In this game, you can indeed be a science officer in a science vessel or any other combo of ship classes and professions, obviously you won't do the BEST damage, but you can still get it up there, if you spec it all right.
I am sure there are going to be those elitist types that think if it isn't the best, then it sucks, but I tend to avoid those types like the plague, they take the game WAY too seriously.
The same could be said for just about every MMO there is.
False. If you truly believe this, it shows that your experience with this genre probably doesn't precede the Combat spec Rogue in WoW. Unless you've played 'just about every MMO there is' to the top level, you have no idea.
This is a situation somewhat unique to STO. Or perhaps you could detail which game(s) allow you to complete raid level content with a group of the same DPS class? Can't do it in EverQuest or EverQuest 2. Heck, you can't even solo Tarasque in Anarchy Online and that encounter is 10+ years old (thus, mudflation should make it trivial). I honestly can't think of any MMO games that allow you to vaporize raid content with a group of DPSers (without using exploits, that is). The reason for that is MMO designers tend to like to make those thankless roles (tank & "healer") valuable by making them necessary.
These roles arent dead/dying at all. To a certain extent i understand what youre saying, if you compare an sto tank to a different game tank, then yes, most tank are hybrids.
Get as much survivability as you need, and add dmg ontop of that.
As a "tank", i can however tell you, that most of the groups i get paired with in estf's will not be able to complete it. An escort that doesnt have to tank can outdamage an escort that needs to worry about survivability. Said escort can sit stationary at the optimum range and use offensive abilities, instead of worrying about surviving AND dps'ing.
No...a tank optimizes his escort's dps, and is still very much needed.
You have a very warped sense of 'needed'. Do you 'need' a Bentley....or will a Toyota get you from point A to point B just as efficiently....with less worry about costs (shopping cart ding on a Bentley can cost more to fix than the Toyota's book value). In MMOs, that usually comes down to loot (in raid content) and/or xp (in non-raid content). It's the reason for the solo boom in this genre. The more people you add, the more potential aggravation you add. If tanks and support roles were "needed", this game wouldn't have half the people playing it that it does. People just would not stand for a return to the EverQuest halcyon days. So no, you don't NEED a tank or a support class in this game and that's probably going to create issues over the next year or so (even if they release 'smash your head against the wall' difficult content. Unless they retroactively change the existing content, which is not likely).
In this game, you can indeed be a science officer in a science vessel or any other combo of ship classes and professions, obviously you won't do the BEST damage, but you can still get it up there, if you spec it all right.
I am sure there are going to be those elitist types that think if it isn't the best, then it sucks, but I tend to avoid those types like the plague, they take the game WAY too seriously.
The problem is, folks like you don't shape perception and they don't drive development decision-making. The 'elitist types', however, do. It's the data mined from their activities that the devs use in encounter design and yes, even when determining when and/or how something needs to be nerfed. So yes, while pretty much every possible combination of class/ship/role can muddle through PvE content ("accessibility" being the key goal), those muddlers' builds don't shape the perception of the class/ship/role they're using.
I think the OP is right but there's nothing to be done about it. This is just the culmination of almost a decade's worth of changes to make the genre more palatable to more people. You remove the actual need for other people (interdependence) to remove the annoyance of not being able to accomplish anything without other people ("I was LFG for 6 hours!!!!"). Maybe they could release new content that is made much easier by a new ship they rolled out (for the C-Store, of course). But requiring specific roles for content (a la EverQuest's 'you can't raid current content without warriors and clerics' interdependence model) would really put a dent in their figures as folks either avoid that content or quit playing altogether (for example, if bored with the existing content and unable to do the new content).
Quite the tightrope to walk, where is seems the most obvious solution is the one wrought with peril.
Ok you can CC, hows those stopped Spheres? Dead? Sorry I killed them before ur grav well got them.
Ok you Cruisers.
How's that boss ur tanking? What? he didn't hit you? Sorry my cannons generate way more aggro then your cruiser.
Ok you healers.
What no place to heal? Sorry I killed all the NPCs dealing damage.
Ok you debuffers.
You debuff, I kill 1 second after you debuff, but that was gonna happen anyway, you just let me copy and paste of 170k Beam Overload 3.
Ok You DPSers
Hey, good job killing those NPCs before any of the above roles are even remotely needed.
This argument is PURELY PvE
PvP:
Healers>DPS
Tanks= Unused, because in pvp, th players simply wouldn't hit you.
Debuffs=Death to heals
Buffs=Help killing heals
So All roles except tank are viable in pvp, just not pve.
To an extent I have to agree with OP.
If it weren't for my Carrier's Bird of Preys (purple) I would actually feel useless. Esp now that Borg spheres use nitrous in their engines that they easily get out of GW III
But on the other hand there have been times when an escort does too much damage and blows up a generator early etc, that my sci skills have actually been helpful in averting a lost optional or when tunnel vision ships dont get out of Donatra's cone of doom and get reduced to 10% health, my sci skills are the only things that bail them out.
So essentially in a team with escorts who know what to do, I am thankful I have purple pets so I don't feel like a fifth wheel, but in a pug where things can get nutty, I'm thankful I am a sci and have good cc and heals.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
I've been thinking on how to make tanks actually viable in both PvE and PvP, and the only way I can think of doing it is a kind of "mark" system like they have in various table top game.
Essentially, it would be an inbuilt ability of a cruiser. It would pulse out and "mark" every enemy target around it. Those targets then would do one of the following:
A.) Debuff every target until that target attacks the tank. The debuff should either be a damage reduction and/or damage resistance reduction. Making those escorts weaker would force them to change targets and weakening their damage resistance will turn the already weak escorts into paper tigers for other ships to chew up.
B.) Every target the pulse hits has it's target changed to the tank and they can't change again for so many seconds. That will give the other ships on the team a chance to regroup and heal and come back for another round while the targets can't even heal each other and MUST attack a target that won't go down quickly.
I wouldn't do both, or if they were it would be two separate abilities on a shared cooldown so you can't run both at the same time or in rapid succession. This would be a cruiser exclusive ability like how dual cannons are exclusive to escorts and subsystem targeting is a science ship exclusive.
Of course, then you have the issue with the Romulan and Klingon ships, and the random lock box ships which can carry dual cannons but are cruisers in design. Maybe it should be an engineering ability instead then, either a BO or a captain ability. Maybe have one be a BO power and the other a captain, that would be a nice change.
I'd also like to see the power of the subsystem targeting on sci ships bumped up to level 3 instead of sitting at 1 (leave the cooldowns, I just want the power anyway).
Just my thoughts.
I know there is a method but all I see is madness.
To an extent I have to agree with OP.
If it weren't for my Carrier's Bird of Preys (purple) I would actually feel useless. Esp now that Borg spheres use nitrous in their engines that they easily get out of GW III
The borg have a bugged version of EptE that is on a very short cooldown, allowing them this massive speed boost.
Thing is, most people try NOT to play its ship's designed purpose.
So let's take Fleet Recon or normal Recon sci vessels and Aventine class Vesta.
First thing that most "defense" oriented captains in STO do is to boost shields, hull and resistances of their ship, no matter what ship. and then to sit there taking damage while doing basically nothing.
Those captains think they want to be crowd control guys, but at same time they are afraid of leveling their Threat Control skill, through embassy TH+ consoles, jem'hadar Delta DOFFs or actually putting points in Threat Control skill.
SCI vessel of Recon/Intrepid type specced to be basically shield tank with 2 copies of scramble for spam, or random energy drain spam. and all shield/hull regen abilities and gear are biggest offenders to SCI captains.
They are not useful for anything in this game, they are just annoyance in PvP at best.
SCI Carriers are real defensive/heal/guard/deterrent role in space combat, but they need threat control skill.(even though i would never play sci in carrier, not my style)
Recons are for agressive/attacking type of sci captains and such SCI captain in say Aventine can make more kills in game then JHAS, Khyzon, MVAE, you name your favorite escort. Yes you need to spec such captain for exactly that role, but that's the whole point, namely knowing what exactly you want to do with your ship.
I level/gear up my scis to do fast kills through single target debuffs, holds or disables while doing damage.
If you want to do crowd control in PvE with cruiser, or SCI you MUST level up/generate threat.
And there are many ways to do it besides having 4/5 DHCs buffed to the teeth with APA/APO, CRFs, BOs and 30-50 mill EC of doffs.
Also there are far more ways to play sci then to play tac in escort. I like to play both.
"Tank" cruisers:
again most people, primarily eng captains, like to play some super useless cruiser Aux2SIF,
RSP, warp Plasma, theta , metreon, weak beam spam/you name it builds.
I like to call this builds Stalemate.
Such captains will never ever kill any tougher enemy, they will never generate enough threat, and they will also be busy just putting useless small heals on escorts, they will be tough to kill and they will feel awesome.
Until they get tired of not doing damage, then they will, wrong specced and all, try to do change skills to do some damage and die constantly, which will bring them back to boosting defense, resistances and self-heals. It's neverending circle of fail.
And why are such ships fail. Because they don't do any role in RPG.
Threat eng and tac cruisers are most awesome thing in game if played right.
Such ships can kill any enemy. can control entire elite STFs or PvP, AND THEY CAN SURVIVE without 5 copies of EPTS/AUX2SIF, RSP, HE, TSS etc.
Also, agressive SCIs can lead the team, control the game and not just clear escorts and debuff enemies.
There are so many roles to be played in so many ways.
It's sad that ppl see only TAC-escort. SCI-carrier AoE spammer, and eng-heal cruiser.
And BTW, you can win ANY elite PvE or PvP as a sci or as eng, so what's the point of this topic?
Need to force the game to REQUIRE "role" that is not needed in SPACE combat?
A need for shield guy, a sword guy and wizard guy? That is not space combat. Never will be-
Need to force the game to REQUIRE "role" that is not needed in SPACE combat?
A need for shield guy, a sword guy and wizard guy? That is not space combat. Never will be-
In STO, the sci would be the wizard guy that has magic so weak he is better off using his stick and dagger.
Wizard guy casts 'aoe damage&snare' spell... but it does no damage and stuff that get snared for half a second just walk away from it. DAMN and that was a high level spell too!
Wizard guy casts 'drain' spell. It has no effect on target.
Wizard guy casts 'blind' on target. Target steps on blade of grass, feels it on his skin...the blind spell is dispelled because target took some damage.
Wizard guy casts 'heal'. OH HEY this one works fine! yay! ..then sees fighter guy casting the same spell on himself. Wizard guy feels useless.
Wizard guy casts 'weaken' on target. Target is immune. Naturally. Since birth.
Wizard guy picks up staff and rusty dagger and heads out to achieve something in life. Tired of being a McWizard fail-flipper.
Those captains think they want to be crowd control guys, but at same time they are afraid of leveling their Threat Control skill, through embassy TH+ consoles, jem'hadar Delta DOFFs or actually putting points in Threat Control skill.
Threat Control is far too high level for what it does. If you put points into that you are not too bright. Also full TC without the ability to dish out any DPS will still not get you Aggro over a heavy hitting Escort. The consoles on the other hand are an option IF you have an embassy up to that level which is a big IF. The DOFFs are likewise an IFFY thing because they are not all that available.
SCI vessel of Recon/Intrepid type specced to be basically shield tank with 2 copies of scramble for spam, or random energy drain spam. and all shield/hull regen abilities and gear are biggest offenders to SCI captains.
Are you basically saying that this is the wrong way to set up a Science Vessel? Because it is... Yes, if you set up a Science ship that way then it will be pretty bad for your Captain to fly. The thing that tends to TRIBBLE up Science ships the most though is the HUGE resistances everything got to their powers and the fact that GW only barely works even at Tier III with max Aux.
SCI Carriers are real defensive/heal/guard/deterrent role in space combat, but they need threat control skill.(even though i would never play sci in carrier, not my style)
If you mean the Atrox by "Sci Carriers" or even just a Science Captain in a Carrier then you must be joking. My Carriers take Aggro easily without threat skill. I can also MURDER enemy cubes, structures, and ships like it was no big deal and STILL tank and throw heals on my team mates (if they need them).
Recons are for agressive/attacking type of sci captains and such SCI captain in say Aventine can make more kills in game then JHAS, Khyzon, MVAE, you name your favorite escort. Yes you need to spec such captain for exactly that role, but that's the whole point, namely knowing what exactly you want to do with your ship.
This is true but you will do a LOT more damage with a Tactical Captain in an Aventine than a Science or Engineering Captain ever will. Attack Pattern Alpha + Omega + Tactical Fleet + Fire on my Mark + Quantum Field Focus Beam = INSANE Damage. I have been able to tear down the Borg Queen's shields with that which is no small feat.
I level/gear up my scis to do fast kills through single target debuffs, holds or disables while doing damage.
If you want to do crowd control in PvE with cruiser, or SCI you MUST level up/generate threat.
And there are many ways to do it besides having 4/5 DHCs buffed to the teeth with APA/APO, CRFs, BOs and 30-50 mill EC of doffs.
Also there are far more ways to play sci then to play tac in escort. I like to play both.
But the problem remains... What is better? A target who you have the attention of or have stopped from moving temporarily or a target which is DEAD? Ooops... That is the problem isn't it?
"Tank" cruisers:
again most people, primarily eng captains, like to play some super useless cruiser Aux2SIF,
RSP, warp Plasma, theta , metreon, weak beam spam/you name it builds.
I like to call this builds Stalemate.
Such captains will never ever kill any tougher enemy, they will never generate enough threat, and they will also be busy just putting useless small heals on escorts, they will be tough to kill and they will feel awesome.
Until they get tired of not doing damage, then they will, wrong specced and all, try to do change skills to do some damage and die constantly, which will bring them back to boosting defense, resistances and self-heals. It's neverending circle of fail.
And why are such ships fail. Because they don't do any role in RPG.
Threat eng and tac cruisers are most awesome thing in game if played right.
Such ships can kill any enemy. can control entire elite STFs or PvP, AND THEY CAN SURVIVE without 5 copies of EPTS/AUX2SIF, RSP, HE, TSS etc.
Oh I hear that... Aux2SIf, RSP, and Warp Plasma can all be great but not when used by an Engineer in a Broadsiding Beam Boat who's primary method of attack is Beam: Fail at Will! Get the same Cruiser, put a Tactical Captain at the Helm and tweak its skills and suddenly you can deal very respectable damage, hold down enemies, AND tank easily enough to survive any damage that would not have one-shotted the super tank build.
The problem is not so specifically Captain type it is that the enemies are usually very dumb and make up for it by having massive shields, massive hulls, and OP torpedoes and Science shield killing abilities (which are only like a thousand times better than the Player versions these days), and heavy resistance to Science CC skills making it most important to simply avoid taking damage to begin with (heavy movement Defense bonuses) and dish out the maximum amount of damage possible. Everything besides those two things is just fluff and frill.
I tank PvE in my fleet Varanus pretty much every time I load into an STF. It's very, very rare that a DPS build has enough DPS to override my aggro. And if they do? Well... I can toss my TSS's and HE's on them instead of me, no biggie. Meanwhile, I'm still shieldstripping and crowd controlling LIKE A BOSS!
It's all about threat generation.
/ Well, at least I was controlling like a boss until the borg spheres got nitrous :eek:, but anyway...
Cause: The vast majority of the content in this game is so easy it has been completed by shuttles or low tier ships by good players.
Effect: Those who seek optimum performance in PvE build for DPS with just enough tank/utility to achieve the objectives in the shortest period of time. Others who just enjoy doing something such as tanking or heavy debuffing do so and can still succeed.
Cause: Many players have a serious lack of knowledge on how things in this game actual work like the math. Hence why most complains about other players tend to be about their rainbow weapons instead of them just having a terribad build. Additionally many lack the objectivity to realize that their last uber high damage crit was thanks to the two copies of APB3 and full AUX sensor scan applied to the target moreso than their APO, or that their gravity well didn't kill the group of spheres but the cannon scatter volley mixed with the torpedo spread hitting bare hull, or that their lucky string of critz were created by the tractor beam pushing your accuracy overflow into the stratosphere not just luck. Or how to objectively evaluate a parsed log.
Effect: Many players have difficulty objectively viewing both balance issues and the effectiveness of their builds.
Thing is most STFs are time based. and what gets it done faster in most cases is higher dps. Rewards for tanking/healing/cc are lower than quick-melting-kabooms and pew-pews
Until that changes, threads like this will always pop up.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
Thing is most STFs are time based. and what gets it done faster in most cases is higher dps. Rewards for tanking/healing/cc are lower than quick-melting-kabooms and pew-pews
Until that changes, threads like this will always pop up.
Well, that plus the fact that sci abilities really can't do much to lock down an opponent, certainly not relative to the damage capability sci ships lose. You could use Tachyon 3, CPB3, and TR3 on a cube with full Aux and Flow Caps skill and not even notice the difference (and you can't fit all those abilities on the same ship). The effect of CSV1, on the other hand, would be immediately obvious, even with single cannons and 75 weapon power. Shield drains should drain a significant quantity of shields, and energy drains should have a noticeable effect on the damage numbers coming from the target's energy weapons, with Siphon 3+TR2 fully shutting down even a tac cube for the duration of the effect (actually, I think it shouldn't take that much, but that's open for some debate). Threads like this will keep popping up until that is the case.
Well, that plus the fact that sci abilities really can't do much to lock down an opponent, certainly not relative to the damage capability sci ships lose. You could use Tachyon 3, CPB3, and TR3 on a cube with full Aux and Flow Caps skill and not even notice the difference (and you can't fit all those abilities on the same ship). The effect of CSV1, on the other hand, would be immediately obvious, even with single cannons and 75 weapon power. Shield drains should drain a significant quantity of shields, and energy drains should have a noticeable effect on the damage numbers coming from the target's energy weapons, with Siphon 3+TR2 fully shutting down even a tac cube for the duration of the effect (actually, I think it shouldn't take that much, but that's open for some debate). Threads like this will keep popping up until that is the case.
Yup.
The Borg npc's shield drain for example is pretty much effective against player shields but vice versa the same is pretty much useless or not very effective even with full aux power and appropriate builds.
Better procs for subsystem targeting would be nice as well.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
I tank PvE in my fleet Varanus pretty much every time I load into an STF. It's very, very rare that a DPS build has enough DPS to override my aggro. And if they do? Well... I can toss my TSS's and HE's on them instead of me, no biggie. Meanwhile, I'm still shieldstripping and crowd controlling LIKE A BOSS!
It's all about threat generation.
/ Well, at least I was controlling like a boss until the borg spheres got nitrous :eek:, but anyway...
I love the Varanus, I really do, and I love when one is there to make my job easier, I really really do, but that thing cannot even BEGIN to deal the damage of an Escort. Also shield stripping power from a Science Vessel is a joke compared to shield stripping power of 3 DHC's and 3 Turrets on a competent Escort or one BO 3 from a pair of Dualies. Heck even the Torps the Escorts fling around do far more shield drain than say Tickle Beam III or Charged Fail Burst III. (There were days of Old when they were great... Oh how I miss those days...)
The problem is that you do not NEED to be in a Cruiser or Science ship to tank effectively. All you NEED is an Escort style ship with as much damage as possible. I mean many said the Kumari could not tank and it was just all DPS and therefore no good but I have easily tanked everything under the stars with mine. I used to tank Elite Tact Cubes in my B'REL of all things. So there is no need for huge hulls, massive shields, or a million healing powers to tank effectively and the faster you KILL the enemy the less you need to tank and the faster you get the objective. Thus, as stated, the problem.
I love the Varanus, I really do, and I love when one is there to make my job easier, I really really do, but that thing cannot even BEGIN to deal the damage of an Escort. Also shield stripping power from a Science Vessel is a joke compared to shield stripping power of 3 DHC's and 3 Turrets on a competent Escort or one BO 3 from a pair of Dualies. Heck even the Torps the Escorts fling around do far more shield drain than say Tickle Beam III or Charged Fail Burst III. (There were days of Old when they were great... Oh how I miss those days...)
The problem is that you do not NEED to be in a Cruiser or Science ship to tank effectively. All you NEED is an Escort style ship with as much damage as possible. I mean many said the Kumari could not tank and it was just all DPS and therefore no good but I have easily tanked everything under the stars with mine. I used to tank Elite Tact Cubes in my B'REL of all things. So there is no need for huge hulls, massive shields, or a million healing powers to tank effectively and the faster you KILL the enemy the less you need to tank and the faster you get the objective. Thus, as stated, the problem.
The JHAS only make that gap all the more apparent. When was the last time all factions (Fed, KDF, and RR) saw a super awesome science ship or cruiser available? Sure it's ungodly expensive on the Exchange, but any Tac officer worth his or her salt would shell out the needed EC to get that badboy to replace whatever they currently have.
Yup.
The Borg npc's shield drain for example is pretty much effective against player shields but vice versa the same is pretty much useless or not very effective even with full aux power and appropriate builds.
Better procs for subsystem targeting would be nice as well.
Keep in mind that a lot of Science skills seem to be balanced on two things:
1. PvP.
2. Tactical Captains in a Science ship or science-oriented escort (MVAE comes immediately to mind) using APA, GDF, FoMM with them...
On that note, let's say a well specced Tachyon Beam III (primary science shield drain) does 5k shield damage over it's ticks...
On the average PvP escort target, losing 5k off each shield facing is ~ if not >50% of the shields.
Against a Borg Cube with 100k shield facings, 5k isn't even enough to nudge the bars on the target icon...
Same with GW III. Granted, it could do 12 quantums worth of damage, but when it takes 20 to kill a probe...
Almost seems that if they're gonna keep this wild spread between players and NPCs, they might want to shift over to percentage-damages instead of fixed damages...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
indeed there are some massive issues with STO's combat.
Big ships should have massive staying power, and frankly should be packing way more firepower then they are. An escort class should NOT be able to compeate with a cruiser, or even a SCI ships for DPS. It's a flaw of the design process for the game. Canon says cruisers are the king of the mountain.. STO plays otherwise. One of the reasons I am displeased with this game.
oh, by the buy..end game may be escort dominated, but leveling up is done faster with a sci or cruiser..better staying power against the AI playing solo. The reason for this is skills and powers.. not the ships..
Easy way to nerf escorts and bring them into line with by canon they should be...
Reduce Bridge officer..and reduce bridge officer ranks availible, and the amount of weapons they're packing. Still dangerous ships... but reducing them to no more then 3 forward weapons, and 2 aft weapons would go a great way toward drawing the ships back to where they should be in canon. Reducing BOFF's to the a Lt Commander being the maximum BOFF rank on an escort would also work to bring the ships damage and abilities back into line.. By the time someone makes captain they should be moving into one of the big ships...
Honestly, I firmly belive that at tier 5 thier should be no escorts. The ships hulls are just to small to pack in that amount of firepower and capabilities in anything aproching logic or realism.. Go look at the capabilities of blue water naval ships of the second world war for a comparison.. Little ships, like a Patrol Torpedo boat (PT).. can deal massive damage, but cannot survive more then a single good hit, if that. They utterly depend on thier small size, and high speed to avoid damage.
I do hope that someday Cryptic decides to bit the bullet and redesign ahip combat from the ground up into something that makes a great deal more sense. Right now it doesn't, and while enjoyable at a visceral level, is phenominally unsatisfying at the intellectual level.. Or to put it in simple word.. It Does Not Feel Right. It Is a Crappy Simulation Of Star Ship Combat.
And its been like this from the day the game launched.
It won't happen, but I still think 'escorts' should have 3/2 weapon slots. Their turn rate combined with DHCs will still cause them to outdamage 'cruisers' and 'science ships' - just not as excessively as they can currently.
Not really sure about science ships and carriers - probably stick with 3/3 as they're not typically able to utilize weapons very well(Vesta and temporal ships being the main exceptions).
Thing is, outside of the technical nightmares of retroactively changing that, the lines are already becoming too blurry(Chel Grett, Jem Dread, Kumari, etc.) and cruisers would probably become nearly unkillable in PvP.
Either way, "combat revamps" are almost always disastrous when it comes to MMOs, so I suspect this will always be a 'coulda-shoulda-woulda' situation.
Keep in mind that a lot of Science skills seem to be balanced on two things:
1. PvP.
2. Tactical Captains in a Science ship or science-oriented escort (MVAE comes immediately to mind) using APA, GDF, FoMM with them...
On that note, let's say a well specced Tachyon Beam III (primary science shield drain) does 5k shield damage over it's ticks...
On the average PvP escort target, losing 5k off each shield facing is ~ if not >50% of the shields.
Against a Borg Cube with 100k shield facings, 5k isn't even enough to nudge the bars on the target icon...
Same with GW III. Granted, it could do 12 quantums worth of damage, but when it takes 20 to kill a probe...
Almost seems that if they're gonna keep this wild spread between players and NPCs, they might want to shift over to percentage-damages instead of fixed damages...
Yeah, I heard that its was because of PVP the sci guys got hit with the nerf.
Percentage based damages might be a better option considering the disparity in PvE/PvP.
WoW kinda faces the same issue. It got even more complex with Resilience and then PvP power. Part of the reason why I hate it when MMOs have both Pve and pvp because to balance one, the other gets blown out.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
indeed there are some massive issues with STO's combat.
Big ships should have massive staying power, and frankly should be packing way more firepower then they are. An escort class should NOT be able to compeate with a cruiser, or even a SCI ships for DPS. It's a flaw of the design process for the game. Canon says cruisers are the king of the mountain.. STO plays otherwise. One of the reasons I am displeased with this game.
oh, by the buy..end game may be escort dominated, but leveling up is done faster with a sci or cruiser..better staying power against the AI playing solo. The reason for this is skills and powers.. not the ships..
Easy way to nerf escorts and bring them into line with by canon they should be...
Reduce Bridge officer..and reduce bridge officer ranks availible, and the amount of weapons they're packing. Still dangerous ships... but reducing them to no more then 3 forward weapons, and 2 aft weapons would go a great way toward drawing the ships back to where they should be in canon. Reducing BOFF's to the a Lt Commander being the maximum BOFF rank on an escort would also work to bring the ships damage and abilities back into line.. By the time someone makes captain they should be moving into one of the big ships...
Honestly, I firmly belive that at tier 5 thier should be no escorts. The ships hulls are just to small to pack in that amount of firepower and capabilities in anything aproching logic or realism.. Go look at the capabilities of blue water naval ships of the second world war for a comparison.. Little ships, like a Patrol Torpedo boat (PT).. can deal massive damage, but cannot survive more then a single good hit, if that. They utterly depend on thier small size, and high speed to avoid damage.
I do hope that someday Cryptic decides to bit the bullet and redesign ahip combat from the ground up into something that makes a great deal more sense. Right now it doesn't, and while enjoyable at a visceral level, is phenominally unsatisfying at the intellectual level.. Or to put it in simple word.. It Does Not Feel Right. It Is a Crappy Simulation Of Star Ship Combat.
And its been like this from the day the game launched.
No way in hell is Cryptic gonna follow through with this, it would take far too much time. Nevermind that your proposal is just gonna turn it from Star Trek: Escorts Online, to Star Trek: Cruisers Online. Your solution isn't even that, it's a very ham-handed attempt to lower the reliance on Escort DPS brought on by Tac officer abilities and try to make Cruisers more appealing.
Trust me, I'd love to be able to fly a Cruiser without going all Aux2Batt build using a beamboat w/ 2 torpedoes (Fore and Aft), but I don't see that happening at all. It would take too much time and money for Cryptic to even remotely consider the idea.
Instead, they need to create separate values for PvE and PvP and stop giving Borg/Elachi/whatever ships crazy hp and damage with one-shot mechanics. No amount of staying power is gonna let you survive a blast from that Lance shot in Hive Onslaught. If they made it so optionals weren't on a time-limit, there'd be less overall need for dps as well. The Borg Spheres alone just laugh all over GWIII at it's best.
Don't bring up Canon either, CBS says the game isn't Canon, not to mention we can be assimilated by Borg on the ground and just get hit with a respawn screen after death. There's also the metric tons of torpedoes that everyone fires in just one fight. I mean have you seen TSIII while using Photon Torps and facing a massive number of enemies in your firing arc? That alone would be all the Torps used in TOS and TNG.
This game is broken, class doesn't matter anymore. Every thread I read is about people trying to up their dps, right from cruiser to science. Why is that because cryptic did that with they so call lockboxes ships and everyone want to high dps and even the content they design let you just blast your way through everything. Let take a look at eve-online where classes of ships really matter in every Situation. Take the Caldari battleship the scorpion class as example everyone know how good its ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) can jam any ship with low or Moderate ECM at the sametime with it long range Missile launchers you are just a Sitting duck. When you come cross these ships in game whether player control or Non-player control you take a Extreme care. Or even the interceptor class which have high dps with fast movement. They are called killer hunters because you never see them flying alone. The are good for taking big ships such as battleships, dreadnought and carriers. At one point in this game classes did matter and everyone had a place now I don't even know where science fit and where Engineer also fit in anything any more. Cryptic fix your game before its Reach a point of no return.
"You ask why we give our ships computer normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty?"
Nothing more can be said about these videos. It speak for itself. Well can we blame them its all cryptic doing for making content that a more Cratering to more fast combat. They just broken their own game.
"You ask why we give our ships computer normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty?"
It's sad; I had always (and still do to a degree) considered my primary character to be the Science officer that I started the game with. The one I spent the most time on, the one I put more effort into leveling, the one I completed all the reputation grinds for (bar Nukara).
And I was using my drop-dead favorite Trek-ship too - the fleet Rhode Island; a nice mix of sci abilities, tanky-shields and respectable DPS.
Then along came LoR. I still recall the disappointment when I took my Fleet Rhode Island into the first post-LoR STF I did. GWIII = useless. Shield drain = useless (unless it were a Borg ship using it on me), Sci-team - just didn't cut it against what was happening. And 'respectable' DPS is just that - respectable in the sense that I could hold my own, but no-where NEAR escort level. And that was just the point - several failed attempts at crowd control later I simply found myself trying to do the escort thing, but sci ships don't have the DPS for that. And, as many have said in this very thread, DPS is all that actually matters anymore. When push came to shove, regardless of how well my ship used to do pre-LoR, I was reduced to feeling as if I was a burden to the team I was in.
And, as a result, I haven't really used my sci character since, instead concentrating on leveling my (Tactical) Klingon character to level 50. But I do miss the days when sci was viable.
This why I stop doing any STF even though I have a tactical character at lvl50 its not fun just blasting through the end game content with just all tactical team members and no other class. To be Honest I just play my science and characters more than my tactical character. Since we all know that tactical are not at Fault here but rather from cryptic.
"You ask why we give our ships computer normal emotions. Do you really want a warship incapable of loyalty?"
I know this goes against my original point (yeah I started this thread) but dps is not a good role. Pew pewing and watching things easily succumb to your fire, lack of thrill, is not really "fun".
It doesn't, though. Really, if people didn't feel that way, this wouldn't be a problem, we'd just all be happily playing around with our Andorians, Bugs, and Fleet Defiants.
Comments
I am sure there are going to be those elitist types that think if it isn't the best, then it sucks, but I tend to avoid those types like the plague, they take the game WAY too seriously.
False. If you truly believe this, it shows that your experience with this genre probably doesn't precede the Combat spec Rogue in WoW. Unless you've played 'just about every MMO there is' to the top level, you have no idea.
This is a situation somewhat unique to STO. Or perhaps you could detail which game(s) allow you to complete raid level content with a group of the same DPS class? Can't do it in EverQuest or EverQuest 2. Heck, you can't even solo Tarasque in Anarchy Online and that encounter is 10+ years old (thus, mudflation should make it trivial). I honestly can't think of any MMO games that allow you to vaporize raid content with a group of DPSers (without using exploits, that is). The reason for that is MMO designers tend to like to make those thankless roles (tank & "healer") valuable by making them necessary.
You have a very warped sense of 'needed'. Do you 'need' a Bentley....or will a Toyota get you from point A to point B just as efficiently....with less worry about costs (shopping cart ding on a Bentley can cost more to fix than the Toyota's book value). In MMOs, that usually comes down to loot (in raid content) and/or xp (in non-raid content). It's the reason for the solo boom in this genre. The more people you add, the more potential aggravation you add. If tanks and support roles were "needed", this game wouldn't have half the people playing it that it does. People just would not stand for a return to the EverQuest halcyon days. So no, you don't NEED a tank or a support class in this game and that's probably going to create issues over the next year or so (even if they release 'smash your head against the wall' difficult content. Unless they retroactively change the existing content, which is not likely).
The problem is, folks like you don't shape perception and they don't drive development decision-making. The 'elitist types', however, do. It's the data mined from their activities that the devs use in encounter design and yes, even when determining when and/or how something needs to be nerfed. So yes, while pretty much every possible combination of class/ship/role can muddle through PvE content ("accessibility" being the key goal), those muddlers' builds don't shape the perception of the class/ship/role they're using.
I think the OP is right but there's nothing to be done about it. This is just the culmination of almost a decade's worth of changes to make the genre more palatable to more people. You remove the actual need for other people (interdependence) to remove the annoyance of not being able to accomplish anything without other people ("I was LFG for 6 hours!!!!"). Maybe they could release new content that is made much easier by a new ship they rolled out (for the C-Store, of course). But requiring specific roles for content (a la EverQuest's 'you can't raid current content without warriors and clerics' interdependence model) would really put a dent in their figures as folks either avoid that content or quit playing altogether (for example, if bored with the existing content and unable to do the new content).
Quite the tightrope to walk, where is seems the most obvious solution is the one wrought with peril.
You can Argue they they are usful.
To all sci ships...
Ok you can CC, hows those stopped Spheres? Dead? Sorry I killed them before ur grav well got them.
Ok you Cruisers.
How's that boss ur tanking? What? he didn't hit you? Sorry my cannons generate way more aggro then your cruiser.
Ok you healers.
What no place to heal? Sorry I killed all the NPCs dealing damage.
Ok you debuffers.
You debuff, I kill 1 second after you debuff, but that was gonna happen anyway, you just let me copy and paste of 170k Beam Overload 3.
Ok You DPSers
Hey, good job killing those NPCs before any of the above roles are even remotely needed.
This argument is PURELY PvE
PvP:
Healers>DPS
Tanks= Unused, because in pvp, th players simply wouldn't hit you.
Debuffs=Death to heals
Buffs=Help killing heals
So All roles except tank are viable in pvp, just not pve.
If it weren't for my Carrier's Bird of Preys (purple) I would actually feel useless. Esp now that Borg spheres use nitrous in their engines that they easily get out of GW III
But on the other hand there have been times when an escort does too much damage and blows up a generator early etc, that my sci skills have actually been helpful in averting a lost optional or when tunnel vision ships dont get out of Donatra's cone of doom and get reduced to 10% health, my sci skills are the only things that bail them out.
So essentially in a team with escorts who know what to do, I am thankful I have purple pets so I don't feel like a fifth wheel, but in a pug where things can get nutty, I'm thankful I am a sci and have good cc and heals.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
Essentially, it would be an inbuilt ability of a cruiser. It would pulse out and "mark" every enemy target around it. Those targets then would do one of the following:
A.) Debuff every target until that target attacks the tank. The debuff should either be a damage reduction and/or damage resistance reduction. Making those escorts weaker would force them to change targets and weakening their damage resistance will turn the already weak escorts into paper tigers for other ships to chew up.
B.) Every target the pulse hits has it's target changed to the tank and they can't change again for so many seconds. That will give the other ships on the team a chance to regroup and heal and come back for another round while the targets can't even heal each other and MUST attack a target that won't go down quickly.
I wouldn't do both, or if they were it would be two separate abilities on a shared cooldown so you can't run both at the same time or in rapid succession. This would be a cruiser exclusive ability like how dual cannons are exclusive to escorts and subsystem targeting is a science ship exclusive.
Of course, then you have the issue with the Romulan and Klingon ships, and the random lock box ships which can carry dual cannons but are cruisers in design. Maybe it should be an engineering ability instead then, either a BO or a captain ability. Maybe have one be a BO power and the other a captain, that would be a nice change.
I'd also like to see the power of the subsystem targeting on sci ships bumped up to level 3 instead of sitting at 1 (leave the cooldowns, I just want the power anyway).
Just my thoughts.
The borg have a bugged version of EptE that is on a very short cooldown, allowing them this massive speed boost.
Sci vessels are always usefull, in PvE or in PvP.
Thing is, most people try NOT to play its ship's designed purpose.
So let's take Fleet Recon or normal Recon sci vessels and Aventine class Vesta.
First thing that most "defense" oriented captains in STO do is to boost shields, hull and resistances of their ship, no matter what ship. and then to sit there taking damage while doing basically nothing.
Those captains think they want to be crowd control guys, but at same time they are afraid of leveling their Threat Control skill, through embassy TH+ consoles, jem'hadar Delta DOFFs or actually putting points in Threat Control skill.
SCI vessel of Recon/Intrepid type specced to be basically shield tank with 2 copies of scramble for spam, or random energy drain spam. and all shield/hull regen abilities and gear are biggest offenders to SCI captains.
They are not useful for anything in this game, they are just annoyance in PvP at best.
SCI Carriers are real defensive/heal/guard/deterrent role in space combat, but they need threat control skill.(even though i would never play sci in carrier, not my style)
Recons are for agressive/attacking type of sci captains and such SCI captain in say Aventine can make more kills in game then JHAS, Khyzon, MVAE, you name your favorite escort. Yes you need to spec such captain for exactly that role, but that's the whole point, namely knowing what exactly you want to do with your ship.
I level/gear up my scis to do fast kills through single target debuffs, holds or disables while doing damage.
If you want to do crowd control in PvE with cruiser, or SCI you MUST level up/generate threat.
And there are many ways to do it besides having 4/5 DHCs buffed to the teeth with APA/APO, CRFs, BOs and 30-50 mill EC of doffs.
Also there are far more ways to play sci then to play tac in escort. I like to play both.
"Tank" cruisers:
again most people, primarily eng captains, like to play some super useless cruiser Aux2SIF,
RSP, warp Plasma, theta , metreon, weak beam spam/you name it builds.
I like to call this builds Stalemate.
Such captains will never ever kill any tougher enemy, they will never generate enough threat, and they will also be busy just putting useless small heals on escorts, they will be tough to kill and they will feel awesome.
Until they get tired of not doing damage, then they will, wrong specced and all, try to do change skills to do some damage and die constantly, which will bring them back to boosting defense, resistances and self-heals. It's neverending circle of fail.
And why are such ships fail. Because they don't do any role in RPG.
Threat eng and tac cruisers are most awesome thing in game if played right.
Such ships can kill any enemy. can control entire elite STFs or PvP, AND THEY CAN SURVIVE without 5 copies of EPTS/AUX2SIF, RSP, HE, TSS etc.
Also, agressive SCIs can lead the team, control the game and not just clear escorts and debuff enemies.
There are so many roles to be played in so many ways.
It's sad that ppl see only TAC-escort. SCI-carrier AoE spammer, and eng-heal cruiser.
And BTW, you can win ANY elite PvE or PvP as a sci or as eng, so what's the point of this topic?
Need to force the game to REQUIRE "role" that is not needed in SPACE combat?
A need for shield guy, a sword guy and wizard guy? That is not space combat. Never will be-
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
In STO, the sci would be the wizard guy that has magic so weak he is better off using his stick and dagger.
Wizard guy casts 'aoe damage&snare' spell... but it does no damage and stuff that get snared for half a second just walk away from it. DAMN and that was a high level spell too!
Wizard guy casts 'drain' spell. It has no effect on target.
Wizard guy casts 'blind' on target. Target steps on blade of grass, feels it on his skin...the blind spell is dispelled because target took some damage.
Wizard guy casts 'heal'. OH HEY this one works fine! yay! ..then sees fighter guy casting the same spell on himself. Wizard guy feels useless.
Wizard guy casts 'weaken' on target. Target is immune. Naturally. Since birth.
Wizard guy picks up staff and rusty dagger and heads out to achieve something in life. Tired of being a McWizard fail-flipper.
The problem is not so specifically Captain type it is that the enemies are usually very dumb and make up for it by having massive shields, massive hulls, and OP torpedoes and Science shield killing abilities (which are only like a thousand times better than the Player versions these days), and heavy resistance to Science CC skills making it most important to simply avoid taking damage to begin with (heavy movement Defense bonuses) and dish out the maximum amount of damage possible. Everything besides those two things is just fluff and frill.
I tank PvE in my fleet Varanus pretty much every time I load into an STF. It's very, very rare that a DPS build has enough DPS to override my aggro. And if they do? Well... I can toss my TSS's and HE's on them instead of me, no biggie. Meanwhile, I'm still shieldstripping and crowd controlling LIKE A BOSS!
It's all about threat generation.
/ Well, at least I was controlling like a boss until the borg spheres got nitrous :eek:, but anyway...
Effect: Those who seek optimum performance in PvE build for DPS with just enough tank/utility to achieve the objectives in the shortest period of time. Others who just enjoy doing something such as tanking or heavy debuffing do so and can still succeed.
Cause: Many players have a serious lack of knowledge on how things in this game actual work like the math. Hence why most complains about other players tend to be about their rainbow weapons instead of them just having a terribad build. Additionally many lack the objectivity to realize that their last uber high damage crit was thanks to the two copies of APB3 and full AUX sensor scan applied to the target moreso than their APO, or that their gravity well didn't kill the group of spheres but the cannon scatter volley mixed with the torpedo spread hitting bare hull, or that their lucky string of critz were created by the tractor beam pushing your accuracy overflow into the stratosphere not just luck. Or how to objectively evaluate a parsed log.
Effect: Many players have difficulty objectively viewing both balance issues and the effectiveness of their builds.
Until that changes, threads like this will always pop up.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
Well, that plus the fact that sci abilities really can't do much to lock down an opponent, certainly not relative to the damage capability sci ships lose. You could use Tachyon 3, CPB3, and TR3 on a cube with full Aux and Flow Caps skill and not even notice the difference (and you can't fit all those abilities on the same ship). The effect of CSV1, on the other hand, would be immediately obvious, even with single cannons and 75 weapon power. Shield drains should drain a significant quantity of shields, and energy drains should have a noticeable effect on the damage numbers coming from the target's energy weapons, with Siphon 3+TR2 fully shutting down even a tac cube for the duration of the effect (actually, I think it shouldn't take that much, but that's open for some debate). Threads like this will keep popping up until that is the case.
The Borg npc's shield drain for example is pretty much effective against player shields but vice versa the same is pretty much useless or not very effective even with full aux power and appropriate builds.
Better procs for subsystem targeting would be nice as well.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
I love the Varanus, I really do, and I love when one is there to make my job easier, I really really do, but that thing cannot even BEGIN to deal the damage of an Escort. Also shield stripping power from a Science Vessel is a joke compared to shield stripping power of 3 DHC's and 3 Turrets on a competent Escort or one BO 3 from a pair of Dualies. Heck even the Torps the Escorts fling around do far more shield drain than say Tickle Beam III or Charged Fail Burst III. (There were days of Old when they were great... Oh how I miss those days...)
The problem is that you do not NEED to be in a Cruiser or Science ship to tank effectively. All you NEED is an Escort style ship with as much damage as possible. I mean many said the Kumari could not tank and it was just all DPS and therefore no good but I have easily tanked everything under the stars with mine. I used to tank Elite Tact Cubes in my B'REL of all things. So there is no need for huge hulls, massive shields, or a million healing powers to tank effectively and the faster you KILL the enemy the less you need to tank and the faster you get the objective. Thus, as stated, the problem.
The JHAS only make that gap all the more apparent. When was the last time all factions (Fed, KDF, and RR) saw a super awesome science ship or cruiser available? Sure it's ungodly expensive on the Exchange, but any Tac officer worth his or her salt would shell out the needed EC to get that badboy to replace whatever they currently have.
Keep in mind that a lot of Science skills seem to be balanced on two things:
1. PvP.
2. Tactical Captains in a Science ship or science-oriented escort (MVAE comes immediately to mind) using APA, GDF, FoMM with them...
On that note, let's say a well specced Tachyon Beam III (primary science shield drain) does 5k shield damage over it's ticks...
On the average PvP escort target, losing 5k off each shield facing is ~ if not >50% of the shields.
Against a Borg Cube with 100k shield facings, 5k isn't even enough to nudge the bars on the target icon...
Same with GW III. Granted, it could do 12 quantums worth of damage, but when it takes 20 to kill a probe...
Almost seems that if they're gonna keep this wild spread between players and NPCs, they might want to shift over to percentage-damages instead of fixed damages...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Big ships should have massive staying power, and frankly should be packing way more firepower then they are. An escort class should NOT be able to compeate with a cruiser, or even a SCI ships for DPS. It's a flaw of the design process for the game. Canon says cruisers are the king of the mountain.. STO plays otherwise. One of the reasons I am displeased with this game.
oh, by the buy..end game may be escort dominated, but leveling up is done faster with a sci or cruiser..better staying power against the AI playing solo. The reason for this is skills and powers.. not the ships..
Easy way to nerf escorts and bring them into line with by canon they should be...
Reduce Bridge officer..and reduce bridge officer ranks availible, and the amount of weapons they're packing. Still dangerous ships... but reducing them to no more then 3 forward weapons, and 2 aft weapons would go a great way toward drawing the ships back to where they should be in canon. Reducing BOFF's to the a Lt Commander being the maximum BOFF rank on an escort would also work to bring the ships damage and abilities back into line.. By the time someone makes captain they should be moving into one of the big ships...
Honestly, I firmly belive that at tier 5 thier should be no escorts. The ships hulls are just to small to pack in that amount of firepower and capabilities in anything aproching logic or realism.. Go look at the capabilities of blue water naval ships of the second world war for a comparison.. Little ships, like a Patrol Torpedo boat (PT).. can deal massive damage, but cannot survive more then a single good hit, if that. They utterly depend on thier small size, and high speed to avoid damage.
I do hope that someday Cryptic decides to bit the bullet and redesign ahip combat from the ground up into something that makes a great deal more sense. Right now it doesn't, and while enjoyable at a visceral level, is phenominally unsatisfying at the intellectual level.. Or to put it in simple word.. It Does Not Feel Right. It Is a Crappy Simulation Of Star Ship Combat.
And its been like this from the day the game launched.
raiders - 3/1
escorts - 3/2
destroyers - 3/3
battlecruisers - 4/3
cruisers/battleships/dreadnoughts - 4/4
Not really sure about science ships and carriers - probably stick with 3/3 as they're not typically able to utilize weapons very well(Vesta and temporal ships being the main exceptions).
Thing is, outside of the technical nightmares of retroactively changing that, the lines are already becoming too blurry(Chel Grett, Jem Dread, Kumari, etc.) and cruisers would probably become nearly unkillable in PvP.
Either way, "combat revamps" are almost always disastrous when it comes to MMOs, so I suspect this will always be a 'coulda-shoulda-woulda' situation.
Percentage based damages might be a better option considering the disparity in PvE/PvP.
WoW kinda faces the same issue. It got even more complex with Resilience and then PvP power. Part of the reason why I hate it when MMOs have both Pve and pvp because to balance one, the other gets blown out.
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
No way in hell is Cryptic gonna follow through with this, it would take far too much time. Nevermind that your proposal is just gonna turn it from Star Trek: Escorts Online, to Star Trek: Cruisers Online. Your solution isn't even that, it's a very ham-handed attempt to lower the reliance on Escort DPS brought on by Tac officer abilities and try to make Cruisers more appealing.
Trust me, I'd love to be able to fly a Cruiser without going all Aux2Batt build using a beamboat w/ 2 torpedoes (Fore and Aft), but I don't see that happening at all. It would take too much time and money for Cryptic to even remotely consider the idea.
Instead, they need to create separate values for PvE and PvP and stop giving Borg/Elachi/whatever ships crazy hp and damage with one-shot mechanics. No amount of staying power is gonna let you survive a blast from that Lance shot in Hive Onslaught. If they made it so optionals weren't on a time-limit, there'd be less overall need for dps as well. The Borg Spheres alone just laugh all over GWIII at it's best.
Don't bring up Canon either, CBS says the game isn't Canon, not to mention we can be assimilated by Borg on the ground and just get hit with a respawn screen after death. There's also the metric tons of torpedoes that everyone fires in just one fight. I mean have you seen TSIII while using Photon Torps and facing a massive number of enemies in your firing arc? That alone would be all the Torps used in TOS and TNG.
i do it in my fleet advanced constantly. his claim doesnt surprise me in the least.
Seriously, pve in this game is nothing to a well specced escort.
Want to know my build?
here you go. (and guess what, its not even DONE yet, ive still got rep gear and purple consoles to get)
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=rylanaadvfleet_3868
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Nothing more can be said about these videos. It speak for itself. Well can we blame them its all cryptic doing for making content that a more Cratering to more fast combat. They just broken their own game.
This why I stop doing any STF even though I have a tactical character at lvl50 its not fun just blasting through the end game content with just all tactical team members and no other class. To be Honest I just play my science and characters more than my tactical character. Since we all know that tactical are not at Fault here but rather from cryptic.
It doesn't, though. Really, if people didn't feel that way, this wouldn't be a problem, we'd just all be happily playing around with our Andorians, Bugs, and Fleet Defiants.