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Concentrated Tachyon Mines

lake1771lake1771 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited April 2013 in PvP Gameplay
I have them, and I use them on my defiant.
I don't honestly see any direct effect to an enemy shields when caught in the blast Except, for the fact that their shields turn to butter for a short while after being hit. I think they may actually debuff the targets ability to regen their shields for this time also. because it seems, once an enemy's shields have been depleted (by the very first barrage of weapons fire after the tachyon detonation,) they seem to have a hard time getting them back up.

What I'd like to know, is weather or not this is #1 working as intended, #2 effected by 'flow capacitor' skill or console.

I do know that many a shield tanking OP escort captain consider them to be OP. This makes me smile.
Post edited by lake1771 on
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Comments

  • maximus614maximus614 Member Posts: 162 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    lake1771 wrote: »
    I have them, and I use them on my defiant.
    I don't honestly see any direct effect to an enemy shields when caught in the blast Except, for the fact that their shields turn to butter for a short while after being hit. I think they may actually debuff the targets ability to regen their shields for this time also. because it seems, once an enemy's shields have been depleted (by the very first barrage of weapons fire after the tachyon detonation,) they seem to have a hard time getting them back up.

    What I'd like to know, is weather or not this is #1 working as intended, #2 effected by 'flow capacitor' skill or console.

    I do know that many a shield tanking OP escort captain consider them to be OP. This makes me smile.




    I speak for myself not others,,but i do not find them to be OP

    I fly a bug,,,i used to run dispersal patt beta 2,,so i was shooting out quite a lot of tach mines,,,yes they helped, but i cant tell you how many times ive hit people with a bunch of them,,,whipped around and blasted at them on focus fire and they still didnt die. The tach mines are supposed to do two things.

    #1 direct shield damage

    #2 lower the resist % of said shields.

    Some have told me they think these mines are op,,,i dont think they are,,,forget cross healing,,,ive used them in 1 on 1 scenarios and slammed people with those mines,,turned around and hammered them with 4 DHCs with rapid 3 and still didnt come close to killing them,,all while flying a bug with 5 mark XII purple tac consoles and accx2 minimum.

    The shield healing and tanking has gotten out of hand,,,people complain about escorts having all this firepower yet it does no good unless you go against noobs with TRIBBLE setups,,,,play a vet with a Godlike tank setup and i dont care how much DPS you dish out you wont kill them without help from 1-3 more teamates.
  • dontdrunkimshootdontdrunkimshoot Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    like all things, if you don't spec into them, they wont do much. put 99 points into flow caps, use 2 or 3 flow consoles, use a dispersal pattern and a tractor beam, and watch your targets shields completely disappear
  • renimaltrenimalt Member Posts: 219 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    In addition, the shield resist debuff stacks per mine; a DPB2 or DPB3 launch can easily send your target's shield resist through the floor if most of the mines hit. I forget the actual numbers, but I'm pretty sure I made a post on an earlier thread.
    Resist viewer! See shield/hull resists! Read about it here!
  • snoge00fsnoge00f Member Posts: 1,812 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • maximus614maximus614 Member Posts: 162 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    like all things, if you don't spec into them, they wont do much. put 99 points into flow caps, use 2 or 3 flow consoles, use a dispersal pattern and a tractor beam, and watch your targets shields completely disappear


    Not saying your wrong, but i just read the info on them while equipped to my ship and there is nothing on there that says "skills that effect this are"

    makes me think its just universal that nothing really effects them,,but i could be wrong. I have 6 points in flow caps,,use a tractor and have ran them with dispersal 2,,,they help but ive never once seen them strip shields or make it so i can just dust my opponent in one volley.
  • polie05polie05 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    You need to search before posting, this has been discussed at length. Yes they can be op and yes they will remove shields. No, they are not parsed hence they can not be tracked. They do ZERO damage to shields, they only attack the regen.

    Please search the forums for the topic, there's lots of good info with math and stuff.
  • borticuscrypticborticuscryptic Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?
    Jeremy Randall
    Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
    "Play smart!"
  • dalnar83dalnar83 Member Posts: 2,420 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue?

    Maybe the fact they cost 200 lobi has something to do with it....
    "Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
  • atatassaultatatassault Member Posts: 1,008 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?
    The OP is probably due to the fact that Tachyon mines make your shields more susceptible to damage, and the fact that apparently Power Insulators reduces shield drains to near negligible levels (even when the drain is boosted by Flow Caps). So you've got a weapon which causes a disruptor-like breach on the shields and other powers which are only shield drains.
  • borticuscrypticborticuscryptic Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
    edited March 2013
    The OP is probably due to the fact that Tachyon mines make your shields more susceptible to damage, and the fact that apparently Power Insulators reduces shield drains to near negligible levels (even when the drain is boosted by Flow Caps). So you've got a weapon which causes a disruptor-like breach on the shields and other powers which are only shield drains.

    And if this proves to be the sole difference between the two, it's possible that a Shield Weaken debuff may be added to the aforementioned Science Powers to increase their utility.

    That doesn't mean we aren't also considering reducing the effectiveness of Tachyon Mines. Just that they are also a useful case study in their current state.
    Jeremy Randall
    Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
    "Play smart!"
  • mustafatennickmustafatennick Member Posts: 868 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Probably because their a ripoff
    ----=====This is my opinion you don't have to listen and no one else has to read them these "OPINIONS" are based on my exploits and my learning other people will have their opinions and that's fine just don't knock my way of doing things thanks=====---- :cool:
  • maicake716maicake716 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?

    theyre "only now" becoming an issue because theyre really the only way to have a sure way to deal with fleet shields.

    theyve always been this powerful but only used by a handful of people (myself included) but as time went on theyve slowly become more popular as the only "sure" way to drop shields now.

    i also dont think theyre reduced by power insulators while all the above mentioned sciecne powers are instantly cut in half from the skill tree alone.
    mancom wrote: »
    Frankly, I think the only sound advice that one can give new players at this time is to stay away from PVP in STO.
    Science pvp at its best-http://www.youtube.com/user/matteo716
    Do you even Science Bro?
  • maicake716maicake716 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    And if this proves to be the sole difference between the two, it's possible that a Shield Weaken debuff may be added to the aforementioned Science Powers to increase their utility.

    That doesn't mean we aren't also considering reducing the effectiveness of Tachyon Mines. Just that they are also a useful case study in their current state.

    i would be quite happy if the above science powers ONLY weakened shields resists/regen instead of dealing any damage at all. it would vastly make science strong again without making them able to kill things alone.

    "teamwork"
    mancom wrote: »
    Frankly, I think the only sound advice that one can give new players at this time is to stay away from PVP in STO.
    Science pvp at its best-http://www.youtube.com/user/matteo716
    Do you even Science Bro?
  • dalnar83dalnar83 Member Posts: 2,420 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    maicake716 wrote: »
    i also dont think theyre reduced by power insulators while all the above mentioned sciecne powers are instantly cut in half from the skill tree alone.

    Not sure about this, but after using them a lot on my steammy, I have the subjective feeling that they hit hardened shields much less. Because one time they drain completely the shields, while the other they just drain a bit (on the same target).
    "Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
  • thegrimcorsairthegrimcorsair Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The OP is probably due to the fact that Tachyon mines make your shields more susceptible to damage, and the fact that apparently Power Insulators reduces shield drains to near negligible levels (even when the drain is boosted by Flow Caps). So you've got a weapon which causes a disruptor-like breach on the shields and other powers which are only shield drains.

    There is also the fact that, even in the face of Power Insulators, these mines alone are far more capable of draining shields than an otherwise dedicated Shield Draining ship that isn't also slotting these mines. Mix that strong drain with the aforementioned Shield DR debuff and touching a couple of these is virtually an automatic death sentence.

    There's another point to consider, too. There are a couple escorts now that can run 4 Flow Capacitors like a Science Ship would, while backing them up with the offensive BOff slotings and 4 Tactical Consoles typical of Escorts to where you are putting Science Ship like debuffing squarely in the hands of the most powerful damage dealing ships in the game. Combine that further with the synergy of Tetryon Glider and Elite Fleet KDF Disruptor Weaponry or the Andorian Escort's Tachyon Blast console and you're looking at a couple of ships that gain the ability to turn the shields of anything they encounter into little more than tissue paper, and usually with the ship following shortly thereafter.

    Anecdotally, with a character having 99 in PI (that is, 50% drain reduction), hitting one mine using a Vesta fitted with MACO Mk X shield lost half of shield capacity on all facings. That's about 5k per facing instantly gone from a single mine.

    [EDIT]

    After seeing Dalnar's post, is it possible the giant shield drain that we do occasionally see off them might be somehow related to the range of damage that they can do?

    Also, as I don't own the mines, does anyone happen to know if Tactical Captain powers affect their drain?
    If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
  • dalnar83dalnar83 Member Posts: 2,420 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    After seeing Dalnar's post, is it possible the giant shield drain that we do occasionally see off them might be somehow related to the range of damage that they can do?

    Also, as I don't own the mines, does anyone happen to know if Tactical Captain powers affect their drain?

    Not sure if the tac buffs affect it, but we can try. When you see me next time moaning in opvp channel, give me a shout and we can test it.
    "Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    The issue is somewhat complicated, here is what I think:

    BOFF Powers

    1) BOFF powers only provide "damage" (or in as Gecko explained it to us, negative healing. Due to this, if I am correct, this means these powers attack all four shield facings at once.

    2) BOFF powers have an associated opportunity cost with slotting & usage, especially at the higher tiers (CPB 3 = CMD, Tachyon 3 = LTC). Tachyon requires you to keep the beam on target for 10 full seconds. CPB is a 5km PBAOE.

    3) Associated with #2 these powers are also largely relegated solely to Science ships.

    4) The BOFF powers are all resisted by PI. They need a balance pass in face of this skills implementation.

    5) The BOFF powers are on medium/long cooldowns.




    Concentrated Tachyon Mines

    1) Unlike the BOFF powers, they provide (iirc) -5% resistance and 70% the damage of CPB 1, per mine. (Edited thanks to Borticus' info).

    2) They have an extremely low opportunity cost to slot and use (1 rear slot, potentially 1 Lt level Tac dispersal pattern).

    3) Associated with #2: Therefore any ship can use them, and ships can "TRIBBLE out" 5 mines every 15s - for example, an escort flying around at top speed, without a dispersal pattern.

    4) They are not resisted by PI, or at least seem not to be.

    5) To correlate with #5 in the BOFF powers list above, they are on a 15s (iirc) cooldown. Which means they can be used at more than double the rate of Sci BOFF powers.


    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now.


    Here's my speculation:

    1) Advent of high resistances from Fleet shields.

    2) New popularity of dispersal patterns since redesign.

    3) Trico mines were nerfed, these cost a fraction of what the Tachyon Mines cost and were the much lower hanging fruit.

    (Compare: 1 to 2 million EC vs. 200 Lobi, which can be roughly estimated at 40 to 60 million ECs or enough zen to buy a 3-ship pack - these also had a similar level of power for low opportunity slotting. )

    4) More people are realizing what they are capable of.



    And if this proves to be the sole difference between the two, it's possible that a Shield Weaken debuff may be added to the aforementioned Science Powers to increase their utility.

    That doesn't mean we aren't also considering reducing the effectiveness of Tachyon Mines. Just that they are also a useful case study in their current state.


    I think adding that to Sci abilities is a positive direction change, as long as PI resistance, multiple caster stacking limits, and potential debuff cleanses are all taken into consideration.


    Having them on low cost opportunity mines that can be used with dispersal patterns, on any ship with (in some cases) more than 2x the recast rate as comparable boff skills as well as no debuff cleanse or resistance skill interaction is highly problematic.
  • naz4naz4 Member Posts: 1,373 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    Early on when i got these mines, i played with them. They were that "effective" that whenever we had private matches against other fleets, one of the rules always was and still is no tachyon mines as there is no skill required to use them yet they do significant amounts of damage / debuffing. Spit them out every 15 secs and watch the opposition suffer. Imagine a 5 man team doing it with all of them running the mines with dispersal patterns. (Easily done without compromising team setups)

    In my simple head, to me anything that is OP is something that has the potential to kill queues or is an absolute game changer. Tachyon mines have the potential to ruin queues (i.e. completely kill them) in the same way the unintended Jem Hadar shield interaction with shield distro doffs killed the ques in the past until they were fixed. If i was in a loosing team against a well coordinated team, if my team switched over to these mines, we would turn the tides instantly without any player / team based skill.

    Some poeple may say that the SNB is OP based on my personal definition, however it is NOT an AOE effect like the mines and other things and can be cured with good team healers minimizing / negating it's damage potential. Tachyon mines are an AOE where the whole team is potentially affected. Who does the healer choose to save and who to allow to die? Bit unfair if you look at it from that perspective. The fully spec'd Grav pulse falls into this category as well but that's a topic for another day.

    when i play a healer role, to heal someone affected by these mines is like throwing a cup of water on a raging forest fire.
    As an escort, if i see someone affected by it, skill free "easy kill" comes to mind.

    Just my pennies worth...
  • zeuxidemus001zeuxidemus001 Member Posts: 3,357 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?

    Pretty much a reason to explain my view on how people are perceiving this as OP is as follows. When it was first released the tachyon mines were mostly just being used by people who had the ferrengi set on their ferrengi ship and that was before the mine changes took place. Now with the mine changes and the KDF growing as it has been some people have been building up b'rel torpedo boats using these mines. From my experience using them like this they are extremely useful except where most people aren't putting power insulators in their builds it completely nukes their shield capacity with a dispersal pattern being used.

    In my experience though usually 3 out of 5 players don't have power insulators in their spec so it appears very OP which compared to tachyon beam and CPB its a lot more powerful for what each of those do compared to it. If it is to get nerfed I would like to see other options being made available to the b'rel in form of a torpedo boat since this was primarily the only tactic to use to get shields down when using the enhanced battle cloak.
  • havamhavam Member Posts: 1,735 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    naz4 wrote: »
    /snip

    Yup Op because of the reason stated by others. Buffing sci BO abilities to perform more like the mines would be a move in the right direction.

    Alternatively, make it so that engie cpts can cast something to counter the effects. They need a reason for being on a team, which is why I quoted Naz.

    Last time i saw Pandas, you were running without eng healers, and have done so for some time. So please keep that in mind.
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    In my experienc though usually 3 out of 5 players don't have power insulators in their spec so it appears very OP which compared to tachyon beam and CPB...


    You're premise is completely flawed.

    You can have well over 100 in PI and your shields will still melt when you are hit with these.

    It's not even in the same arena as Tachyon and CPB - both of which have considerable cost opportunity and use limitations.
  • dontdrunkimshootdontdrunkimshoot Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?

    i think its a mater of the cost involved, and for a long time the right people weren't using it, us the minmaxers.

    the sci skills tach beam and CPB debuffing resistance seems like a no brainier addition, the fleet elite shields can still fairly easily hit the resistance cap, especially when they are in a defensive mode. you cant nuke away the resistance on that shield ether, just skills like EPtS. the elite shield is still way to good, its nearly not possible to kill someone without all shield bypassing methods, which are certainly non standard niche builds more then anything, and can be pretty easily countered with any amount of cross healing.


    tet glider works well if you spend like 3 sci consoles on flow cap consoles. its applied per shot though and when you pair it with CRF it works very well. the sci skills are just 1 big application, that is nerfed in half by 99 PI, or a 10 second over time skill that does to little to notice, and probably does little more then stall regeneration a bit.

    is the next project after FAW going to be that update gecko mentioned with shield drain? so it shows up in the log and all that? that would be extreamly nice to have, and if you can fix faw, surely that would be no problem!

    all the PI guarded skills, balance them assuming everyone has 99 skill points in them. that should be the base line, not 0 points in them. less then 99 should mean your more susceptible to something. from testing, it looks like 99 skill in something cuts listed effectiveness in half, and 200 in PI, which seems to be a resist cap, reduces affect by ~66%. so go ahead and double the output of CPB and tach beam, and add a shield resistance debuff as well


    an an unrelated note, TR basically doesn't do anything, robing you of power for only a single second, with only 2 stacks of that. after a second, your power transfer rate undoes the drain. around TR, you just see power levels flicker with up to -3 drain. the skill does absolutely nothing to players. instead of a drain for only 1 second, make it drain per stack for 5 seconds, and let it stack as many as it can, depending on how close you are too it. like 6 stacks in the center, and only 2 farther away. it would still take a lot of effort to keep someone near it, as it has basically no pull at all.
  • bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited March 2013

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?

    It takes along time for a community to reach a consensus about what is op and what is up. Individual players not so much but they can be drowned out by those who do not have as deep of an understanding of the game mechanics or what have you.

    As to why they are OP that is simple. They provide a penalty to shield resist, that creates a multiplier that increases the damage against the target. By contrast the drains from Sci Boffs are just a strait up damage or a plus damage against the target. Multipliers are always much more likely to be over powered than a simple plus. You also see this in STFs when a team is packing several copies of attack pattern beta the damage goes threw the roof. On that note the only reason that is not an issue in PvP is the dominance of Tactical Team which clears the APB debuff. If 4 out of 5 did not slot Tac Team I promise you APB would be considered over powered in a heart beat.
  • yris1yris1 Member Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    my 2 cents, I never PvP, however I own a D'Kora with a full Ferengi set since the release of that lockbox, the mines have been nice and OP for about 6-7 months, then they became what I call CRAPPY (remember I am talking PvE) probably during the so called mine revamp.

    In PvE when they were OP according to me, you could fly close to that Tac cube at the beginning of KASE, drop the mines (without any ability) and the shields of the cube (all faces) would go poof, completely disappear.

    Now, they are close to useless, they hardly reduce the shields of that same cube in a noticeable manner.

    Just my 2 cents, and I am not the only one who used them and find them useless now in PVE, I know at least 2 people in my Fleet.
  • shimmerlessshimmerless Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    The effectiveness of this weapon is still under review, but is being scrutinized carefully alongside the effectiveness of similar Science powers: Tachyon Beam, Charged Particle Burst, and to a lesser extent TSS:Shields.

    The basic premise at the moment is that most players consider the aforementioned boff abilities to vastly underperform, while a similarly-constructed weapon item is being called out as overperforming. And so, before we can consider changing either, we need to come to a thorough understanding of the differences between the two, and the circumstances separating what is perceived as "junk" to what is perceived as "OP" even when both have almost identical effects.

    I'm also curious, if I can poll you guys quickly... the Tachyon Mine launcher has been around for a year or so now. Why is it only now being frequently mentioned as a balance issue? Were they always OP, and just nobody knew or understood their power? Or was there a vital change to the overall structure of ships and their associated builds, that threw these into the forefront of effectiveness? I can tell you with certainty that their mechanics haven't been touched or tweaked since the Mine Revamp, which was several months ago, and before that there were nearly no changes since they first went live. So... why is it only now becoming an issue, do you think?

    The PvP community is very small. The mines themselves were (and are) expensive: they're priced at 200 a pop, character-bound, with a direct dil-sink of a currency being the only means of purchase. There are cheaper and more readily-available items which I still see rarely and find difficult to access for test purposes.

    The quality of the tooltip is also quite poor, meaning it's still not clear what the mines are supposed to do, and we've only figured it out for the most part through stress-testing. All of these factors in tandem mean that the mines had a low adoption rate until the mine revamp, which, while perhaps not affecting the tach mine launchers themselves, led to a renaissance in mine use and a renewed interest in the various flavors. It's quite possible that some players already knew and warned us about the strength of the mines, but couldn't find an audience since there's typically so much going on at once when it comes to the discussion on balance in the first place.

    I've posted my thoughts about shield drain elsewhere. The tach mines -- last time I encountered them, it's possible they've changed since -- were even worse in that they'd apply a regen debuff that'd send your innate regen into negative values. This meant that while the debuff was active you had to manually "climb" your way out of the negatives just to get a sliver of shields back at all. On many ship types this can be phenomenally difficult.

    I think on a larger scale shield drain is a no-go... it's a prettified way of dealing damage, and the difficulties balancing drain explain perfectly the genesis of these Lobi mines, a weapon that's far, far too effective at its intended purpose.
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  • borticuscrypticborticuscryptic Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
    edited March 2013
    I know that Shield Drains report poorly to the combat log, and in our tooltips unless manually overridden, so it's easy to see how some misconceptions could become accepted as truths.

    But let me squash this one once and for all: Tachyon Mines do not apply "Negative Regen."

    They act exactly the same as Charged Particle Burst. In fact, the data is a direct clone of CPB Rank 1, except that instead of disabling cloaks it applies a Shield Resistance debuff.

    Actually, now that I look closer at it, the value of the shield drain on Tachyon Mines is actually about 30% lower than that of CPB 1. But, instead of a single hit, you get multiple mines, each of which apply their full effect.

    I'll work on getting the tooltips for these items updated. But I wanted to clarify their operation. There's no such thing as an item that inflicts a Negative Regeneration. It's all Healing, Draining, HoTs and DoTs.
    Jeremy Randall
    Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
    "Play smart!"
  • dontdrunkimshootdontdrunkimshoot Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    ...but didn't geko say shield drains are a negative heal?
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2013
    I know that Shield Drains report poorly to the combat log, and in our tooltips unless manually overridden, so it's easy to see how some misconceptions could become accepted as truths.

    But let me squash this one once and for all: Tachyon Mines do not apply "Negative Regen."

    They act exactly the same as Charged Particle Burst. In fact, the data is a direct clone of CPB Rank 1, except that instead of disabling cloaks it applies a Shield Resistance debuff.

    Actually, now that I look closer at it, the value of the shield drain on Tachyon Mines is actually about 30% lower than that of CPB 1. But, instead of a single hit, you get multiple mines, each of which apply their full effect.

    I'll work on getting the tooltips for these items updated. But I wanted to clarify their operation. There's no such thing as an item that inflicts a Negative Regeneration. It's all Healing, Draining, HoTs and DoTs.


    A couple of questions:

    1) How much -resistance do these do?
    2) How much "damage" to shields to these do?
    3) Are these properly resisted by flow caps?
  • borticuscrypticborticuscryptic Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
    edited March 2013
    ...but didn't geko say shield drains are a negative heal?

    So is all damage, technically. It applies a negative value to your Hitpoint pool.

    The difference here is that when you're dealt Phaser damage (e.g.) it's parsed properly as dealing Phaser damage to your Hitpoint pool. Shield damage is different though, because Shields aren't the same type of pool as Hitpoints. They are ... well, they're different. And affecting them uses the same Attribute Modifier (same class as "Phaser" in the prior example) for both heals and drains. As a result, our Combat Log and Tooltips have a hard time recognizing which is which.

    I'm really trying to pull back the iron curtain on how all this stuff works, guys. But sometimes you just need to trust me. ;)
    Jeremy Randall
    Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
    "Play smart!"
  • borticuscrypticborticuscryptic Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
    edited March 2013
    A couple of questions:

    1) How much -resistance do these do?
    2) How much "damage" to shields to these do?
    3) Are these properly resisted by flow caps?


    1) 5% per Mine (... that seems a bit higher than necessary)
    2) This isn't easy to answer, as it has a large number of variables involved. But, as an estimate, it looks like it's about on par with 40% of an equivalent-level Photon Mine.
    3) No! Shocking! They were not properly tagged when created, so our power system didn't know to affect them.

    I'll include a fix to #3 when I get time to update the tooltips with better info.
    Jeremy Randall
    Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
    "Play smart!"
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