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Death of Sci and Tank roles.
deokkent
Member Posts: 5,439 Arc User
All content is dps oriented, basically all missions progress is faster and much more enjoyable with the builds that can produce the most damage. Sci and tanks fail at that so hard it's not even funny. Support roles are no longer required nor necessary. Currently, unless you are very bad at making adequate builds, you can heal/support yourself with just lieutenant eng/sci and usually you can survive long enough to finish off most opponents. No need for support from tanks or sci.
Do not get me wrong, this is not a cruiser vs escort build threads (we already have enough of those lol). This is about the fundamental roles of tanks/sci builds and their eventual future extinction. A cruiser can be build to tank, but in consideration of current content, it is so much more rewarding to scrap the tankiness for you and your team to boost your personal dps and power levels with abilities like aux to batteries (technician doff) or directed energy modulation, why not? Extend shields is a very useless ability, arguably still of some importance in PvP (debatable). Sci used to pride themselves at being the best healers/strongest shields with incredible ability to disable a ship's subsystem. Except that now, you have hybrids weapons (polarized phased weapons = subsystem targeting), sub nuc doff, lieutenant cmdr sci station equipped escorts/cruisers etc...
I saw a vesta doing 10k dps thread, it's built like a cruiser. Link
I saw a cruiser doing ~9k dps youtube vid, its skill tree is similar to that of an escort. Link
These above are indeed exceptional builds, but it does illustrate my point I'm trying to make people see in this thread.
Don't build a science vessel like a science vessel, and you perform better.
Don't build a cruiser starship like a cruiser, and you perform better.
Hence the title, death of sci and tank roles.
Do not get me wrong, this is not a cruiser vs escort build threads (we already have enough of those lol). This is about the fundamental roles of tanks/sci builds and their eventual future extinction. A cruiser can be build to tank, but in consideration of current content, it is so much more rewarding to scrap the tankiness for you and your team to boost your personal dps and power levels with abilities like aux to batteries (technician doff) or directed energy modulation, why not? Extend shields is a very useless ability, arguably still of some importance in PvP (debatable). Sci used to pride themselves at being the best healers/strongest shields with incredible ability to disable a ship's subsystem. Except that now, you have hybrids weapons (polarized phased weapons = subsystem targeting), sub nuc doff, lieutenant cmdr sci station equipped escorts/cruisers etc...
I saw a vesta doing 10k dps thread, it's built like a cruiser. Link
I saw a cruiser doing ~9k dps youtube vid, its skill tree is similar to that of an escort. Link
These above are indeed exceptional builds, but it does illustrate my point I'm trying to make people see in this thread.
Don't build a science vessel like a science vessel, and you perform better.
Don't build a cruiser starship like a cruiser, and you perform better.
Hence the title, death of sci and tank roles.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Second that.
If AI would actually be intelligent and use buffs intelligently Sci's would become more useful again.
Never gonna happen tho, and give Sci's Tac/escort dps will severely unbalance PvP and makes Tacs useless.
I have to agree completely.
What he's not saying is that these roles can't happen, but that they aren't needed in the kind of content that we're seeing in this game notably end game.
How many Borg STFs including the elite ones have you personally seen where a tank or healer or debuffer was actually necessary? 0
I see that every day, 4 escorts and 1 science ship and the science ship is doing just as much DPS as all the escorts and all the escorts are healing themselves without an issue and preventing damage without blinking.
That's what I'm seeing everyday. OP is absolutely right. And when people stop wanting to hold onto escorts being the most powerful ship in the game and actually admit to the reality of the situation, that's when changes will come but so far I keep seeing misdirection arguments over this.
Umm.. actually the insane dps of escort ships allows them to do just that: a blob of spheres dies in seconds.
The one thing they cant kill in a jiffy is the tac cubes and other boss things.. but hey, when facing these, escorts are still kings becuase of their defense tanking (speed tanking) and cruisers and sci just sit there trying to put out dps because their debuffs no longer work very well nor can they tank the absolutely absurd spike damage the borg npcs put out (200k+ non-crit, non-heavy plasma torpedo? /fail ).
I switched my super-tanky, group support voquv to just pure absurd dps. Dropped threat control altogether. Guess what? The escort now get the aggro and he tanks better than my full template for healing/tanking/resists ever could...by merely increasing his speed and hitting atk omega.
The roles of ships in this game are dead and gone. Only DPS matters. Only one class of ship has the means to guarantee very high dps. This is the end result of a few years of very bad design decisions on top of the constant need to monetize ...and DPS items sell much better than science or tanking items.
Completely agree.
What I find funny as the arguments against what you are saying are these:
- you're playing it wrong
- make a video so the devs can see something they already know
- there is no spoon, there is only zuul (aka escorts really aren't more powerful it's all our imagination, and Tac skills are fine there's nothing to see here, and my personal favorite, beams really aren't that nerfed compared to canons.)
- show me the equations or no deal
you can currently join any elite STF and see mostly escorts in every team, you can join the RA's and see mostly escorts in every team, you can join pvp and see mostly bugs in every team. Just hang out for five minutes at ESD and watch what T5 flies into space to dock and you'll see it's mostly escorts. It's no secret and certainly not a conspiracy theory it's just bad business. They know they are too powerful but the need to make a buck is over-riding every other design decision to make escorts what they should be, glass cannons. Some people just can't handle the truth about things i guess.
I dream of the day when I can actually fly in my Bellerophon and actually do some real damage from my science skills and not be made of tin foil again as a science captain and a day when the level of the T5 subsystem shutdown on these ships are brought up to par with the rank of the captain, ie Target Subsystem Mk III.
I would guess that they do indeed understand the way Cryptic has configured ship roles, they just want it to be different.
You see escorts everywhere because that's what you WANT to see. I play a lot of STF's, and there's always a changing mixture of ship types. ESD is a parking lot for escorts? No it isn't. I see as many Ody's as I do any particular escort. Did you consider, before posting this flight-of-fancy that since bugs are flying out of lockboxes like crazy that people would might want to try their new toy? How about the Andorian? It's still relatively new, and again, might be something new owners want to try for a while.
Perhaps you'd be happier of you spent less time worrying about what other people are using and just enjoy the game for what it is.
Why so, because Cryptic isn't willing to destroy one class of ship (AND buffing to high-heaven your favorite class) because a post-happy few want them to?
Jesus, the same tired, baseless argument, ad nauseam.
I'm soooo sorry that you don't like people having the option to build however they like (pulls out a puny violin and starts playing... badly).
I would even go so far as to say that giving people this very option you seem to dislike so much is why the game is DPS centric and not a trinity based system. Odd how what some dislike others such as myself absolutely love and consider one of the saving graces of STO.
Besides, who do you think you are to tell others what a "proper" sci or cruiser build is?
Edit: BTW, I don't know if you're aware of this but in most MMOs people stay away from the tank and healer roles because most prefer to pew pew. If Cruisers and SCIs were strictly tied to these roles as it seems you'd prefer (with some CC thrown in for SCI), they'd be practically abandoned by the playerbase. Just a little something to consider. IE. Don't try to push roles on people!
Lol, I have the oppossite problem than the poster you're responding to, I see cruisers everywhere and non seem to know how to play! Somehow, even with a -Th console I STILL pull agro. I know my cruiser wouldn't loose agro, how is it that out of 4 cruisers not ONE bothers to spec threat control?
The ships and skills are mostly fine. Fix the STFs.
Yes they do, and thats why actually giving us cruisers and scis that do not such at the dps game would be a splendid move.
The escort crowd is pretty much sated. bug ships, jem hecs, hecs, kumari, fleet escorts.
But not s single decent cruiser (basically because beams sucks and beam skills suck too) and only one decent sci (vesta)
Hey cryptic, i things its our turn to get good stuff, we have money too and sure as fck wont spend it on crummy escorts.
I don't think Ody pilots would consider their cruisers bad, and Excelsior pilots are the most vocal about how good their ships are. I can personally testify to the awesomeness that is the Regent. Good builds with these ships are not easy to make or get but it is doable. Of course, from your absolutist tone I don't think you really know what you're talking about.
I've been getting it into my head recently that cruisers suffer from having no real role in the game...
I don't know about Odysseys or Excelsiors, but my Regent is very difficult to build for damage without unintentionally turning it into tinfoil. All the same, it seems like no matter what I do, damage is insufficient to actually punch a hole in shielding and building up to do that comes at a severe cost in terms of overall tanking. Worst thing about it is that I still have to make sacrifices to overall durability anyhow, so my cruiser is only slightly more durable than the average escort.
I don't understand what a cruiser is supposed to be good for, anymore. The whole tanking role has been usurped by carriers, which also happen to be better at support too. With the possible exception of Odysseys, it seems as if Federation cruisers no longer have a niche, nor the flexibility that they should have when compared to other ships.
Not really true, but I will say its beyond the ability of the average pilot.
even hose is a wash. 5 tacs in escorts with subnuke doffs eliminates the need for a sci debuffer. sure a cruiser might make things a little easier, but with proper equipment and stuff especially with the reputation passives, a well coordinated team of 5 tac scorts can conquer even hose.
When I play fed side I'm usually in a Fleet Excelsior running dual aux2bat, it performs just fine... So I think OP is way off base... For PvE a Fleet Exclesiors and Fleet Nebulas are more than viable, just know your role...
This is the truth. Escorts blow through the DPS designed content faster because DPS is what an escort is designed for and the AI in STOs PvE is not up to the part of challenging that DPS.
Cruisers and Science can still complete said content but usaually at a slower pace.
R.I.P
I love my escort, but i love my vesta and my galor too. Unfortunately I can't really take the eng/galor in STFs except in hive onslaught elite and maybe cure space elite otherwise i just get bored hitting the space bar/FAW like a zombie.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.