their performance remains mediocerly low in comparison. A sci captain in a bird of prey has the unique option of being full-station sci captain...which is sadly the only way to DO science due to the fact that sci abilities and skills are quite spread out (compared to energy weapons/torpedos ..2 categories for tacs vs 6+ for sci's). Even then the sci-bops are sort of a wasted slot considering if he had been a tac-bop his dps would outperform the sci abilities in terms of benefit to the team.
Now...it is possible that what you are actually talking about are bridge officer skills -- tac, sci, and eng. Maybe that should be the thrust of your argument. In that sense, I would agree with you to some extent. Sci bridge officer abilities have been nerfed repeatedly...and yes, I have played the game since Beta...and I remember how effective Viral Matrix USED to be....now nobody uses it.
The reason why it sucks now is because the stats that govern it are too low. The sci stats have been globally reduced in effectiveness ..its not the boff ability thats nerfed, its the stat it works upon.
In any case, your argument jumps around from ship design to skill sets...probably need to clarify a bit.
The argument is threefold:
1- Stat-boosts from ranking up and skill point boxes need to be removed and replaced. See my earlier long post for this.
2- Tactical skill boxes were simplified and dumbed down to the point where tac captains receive the full benefit of full weapon boosts and still have points to spend on full tanking abilities. Engineers and Sci ships that go for tanking and/or science cannot take full weapon points and have enough points left over to make their tank/sci builds effective.
3- Tac captain innate abilities (atk alpha,etc) boosts should not work with non-weapon abilities (aka grav well)
Game is too fast, too arcade-click. No tactics, no trek gameplay. This is caused by #1-3.
My own position is -- as has been stated in this thread at an earlier point -- sci and engineer bridge officer abilities should be buffed to be on par with tac damage dealing capabilities-- that makes sense to me...and I also think that they need to maybe relook some aspects of ship design as well...but to be honest, it is far too late to make sweeping changes in that respect...although Cryptic is capable of doing the right thing with future vessel designs moving forward...
By doing that you start a chain reaction that has been happening since F2P: The game becomes more arcadish, the improved healing/CC abilities requires the AI to be tweaked and boosted...which then makes it a need to boost player ship's damage which turns into tactical boosts... and the chain repeates itself. The end result is the game turning into a brainless stat/dmg ability stacking frenzy and combat ending as quickly as it started.
Heck, it used to take us MINUTES to bring down a borg cube. Now I can kill one in one pass.
We dont need spiteful nerfing of ships just because one person has a beef against the other.
What we do need is greater modification options of ships so if you are a cruiser jock you have greater flexibility to put a lot more power into weapons or turn rates if you wish.
We need more missons where you have to employ certain abilities to proceed further into the game not just pew bang pew.
A friend of mine made a cruiser tank. Just through clever boffs training and consoles he made a tank that was virtually invincible. I put my best tac against to to test it for him. A defiant retrofit with all MK XII anti P's I couldn't touch him his shields stayed up and what bleedthrough damage was sorted almost immediately. In PvP i could barely scratch some of the cruisers us tacs had to go 3-1 against cruisers to kil them.
Complain at us tac boys for being overpowered, cruiser jocks are too well protected.
I have a ridiculous high tac dps character and my engineer captain in a carrier is also practically unkillable. It can tank the gate, tac cube and all spheres in infected elite nonstop unless a supertorpedo (500k dmg? the hell?) pops it.
So please understand that when I ask the entire thing to be brought back to balance I don't say it from a tac-hating point of view.
Cryptic has hinted the next big patch will include a new element to the game.. a warp core mechanic function. I would like to hope it will help some but since I know the game is all about monetizing and improving DPS/silly click gameplay chances are it will simply be an add-on to the 'required' list of things to continue boosting DPS and healing abilities only.
There's an old saying that applies to game design and it applies to STO particularly:
I haven't bothered to read this thread so take my comments with a gran of salt if you wish.
Tac/Escort combos are designed to be high DPS and punch quick and hard. Just because a Tac can get a quick kill though doesn't mean that Engineers or Science captains aren't great alternatives. You simply just need to figure out a better way to utilize them in their roll. I have a Sci/Vesta combo that may have some weaknesses but it can dish out some nice DPS also. In one on one or teamed PvP, it's more than adequate for the job. Againt the uber whiners that scream for a nerf on anything that they die by to their pocket Dev's... Well, there's your problem!
Reduce the effectiveness of the Tactical Team ability. Currently it's better at protecting your ship than Emergency Power to Shields, plus it clears boarders, tactical debuffs and gives a damage boost that escorts do not need. This ability should actively leach hit-points from other shield facings, giving escorts a bit more time on target but leaving them vulnerable if surrounded.
There was a lot of poorly thought out ideas in this post, with one or two decent ones that would eed a lot of fleshing out but I want to comment on this.
Why do people love to harp on Tactical Team? Its benefits are known by all, and USED by all. My engi cruiser happily uses TT to boost its defences as well as its damage, if anything engi team and sci team need to be buffed to provide compelling benefits.
Is the TT hate a byproduct of players with little experience and lots of anger lashing out at anything tac? Do people forget that in most cases escorts only have one or two more tac boff powers than most ships (what? you don't fly a regent with 4 tac boff powers??!! SHAME ON YOUUUUUU!!!!)?
Yeah, tactical captains just do too much damage in PVP (intended?), and this is coming from someone who has a Klingon tactical officer. As far as what to do to balance it, I have no idea.
Tactical officers and escorts do more damage because that is there role.
i last played april to may 2010 and i remember the whining
the whining was't about how tac's could nearly one shot you. no no no....you see even though then - as now - 80%+ of the pbase was a tac captain, the whines were entirely about subnuc and feedback pulse.
there were threads and video goats of insta-popping fed cruisers by bop's, but that ttk isn't what was addressed.
i was sci back then because nobody played them to begin with. when i hit 45 i was beating off tells to do the cure and infected the second i logged on. nobody played sci except the klinks, and that was because they could get subnuc, photonic fleet and outfit their bop with all tac slots if they wanted. i was a heal/expose bot on the stf's, and easy target in pvp when sensor scan was down.
what was nerfed first and hard? science abilities.
i lost my faith in the game almost overnight, because dhc's were not touched. they addressed ability stacking a teeny, tiny bit - but ability stacking is still the norm in this game.
i'm back now. playing an engineer because i refuse to be mainstream red shirt and i wanted easy-mode ground combat and i thought - when i came back - that escorts were still paper thin hull. then as i got near 50 i started to check something other than the 'cruisers' box in the ship shop and couldn't believe what i was seeing...40k+ hull escorts??? with 13+ turn rate?
still refusing to be a red shirt, i used my tax refund to buy a jem'hadar dreadnought. however i'm using BEAMS becaue it turns slightly slower than the assault cruiser refit.
i'm rambling. too many 24 hour trek a thons and i'm way too old for that kind of stuff now. however i dont want to see tac's nerfed per se...i want to see beams become viable.
Tactical officers and escorts do more damage because that is there role.
which was fine when said escorts - the kind who's every boff station is dedicated to some form of +dmg and not any defense - could be shut down by a sci player or outtanked by a defense-laden engineer in a cruiser
Tactical officers and escorts do more damage because that is there role.
Correction: Their role is focused spike damage.
With the current system however, they don't need to focus since their damage output is not spike..its permanently extremely high. Hence why you can just sit in an escort in front of a tac cube and pop it while tanking the damage it shoots back.
IMHO, a part of the problem is that escorts have too many hit points. No escort should be able to sit and tank a full broadside from a cruiser and barely be scratched. Escorts should have hulls barely higher than that of the BOPs. IMHO, science vessels should have the hulls that some of these "escorts" have now. Cause as it stands now, you can have escorts that have just ridiculous hull strength.
Does anyone remember what happened in the DS9 Episode "Valiant?" The one with the Defiant Class full of Red Squad Cadets? What happened when they charged that Jem'Hadar Dreadnought head on? That's right! They got obliterated. Now, from a STO point of view, the equivalent of that would be an escort charging a cruiser from the side. At least, that's what it should be. Escorts should be opportunists. They wait, and watch, and when they see an opportunity they run it and they take advantage of that opportunity. The moment they take lots of fire is the moment the should be running away (which is sadly not the case now.)
Another example: Remember what happened to the Enterprise at the end of the JJ Abrams Star Trek film? It got caught in the pull of a Black Hole (Gravity well 4, anyone? XP) Enterprise put FULL POWER to engines, and it still couldn't get out. How did they get out? The dumped the water canisters and blew them up to push them out. Now if a cruiser such as the Enterprise couldn't get out of something similar to a gravity well by putting full power to the engines, then why the hell are escorts allowed/able to do it? All they need to do now is hit Attack Patter Omega, or Evasive Maneuvers and they can get out. What it should be is that if an escort gets caught in a gravity well, they should be stuck UNLESS they use an ability such as Polarize Hull or maybe even the Subspace Field Modulator. The same rule would apply to everyone.
Now, on the subject of Tacs being too powerful, I believe there is a simple solution (and this is just character wise, not ship wise): Buff the Engi Powers and the Sci powers so that they are actually useful. An example? Look at Gravity well right now. It sucks. It's almost useless. Make it do what I suggested above, and that would make that power much more useful. Sure, most of the escort captains would cry "NERF IT! IT'S OP!!!!!!1!!" but that would be because they don't want to have something that could possibly give them a challenge (no offense, but some of the most arrogant people in this game are PVPer escort captains. ESPECIALLY TAC ESCORTS.)
Anyways, just MHO.
"Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion."
Elim Garak
IMHO, a part of the problem is that escorts have too many hit points. No escort should be able to sit and tank a full broadside from a cruiser and barely be scratched. Escorts should have hulls barely higher than that of the BOPs. IMHO, science vessels should have the hulls that some of these "escorts" have now. Cause as it stands now, you can have escorts that have just ridiculous hull strength.
Thats because federation escorts except for defiant don't have cloak. Their survivability does not come from the ship hull rating itself, it comes from the fact that despite their Lt level healing abilities, the escort captains, when tactical capts, have the skill points to max out the armor/shield/regen/resist abilities under engineering section. Pre-F2P they did not have this thus escorts had crunchy hulls.
Does anyone remember what happened in the DS9 Episode "Valiant?" The one with the Defiant Class full of Red Squad Cadets? What happened when they charged that Jem'Hadar Dreadnought head on? That's right! They got obliterated. Now, from a STO point of view, the equivalent of that would be an escort charging a cruiser from the side. At least, that's what it should be. Escorts should be opportunists. They wait, and watch, and when they see an opportunity they run it and they take advantage of that opportunity. The moment they take lots of fire is the moment the should be running away (which is sadly not the case now.)
Thats how they were Pre-F2P and its what I'd like to see them return to.
Another example: Remember what happened to the Enterprise at the end of the JJ Abrams Star Trek film? It got caught in the pull of a Black Hole (Gravity well 4, anyone? XP) Enterprise put FULL POWER to engines, and it still couldn't get out. How did they get out? The dumped the water canisters and blew them up to push them out. Now if a cruiser such as the Enterprise couldn't get out of something similar to a gravity well by putting full power to the engines, then why the hell are escorts allowed/able to do it? All they need to do now is hit Attack Patter Omega, or Evasive Maneuvers and they can get out. What it should be is that if an escort gets caught in a gravity well, they should be stuck UNLESS they use an ability such as Polarize Hull or maybe even the Subspace Field Modulator. The same rule would apply to everyone.
Again, this is how it was pre-F2P.
Now, on the subject of Tacs being too powerful, I believe there is a simple solution (and this is just character wise, not ship wise): Buff the Engi Powers and the Sci powers so that they are actually useful. An example? Look at Gravity well right now. It sucks. It's almost useless. Make it do what I suggested above, and that would make that power much more useful. Sure, most of the escort captains would cry "NERF IT! IT'S OP!!!!!!1!!" but that would be because they don't want to have something that could possibly give them a challenge (no offense, but some of the most arrogant people in this game are PVPer escort captains. ESPECIALLY TAC ESCORTS.)
Problem: Grav well damage IS boosted significantly by tac captain's dmg boosting abilities. A tac captain in a science ship will put a sci captain to shame when using the same gravity well ability.
Another problem: Buffing sci and engineer = buffing heals too. This will lead to AI and player weapon damage being buffed as well to compensate until we end up with the current TRIBBLE all over again.
The tractor ability of the gravity well is pathetic because graviton stat skill is near zero effect.
i think sci/eng powers need buffing my kdf tac powers buff me a hell of a lot more. i have a eng n 2 sci cos i love sci powers but its grtting to the point were i dont play them any way as much my tac cos it does not matter if i respec i just cant get my other toons to perform half as well.
Something else to point out. My Atrox can tank. If I put every ounce of power and ability into it I can tank. Given support from two other team mates I can even tank two or maybe three escorts at once.
...
...Of course that's all my self and my team can do against two or three escorts, tank and purely that. Offensive power goes bye-bye if you do that. It takes too much power and focus to keep from being burst damaged from 100% to 0% in under 2 seconds.
Which wouldn't be a issue if tactical roles didn't come so close to a other roles in health, shields, or defenses. To the point you need what meager offensive power a cruiser or science ship does have.
So ... That sets up a scenario where half the team can do nothing but defense. When the opposing team can just wait on a subnucleonic beam, or is still has free run of the field unopposed. Do I need to draw a map why that is bad?
Yes, I'll tell you flat out: I am bitter about it.
So ... I have to ask people saying they can tank with their cruisers: Is being boxed into a corner enough?
Escorts were supposed to make use of speed tanking (+def) from their much higher speed and abilities (aka atk omega) to get in, punch and get out. If they stayed too long under return fire they'd get smashed.
But, as you point out, with the massive increase in healing ability and hull (the result of tac captains having not to spend too many points to get max weapon ability and can spend on max tanking) makes this moot.
Problem: Grav well damage IS boosted significantly by tac captain's dmg boosting abilities. A tac captain in a science ship will put a sci captain to shame when using the same gravity well ability.
Another problem: Buffing sci and engineer = buffing heals too. This will lead to AI and player weapon damage being buffed as well to compensate until we end up with the current TRIBBLE all over again.
The tractor ability of the gravity well is pathetic because graviton stat skill is near zero effect.
I was just using gravity well for an example, but now that you bring that up.....
I call BS on that. Science should affect Science. If I have my Science character specc'ed up to do damage with something like Gravity well, then I should do more damage with my gravity well than any Tactical officer. Because, you know.... Tactical=Cannons and torps, right? and Science=Gravity well and tractor beams, right? Logically, the Science officer should ALWAYS do better with Gravity well than a Tactical officer would. Cause you know... that would make sense.
EDIT: Look, I respect the fact that STO is so open with it's skill trees. You're not confined in one of the three nicely arranged boxes. You can choose what to do with your skills, and I like having that freedom. But the fact remains that your profession should make it so that if I'm a Science officer and I cast Gravity well, it will be far more effective than a Tactical officer who casts it. It should matter, because if it doesn't you have what you have now.
"Correction. Humans have rules in war. Rules that make victory a little harder to achieve, in my opinion."
Elim Garak
Tactical officers and escorts do more damage because that is there role.
Funny how that fact is overlooked and the general idea is to weaken them to make the others look better.
Very Federation thought process though, to weaken the strong to empower the weak, and is one odder things about fed philosphy that confuses those that would rather empower the weak to match the strong.
I get so tired of the nerf tacs/escorts etc. You know what really lets a tac in an escort roll faces in a match? Good SUPPORT ships, we have hardly any heals on our own and it's a good support player in a cruiser/sci/carrier that keeps us alive long enough to kill things. Remember you are NOT Kirk it takes teamwork and that guy getting around a million in heals is the reason why tacs are deadly. When it comes to the OMGWTFBBQ in kerrat you need to learn to pop your buffs and heals and as soon as the alpha run is starting to get your resists ungodly high so you don't pop not wait till you are at less than half hull to do anything. A good cruiser pilot is a freaking brick that can take a LOT of damage, the same can be said for some sci builds. So yeah put the nerf bat down, that thing gets used so much around here you'll probably catch something just touching it.
I do agree that cruisers need a relift, in many ways, however:
Right now, build a cruiser that deals 6k+ dps is possible.
Right now, add points into Threat Control and use romulan consoles to do what u are supposed to do, tank, is possible.
And yet in every stf I have been the last week not one single cruiser have done more tan 3k dps. Not one. How many heals have I got from them? 2 -yes, two- hazard emitters when i had about 98% hull, very "useful". When was the last time that a cruiser could take the aggro off of me and keep it? I dont think that ever happened.
Wanna Run an STF with me sometime, my cruiser DPSes better than some escorts and can still tank 3 semi-decent pvp escorts at the same time and still has room for support heals
Wanna Run an STF with me sometime, my cruiser DPSes better than some escorts and can still tank 3 semi-decent pvp escorts at the same time and still has room for support heals
I'm sure u do, because it's possible, but the rest 99.9% of the cruisers captains seems to ignore this.
I get so tired of the nerf tacs/escorts etc. You know what really lets a tac in an escort roll faces in a match? Good SUPPORT ships, we have hardly any heals on our own and it's a good support player in a cruiser/sci/carrier that keeps us alive long enough to kill things. Remember you are NOT Kirk it takes teamwork and that guy getting around a million in heals is the reason why tacs are deadly.
Just stop right there.
You're claiming support ships are what enable a tac to perform? I'll be kind enough and not laugh in your face. If your tac in an escort needs heals you're doing something VERY wrong.
I do however, agree with your sentiment that SUPPORT is what SHOULD make an escort very effective. That is not possible since escorts do not need support in the current mechanics.
But... do picture this: If all ships were globally slowed down and their damage and healing globally reduced in potency then escorts would TRULY shine when a cruiser tank holds aggro an enables the escort to use its impressive speed and turn rate to continue hitting ONE shield facing on a target.. and sci ships disable/debuff/crowd control and both cruisers and sci ships toss heals to others.
BTW know why people don't 'heal' others? Distance. Most of the time the ships are flying so fast they end up fluctuating in and out of 10km range. This is where the global slow-down benefits the game: encourages teams to fly in range supporting each other.
I do agree that cruisers need a relift, in many ways, however:
Right now, build a cruiser that deals 6k+ dps is possible.
Right now, add points into Threat Control and use romulan consoles to do what u are supposed to do, tank, is possible.
And yet in every stf I have been the last week not one single cruiser have done more tan 3k dps. Not one. How many heals have I got from them? 2 -yes, two- hazard emitters when i had about 98% hull, very "useful". When was the last time that a cruiser could take the aggro off of me and keep it? I dont think that ever happened.
So... how about fixing the players first?
Sadly the romulan consoles don't exactly guarantee you'll hold aggro. The AI is fubar when it comes to its hate list. The cruiser tank with 9 in threat control and five +th consoles? It loses gate to the first high dps, 0 threat control and a couple of -th consoles on it. Why? The AI apparently only uses incoming DPS as priority on hate list and hate modifiers seem to be quite low to make a dent into it.
I'm sure u do, because it's possible, but the rest 99.9% of the cruisers captains seems to ignore this.
make sure you're not simply seeing raw dps. That is an illusion dps.
For example, my VoQuv out-dps's most of the team combined.. but I do very low effective damage. How? Im a mirror tank. Dual feedback pulse and insane shield resists/heal ability. I can tank the tac cube, multiple spheres and the gate non-stop (barring BS supertorps) without losing shields. ISE.
The feedback pulse and my beams on AOE (but very low wep power) literally hit every one of them multiple times per second. Feedback pulse damage usually runs @ 1200+ per shot I reflect. But, since its 50% hull and 50% shield the AI's heal the shield and heal the hull damage relatively quickly. I sure cant bring them down but I hold their hate damn well just because of all the damage im bouncing back.
In DPS parsers they show me as going ballistic on damage. But in reality I cant kill a fly. I hold the aggro for my team to finish them off.
All that on top of absurd shield resistances granted by Elite fleet shields and running at 70%+ defence meaning an avoidance of 50%+.
Even one of your best damage power (Attack Pattern Omega) gives absurd defensive stats.
Yeah tac captains in escorts arnt too survivable... :rolleyes:
So considering any class can acquire the abilities listed or use even ApO on certain Cruisers, then its that extra bonus 10% defense that saves the escort in combat????
Remove the movement protection of ApO and its no longer the imbalanced power it was.
Why? Because TB is effective in being the krypyonite to escorts again. Movement de-buffs become fearful again.
I never understood why ApO had a built in PH.
Change all tactical bonus defensive abilities, including the Elusive trait, so that only work when moving.
Give the Cruiser a bonus 10% defense for when moving slower than full impulse.
Nerf Tacs? No. Reason: They are doing their job of dealing damage. Possibly too well. But that's the nature of a DPS based game. When your score/loot/effectiveness in PvE content in a PvE based game is determined by your damage output, naturally he who deals the most damage will get the best loot, and as such be able to do his job better. That's a game design error, not an overpowered career.
Adjust them? Yes. How? Do not affect their damage ability. Just adjust what they affect. Tactical abilities really should not affect science abilities. That's one of the most ridiculous things that happened with the switch to F2P. All of a sudden, APA and APO are affecting Science powers. What? Ew. Thankfully Tactical powers don't affect Engineering abilities... or do they? You get the idea. Adjust tactical powers so they affect ONLY TACTICALLY BASED DAMAGE (aka damage from weapons. ONLY. Because let's face it, a GW2 from a Tactical using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a Sci using full particle generators and graviton generators. WHAT????)
Buff Engineers/Science? Yes and no. How? Let's face it, tanking in this game is a joke. The main reason being: the main tanking skill is a permanent skill. Threat Control. Not only is it high up in the skill tree, but you can't turn it off. I would use that skill with no qualms, except for one little problem: my Engi doesn't always run cruisers. And tbh, an escort with Threat Control is an escort asking to die. Which then begs the question: what can we do about it? I have heard this suggested elsewhere, but giving cruisers (the games tanks) naturally higher threat generation (as in equal to 3 or 4 points in that skill) is a start. Add in the threat consoles from the Embassy, and all of a sudden we have use for a tank again. Another possible buff to Engineers would be to adjust CDs on their abilities. Nadion (the main weapon of a lot of engis, especially those in cruisers) could use a slight reduction in CD (bring it from 3 minutes down to 2.5), and MW could use a little more in the hull heal department (let's face it, the 10k you get you can do with an ET3). Other than that, I would not recommend any additional alterations.
As for Science? I don't really want to touch this one, but I will. Science doesn't need to be buffed persay, just re-adjusted back so that science abilities are more heavily affected by actual science skills. As I pointed out earlier, a GW2 from a tac using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a fully specced sci captain. It's ludicrous. And as for the snare and hold ability? It's a bloody joke. My Odyssey can escape from most Gravity wells with no points in inertial dampeners. There's something majorly wrong there. Now if science went back to how it was pre-F2P with it actually doing exotic damage, not kinetic, and it being affected by particle generators and not being affected at all by attack patterns, I think a lot of the sci imbalance would disappear as quickly as it appeared in the first place.
As for the adjustments to sci and engi? It's simple. Make there be some incentive to doing things other than outright damage. Engineers and Science can never come close to a tac when it comes to damage. That's how it's supposed to be. It's a little odd though that a Tactical can tank as well as an engi, and can CC as well as a science, but that's another discussion for another time. But why have the other careers in game at all when they only see heavy usage in PvP and ground (two things that aren't stressed at all in this game) and are considered to be partially sub-optimal for PvE? Make it so that content is not a pure damage blitz. Make there a reason for CC and healers. That's the only real thing I can think of that would solve this problem without doing as the OP suggested and outright nerfing Tactical captains (which is funny, you're punishing them for doing their job well).
Sorry for the long response...
Tl;dr
Don't nerf tacs so much as adjust them and the other classes.
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.
Comments
If anything its sci captains abilities that needs to be changed around. Subnuc is far too powerful, it should be reduced in effectiveness, and other sci captain powers boosted. Sci captain should have an ability that adds some buffs to sci skills so sci captains will actually be able to use sci better then other classes.
Eng is mostly fine but maybe MW should have its cooldown lowered slightly.
If by effectiveness you mean the ability to sit, in the weakest shield/hull ship, in front of a tac cube and blow it up just by clicking three things then yes. You will and should be reduced in effectiveness. To the point where you actually have to USE your speed and turn rate as part of your combat routine.
You obviously were not around pre-F2P. :P
I cant do that in my Tac, so I assume Im and other like are exempt from the nerfing? I mean I can almost get a tac Cube solo but I can kill regular cubes fairly easy.
I do use my speed and turn rate to get behind targets and its frowned upon it seems.
Nerfing tacs is not the answer. Buffing Sci, beam arrays, adding new BOff abilities, etc. Those lead to a balanced play instead of nerfing.
R.I.P
I was off and on at times before then but remember there were sci captain nerfs yes. Even with that its still easy for sci to shut tacs down on space and ground. Tac captain doesnt need nerf. Its sci that needs to be balanced by toning subnuc down in pvp and boosting all their other captain abilities and adding sci ability buff so their other abilities besides subnuc are more effective in pvp and pve.
And while it is possible for a tac in an escort to tank a tac cube on elite you cant just sit there most of the time. Also most tac escorts I see in elite can't do this, I can, and I'm sure you probably can, but it is a minority of tac escorts that do this. All this mean is boss enemies like cubes need an additional ability to make the escort rely on team to survive, reduce its cooldown on tractor beam, or give the tac cube grav pulse or something.
What will the game be like?
Still a blitz-speed mass of spam-clicking and very little if any tactics in gameplay. The problem *is* the boosts that are given in the ranking up process and the skill boxes (primarily tac captain boxes since the other 2 career ones are already nerfed into uselessness).
Why do you think the AI NPC's have moronic amounts of hull hitpoints and shoot weapons that hit for insane damage at times? Its because they were upped and upped and upped to match player boosts. Pre-F2P a single regular cube was a challenge for a whole group of people simply because they did not have so much boosts available to them and the AI was, back then, using a mix of tactical, science and engineering buffs/debuffs/attacks that made it really dangerous.
For example they used to fire the shield draining attack. Back then it would literally shut your shields off if you didn't clean it out of your ship fast enough. It would use torpedo barrages after it tractored you. It would use the kinetic beam when your shields were low/down. AI back then was pretty darn smart...or the entire mechanics/combat pace permitted its limited capability to make it seem smart. I think the latter. Now it too just has to spam like mad, it too has had all its sci abilities nerfed to hell (shield disruptor? LOL it does nothing now) and it too has had its tac abilities as the only things left that it can use.. so it spams them.
The changes im asking for is not a tac nerf. Its a global return to pre-f2p combat pace. One where the escort ship and the tactical captain class returns to its intended role as heavy damage, fast & maneuverable strike ships...in an environment where their speed and turn rate is impressively better than all the other ships.
First, I think your argument is flawed in regards to "tac captains". The Tactical class of character is not what I think you are talking about...I think you are pointing to the Tactical class of SHIPS -- those vessels which have Commander and LTC Tactical BOFF slots as well as the tactical bridge officer skill set...but you have merged/mixed the two issues together...when in fact they are separate problem sets that likely need to be addressed individually.
In regards to tactical vessles, the truth is that an engineer or a science officer can pilot these vessels as well -- and probably be nearly as effective as a Tac officer in one with the right set up. Engineers would make a Tac vessel more survivable in combat...Sci officers would provide debuffs and holds, etc. A prime example of this is the Klingon Bird of Prey class of vessels -- many Sci captains on the Klingon side pilot these vessels with an incredible degree of success.
Now...it is possible that what you are actually talking about are bridge officer skills -- tac, sci, and eng. Maybe that should be the thrust of your argument. In that sense, I would agree with you to some extent. Sci bridge officer abilities have been nerfed repeatedly...and yes, I have played the game since Beta...and I remember how effective Viral Matrix USED to be....now nobody uses it.
In any case, your argument jumps around from ship design to skill sets...probably need to clarify a bit.
My own position is -- as has been stated in this thread at an earlier point -- sci and engineer bridge officer abilities should be buffed to be on par with tac damage dealing capabilities-- that makes sense to me...and I also think that they need to maybe relook some aspects of ship design as well...but to be honest, it is far too late to make sweeping changes in that respect...although Cryptic is capable of doing the right thing with future vessel designs moving forward...
Just a thought or two....
What we do need is greater modification options of ships so if you are a cruiser jock you have greater flexibility to put a lot more power into weapons or turn rates if you wish.
We need more missons where you have to employ certain abilities to proceed further into the game not just pew bang pew.
A friend of mine made a cruiser tank. Just through clever boffs training and consoles he made a tank that was virtually invincible. I put my best tac against to to test it for him. A defiant retrofit with all MK XII anti P's I couldn't touch him his shields stayed up and what bleedthrough damage was sorted almost immediately. In PvP i could barely scratch some of the cruisers us tacs had to go 3-1 against cruisers to kil them.
Complain at us tac boys for being overpowered, cruiser jocks are too well protected.
This^ I also think we need to bring all EPtX skills up to the standard of EPtS thus meaning two cruisers will be less likely to orbit eachother for hours only hurting eachother evry 15/30 seconds
The only thing I would ask for with regard to a tac nerf is enough reduction in escort tanking (still looking at the borg set and other insta-heal procs) that allow the yoyo technique to be a successful one.
The main problems with buffing sci though are AP:A and GDF, which (having checked the tooltip) I know buff all damage which would include exotic so that currently isn't a fix to science so we need to limit non-team tac buffs to energy and kinetic damage only and then make all sci damage exotic with a good buff to EVERYTHING science based.
The issue comes from two places: The skill-set bonuses from the player's skill base (which tactical has been super-boosted since F2P) and tactical captain's innate atk pattern alpha/go down fighting abilities boosting non-weapon damage sources (aka gravity well).
The ships themselves are not an issue. There is only one issue with a boff ability Atk Omega due to its all-in-one absurd bonuses.
I mention escorts in my examples because they are the poster child of how the stat boosts throw gameplay, tactical play and ship class roles/weaknesses out of whack.
Captain career type abilities are independent of ship type. When you think about it, the four 'big' abilities each captain has are:
Tactical:
3 huge damage boosts (Atk Alpha, Go down Fighting, fire on my mark)
1 half-timer ability (Tactical Initiative)
Science:
1 mediocre distraction/low damage : Photonic Fleet
1 debuff ability: Sensor scan
1 resist buff : Dampening Field
1 'mechanics' debuff: Subnuke
Engineer:
1 power-boost : EPS power transfer
1 power-resist : Nadion inversion
1 super-heal : Miracle Worker
1 damage resist: Rotate Shield Frequency
Now, when you have a tac captain in any ship type, his triple damage boosts and half timer ability make any ship, even if doesnt use weapons to deal damage, outperform the sci/engineer in their own ships. Tanking? Tanking is a function of boff abilities and captain skill set.... which the tac captain, thanks to his really dumbed down point requirement for weapons, has full access to tanking abilities. Half timer ability is insanely powerful tool when tanking as well...and the best way to reduce incoming damage when tanking is to remove the damage source..triple dmg boost say HI!
Put an engineer or sci on their own ships or into other class ships and their performance remains mediocerly low in comparison. A sci captain in a bird of prey has the unique option of being full-station sci captain...which is sadly the only way to DO science due to the fact that sci abilities and skills are quite spread out (compared to energy weapons/torpedos ..2 categories for tacs vs 6+ for sci's). Even then the sci-bops are sort of a wasted slot considering if he had been a tac-bop his dps would outperform the sci abilities in terms of benefit to the team.
The reason why it sucks now is because the stats that govern it are too low. The sci stats have been globally reduced in effectiveness ..its not the boff ability thats nerfed, its the stat it works upon.
The argument is threefold:
1- Stat-boosts from ranking up and skill point boxes need to be removed and replaced. See my earlier long post for this.
2- Tactical skill boxes were simplified and dumbed down to the point where tac captains receive the full benefit of full weapon boosts and still have points to spend on full tanking abilities. Engineers and Sci ships that go for tanking and/or science cannot take full weapon points and have enough points left over to make their tank/sci builds effective.
3- Tac captain innate abilities (atk alpha,etc) boosts should not work with non-weapon abilities (aka grav well)
Game is too fast, too arcade-click. No tactics, no trek gameplay. This is caused by #1-3.
By doing that you start a chain reaction that has been happening since F2P: The game becomes more arcadish, the improved healing/CC abilities requires the AI to be tweaked and boosted...which then makes it a need to boost player ship's damage which turns into tactical boosts... and the chain repeates itself. The end result is the game turning into a brainless stat/dmg ability stacking frenzy and combat ending as quickly as it started.
Heck, it used to take us MINUTES to bring down a borg cube. Now I can kill one in one pass.
I have a ridiculous high tac dps character and my engineer captain in a carrier is also practically unkillable. It can tank the gate, tac cube and all spheres in infected elite nonstop unless a supertorpedo (500k dmg? the hell?) pops it.
So please understand that when I ask the entire thing to be brought back to balance I don't say it from a tac-hating point of view.
Cryptic has hinted the next big patch will include a new element to the game.. a warp core mechanic function. I would like to hope it will help some but since I know the game is all about monetizing and improving DPS/silly click gameplay chances are it will simply be an add-on to the 'required' list of things to continue boosting DPS and healing abilities only.
There's an old saying that applies to game design and it applies to STO particularly:
Rot at the core spreads outward.
Stat-boosts from rank/skill boxes are that rot.
Tac/Escort combos are designed to be high DPS and punch quick and hard. Just because a Tac can get a quick kill though doesn't mean that Engineers or Science captains aren't great alternatives. You simply just need to figure out a better way to utilize them in their roll. I have a Sci/Vesta combo that may have some weaknesses but it can dish out some nice DPS also. In one on one or teamed PvP, it's more than adequate for the job. Againt the uber whiners that scream for a nerf on anything that they die by to their pocket Dev's... Well, there's your problem!
There was a lot of poorly thought out ideas in this post, with one or two decent ones that would eed a lot of fleshing out but I want to comment on this.
Why do people love to harp on Tactical Team? Its benefits are known by all, and USED by all. My engi cruiser happily uses TT to boost its defences as well as its damage, if anything engi team and sci team need to be buffed to provide compelling benefits.
Is the TT hate a byproduct of players with little experience and lots of anger lashing out at anything tac? Do people forget that in most cases escorts only have one or two more tac boff powers than most ships (what? you don't fly a regent with 4 tac boff powers??!! SHAME ON YOUUUUUU!!!!)?
Tactical officers and escorts do more damage because that is there role.
the whining was't about how tac's could nearly one shot you. no no no....you see even though then - as now - 80%+ of the pbase was a tac captain, the whines were entirely about subnuc and feedback pulse.
there were threads and video goats of insta-popping fed cruisers by bop's, but that ttk isn't what was addressed.
i was sci back then because nobody played them to begin with. when i hit 45 i was beating off tells to do the cure and infected the second i logged on. nobody played sci except the klinks, and that was because they could get subnuc, photonic fleet and outfit their bop with all tac slots if they wanted. i was a heal/expose bot on the stf's, and easy target in pvp when sensor scan was down.
what was nerfed first and hard? science abilities.
i lost my faith in the game almost overnight, because dhc's were not touched. they addressed ability stacking a teeny, tiny bit - but ability stacking is still the norm in this game.
i'm back now. playing an engineer because i refuse to be mainstream red shirt and i wanted easy-mode ground combat and i thought - when i came back - that escorts were still paper thin hull. then as i got near 50 i started to check something other than the 'cruisers' box in the ship shop and couldn't believe what i was seeing...40k+ hull escorts??? with 13+ turn rate?
still refusing to be a red shirt, i used my tax refund to buy a jem'hadar dreadnought. however i'm using BEAMS becaue it turns slightly slower than the assault cruiser refit.
i'm rambling. too many 24 hour trek a thons and i'm way too old for that kind of stuff now. however i dont want to see tac's nerfed per se...i want to see beams become viable.
which was fine when said escorts - the kind who's every boff station is dedicated to some form of +dmg and not any defense - could be shut down by a sci player or outtanked by a defense-laden engineer in a cruiser
but that is no longer the case now, is it.
Correction: Their role is focused spike damage.
With the current system however, they don't need to focus since their damage output is not spike..its permanently extremely high. Hence why you can just sit in an escort in front of a tac cube and pop it while tanking the damage it shoots back.
Does anyone remember what happened in the DS9 Episode "Valiant?" The one with the Defiant Class full of Red Squad Cadets? What happened when they charged that Jem'Hadar Dreadnought head on? That's right! They got obliterated. Now, from a STO point of view, the equivalent of that would be an escort charging a cruiser from the side. At least, that's what it should be. Escorts should be opportunists. They wait, and watch, and when they see an opportunity they run it and they take advantage of that opportunity. The moment they take lots of fire is the moment the should be running away (which is sadly not the case now.)
Another example: Remember what happened to the Enterprise at the end of the JJ Abrams Star Trek film? It got caught in the pull of a Black Hole (Gravity well 4, anyone? XP) Enterprise put FULL POWER to engines, and it still couldn't get out. How did they get out? The dumped the water canisters and blew them up to push them out. Now if a cruiser such as the Enterprise couldn't get out of something similar to a gravity well by putting full power to the engines, then why the hell are escorts allowed/able to do it? All they need to do now is hit Attack Patter Omega, or Evasive Maneuvers and they can get out. What it should be is that if an escort gets caught in a gravity well, they should be stuck UNLESS they use an ability such as Polarize Hull or maybe even the Subspace Field Modulator. The same rule would apply to everyone.
Now, on the subject of Tacs being too powerful, I believe there is a simple solution (and this is just character wise, not ship wise): Buff the Engi Powers and the Sci powers so that they are actually useful. An example? Look at Gravity well right now. It sucks. It's almost useless. Make it do what I suggested above, and that would make that power much more useful. Sure, most of the escort captains would cry "NERF IT! IT'S OP!!!!!!1!!" but that would be because they don't want to have something that could possibly give them a challenge (no offense, but some of the most arrogant people in this game are PVPer escort captains. ESPECIALLY TAC ESCORTS.)
Anyways, just MHO.
Elim Garak
Thats because federation escorts except for defiant don't have cloak. Their survivability does not come from the ship hull rating itself, it comes from the fact that despite their Lt level healing abilities, the escort captains, when tactical capts, have the skill points to max out the armor/shield/regen/resist abilities under engineering section. Pre-F2P they did not have this thus escorts had crunchy hulls.
Thats how they were Pre-F2P and its what I'd like to see them return to.
Again, this is how it was pre-F2P.
Problem: Grav well damage IS boosted significantly by tac captain's dmg boosting abilities. A tac captain in a science ship will put a sci captain to shame when using the same gravity well ability.
Another problem: Buffing sci and engineer = buffing heals too. This will lead to AI and player weapon damage being buffed as well to compensate until we end up with the current TRIBBLE all over again.
The tractor ability of the gravity well is pathetic because graviton stat skill is near zero effect.
...
...Of course that's all my self and my team can do against two or three escorts, tank and purely that. Offensive power goes bye-bye if you do that. It takes too much power and focus to keep from being burst damaged from 100% to 0% in under 2 seconds.
Which wouldn't be a issue if tactical roles didn't come so close to a other roles in health, shields, or defenses. To the point you need what meager offensive power a cruiser or science ship does have.
So ... That sets up a scenario where half the team can do nothing but defense. When the opposing team can just wait on a subnucleonic beam, or is still has free run of the field unopposed. Do I need to draw a map why that is bad?
Yes, I'll tell you flat out: I am bitter about it.
So ... I have to ask people saying they can tank with their cruisers: Is being boxed into a corner enough?
But, as you point out, with the massive increase in healing ability and hull (the result of tac captains having not to spend too many points to get max weapon ability and can spend on max tanking) makes this moot.
I was just using gravity well for an example, but now that you bring that up.....
I call BS on that. Science should affect Science. If I have my Science character specc'ed up to do damage with something like Gravity well, then I should do more damage with my gravity well than any Tactical officer. Because, you know.... Tactical=Cannons and torps, right? and Science=Gravity well and tractor beams, right? Logically, the Science officer should ALWAYS do better with Gravity well than a Tactical officer would. Cause you know... that would make sense.
EDIT: Look, I respect the fact that STO is so open with it's skill trees. You're not confined in one of the three nicely arranged boxes. You can choose what to do with your skills, and I like having that freedom. But the fact remains that your profession should make it so that if I'm a Science officer and I cast Gravity well, it will be far more effective than a Tactical officer who casts it. It should matter, because if it doesn't you have what you have now.
Elim Garak
Funny how that fact is overlooked and the general idea is to weaken them to make the others look better.
Very Federation thought process though, to weaken the strong to empower the weak, and is one odder things about fed philosphy that confuses those that would rather empower the weak to match the strong.
R.I.P
You are absolutely right.
EPTS
RSP
A2Sif
HE
TSS
Tactical Team (sort of)
Brace For Impact (with doffs)
Borg Set Bonuses
Rep system shield heal procs
Embassy Console shield heal procs
Embassy Console hull heal procs
Elite fleet weapon shield heal procs
All that on top of absurd shield resistances granted by Elite fleet shields and running at 70%+ defence meaning an avoidance of 50%+.
Even one of your best damage power (Attack Pattern Omega) gives absurd defensive stats.
Yeah tac captains in escorts arnt too survivable... :rolleyes:
Right now, build a cruiser that deals 6k+ dps is possible.
Right now, add points into Threat Control and use romulan consoles to do what u are supposed to do, tank, is possible.
And yet in every stf I have been the last week not one single cruiser have done more tan 3k dps. Not one. How many heals have I got from them? 2 -yes, two- hazard emitters when i had about 98% hull, very "useful". When was the last time that a cruiser could take the aggro off of me and keep it? I dont think that ever happened.
So... how about fixing the players first?
I'm sure u do, because it's possible, but the rest 99.9% of the cruisers captains seems to ignore this.
Just stop right there.
You're claiming support ships are what enable a tac to perform? I'll be kind enough and not laugh in your face. If your tac in an escort needs heals you're doing something VERY wrong.
I do however, agree with your sentiment that SUPPORT is what SHOULD make an escort very effective. That is not possible since escorts do not need support in the current mechanics.
But... do picture this: If all ships were globally slowed down and their damage and healing globally reduced in potency then escorts would TRULY shine when a cruiser tank holds aggro an enables the escort to use its impressive speed and turn rate to continue hitting ONE shield facing on a target.. and sci ships disable/debuff/crowd control and both cruisers and sci ships toss heals to others.
BTW know why people don't 'heal' others? Distance. Most of the time the ships are flying so fast they end up fluctuating in and out of 10km range. This is where the global slow-down benefits the game: encourages teams to fly in range supporting each other.
Sadly the romulan consoles don't exactly guarantee you'll hold aggro. The AI is fubar when it comes to its hate list. The cruiser tank with 9 in threat control and five +th consoles? It loses gate to the first high dps, 0 threat control and a couple of -th consoles on it. Why? The AI apparently only uses incoming DPS as priority on hate list and hate modifiers seem to be quite low to make a dent into it.
make sure you're not simply seeing raw dps. That is an illusion dps.
For example, my VoQuv out-dps's most of the team combined.. but I do very low effective damage. How? Im a mirror tank. Dual feedback pulse and insane shield resists/heal ability. I can tank the tac cube, multiple spheres and the gate non-stop (barring BS supertorps) without losing shields. ISE.
The feedback pulse and my beams on AOE (but very low wep power) literally hit every one of them multiple times per second. Feedback pulse damage usually runs @ 1200+ per shot I reflect. But, since its 50% hull and 50% shield the AI's heal the shield and heal the hull damage relatively quickly. I sure cant bring them down but I hold their hate damn well just because of all the damage im bouncing back.
In DPS parsers they show me as going ballistic on damage. But in reality I cant kill a fly. I hold the aggro for my team to finish them off.
Remove the movement protection of ApO and its no longer the imbalanced power it was.
Why? Because TB is effective in being the krypyonite to escorts again. Movement de-buffs become fearful again.
I never understood why ApO had a built in PH.
Change all tactical bonus defensive abilities, including the Elusive trait, so that only work when moving.
Give the Cruiser a bonus 10% defense for when moving slower than full impulse.
R.I.P
And it is as follows:
Nerf Tacs? NO. Adjust them? Yes. Buff Engineers/Sci? Yes and no. Adjust them? Definitely. How? Getting there.
Nerf Tacs? No. Reason: They are doing their job of dealing damage. Possibly too well. But that's the nature of a DPS based game. When your score/loot/effectiveness in PvE content in a PvE based game is determined by your damage output, naturally he who deals the most damage will get the best loot, and as such be able to do his job better. That's a game design error, not an overpowered career.
Adjust them? Yes. How? Do not affect their damage ability. Just adjust what they affect. Tactical abilities really should not affect science abilities. That's one of the most ridiculous things that happened with the switch to F2P. All of a sudden, APA and APO are affecting Science powers. What? Ew. Thankfully Tactical powers don't affect Engineering abilities... or do they? You get the idea. Adjust tactical powers so they affect ONLY TACTICALLY BASED DAMAGE (aka damage from weapons. ONLY. Because let's face it, a GW2 from a Tactical using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a Sci using full particle generators and graviton generators. WHAT????)
Buff Engineers/Science? Yes and no. How? Let's face it, tanking in this game is a joke. The main reason being: the main tanking skill is a permanent skill. Threat Control. Not only is it high up in the skill tree, but you can't turn it off. I would use that skill with no qualms, except for one little problem: my Engi doesn't always run cruisers. And tbh, an escort with Threat Control is an escort asking to die. Which then begs the question: what can we do about it? I have heard this suggested elsewhere, but giving cruisers (the games tanks) naturally higher threat generation (as in equal to 3 or 4 points in that skill) is a start. Add in the threat consoles from the Embassy, and all of a sudden we have use for a tank again. Another possible buff to Engineers would be to adjust CDs on their abilities. Nadion (the main weapon of a lot of engis, especially those in cruisers) could use a slight reduction in CD (bring it from 3 minutes down to 2.5), and MW could use a little more in the hull heal department (let's face it, the 10k you get you can do with an ET3). Other than that, I would not recommend any additional alterations.
As for Science? I don't really want to touch this one, but I will. Science doesn't need to be buffed persay, just re-adjusted back so that science abilities are more heavily affected by actual science skills. As I pointed out earlier, a GW2 from a tac using APA3 does more damage than a GW3 from a fully specced sci captain. It's ludicrous. And as for the snare and hold ability? It's a bloody joke. My Odyssey can escape from most Gravity wells with no points in inertial dampeners. There's something majorly wrong there. Now if science went back to how it was pre-F2P with it actually doing exotic damage, not kinetic, and it being affected by particle generators and not being affected at all by attack patterns, I think a lot of the sci imbalance would disappear as quickly as it appeared in the first place.
As for the adjustments to sci and engi? It's simple. Make there be some incentive to doing things other than outright damage. Engineers and Science can never come close to a tac when it comes to damage. That's how it's supposed to be. It's a little odd though that a Tactical can tank as well as an engi, and can CC as well as a science, but that's another discussion for another time. But why have the other careers in game at all when they only see heavy usage in PvP and ground (two things that aren't stressed at all in this game) and are considered to be partially sub-optimal for PvE? Make it so that content is not a pure damage blitz. Make there a reason for CC and healers. That's the only real thing I can think of that would solve this problem without doing as the OP suggested and outright nerfing Tactical captains (which is funny, you're punishing them for doing their job well).
Sorry for the long response...
Tl;dr
Don't nerf tacs so much as adjust them and the other classes.