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Dear Systems: great opportunity to right a wrong
havam
Member Posts: 1,735 Arc User
Hi all,
since we are going to see career specific traits/bonuses with the may update, I think there is a great opportunity here.
There are feedback threads on the leaked design of the career specific traits already, but this one has a different goal. We have about 6 weeks before the attention of the DEVs is going to move on to the next feature or season, big update bug fixing etc. This means that we have about 6 weeks to make a point, and hope for some acknowledgment from the Devs. The point I would like to make is simple:
Engineers have become pretty much obsolete, in comparison to the other two classes they do not bring a significant advantage to a team anymore.
Now this point has been made many times, not only by myself. There have been some good suggestions and analysis of what compounds the problems of engies. No need to repeat that here. So far we have no word from systems if everything is WAD or not, or if they agree with this assessment of the engie class.
So let's forget the tac vs sci, cruiser vs. escort debates for a moment. We'll have time to cheer on or facepalm the proposed changes once they hit tribble. We need to see if Devs and players are on the same page here or not. Thus, I don't care if GDF or SNB are OP, take these debates to another thread please. This is simple to bring an issue to the Devs awareness, if enough people make their point on the forums. This is a great chance to make engies become viable again. Otherwise I fear that the class remains obsolete for months and months to come. If you agree that engies need some love, please leave a comment.
@Devs: There have been many proposed solutions, but as it stands we don't even know if you guys agree that there is a problem with engs. Any confirmation or Rebutal would be greatly appreciated. What are engies supposed to bring to PvE endgame, and how are they getting rewarded for it? What about PvP, do engineers fulfill their intention adequately?
PS.: If you disgaree feel free to start a thread how engies are OP.
since we are going to see career specific traits/bonuses with the may update, I think there is a great opportunity here.
There are feedback threads on the leaked design of the career specific traits already, but this one has a different goal. We have about 6 weeks before the attention of the DEVs is going to move on to the next feature or season, big update bug fixing etc. This means that we have about 6 weeks to make a point, and hope for some acknowledgment from the Devs. The point I would like to make is simple:
Engineers have become pretty much obsolete, in comparison to the other two classes they do not bring a significant advantage to a team anymore.
Now this point has been made many times, not only by myself. There have been some good suggestions and analysis of what compounds the problems of engies. No need to repeat that here. So far we have no word from systems if everything is WAD or not, or if they agree with this assessment of the engie class.
So let's forget the tac vs sci, cruiser vs. escort debates for a moment. We'll have time to cheer on or facepalm the proposed changes once they hit tribble. We need to see if Devs and players are on the same page here or not. Thus, I don't care if GDF or SNB are OP, take these debates to another thread please. This is simple to bring an issue to the Devs awareness, if enough people make their point on the forums. This is a great chance to make engies become viable again. Otherwise I fear that the class remains obsolete for months and months to come. If you agree that engies need some love, please leave a comment.
@Devs: There have been many proposed solutions, but as it stands we don't even know if you guys agree that there is a problem with engs. Any confirmation or Rebutal would be greatly appreciated. What are engies supposed to bring to PvE endgame, and how are they getting rewarded for it? What about PvP, do engineers fulfill their intention adequately?
PS.: If you disgaree feel free to start a thread how engies are OP.
Post edited by havam on
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other eng changes should include MW and RSF being castable to others. eng is curently not the best team healers, sci is. eng are only good for pug healing, were they can expect no suport for themselves. this would give eng a clear healing advantage.
nadion having a damage buff built in too would be nice, overcaping makes it an irreverent skill. and a doff with DEM allows tacs to use that skill long enough to fire 2 stacked BOs.
EPS is not good enough, its too easy to have high energy, so this doesn't help that much. in adition to a buff to energy levels, have it buff other energy related things, like shield resistance, stealth sight, maybe skill tree skills
then eng would be as good as tacs and scis, in thier own useful way.
That would be 10x better than that stupid battery one that's for sure.
Maybe if we would cut power levels on all ships, having better power management would be something for engineering class.
I wonder what would happen, if we would cut existing power pool by 50 points.
Regardless, I agree that Engies need looking at
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I'm the one that gets to tank and i do this task with ease thx to rom condoles and at the same time thx to the same consoles i do more dmg. It doesnt happen very often that i'm not first when comparing dmg in eSTFs and i do good dmg in ground as well. I do about 7-9k dps in eSTFs and mostly get 1st-3rd place in big dig for example. And i basically never die in space and only little in ground.
I myself love the char right now as it is mainly because its no simple matter of putting dhcs/turrets in the next escort and all is fine.
Therefore:
I'd suggest an Eng ability that removes or greatly mitigates the loss of energy weapon damage @ range for short durations of time. This would give them a boost to burst/pressure damage and better zone control @ range. This would particuarly help single cannon cruisers and BO sniping.
I'd suggest a Team immunity to subsystem Debuffs for a short duration. When this is up any enemy item/ability used to vamp system power levels would lose the gain. The uptime/cooldown would need to be designed to prevent 5 Engies rolling to have constant immunity. Perhaps 50% uptime if 5 engines rolling the ability?
I'd keep some of the self defense boffs. I don't play Eng enough to know which ones and defer to others on this.
This would keep Engies in their support role while also enhancing it w/a team debuff cleanse and providing opportunities to spike range pressure damage for aiding in zone control.
OP what role(s) are you looking for Engies to fill?
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I like the changes people have proposed to make Eng the king of healing and kill-denial and actually I'll go a step further and say that MW / RSF castable on others should also see MW add a DR boost as well as that boost + RSF being immune to subnuc for the first 10s or maybe 15s.
If NI should get anything (on top of the drain resistance), I'd like to see it get an offense mitigating effect, for example a Critical Hit severity & ACC reducing effect and perhaps have that asepct be an AoE field.
I don't agree with changes that add offense to the single most tanky career. Powerful kill-denial additions like the above suggestions would make it unwise to ignore an Engineer.
This is a good chance to improve the Eng class, but I think consolidated and clear feedback would get more Dev-traction in the tribble forums.
There is no point in having an Engineer on the PVP team at all, if it is either 1) Shot at and killed constantly while trying to heal team, or 2) Not shot at, when the enemy team tries to take it down but fails, and instead gets its kills from other members of the team.
2) does not need to be improved. It's nice to know certain ships can tank very very well.
1) is what needs to be improved. Like what people previously said, Miracle Worker or Rotate Shield Frequencies needs to be able to work on teammates as well. In addition, Miracle Worker should be able to work like Science Team and clear subnucs and Viral Matrix. Due to its 4min cooldown, it wouldn't be used often, so it's safe to implement this.
Additionally, Miracle Worker and/or Rotate Shield Frequency should have a slightly reduced cooldown (reduced by 30 to 60 seconds worth) if used on a teammate. Just a little incentive to help out the teammates.
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I'd suggest using this opportunity to make Engineers different. Give them something that can't be replicated by Scis or Tacs. A suggestion I put forth to the PvP community a long time ago was:
Give NI's power drain resist to EPS Power Transfer, and on top of that give EPS Power Transfer the ability to unlock the 125 subsystem power cap. This means that you could run temporarily run something like 200 Aux power and not only gain the benefits from the old 125 cap. Given the new trait system, perhaps make this "unlock power caps" ability a trait bonus.
Not only does this mean that EPS Power Transfer is truly unique AND useful in a team setting (hand it to a Tac who's setting up an alpha; give it to a healboat who needs a temporary boost; even give it to someone who's suffering from drains), but it also means that you free up the 3min captain ability slot to give Engs a team-focused debuff effect. I previously suggested something like a debuff that reduced healing capabilities on afflicted enemies; I'm sure that there are other opportunities out there.
The point is, you want Engineers to have at least one good team-support ability and at least one debuff that they can use to amplify their team's damage. This would help put them closer to Tacs and Scis, which each have strong team-support and debuff abilities. Furthermore, you want Engineers to be different; no point in giving them an ability that's easily duplicated by Scis and Tacs, or you lose the point of being an Engineer. The changes to EPS Power Transfer I proposed above would address some of these issues, and give Engineers a new path to performing better in a team.
Either merge Nadion Inversion with EPS Transfer and replace it with another ability OR lower its cooldown and make it castable on others OR make it AoE.
Have Engineering fleet provide a hull heal upon activation.
If Nadion is merged with another ability, add an offensive ability of some sort. I've suggested adding DEM, although something else could work as well. Said offensive ability could be mildly supportive (like Fire On My Mark or Sensor Scan) or may otherwise have an effect that benefits an entire team's damage output.
You have to realize that Engineering as a whole is also something of a... boring class. Improving repair abilities does not really help alleviate this all that much. Again, Engineering should have the same variety of abilities that are open to Science and even Tactical (although I think the latter has too many abilities that essentially work the same...)
My energy levels are always superior to that of my science toon because of the engineer only abilities.
My hull is never below 75% and I'm not struggling to keep myself alive vs the infamous instakill borg abilities like I have to with my tact and sci, even when I'm playing in my escorts.
My weapons energy is superior to my other classes bringing my dhc damage closer to my tactical in his escort which makes a very big difference btw, even when I've stuck my engi toon into a excelcior and given him all single cannons it's not been as difficult to kill enemies as it is in my science ship with all beams.
So seriously, engis have it better off then science because science most science ships have been stuck with inferior beams, if doing any dps one has to use DoT on science beams to come anywhere close to what engis can do with cannons on excelcior with innate power abilities, and engis naturally have superior survival built in so one can make engis a completely decked out debuff ship (and debuff only) that disables the enemy all day long preventing damage and allowing for much faster kills.
Seriously I know not what you're talking about when you say that engis have it worse then sci/sci captains.
a) my sci escort can survive borg torps. NOt sure what that has to do with team contributions based on player class. Neither in PvE nor PvP.
b) you compare single cannons on your eng/celsior with beams on a sci ship. Stick you sci in the excel, and your eng in the beam sci boat, and you'll get a better basis for your comparison. Otherwise it looks like you are decirbing the beam vs cannon issue which is independent of player class. Single cannons can go on sci ships as well, if you so choose.
SS /SNB are your friends, for DPS. Sci> eng dps in 99% of the cases.
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Tom: What truth?
Jerry: There is no problem with Engineers.
Tom: There is no problem with Engineers?
Jerry: Then you'll see that it is not the Engineer that needs to be fixed, it is only the rest of the game.
- - - - -
edit: I hadn't had my first smoke or any caffeine yet when I posted that. It's what I'm seeing in this thread and most threads on Engineers though. The argument about where they should be - what they should do - are they X, are they Y, and some even with are they Z.
They usually revolve around trying to squeeze the Trinity into the game. There was no Magic Wand Healing in Star Trek - yet people want Magic Wand Healing in STO. Oddly enough, one could say there was "Your momma so..." Threat Generation in Star Trek - but it wasn't based around any form of Trinity. The various forms of Tanking were similar to what you have in STO - Avoidance and Mitigation. But again, that's not based on Career - that's based on Ship.
There's too much healing in the game as is - hence that need for SNB. But folks want to increase the amount of healing? Okay then, then they'll need to increase the amount of damage as well - or - they'll need to increase the ways to create a Gap. Then you're back to not needing the Engineer again.
Folks need to step back and look at the big picture...try to understand how everything works together or might work together based on how things change. To an extent, that is how we've gotten where we are. Cryptic didn't step back far enough, certain players did, and bam - all sorts of things working...differently than one might expect.
ya... we arent talking about pve dude.
tac and sci captains have their own way of being deadly already, its not just tacs, only eng have no damage dealing. tacs have their tac buffs that greatly increase damage for a short time, and sci have crippling debuffs that remove all defense and another skill that lowers hull armor. eng have nothing effective for dealing damage in their way, over time. thats why something like EPtW's energy damage buff for its entire 30 seconds, ONLY for eng with these new character type traits, would be a perfect thing for them. it would even directly buff DEM and EWP, 2 eng skills for dealing damage. its perfect. this would only make more kirky cruisers that use EPtW more dangerous too, completely heal focused ships wouldn't change.
the game was better when an escort couldn't just attack an eng cruiser with 0 fear of his weapons until he eventually succumbs, its absurd how harmless an eng cruiser is now, and how useless an eng escort is. just like the other 2 classes, eng need a way to deal damage, because thats the point. those 2 self heals, renim will tell you all about marginal they are in the healing scheme of things and arent an even trade for no damage dealing.
Do you really want to toss your Captain abilities on a mine after being hit w/a spec'd SS3?:P
Instead of team damage buff/opposing team debuff, how about take away the placate/jam immunity from the Jem console and add it as a Eng Captain ability, call it Secure Comms and Sensors. In an anti debuff role it would be a potential counter to heavy Sci Captain teams. Imo, an anti debuff role fits the IP pretty well.
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Tac is all offense, they have no team or self preservation abilities
(Well aside from the new GDF trait, which throws a bizarre thing out there.. but that power is now Subnuc bait if there ever was one).
Eng is all defense, they have no real offensive boost powers.
In the center is Sci, who has both offensive and defensive powers available.
Giving Eng offense throws off that dynamic.
Eng doesn't suffer because Tac has taken Eng's seat at the table, Eng suffers because Sci does healing well "enough" and also brings other stuff to the team.
That's why I don't think giving eng multiple offensive boosts is the correct direction.
I think taking what Eng does bring to the table and making it more valuable and a bad idea to ignore is what's needed.
So, some consolidated ideas (not mine originally):
> MW: Add clease (all?), Add (huge, like BFI sized) Resistance buff 15s duration, Resistance buff is immune to SNB. Castable on others.
> RSF: Castable on others, unlike ES cannot be shock-waved off (pretty sure this is the current implementation), grant first 10s immunity to SNB (to add value as a serious kill denial tool that can deal with chain SNBs, of which it already shares the same CD cycle).
> NI: Should provide extreme resistance against any and all drains, shield, power siphons, leech, you name it. This power should basically make the target immune to that. I also think some kind of exotic, or interesting mitigating AoE mechanic centered on the target or caster would be good. Should be castable on others.
Maybe no one will shoot the Eng after those changes either, on the other hand with everything castable on others it matters less as the Eng moves from a selfish focused tank to a flexible top end kill-denial healer with out sacrificing any of the current self capable mitigation (and in fact, improving on it).
You are wrong in your assessment of the dynamic. The case should be that every character class has something to bring, regardless of which ship type they ultimately choose. You should also note that skills also affect captain ones, so that this in effect could influence how you synergize with different ship types. If you're a Science captain flying a MVAE for example, you can spec for some terrific disabling capabilities; arguably better than those that you may be able to get out of a regular science vessel.
Tac has Fire on my Mark, which is considerably more of a team ability than anything the Engineer has. There are also general utility abilities such as Attack Pattern Alpha and Tactical Initiative. All Engineer has are abilities which effectively work towards self-buffing, although such abilities aren't even particularly effective at that goal. The problem is that Eng doesn't do anything particularly well enough because it is an inflexible class, relative to both Science and Tactical. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the whole class is only redeemed by the presence of Rotate Shield Frequency.
a tac's defense is making everyone they shoot at defensive. their offense is their defense as it were. plus escorts, the ship tacs are naturally in, can speed tank and avoid damage, currently this actually works better then a cruiser trying to just out heal damage. its a combination of avoiding and out healing.
sci's defense is to strip you of what makes you dangerous and nutrilize you as a threat. and scatering field, and science fleet.
an eng's defense is to take damage and try to out heal it. thats actually the worst type of defense of the 3. and they cant deal damage. and for dedicated healers MW and RSF are minor heals of little value. oh sure some eng can basically be invincible, but the combination of spike and nuke at the right time will still kill it, its not more immune to that then anything else, and its easier to get that type of kill on the slow ship the eng is in.
so worse type of defense, and worst damage. the dynamivc is thrown, eng are stuck with the least ideal way to defend, and deal the least damage to the point that its better that they not fire, lest they set off proc heals. as far as offense goes, just the traits for EPtW is needed, an actual damage boost from NI would be nice too, because thats what it was supposed to do but is now redundant in the face of over capping.
think about what that trait would mean, its not going to turn renim into a pug stomped. any eng serious about damage would use EPtW3, hopefully with damage control doffs so it doesn't use both its LTC slots. their is a steep opportunity cost for that eng to have boosted damage over time. any healer that might want to include a EPtW1 would need 4 eng statiosn for both it and EPtS, or 2 or 3 doff slots for damage control. opportunity costs are the name of the game here.
think of all the happy pve'ers, they wouldn't be as useless and complain so much. it would be the simplest way to boost the underpowered weapons an eng and a cruiser use too. the longer cruisers and eng captains are terrible in this game, the more players they will drive away. every time i que i see eng cruisers trying to work like they honestly should work, but being completely infective. how long before they uninstall and forget escorts and SNB online?
also, this
Second: Trinity BAD.
Now that we have the awful concept of 'healer' out of the way most wish to shove the ENG into lets see what we could do instead. First let us look at what other classes get.
FoM & Sensor Scan are team boosters.
GDF & SNB are denial abilities.
APA & Photonic Fleet are damage abilities.
Tac Init is unique giving flexability
Sci AoE defensive buff is what it is.
So sci are tricksy, tac is blunt, what should eng be? Solid. And for the nitch? Powar!
EPS transfer needs to push the cap up to 150 when active.
Miracle Worker needs to grant a buff upon use that does something awesome.
Nadaon Inversion could use a cooldown reduction.
The shield thingie is already solid.
Weaker overall abilities but longer lasting.
Attack Pattern Alpha +Damage, +Critical Hit, +Critical Damage, +Turn (Self)
Fire on My Mark -Damage Resistance, -Stealth (Target)
Tactical Initiative -Recharge Speed Tac BOFF (Self/Ally)
Go Down Fighting +Damage/Scaled:Hull (Self)
Tactical Fleet +Damage, +Accuracy, +Defense (Team)
Engineer
Rotate Shield Frequency +Shield Damage Reduction, +Shield Regen HoT (Self)
EPS Power Transfer +Power, +Power Transfer (Self/Ally)
Nadion Inversion +Power Drain Resist (Self)
Miracle Worker +Hull Heal, +Shield Regen, Repair Disabled Subsystems (Self)
Engineering Fleet +Damage Resistance, +Hull Repair Skill, +Power (Team)
Science
Sensor Scan -Damage Resistance, -Stealth (AoE Target) +Stealthsight (Self)
Subnucleonic Beam -Buffs, +Recharge Speed (Target)
Scattering Field +Energy Damage Resistance (PBAoE)
Photonic Fleet +Summon Pets (PB)
Science Fleet +Shield Emitters Skill, +Power Insulators, +Shield Damage Reduction
So where's the problem?
Take a level 50 Tac, Eng, and Sci - with no Rep - put them each in a stock starting Miranda with no BOFFs, eh? Where's the problem?
People keep looking at those as if they're the problem.
Now how about this instead, eh?
Take a level 50 Tac, Eng, and Sci - with the same T5 Rep choices for New Rom/Omega - put them a Bug/JHAS. The same one. Gear it the same. Same mix of STF/Fleet/etc gear. So the only thing different between the 50 Tac, Eng, and Sci are the abilities up there.
World of difference now, eh? Not like when they were in the stock Miranda, hrmmm.
So is the problem those abilities...or...is it everything else? The way everything else works together - and thus - certain things definitely work better together than other things.
Think about everything that has been added (and will continue to be added). Consider the synergies it all offers. Consider even what some of it has replaced. Consider how it has fundamentally changed some of the previous balancing effects that were in place.
Then consider the changes you'd make to those initial abilities for Engineers...and think about everything else that is still going to be added down the road. How long before you're looking at Engineering Captain abilities again, eh?
Cause it's not the problem...everything else is.
Obviously not everything else is going to be changed, is it? Nope. Not only that, but everything else is going to continue to get worse.
So it should be obvious what changes need to be made to those Engineering Captain abilities (even the Sci Captain, eh?)...and it's not about dorking around with tank/heal stuff.
Or it just makes them subnuc the tac.
What happens when a power is used is not the same as giving a specific mitigation mechanic.
If the tac goes offense, there is nothing in that, that provides actual in game mitigation values.
The Eng is the opposite end of the spectrum.
Escorts are not the Tac career or the Tac career powers.
Even though many of us see it that way, it's a very different thing to give Engineers specifically offense focused mechanics.
PUG matches? Sure.
Premades, not so much.
I'm not saying Engineers don't need improvement. I'm saying they absolutely do deserve improvement.
I see nothing that says the tankiest class in the game should get offense though.
In fact, this is endemic to these and the PvE forums as well. Everyone sees the solution as "add offense to everything that was not designed for offense" for Sci powers, Eng career, Cruisers, etc.
Instead the things they were designed for should be given clear, valuable, role space. Instead of pushing them into a role that is already covered.
Making PvPers who want to play Engineers in PUGs and do damage happy should not be the ultimate goal of design.
Design should create valuable role space for all of the roles.
Currently, Eng has less valuable role space in Premade PvP.
I think in PUG matches they are actually better off as an Eng/Healer can't count on the type of cross-healing support you get accustomed to in a premade.
That's still not enough "decent in pugs" isn't enough of a role, of this I am in 100% complete agreement.
I think ideas towards Eng improvement need to focus on a clear role, and that role, to me, is clearly not damage. It has never been about damage with the Eng, and there is no reason for that to start now.
Unless we think all of the classes should have both mitigation and offense of some kind, but to be honest I'm not holding my breath for that kind of overhaul any time "soon".
HEY! I already made a Matrix joke!
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8911511&postcount=21
Cute Joke.
It does illustrate what I've been saying though.
Everyone thinks Tac is the reason premades don't run Eng, or thinks Tac is at the root of all of Eng issues. In order to fix Eng, we must make Eng more like Tac! Tac is fun, we all love Tac!
It's not Tac that teams have replaced Eng with.
There's one career that you can basically never have too much of, and that career is Sci.
While I'll be the 1st to admit power creep is a problem. It effects Engineers disproportionately. Most Engineer abilities approach cap limits pretty quickly that many builds can achieve regardless if they're piloted by Engineers or not.
On the other hand Sci and Tacs don't have this issue for their core abilities. Even if some of the self Eng abilities were transferable I'm not sure they'd be all that useful as is. This is b/c there are caps on resists and power gains that are currently easily achieved, and I don't see this changing. For example, I brought up the power issue a year ago give or take w/the Plas Leech console gains and warp core doff gains (200+ power when the doff triggers w/leech which can more than double a ship's base power).
It's why some are emphasizing additional capabilities. Imo, those should focus on a unique role and not have the diminishing returns issues many of the Eng Captain abilities have. For me a good role would be an anti debuffer. It would have the additional benefit of balancing issues w/teams which are made disproportionately of Sci Captains.
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C&H Fed banter
hard core healing is 90% about your ship and station powers. the other captains can heal extreamly well if they have the available stations to do it, just a little bit of of the healing comes from sci and eng captains them selves. and for tac and sci, the other captain powers are everything to them. the eng captain powers let them heal 10% better and thats it. nadeon and eps do nothing. they have nothing but healing, and they are only 10% better at it. wile tacs are 500% better at dealing damage, adjusted for how effective spike is compared to pressure. and sci are infinitely better at control, and 200% better at dealing damage to targets they can debuff. in exchange for that, eng heal 10% beter.
so, everything and anything can be great healers independent of captain type, eng captains being slightly the best, and thats it. theres nothing else to them. i only have tac captains maintained at this point, and on a wim i made 1 a dedicated healer for a wile. sure its the last captain type you would choose for that role, but i wanted to see how bad it was. it made me realize all im missing is MW and RSF compared to an eng. i could still do the job practically as well.
spike damage and control are already covered, whats left really? all i can think of is damage over time, in addition to being slightly better healers they could be the best at a constant stream of dps. thats not going to kill like a tac can ever, but it could actually force a response, like it used to. would be a huge boon to pve as well, without hurting pvp balance. kill through spike, kill through debuff, kill through pressure, thats parity.
ive never seen a game were a tank dealt a net of 0 damage like this. it's truly bizarre. and so are the people that like it that way.
Consider the following two:
1) 125 Weapon Power, 9 Weapons Training, 9 Energy Weapons, 9 Energy Weapon Specialization, 9 Weapon Performance, 5x VR Phaser Relay Mk XII, 3x Rom Tac BOFFs, Borg, Tachyo, 0Point, Precision, Omega Weapon Training, APA, APO, TT, EPtW, CRF, TacFleet, GDF, and well - you get the idea.
2) 25 Weapon Power, 0 Weapons Training, 0 Energy Weapons, 0 Energy Weapon Specialization, 0 Weapon Performance, 0 Tac Consoles, 0 Rom Tac BOFFs, no other consoles, no Passives, no Captain/BOFF abilities, and well - you get the idea.
Give #1 your favorite VR/UR DHCs.
Give #2 a common Mk I Turret.
Then consider the various proc heals, resist boosts, etc.
#2 procs the same values as #1...like WTF?
Gets better. Consider Elite Fleet Shields with [Adapt] or even somebody running Aegis. #2 is actually making it harder for #1 to kill that target by stacking the resists faster with the low damage...like WTF?
I'm curious where you think I've stated that I think there is parity.
Reference?
Except that's ignoring the points I've made.
Eng would be better at the Kill-denial role if several of their powers were tweaked or revamped to fulfill it.
What I'm arguing for is exactly that, increasing the Engineer's ability to deny kills in a teamwide fashion as opposed to being a PvE tank, which is how they've been designed.
Parity of Sci & Tac doesn't come through their ability to buff their damage. Sci doesn't buff Sci's damage. Both have roles on a PvP team, and those roles are not the same.
I want role space for the Eng, I want it to capitalize on what the Eng is already able to do selfishly, and broaden it to be team focused.
We need parity for the Eng that is not "damage boosts". Because that makes no sense.
Eng is the most survivable, that's apparent in design. How much better at survival is an Eng vs. a Tac? It's clearly more than 10%.
The issue, is that design doesn't work in PvP.
It's really that simple.
So the shift that needs to be made, is to broaden the role from "PvE tank" into "PvP Healer" which in reality is less "healer" and more "kill denial specialist".
Adding damage in some tiny amount to Eng captain powers will do nothing of value for the career.
Sci will still be several orders of magnitude more valuable, for bringing kill denial tools (SNB, Scatering Field, Sci Fleet) & force multipliers (SNB, Sensor Scan).