I notice that plasma is largely ignored in PVP because
1) Omega anti-borg shields all carry 15%-20% plasma resists
2) Plasma fires are instantly removed by any Hazard Emitters
I find #2 above quite strange since it is 100% effective regardless of how many plasma fire stacks are present or the hazard emitter level being used. Here is a proposal: How about making plasma fires more persistent by allowing only 1 plasma fire stack to be cleared per level of Hazard Emitter being used per second? For example, Hazard Emitters 1 can clear a tripple plasma stack in 3 seconds, while Hazard Emitters 3 can clear it in just 1 second?
The above change still won't put plasma weapons on par with phasers, disruptors, or any other energy type, but it will make plasma fires just a little more effective without being game-breaking.
You might want to take a look at the cool down on hazard emitters. It is 45 seconds. The global cool down is 30 seconds. Most ships will have two science ability slots to work with.
If they use both of them on hazard emitters to protect against plasma fire then they don't have polarize hull to protect them from tractor beams and they don't have transfer shield strength to bolster their shield tank.
To gain total resistance to plasma fire they would have to make themselves venerable in other ways. This is fair in the same way that it is fair for some one to stack specific damage resistances. It sucks to fight them with the damage type they chose to defend against, but they have made themselves vulnerable to other people to do this so it is fair.
Now if you would like to use plasma weapons and you feel there are too many resistance buffs against it then consider that there are some damage bonuses available to you that are not there for other weapons.
Two parts of the Romulan Singularity Harness set will give you +7.6% plasma damage and the threat scaling consoles available at the romulan embassy will give you slightly improved bonuses over those given by your current consoles increased or reduced threat generation and up to +9.6% plasma damage.
What you save in EC buying plasma weapons on the exchange you will have to spend on consoles and gubbins to give you extra damage but you can be more then competitive with other damage types if you are willing to make the investment.
What you save in EC buying plasma weapons on the exchange you will have to spend on consoles and gubbins to give you extra damage but you can be more then competitive with other damage types if you are willing to make the investment.
Couldn't agree more. Plasma was overblown out of proportion with Rom marks. Before that havent seen anyone actually using it in PvPs. There are always better consoles if you spend the money to optimize it or change to other weapon type. Old phaser still great as ever :P
Along the cooldown lines mentioned before look @ other energy weapon's procs and their counter's cooldown:
Phasers: ET as low as 15 seconds, w/immunity of 5 second from ET as well as stacking immunities. Also has crew interaction to bring systems online quicker.
Tetron: There is none, but it's resistable like plasma fire is, iirc. ~2500-3k damage total iirc w/high flow cap investment.
Disrupter: TT clears iirc which has 5 second window in chain cycle.
Polaron: Idk if it can be cleared tbh, but it's resistable.
AP: CritD is it's extra proc.
Plasma: HE 30 sec global, hull resists to reduce damage, chains crits.
For projectile procs:
Tric stun resistable via Aux2damp, trics like plasmas can be shut down and has high payload of kinetic damage. Aux2damp has a shorter cooldown than HE.
Cronts can't be cleared, but can be made immune from effects and resist effects.
Transphasics have bleedthrew damage and the 1 crits all issue.
Quants and Protons don't have 2ndary effects to speak of.
In the end it seems inline to me.
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Sci Team clears the polaron drain effect as I recall, I think it also clears Chroniton Proc. I would need to experiment with these to confirm as they are both science type debuffs.
The proc of Quantums and Photons is to kill crew. - Like anyone cares about crew loss.
One other thing to think about, Plasma fires can Crit, can they not? HE doesn't in fact, I don't think a singular heal can crit in the game, which is a MASSIVE imbalance if you ask me, but hey, I"m just the guy healing you...
I notice that plasma is largely ignored in PVP because
1) Omega anti-borg shields all carry 15%-20% plasma resists
2) Plasma fires are instantly removed by any Hazard Emitters
Note that anti-borg shield have "energy" plasma damage resist, not projectilly, not dot. As a sci plama torp boat im ok with hazard, cause spaming plasma is a good tactic option forcing to waste hazard emitters, that also is usualy the most common and effective hull heal.
What its unballanced is the resist that 2 pieces of borg set have to the dot itself and other sci abilites like FBP that i normally use to blow careless escorts easily, cause it activates the borg regen all the time.
All of the above points are valid with a few corrections:
-Phasers have a 10 second proc cooldown and 5 second max system disable duration to prevent chain-system disables.
-Disruptor Breaches are not cleared by tactical teams.
-Chroniton slows should be clearable via AP-Omega, but I'll check later to confirm.
Anyway, the bulk of non-plasma energy weapons front-load their damage or effects -- they do not require time to be effective since their impact is immediate. Phasers disable subsystems. Disruptors lower resists. Tetryons drain shields. Polarons drain susbsystem power. Plasma, on the other hand, requires time to actually deal damage, and the latter is further mitigated by stacking human leadership traits. Plasma energy weapon procs do not trigger often, and when they do, their damage dealt per stack is so trivial that passive regen will often offset it completely.
Because of the above, I suggested to make plasma dots just a little more resilient -- not higher damage, but just a little longer lasting. Players will still have plenty of time to counter plasma dot damage.
BTW, I use all the energy types except for tetryon on various ships. I would like to see plasma's proc become more viable by giving it more staying power as opposed to bigger damage quantity.
I can introduce to my fleetmate who has specc'ed his build to use plasma DOT.
HE won't save you.
My Breen ship sounds similarly spec'd with full Romulan plasma weaponry, Romulan Plasma Harness, and Borg space set. The Hyperflux plasma dot is quite deadly if not cleared in time. I use it for farming fleet actions since it consistently places 1st
Ahem, no - really I do. It's insane how many PDoTs you can load somebody up with from a combination of Omega, Hyper-Plasma, Regular Plasma Torps, Plasma Mines, Energy Weapons, and EWP. And they suffer from the one crit-chain crit with each PDoT (you're Omega's crit isn't going to crit your Hyper's - but if your Omega PDoT crits...and with how high you can get crit these days - mmmmm, yummy!)...
If HE wasn't already in the game, folks would be begging for something like it to be added.
Against a normal person running HE - let them. I'm spamming so much plasma in my wee tank Battle Cruiser...let them. Now then, if they're one of those AtB junkies...you're going to run into problems. If they've got friends with HE's to spare...you're going to run into problems.
It's either oozing that hot awesomesauce...or you better have a backup plan, because on the ladder of usefulness - you still haven't found the ladder yet otherwise.
Which...is a problem with a lot of things in STO. It's ON or it's OFF - there's no happy medium - Hell, there's no middleground at all. It's ON or it's OFF.
It's not just a problem with HE. It's a problem with all the cleanses. And it's not just a problem with cleanses, it's also a problem with SNB.
Just like a cleanse shouldn't be a complete cleanse, SNB shouldn't be a complete strip. It makes these abilities too powerful. They should cleanse X-Y debuffs and SNB should strip X-Y buffs. Maybe make the different levels cleanse more - maybe have SNB DOFFs that give the chance to strip more.
I shouldn't be able to cook people willy nilly with my Plasma...I agree with that completely. At the same time, my brothers - should they be able shut me down completely? Think about the other cleanses - you put all that effort (heck, your team may have put all that effort) into dropping a buttload of debuffs on them...they clear it all away with some little Ensign BOFF ability that they didn't have to spend a single skill point on to ruin all your fun? Think about SNB - you put all that effort (heck, your team may have put all that effort) into buffing up your lil' hunk 'o junk 'n space...to have some Bill Nye come along and strip that all away?
Hell no, I say... make it so cleanses only cleanse X-Y debuffs and SNB only strips X-Y buffs. Make it so they only remove a limited number of what's going on - do you catch what I'm going on about?
We need to move away from this it's ON or it's OFF nonsense...am I right?
edit: BTW, if you're parsing your PDoTs with STOICs or ACT...well, unless they've been updated since this http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=514751 back on Feb 6th...then you're not parsing your PDoTs with STOICs or ACT. Break out the Notepad++ and LibreOffice Calc or Excel...
Cryptic needs to write the log better so the guys working on the parsers have an easier go at it...meh.
Please, don't shout "ur just a whiney tac!". But I have to voice my say as an escort captain. I seriously don't need my friends setting new records on how fast they can melt my 44k hull through full shields with the conga line of plasma spam. It's bad enough that I can't defend against something I can't even do anything about. HE only lasts so long.
Also, as mentioned above subnuc shouldn't completely strip my alpha strike. Then I'm essentially just a roast waiting to be thrown on the plasma grill. So if you reduce the effectiveness of HE, my only way of prolonging my inevitable death by fire, then I might as well not battle. And having subnuc take it away altogether is not fun.
One OP way after another of completely wrecking eachother. Maybe I'm at a disadvantage by sticking to the ol' escort way of just loading up as much tactical power as I can. Maybe it really is that I just can't do anything against plasma. If you're trying to bring balance, nerfing HE is not the way to do it. Now there is a whole lot else that needs to be balanced, but let's not get into that now.
I went through some kind of ramble here about plasma, but I underlined the main point.
With only 22k hull in my BoP, I thing plasma is quite strong enough, thank you.
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2) Plasma fires are instantly removed by any Hazard Emitters
If you force your target or their team mate to waste an HE (45s CD) on a plasma fire that came "free" from a 2.5% chance to proc that required no other effort, then you have clearly won the exchange.
I think that in this moment in game everybody would need as much HE can load .
Plasma is quite strong in this moment and ships specialized in plasma make fast kills.
Sometimes I have to run away and try to heal because I was hit twice or thrice by plasma and I have just one HE.
To balance plasma versus HE in my opinion would mean that everybody would get a supplemental HE beside the one it already has.
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If you force your target or their team mate to waste an HE (45s CD) on a plasma fire that came "free" from a 2.5% chance to proc that required no other effort, then you have clearly won the exchange.
Plasma procs do not occur frequently enough to generate sufficient plasma fire stacks needed to actually threaten a ship unless it has already taken significant hull damage.
Large plasma fire stacks are usually delivered by plasma torpedoes, and these slow projectiles are easily avoided or shot down.
The only reliable high damage plasma-fire dot in the game at this time is the Hyperflux firing mode of the Romulan Experimental Beam Array.
Meh, just slap on some Mk XII Electroceramic Hull Plating under a Mk XII Maco shield, and let it burn. I fly around engulfed in green flames more often than not.
:P
I think that in this moment in game everybody would need as much HE can load .
Plasma is quite strong in this moment and ships specialized in plasma make fast kills.
Sometimes I have to run away and try to heal because I was hit twice or thrice by plasma and I have just one HE.
To balance plasma versus HE in my opinion would mean that everybody would get a supplemental HE beside the one it already has.
Thanks for this tid-bit... I'll run more plasma in PVP and see how it goes. The few times that I did fight using my breen plasma ship, the results were acceptable but not stellar.
Plasma procs do not occur frequently enough to generate sufficient plasma fire stacks needed to actually threaten a ship unless it has already taken significant hull damage.
I think we can safely say that's the case for every proc that is not Phaser.
This was also not your original premise, your original premise was how easily plasma procs are healed by HE.
As far as I'm concerned weapon procs should be relegated to harassment effects and not dramatic effects (which phasers are guilty of).
So while I agree on some of the points you brought up about passive healing and plasma procs being generally low damage from energy weapons, I see nothing wrong with how HE currently clears plasma procs.
Plasma procs do not occur frequently enough to generate sufficient plasma fire stacks needed to actually threaten a ship unless it has already taken significant hull damage.
Large plasma fire stacks are usually delivered by plasma torpedoes, and these slow projectiles are easily avoided or shot down.
The only reliable high damage plasma-fire dot in the game at this time is the Hyperflux firing mode of the Romulan Experimental Beam Array.
No, seriously. I should introduce you to my fleetmate.
I think we can safely say that's the case for every proc that is not Phaser.
This was also not your original premise, your original premise was how easily plasma procs are healed by HE.
As far as I'm concerned weapon procs should be relegated to harassment effects and not dramatic effects (which phasers are guilty of).
So while I agree on some of the points you brought up about passive healing and plasma procs being generally low damage from energy weapons, I see nothing wrong with how HE currently clears plasma procs.
There's nothing wrong with phasers. What they shutdown is completely random and there's an immunity for 5 seconds. There is also no stacking of system shutdowns. In effect, once a subsystem is shutdown, there's a 10 second immunity to additional system shutdowns.
If there's any weapon type to complain about, it is Polarons. There's a reason why they are referred to as "lolarons".
It gets a bonus from Flow Capacitors. Has a 5 second drain duration with no immunity after those 5 seconds. The duration drain has a limited stack (note, the notes do not say it cannot stack or can only stack once...just that it has a limited stack). It also has an instant drain that has no stack limits.
Power Insulators will not help you with all of those drains hitting you at the same time. You can easily shut down 2 or 3 subsystems.
Er... outside of there being no logical reason why they do it. Other than a x/25 proc from a Mk I Phaser turret has the same proc chance as 125/100 proc from a Mk XII VR Phaser turret. That a lucky proc from them will kill shields, kill weapons, kill the ability to heal, or bring a target to a standstill. Yeah, nothing wrong with Phasers.
Tetryon might take some shields. Phasers might take all of the shields.
Polaron might take some energy from a system. Phasers might take all of the energy from a system.
Disruptors might reduce some hull damage resistance. Phasers might take the ability to use any ability requiring Aux that adds hull damage resistance.
Phasers are the most powerful proc. Maybe you wanted it to drop shields and it dropped engines instead - well, then that person might have gone from 90% defense to 15%. Maybe you wanted shields but got weapons - well, that person's not doing any damage to you now - may even end up wasting buffs. Wanted shields but got Aux - you burn through their shields anyway and they've got no Aux to deal with that damage.
Yeah, no problem with Phasers... /cough
Course, that's before you get into the hybrids with phaser procs.
If somebody wants to play Tuvok and pull a Covariant Phaser Pulse - then let them grab the Tac ability or fly a Sci. Phasers should have a different proc. Course, the proc fits in perfectly with the it's ON or it's OFF extreme mentality of everything else in STO....so why not have the worst form of RNG to boot, eh?
Er... outside of there being no logical reason why they do it. Other than a x/25 proc from a Mk I Phaser turret has the same proc chance as 125/100 proc from a Mk XII VR Phaser turret. That a lucky proc from them will kill shields, kill weapons, kill the ability to heal, or bring a target to a standstill. Yeah, nothing wrong with Phasers.
Tetryon might take some shields. Phasers might take all of the shields.
Polaron might take some energy from a system. Phasers might take all of the energy from a system.
Disruptors might reduce some hull damage resistance. Phasers might take the ability to use any ability requiring Aux that adds hull damage resistance.
Phasers are the most powerful proc. Maybe you wanted it to drop shields and it dropped engines instead - well, then that person might have gone from 90% defense to 15%. Maybe you wanted shields but got weapons - well, that person's not doing any damage to you now - may even end up wasting buffs. Wanted shields but got Aux - you burn through their shields anyway and they've got no Aux to deal with that damage.
Yeah, no problem with Phasers... /cough
Course, that's before you get into the hybrids with phaser procs.
If somebody wants to play Tuvok and pull a Covariant Phaser Pulse - then let them grab the Tac ability or fly a Sci. Phasers should have a different proc. Course, the proc fits in perfectly with the it's ON or it's OFF extreme mentality of everything else in STO....so why not have the worst form of RNG to boot, eh?
Do all of the procs scale with power levels? I know for sure plasma DOT does not. My fleet mate runs his power levels at a minimum to boost his aux and shields power level, and still gets the same plasma DOT burn. I don't know about the others, but it wouldn't make sense for Tetryon, Disruptor, or Polaron to scale with power level. And, again, what it disables is random. Any disabled system can be repaired with a battery or Red Matter Capcitor, no? Who doesn't have at least one battery in their device slots?
Polarons on their own have the capability to completely drain a subsystem. And it's all subsystems, not just one, that is weakened. Combine it with other drain abilities (like Leach) and you get the same affect as phasers, except it can happen on multiple subsystems at the same time. Polarons are much more crippling when specced into it and combined with other drains. Phasers, with the exception of hybrids, do not benefit from skills or additional equipment. Carrying a battery won't necessarily fix all of your shutdown systems if they get enough stacking duration and instant drains.
edit: Phased Polarons that you can add Tet Glider to...a Plasma proc to...the KineticProc to...can run with Leech...can proc a placate...
...Extremes.
edit: Course, as p2wsucks is fond of pointing out - that crappy lil' Plasma proc can trigger the same full heal on a crit as dropping a Tric Torp on them...meh.
If there's any weapon type to complain about, it is Polarons. There's a reason why they are referred to as "lolarons".
Pretty sure they are called lolarons from when they used to be terrible (before they got improved, and then subsequently toned down post over-improvement to their, I believe, current state).
With all of the phased polarons and phased tets running around in pvp, I can tell you that I have never once noticed a polaron proc or being affected severely by it.
I have, on the other hand, very clear memories of complete subsystem shut downs from Phaser procs, especially when they hit my Weapons, Engines or worst of all Shields. I'm sure healers are none too thrilled when their Aux gets hit.
edit: Phased Polarons that you can add Tet Glider to...a Plasma proc to...the KineticProc to...can run with Leech...can proc a placate...
...Extremes.
I will admit to using the kinetic proc and plasma proc, but their damage is pretty weak. I tested my damage with 1.5 total damage (running all cannons), and I did 77k kinetic damage and 22k in plasma DOT.
I'm not a fan of the hybrid weapons. I'd prefer the extra modifiers over the procs.
then theres that jem console set ability that is basically 'trigger a phaser proc' it even tells attackers what to expect. seeing shields vulnerable above your ship is the last thing you will see, i don't think its possible to generate more player agro then having that visible on you.
Pretty sure they are called lolarons from when they used to be terrible (before they got improved, and then subsequently toned down post over-improvement to their, I believe, current state).
With all of the phased polarons and phased tets running around in pvp, I can tell you that I have never once noticed a polaron proc or being affected severely by it.
I have, on the other hand, very clear memories of complete subsystem shut downs from Phaser procs, especially when they hit my Weapons, Engines or worst of all Shields. I'm sure healers are none too thrilled when their Aux gets hit.
When I was complaining in the siphon drone thread months ago, saying that leech still needed nerfing, we determined that my problem was that my fleet mate was using leech and polarons. The person who replied still called them lolarons for how over powered they were. If anything it went from being a big joke to being ridiculous.
If you aren't specced into Power Insulators (I am now), combining polarons with leech is quite devastating. In 1 on 1s with my fleetmate, my engines and aux would get completely shut down in every exchange we had (with the exception of a lucky 2-shot kill I got on him right after I decloaked). My shields power level would be drained enough that it offered little resistance to incoming fire.
Even with Power Insulators, enough stacked drains could do a significant drain on a ship.
If you aren't specced into Power Insulators (I am now), combining polarons with leech is quite devastating.
1) You wouldn't skip on 25 to 30% extra hull points from structural integrity or 25 to 30% extra Shield value from Shield Systems, why would anyone skip Power Insulators?
Even with Power Insulators, enough stacked drains could do a significant drain on a ship.
Key words = "stacked drains".
You can't use "stacked drains" as your baseline to compare polaron proc, which is one component, vs. what a Phaser Proc or Plasma Proc is capable of.
The phaser proc doesn't need anything else, it doesn't need a whole build around stacking effects - it just works, and it has a very dramatic effect with no skill ranks required.
I will admit to using the kinetic proc and plasma proc, but their damage is pretty weak. I tested my damage with 1.5 total damage (running all cannons), and I did 77k kinetic damage and 22k in plasma DOT.
I'm not a fan of the hybrid weapons. I'd prefer the extra modifiers over the procs.
What did you parse with? I don't have the Rom [Pla] consoles to see if they show up correctly or not. It's a royal PITA trying to get actual PDoT damage with ACT. Sometimes it covers the damage, sometimes it doesn't - it's the way the combat log's written.
Usually you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.1:: Plague,P (space added after : to avoid the smiley)
Sometimes though, you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
That second one does not appear to belong to anybody - but if you look at the end you might see 5ljrah1.
But that doesn't help you any, because that 5ljrah1 is the same for anybody. The only real way to test is against a person or a NPC that doesn't use 5ljrah1.
Because otherwise, you won't be able to tell if the:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
Belonged to you or somebody else with the way it's written in the log.
Every line should have the datetime stamp, the entity name, and whether it's a (P)layer or (C)omputer entity. Hilbert can fix the parsing issue with some of the funky names added in S7 for attacks - but he can't do anything about the log not telling him who did the attack.
Actually, what I was complaining about was leech. I didn't think polarons would do so much damage. We tested leech again without polarons, and the drain wasn't that bad. So, the overwhelming factor was the polarons.
1) You wouldn't skip on 25 to 30% extra hull points from structural integrity or 25 to 30% extra Shield value from Shield Systems, why would anyone skip Power Insulators?
2) Again, Polarons + Leech. 2 Items combined.
1) At the time, I laughed off Aceton Assimilator and Polaron drains, since it didn't really drain all that much. My fleetmate decided to go to the extremes and spec his Raptor to the maximum drain possible. And then I couldn't do anything from his Leech and Polaron weapons.
2) And that's just it. You can combine them to be even more of a threat. What can you combine phasers with to improve the subsystem shutdown?
You can't use "stacked drains" as your baseline to compare polaron proc, which is one component, vs. what a Phaser Proc or Plasma Proc is capable of.
The phaser proc doesn't need anything else, it doesn't need a whole build around stacking effects - it just works, and it has a very dramatic effect with no skill ranks required.
Just like plasma DOT builds, polarons rely on stacking to be at it's most effective. I disagree that stacking isn't an important factor.
Phasers do not stack and have an additional 5 second immunity. Meaning, there are 10 seconds in which you cannot get another system shutdown. If stacking wasn't an important factor, why did they remove stacking from Phasers?
There are no such restrictions on any other energy proc, no?
The fact of the matter is, no other energy type gets two drain procs. And they stack.
What did you parse with? I don't have the Rom [Pla] consoles to see if they show up correctly or not. It's a royal PITA trying to get actual PDoT damage with ACT. Sometimes it covers the damage, sometimes it doesn't - it's the way the combat log's written.
Usually you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.1:: Plague,P (space added after : to avoid the smiley)
Sometimes though, you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
That second one does not appear to belong to anybody - but if you look at the end you might see 5ljrah1.
But that doesn't help you any, because that 5ljrah1 is the same for anybody. The only real way to test is against a person or a NPC that doesn't use 5ljrah1.
Because otherwise, you won't be able to tell if the:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
Belonged to you or somebody else with the way it's written in the log.
Every line should have the datetime stamp, the entity name, and whether it's a (P)layer or (C)omputer entity. Hilbert can fix the parsing issue with some of the funky names added in S7 for attacks - but he can't do anything about the log not telling him who did the attack.
My fleetmate was the one who actually gave me the numbers, and I believe he uses the same one I do. It's been awhile, so I'm not sure if he's changed the one he uses.
Comments
If they use both of them on hazard emitters to protect against plasma fire then they don't have polarize hull to protect them from tractor beams and they don't have transfer shield strength to bolster their shield tank.
To gain total resistance to plasma fire they would have to make themselves venerable in other ways. This is fair in the same way that it is fair for some one to stack specific damage resistances. It sucks to fight them with the damage type they chose to defend against, but they have made themselves vulnerable to other people to do this so it is fair.
Now if you would like to use plasma weapons and you feel there are too many resistance buffs against it then consider that there are some damage bonuses available to you that are not there for other weapons.
Two parts of the Romulan Singularity Harness set will give you +7.6% plasma damage and the threat scaling consoles available at the romulan embassy will give you slightly improved bonuses over those given by your current consoles increased or reduced threat generation and up to +9.6% plasma damage.
What you save in EC buying plasma weapons on the exchange you will have to spend on consoles and gubbins to give you extra damage but you can be more then competitive with other damage types if you are willing to make the investment.
Couldn't agree more. Plasma was overblown out of proportion with Rom marks. Before that havent seen anyone actually using it in PvPs. There are always better consoles if you spend the money to optimize it or change to other weapon type. Old phaser still great as ever :P
Phasers: ET as low as 15 seconds, w/immunity of 5 second from ET as well as stacking immunities. Also has crew interaction to bring systems online quicker.
Tetron: There is none, but it's resistable like plasma fire is, iirc. ~2500-3k damage total iirc w/high flow cap investment.
Disrupter: TT clears iirc which has 5 second window in chain cycle.
Polaron: Idk if it can be cleared tbh, but it's resistable.
AP: CritD is it's extra proc.
Plasma: HE 30 sec global, hull resists to reduce damage, chains crits.
For projectile procs:
Tric stun resistable via Aux2damp, trics like plasmas can be shut down and has high payload of kinetic damage. Aux2damp has a shorter cooldown than HE.
Cronts can't be cleared, but can be made immune from effects and resist effects.
Transphasics have bleedthrew damage and the 1 crits all issue.
Quants and Protons don't have 2ndary effects to speak of.
In the end it seems inline to me.
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"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
The proc of Quantums and Photons is to kill crew. - Like anyone cares about crew loss.
HE won't save you.
Note that anti-borg shield have "energy" plasma damage resist, not projectilly, not dot. As a sci plama torp boat im ok with hazard, cause spaming plasma is a good tactic option forcing to waste hazard emitters, that also is usualy the most common and effective hull heal.
What its unballanced is the resist that 2 pieces of borg set have to the dot itself and other sci abilites like FBP that i normally use to blow careless escorts easily, cause it activates the borg regen all the time.
-Phasers have a 10 second proc cooldown and 5 second max system disable duration to prevent chain-system disables.
-Disruptor Breaches are not cleared by tactical teams.
-Chroniton slows should be clearable via AP-Omega, but I'll check later to confirm.
Anyway, the bulk of non-plasma energy weapons front-load their damage or effects -- they do not require time to be effective since their impact is immediate. Phasers disable subsystems. Disruptors lower resists. Tetryons drain shields. Polarons drain susbsystem power. Plasma, on the other hand, requires time to actually deal damage, and the latter is further mitigated by stacking human leadership traits. Plasma energy weapon procs do not trigger often, and when they do, their damage dealt per stack is so trivial that passive regen will often offset it completely.
Because of the above, I suggested to make plasma dots just a little more resilient -- not higher damage, but just a little longer lasting. Players will still have plenty of time to counter plasma dot damage.
BTW, I use all the energy types except for tetryon on various ships. I would like to see plasma's proc become more viable by giving it more staying power as opposed to bigger damage quantity.
My Breen ship sounds similarly spec'd with full Romulan plasma weaponry, Romulan Plasma Harness, and Borg space set. The Hyperflux plasma dot is quite deadly if not cleared in time. I use it for farming fleet actions since it consistently places 1st
Ahem, no - really I do. It's insane how many PDoTs you can load somebody up with from a combination of Omega, Hyper-Plasma, Regular Plasma Torps, Plasma Mines, Energy Weapons, and EWP. And they suffer from the one crit-chain crit with each PDoT (you're Omega's crit isn't going to crit your Hyper's - but if your Omega PDoT crits...and with how high you can get crit these days - mmmmm, yummy!)...
If HE wasn't already in the game, folks would be begging for something like it to be added.
Against a normal person running HE - let them. I'm spamming so much plasma in my wee tank Battle Cruiser...let them. Now then, if they're one of those AtB junkies...you're going to run into problems. If they've got friends with HE's to spare...you're going to run into problems.
It's either oozing that hot awesomesauce...or you better have a backup plan, because on the ladder of usefulness - you still haven't found the ladder yet otherwise.
Which...is a problem with a lot of things in STO. It's ON or it's OFF - there's no happy medium - Hell, there's no middleground at all. It's ON or it's OFF.
It's not just a problem with HE. It's a problem with all the cleanses. And it's not just a problem with cleanses, it's also a problem with SNB.
Just like a cleanse shouldn't be a complete cleanse, SNB shouldn't be a complete strip. It makes these abilities too powerful. They should cleanse X-Y debuffs and SNB should strip X-Y buffs. Maybe make the different levels cleanse more - maybe have SNB DOFFs that give the chance to strip more.
I shouldn't be able to cook people willy nilly with my Plasma...I agree with that completely. At the same time, my brothers - should they be able shut me down completely? Think about the other cleanses - you put all that effort (heck, your team may have put all that effort) into dropping a buttload of debuffs on them...they clear it all away with some little Ensign BOFF ability that they didn't have to spend a single skill point on to ruin all your fun? Think about SNB - you put all that effort (heck, your team may have put all that effort) into buffing up your lil' hunk 'o junk 'n space...to have some Bill Nye come along and strip that all away?
Hell no, I say... make it so cleanses only cleanse X-Y debuffs and SNB only strips X-Y buffs. Make it so they only remove a limited number of what's going on - do you catch what I'm going on about?
We need to move away from this it's ON or it's OFF nonsense...am I right?
edit: BTW, if you're parsing your PDoTs with STOICs or ACT...well, unless they've been updated since this http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=514751 back on Feb 6th...then you're not parsing your PDoTs with STOICs or ACT. Break out the Notepad++ and LibreOffice Calc or Excel...
Cryptic needs to write the log better so the guys working on the parsers have an easier go at it...meh.
Also, as mentioned above subnuc shouldn't completely strip my alpha strike. Then I'm essentially just a roast waiting to be thrown on the plasma grill. So if you reduce the effectiveness of HE, my only way of prolonging my inevitable death by fire, then I might as well not battle. And having subnuc take it away altogether is not fun.
One OP way after another of completely wrecking eachother. Maybe I'm at a disadvantage by sticking to the ol' escort way of just loading up as much tactical power as I can. Maybe it really is that I just can't do anything against plasma. If you're trying to bring balance, nerfing HE is not the way to do it. Now there is a whole lot else that needs to be balanced, but let's not get into that now.
I went through some kind of ramble here about plasma, but I underlined the main point.
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Joined October 2009. READ BEFORE POSTING
If you force your target or their team mate to waste an HE (45s CD) on a plasma fire that came "free" from a 2.5% chance to proc that required no other effort, then you have clearly won the exchange.
Plasma is quite strong in this moment and ships specialized in plasma make fast kills.
Sometimes I have to run away and try to heal because I was hit twice or thrice by plasma and I have just one HE.
To balance plasma versus HE in my opinion would mean that everybody would get a supplemental HE beside the one it already has.
I refuse to be content https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwI0u9L4R8U
Plasma procs do not occur frequently enough to generate sufficient plasma fire stacks needed to actually threaten a ship unless it has already taken significant hull damage.
Large plasma fire stacks are usually delivered by plasma torpedoes, and these slow projectiles are easily avoided or shot down.
The only reliable high damage plasma-fire dot in the game at this time is the Hyperflux firing mode of the Romulan Experimental Beam Array.
:P
Thanks for this tid-bit... I'll run more plasma in PVP and see how it goes. The few times that I did fight using my breen plasma ship, the results were acceptable but not stellar.
I think we can safely say that's the case for every proc that is not Phaser.
This was also not your original premise, your original premise was how easily plasma procs are healed by HE.
As far as I'm concerned weapon procs should be relegated to harassment effects and not dramatic effects (which phasers are guilty of).
So while I agree on some of the points you brought up about passive healing and plasma procs being generally low damage from energy weapons, I see nothing wrong with how HE currently clears plasma procs.
There's nothing wrong with phasers. What they shutdown is completely random and there's an immunity for 5 seconds. There is also no stacking of system shutdowns. In effect, once a subsystem is shutdown, there's a 10 second immunity to additional system shutdowns.
If there's any weapon type to complain about, it is Polarons. There's a reason why they are referred to as "lolarons".
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=389661&highlight=polaron
http://sto.perfectworld.com/news/?p=685121
It gets a bonus from Flow Capacitors. Has a 5 second drain duration with no immunity after those 5 seconds. The duration drain has a limited stack (note, the notes do not say it cannot stack or can only stack once...just that it has a limited stack). It also has an instant drain that has no stack limits.
Power Insulators will not help you with all of those drains hitting you at the same time. You can easily shut down 2 or 3 subsystems.
Er... outside of there being no logical reason why they do it. Other than a x/25 proc from a Mk I Phaser turret has the same proc chance as 125/100 proc from a Mk XII VR Phaser turret. That a lucky proc from them will kill shields, kill weapons, kill the ability to heal, or bring a target to a standstill. Yeah, nothing wrong with Phasers.
Tetryon might take some shields. Phasers might take all of the shields.
Polaron might take some energy from a system. Phasers might take all of the energy from a system.
Disruptors might reduce some hull damage resistance. Phasers might take the ability to use any ability requiring Aux that adds hull damage resistance.
Phasers are the most powerful proc. Maybe you wanted it to drop shields and it dropped engines instead - well, then that person might have gone from 90% defense to 15%. Maybe you wanted shields but got weapons - well, that person's not doing any damage to you now - may even end up wasting buffs. Wanted shields but got Aux - you burn through their shields anyway and they've got no Aux to deal with that damage.
Yeah, no problem with Phasers... /cough
Course, that's before you get into the hybrids with phaser procs.
If somebody wants to play Tuvok and pull a Covariant Phaser Pulse - then let them grab the Tac ability or fly a Sci. Phasers should have a different proc. Course, the proc fits in perfectly with the it's ON or it's OFF extreme mentality of everything else in STO....so why not have the worst form of RNG to boot, eh?
Otherwise it'd be an iWin button against everyone and PvP would be full of romulan plasma torps, just as it's full of bug ships now.
Actually if anything the romulan torps are overly powerful as they are, even with hazard emitters.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Polarons on their own have the capability to completely drain a subsystem. And it's all subsystems, not just one, that is weakened. Combine it with other drain abilities (like Leach) and you get the same affect as phasers, except it can happen on multiple subsystems at the same time. Polarons are much more crippling when specced into it and combined with other drains. Phasers, with the exception of hybrids, do not benefit from skills or additional equipment. Carrying a battery won't necessarily fix all of your shutdown systems if they get enough stacking duration and instant drains.
edit: Phased Polarons that you can add Tet Glider to...a Plasma proc to...the KineticProc to...can run with Leech...can proc a placate...
...Extremes.
edit: Course, as p2wsucks is fond of pointing out - that crappy lil' Plasma proc can trigger the same full heal on a crit as dropping a Tric Torp on them...meh.
...Extremes.
Virusdancer already covered this.
Pretty sure they are called lolarons from when they used to be terrible (before they got improved, and then subsequently toned down post over-improvement to their, I believe, current state).
With all of the phased polarons and phased tets running around in pvp, I can tell you that I have never once noticed a polaron proc or being affected severely by it.
I have, on the other hand, very clear memories of complete subsystem shut downs from Phaser procs, especially when they hit my Weapons, Engines or worst of all Shields. I'm sure healers are none too thrilled when their Aux gets hit.
I'm not a fan of the hybrid weapons. I'd prefer the extra modifiers over the procs.
If you aren't specced into Power Insulators (I am now), combining polarons with leech is quite devastating. In 1 on 1s with my fleetmate, my engines and aux would get completely shut down in every exchange we had (with the exception of a lucky 2-shot kill I got on him right after I decloaked). My shields power level would be drained enough that it offered little resistance to incoming fire.
Even with Power Insulators, enough stacked drains could do a significant drain on a ship.
So you already realize it's not just polarons.
1) You wouldn't skip on 25 to 30% extra hull points from structural integrity or 25 to 30% extra Shield value from Shield Systems, why would anyone skip Power Insulators?
2) Again, Polarons + Leech. 2 Items combined.
Key words = "stacked drains".
You can't use "stacked drains" as your baseline to compare polaron proc, which is one component, vs. what a Phaser Proc or Plasma Proc is capable of.
The phaser proc doesn't need anything else, it doesn't need a whole build around stacking effects - it just works, and it has a very dramatic effect with no skill ranks required.
What did you parse with? I don't have the Rom [Pla] consoles to see if they show up correctly or not. It's a royal PITA trying to get actual PDoT damage with ACT. Sometimes it covers the damage, sometimes it doesn't - it's the way the combat log's written.
Usually you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.1:: Plague,P (space added after : to avoid the smiley)
Sometimes though, you'll have this:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
That second one does not appear to belong to anybody - but if you look at the end you might see 5ljrah1.
But that doesn't help you any, because that 5ljrah1 is the same for anybody. The only real way to test is against a person or a NPC that doesn't use 5ljrah1.
Because otherwise, you won't be able to tell if the:
13:02:07:18:33:04.3::,,,,
Belonged to you or somebody else with the way it's written in the log.
Every line should have the datetime stamp, the entity name, and whether it's a (P)layer or (C)omputer entity. Hilbert can fix the parsing issue with some of the funky names added in S7 for attacks - but he can't do anything about the log not telling him who did the attack.
1) At the time, I laughed off Aceton Assimilator and Polaron drains, since it didn't really drain all that much. My fleetmate decided to go to the extremes and spec his Raptor to the maximum drain possible. And then I couldn't do anything from his Leech and Polaron weapons.
2) And that's just it. You can combine them to be even more of a threat. What can you combine phasers with to improve the subsystem shutdown?
Just like plasma DOT builds, polarons rely on stacking to be at it's most effective. I disagree that stacking isn't an important factor.
Phasers do not stack and have an additional 5 second immunity. Meaning, there are 10 seconds in which you cannot get another system shutdown. If stacking wasn't an important factor, why did they remove stacking from Phasers?
There are no such restrictions on any other energy proc, no?
The fact of the matter is, no other energy type gets two drain procs. And they stack.
This is the combat log parser I use: http://sourceforge.net/projects/combatlogparser/
My fleetmate was the one who actually gave me the numbers, and I believe he uses the same one I do. It's been awhile, so I'm not sure if he's changed the one he uses.