Actually...I see them as buffing cruisers. They say that the global CD for the same EPtX skills is 20 seconds, it matches the 20 second uptime of the damage resistance. Because of this change, I will now literally have 100% uptime of the damage resistance from EPtS...with shield heals from EPtS every 20 seconds INSTEAD of 30 seconds.
I know you're looking at me funny because you're thinking about running 2 copies of EPtX and having the 5 second gap after the two copies expire. In short, I run the Aux2Bat Technician build and here's what's going to happen if they don't change things. Also on a side note, I only have ONE copy of EPtS that I can use every 20 seconds. Here's how it works.
0s: EPtS3 - goes on 45 second CD
0s: 1st Aux2Bat1 - All BOff abilities CD reduced by 30% (EPtS3 now down to 33s)
10s: 2nd Aux2Bat1 - EPtS3 now down to 11s (because of the cap limit - previously 20s at this point)
20s: Rinse and repeat.
Okay, according to the math, I have...1 second gap there (33% of 45s = about 12s. 33 - 20 - 12 = 1)...that downtime is seriously not worth mentioning.
So in that sense, the devs not only failed to put a gap between the same EPtX abilities, they have also lessened the time it takes to use them again - A MAJOR BUFF.
I guess the only redeeming part of all this is that the Aux2Bat Technician build is expensive and somewhat hard to master.
On a side note, yes I do play an engi-cruiser and have been in plenty of PvP.
Incorrect.
If what you're saying was true then when running the Aux2Batt on holodeck, you would be able to have to instances of the same power active. You cannot. They've changed the duration without altering the cooldown, therefore it's enforcing a gap even on Aux2Batt builds. They were thorough with this demolition of the Emergency Power Chain builds.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Ya but you're borked if you wanna run any other EP, which comprises the majority of cruiser builds.
Shouldn't you be though? I mean honestly, it's called Emergency Power to X. How many times are you gonna honestly have that emergency power in reserve to push to another system?
Shouldn't you be though? I mean honestly, it's called Emergency Power to X. How many times are you gonna honestly have that emergency power in reserve to push to another system?
The issue isn't the fluff, the issue is that the change reduces the value of Engineering bridge officer slots, making ships with Commander and Lt Commander Engineering even more marginalised, and the Galaxy-R grotesquely inefficient.
Yea I agree that the EPTX change is mainly hitting cruisers. The nerf bat needs to b put down, and Higher Tier Engineering skills need to be added. Cruisers need a buff, Escorts need to stay the same. Right now, A cruiser cant out Tank an escort, or Out Damage an escort, and this is on live, There is no reason to make the balance Escort>All.
And the ONLY way for this change to work is to add About 3 skills to Engineering.
Suggestions:
Activate Emergency Forcefields = Ensign to LTC.
Rank1= 50% Resistance to Crew death, +15 All Resist, +30 Subsystem Repair Stat.
Rank2= 75% Resistance to Crew Death, +20 All resist, +40 Subsystem Repair Stat
Rank3= 100% Resistance to Crew Death, +25 All resist, +50 Subsystem Repair stat.
Shared effects: 30 second Cooldown, 15sec Global, 15 sec duration. Drains 25 Shield AND Aux Power when active.
Concentrated Fire: LT to Cdr
Rank1= +10% All Damage, Bonus 5% Damage for DBBs, Bonus 10% damage for Beams. -50% Bleedthru (if bleed is 10%, It only bleeds 5%)
Rank2= +10% All Damage, 7.5% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 15% Bonus dmg for beams. 25% Bleedthru.
Rank3= +15% All Damage, 10% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 20% Bonus Damage for Beams.
Shared: 15 Sec Universal With FAW. 30 Sec Universal With Concentrated Fire, 15 Sec Duration, 1min Cooldown. Drains 20 Power from Aux, Shield, and Engine.
Modulate Weapon Relays: LTC to CDR
Rank1= +20% All Drain Resist, +25 Resist from Beam drain. +10% Faster Beam Cooldowns (so a cruiser can hit faster with this active).
Rank2= +25% Drain Resist, +50% Resist from Beams, +20% Faster Beam Cooldowns.
Shared= Cooldown 1 Minute, Duration 15 seconds, universal 15 seconds with Concentrated Fire. Universal 30 seconds with Modulate Weapon Relays. All Copies drain 25 Power from Auxiliary.
Here are a few Skills that can be added to give cruisers some Punch, And balance off the reduction from being able to keep EPTX up forever.
The focus on beams is to promote what a cruiser was built to do, and make Cannons less the main source of all DPS ever.
The Skills drain from each of the skills is to take advantage of the cruisers ability to have high power output, Which makes them less effective for other ships to use.
Yea I agree that the EPTX change is mainly hitting cruisers. The nerf bat needs to b put down, and Higher Tier Engineering skills need to be added. Cruisers need a buff, Escorts need to stay the same. Right now, A cruiser cant out Tank an escort, or Out Damage an escort, and this is on live, There is no reason to make the balance Escort>All.
And the ONLY way for this change to work is to add About 3 skills to Engineering.
Suggestions:
Activate Emergency Forcefields = Ensign to LTC.
Rank1= 50% Resistance to Crew death, +15 All Resist, +30 Subsystem Repair Stat.
Rank2= 75% Resistance to Crew Death, +20 All resist, +40 Subsystem Repair Stat
Rank3= 100% Resistance to Crew Death, +25 All resist, +50 Subsystem Repair stat.
Shared effects: 30 second Cooldown, 15sec Global, 15 sec duration. Drains 25 Shield AND Aux Power when active.
Concentrated Fire: LT to Cdr
Rank1= +10% All Damage, Bonus 5% Damage for DBBs, Bonus 10% damage for Beams. -50% Bleedthru (if bleed is 10%, It only bleeds 5%)
Rank2= +10% All Damage, 7.5% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 15% Bonus dmg for beams. 25% Bleedthru.
Rank3= +15% All Damage, 10% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 20% Bonus Damage for Beams.
Shared: 15 Sec Universal With FAW. 30 Sec Universal With Concentrated Fire, 15 Sec Duration, 1min Cooldown. Drains 20 Power from Aux, Shield, and Engine.
Modulate Weapon Relays: LTC to CDR
Rank1= +20% All Drain Resist, +25 Resist from Beam drain. +10% Faster Beam Cooldowns (so a cruiser can hit faster with this active).
Rank2= +25% Drain Resist, +50% Resist from Beams, +20% Faster Beam Cooldowns.
Shared= Cooldown 1 Minute, Duration 15 seconds, universal 15 seconds with Concentrated Fire. Universal 30 seconds with Modulate Weapon Relays. All Copies drain 25 Power from Auxiliary.
Here are a few Skills that can be added to give cruisers some Punch, And balance off the reduction from being able to keep EPTX up forever.
The focus on beams is to promote what a cruiser was built to do, and make Cannons less the main source of all DPS ever.
The Skills drain from each of the skills is to take advantage of the cruisers ability to have high power output, Which makes them less effective for other ships to use.
I'm just suggesting a few skills.
Interesting ideas but it doesn't really help the worthless ensign problem. I don't lose much crew as it is, and even so crew death means very little ATM. I wouldn't take that skill, honestly. Other ones are nice though they kind of seem a bit too powerful.
If what you're saying was true then when running the Aux2Batt on holodeck, you would be able to have to instances of the same power active. You cannot. They've changed the duration without altering the cooldown, therefore it's enforcing a gap even on Aux2Batt builds. They were thorough with this demolition of the Emergency Power Chain builds.
It says right here that they lowered the shared CD to 20 seconds. This affects both double stacking and aux2bat cruisers. If you haven't tested this on Tribble, do test it. You'll find what I'm saying is true.
As a second note, this is all on Tribble and NOT holodeck. Right now on holodeck, the lowest I can drop the CD is 30 seconds with 1 copy. If I said "double stack" anywhere, what I meant was have 2 copies of the same skill, not an overlap in buff duration.
I also agree with what everyone else is saying about the gap in between EPtX and EPtY. They could fix this gap if they dropped the shared CD to 10 seconds between EPtX and EPtY, but hell everyone would cry overpowered.
EDIT: Here's how the current EPtX (one type only) system (IN TRIBBLE) will work with double stack vs. aux2bat:
Double Stack:
0s: Activate EPtX #1 - this copy goes on 45 second CD; EPtX #2 goes on 20s CD
20s: EPtX #1 wears off. Activate EPtX#2; EPtX#1 is now still on 25s CD and EPtX#2 is now on 45s CD
40s: EPtX #2 wears off. 5s gap begins here. EPtX #1 is on 5s CD and EPtX#2 is on 25s CD
45s: Rinse and repeat.
Aux2Bat (Assuming 3 very rare technicians):
0s: Activate EPtX and Aux2bat #1 - EPtX is now on 45s - 12s = 33s CD and Aux2Bat #1 is on 40s - 12s = 28s CD and Aux2Bat #2 is on 20s - 12s + 2s(capped) = 10s CD.
10s: Activate Aux2Bat #2 - EPtX is now on 23 - 12s = 11s<- this does not get bumped back to 20s (10s has passed since activation of EPtX). Aux2Bat #1 is now on 10s CD.
20s: Rinse and Repeat.
Now that that's idea is in place, lets say they implement the 10s shared CD between EPtX and EPtY. This is how it would work with 2 copies of EPtX and EPtY:
0s: Activate EPtX1 - EPtX1 on 45s, EPtX2 on 20s, EPtY1 and 2 on 10s.
10s: Activate EPtY1 - EPtX1 on 35s, EPtX2 on 10s, EPtY1 on 45s, EPtY2 on 20s
20s: Activate EPtX2 - EPtX1 on 25s, EPtX2 on 45s, EPtY1 on 35s, EPtY2 on 10s (EPtX1 expires)
30s: Activate EPtY2 - EPtX1 on 15s, EPtX2 on 35s, EPtY1 on 25s, EPtY2 on 45s (EPtY1 expires)
40s: (EPtX2 expires - 5s gap between EPtX uptimes)
45s: Rinse and Repeat
5s or 50s: (EPtY2 expires - 5s gap between EPtY uptimes)
__________________________________________________
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
Activate Emergency Forcefields = Ensign to LTC.
Rank1= 50% Resistance to Crew death, +15 All Resist, +30 Subsystem Repair Stat.
Rank2= 75% Resistance to Crew Death, +20 All resist, +40 Subsystem Repair Stat
Rank3= 100% Resistance to Crew Death, +25 All resist, +50 Subsystem Repair stat.
Shared effects: 30 second Cooldown, 15sec Global, 15 sec duration. Drains 25 Shield AND Aux Power when active.
I'd prefer a slightly different version of this skill...let's call it "Photonic Crew". Ensign to LTC. Aside from the resistance to crew death, make it so that it gives some live crew members.
Currently, the only skill affected by crew death is the Engi Boff skill, Boarding Party. While this skill is useful, nobody uses it because it is unreliable and becomes useless in a drawn out battle (when all your crew is injured/dead). This skill would increase the reliability of BP.
Concentrated Fire: LT to Cdr
Rank1= +10% All Damage, Bonus 5% Damage for DBBs, Bonus 10% damage for Beams. -50% Bleedthru (if bleed is 10%, It only bleeds 5%)
Rank2= +10% All Damage, 7.5% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 15% Bonus dmg for beams. 25% Bleedthru.
Rank3= +15% All Damage, 10% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 20% Bonus Damage for Beams.
Shared: 15 Sec Universal With FAW. 30 Sec Universal With Concentrated Fire, 15 Sec Duration, 1min Cooldown. Drains 20 Power from Aux, Shield, and Engine.
I like this idea for the most part, except the "all damage" should be "all energy weapons damage" (torps and mines aren't affected by weap power). I slightly disagree with the bleedthrough damage, as it would make DEM seem redundant. But overall, an interesting idea nonetheless
Modulate Weapon Relays: LTC to CDR
Rank1= +20% All Drain Resist, +25 Resist from Beam drain. +10% Faster Beam Cooldowns (so a cruiser can hit faster with this active).
Rank2= +25% Drain Resist, +50% Resist from Beams, +20% Faster Beam Cooldowns.
Shared= Cooldown 1 Minute, Duration 15 seconds, universal 15 seconds with Concentrated Fire. Universal 30 seconds with Modulate Weapon Relays. All Copies drain 25 Power from Auxiliary.
Definitely another interesting skill. I wonder what would happen if people run these with BO though...hmm....
__________________________________________________
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
Yea I agree that the EPTX change is mainly hitting cruisers. The nerf bat needs to b put down, and Higher Tier Engineering skills need to be added. Cruisers need a buff, Escorts need to stay the same. Right now, A cruiser cant out Tank an escort, or Out Damage an escort, and this is on live, There is no reason to make the balance Escort>All.
And the ONLY way for this change to work is to add About 3 skills to Engineering.
Suggestions:
Activate Emergency Forcefields = Ensign to LTC.
Rank1= 50% Resistance to Crew death, +15 All Resist, +30 Subsystem Repair Stat.
Rank2= 75% Resistance to Crew Death, +20 All resist, +40 Subsystem Repair Stat
Rank3= 100% Resistance to Crew Death, +25 All resist, +50 Subsystem Repair stat.
Shared effects: 30 second Cooldown, 15sec Global, 15 sec duration. Drains 25 Shield AND Aux Power when active.
I like your thinking on this, I think rather than a subsystem repair stat buff that it should be a resist to subsystem disabling that should be the buff. Something like raising level 10 force fields around key systems.
Concentrated Fire: LT to Cdr
Rank1= +10% All Damage, Bonus 5% Damage for DBBs, Bonus 10% damage for Beams. -50% Bleedthru (if bleed is 10%, It only bleeds 5%)
Rank2= +10% All Damage, 7.5% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 15% Bonus dmg for beams. 25% Bleedthru.
Rank3= +15% All Damage, 10% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 20% Bonus Damage for Beams.
Shared: 15 Sec Universal With FAW. 30 Sec Universal With Concentrated Fire, 15 Sec Duration, 1min Cooldown. Drains 20 Power from Aux, Shield, and Engine.
This interests me as many have suggested a FAW ability that focuses on one target which really would up the power on beam boats. Concentrated Fire is a good name and sharing a universal with FAW is a good idea, but it's weird since you're suggesting a Eng ability that shares a cd with a tactical, but that's not unheard of it would be like the Team abilities.
Modulate Weapon Relays: LTC to CDR
Rank1= +20% All Drain Resist, +25 Resist from Beam drain. +10% Faster Beam Cooldowns (so a cruiser can hit faster with this active).
Rank2= +25% Drain Resist, +50% Resist from Beams, +20% Faster Beam Cooldowns.
Shared= Cooldown 1 Minute, Duration 15 seconds, universal 15 seconds with Concentrated Fire. Universal 30 seconds with Modulate Weapon Relays. All Copies drain 25 Power from Auxiliary.
I like this one. The reduction in the cyclying time especially, the kind of ability an engineer tinkering with his weapons system would come up with.
Here are a few Skills that can be added to give cruisers some Punch, And balance off the reduction from being able to keep EPTX up forever.
The focus on beams is to promote what a cruiser was built to do, and make Cannons less the main source of all DPS ever.
The Skills drain from each of the skills is to take advantage of the cruisers ability to have high power output, Which makes them less effective for other ships to use.
I'm just suggesting a few skills.
This is the truth, the over focus on cannons is absurd.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Long-term, we believe the EPtX abilities would be more interesting if their effects were yet more substantial but they had significant downtime. However, changing the lockout between two abilities of the same type down to 20 seconds results in the original downtime I had intended for abilities of 11%, rather than the 33% that the previous patch introduced.
After testing on Tribble, a 3 DCE/2 Tech doff layout can near continuously run any single EPtX ability (with the occassional use of a single A2B). Given that escorts and science ships don't rely on EPtX abilities for offensive/defensive output, I am not sure how these changes do anything but harm cruisers.
Shouldn't you be though? I mean honestly, it's called Emergency Power to X. How many times are you gonna honestly have that emergency power in reserve to push to another system?
If you're going to argue semantics, you might as well be asking what the difference between "emergency" and "auxiliary" power is.
Comments
Incorrect.
If what you're saying was true then when running the Aux2Batt on holodeck, you would be able to have to instances of the same power active. You cannot. They've changed the duration without altering the cooldown, therefore it's enforcing a gap even on Aux2Batt builds. They were thorough with this demolition of the Emergency Power Chain builds.
Shouldn't you be though? I mean honestly, it's called Emergency Power to X. How many times are you gonna honestly have that emergency power in reserve to push to another system?
And the ONLY way for this change to work is to add About 3 skills to Engineering.
Suggestions:
Activate Emergency Forcefields = Ensign to LTC.
Rank1= 50% Resistance to Crew death, +15 All Resist, +30 Subsystem Repair Stat.
Rank2= 75% Resistance to Crew Death, +20 All resist, +40 Subsystem Repair Stat
Rank3= 100% Resistance to Crew Death, +25 All resist, +50 Subsystem Repair stat.
Shared effects: 30 second Cooldown, 15sec Global, 15 sec duration. Drains 25 Shield AND Aux Power when active.
Concentrated Fire: LT to Cdr
Rank1= +10% All Damage, Bonus 5% Damage for DBBs, Bonus 10% damage for Beams. -50% Bleedthru (if bleed is 10%, It only bleeds 5%)
Rank2= +10% All Damage, 7.5% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 15% Bonus dmg for beams. 25% Bleedthru.
Rank3= +15% All Damage, 10% Bonus Damage for DBBs, 20% Bonus Damage for Beams.
Shared: 15 Sec Universal With FAW. 30 Sec Universal With Concentrated Fire, 15 Sec Duration, 1min Cooldown. Drains 20 Power from Aux, Shield, and Engine.
Modulate Weapon Relays: LTC to CDR
Rank1= +20% All Drain Resist, +25 Resist from Beam drain. +10% Faster Beam Cooldowns (so a cruiser can hit faster with this active).
Rank2= +25% Drain Resist, +50% Resist from Beams, +20% Faster Beam Cooldowns.
Shared= Cooldown 1 Minute, Duration 15 seconds, universal 15 seconds with Concentrated Fire. Universal 30 seconds with Modulate Weapon Relays. All Copies drain 25 Power from Auxiliary.
Here are a few Skills that can be added to give cruisers some Punch, And balance off the reduction from being able to keep EPTX up forever.
The focus on beams is to promote what a cruiser was built to do, and make Cannons less the main source of all DPS ever.
The Skills drain from each of the skills is to take advantage of the cruisers ability to have high power output, Which makes them less effective for other ships to use.
I'm just suggesting a few skills.
Interesting ideas but it doesn't really help the worthless ensign problem. I don't lose much crew as it is, and even so crew death means very little ATM. I wouldn't take that skill, honestly. Other ones are nice though they kind of seem a bit too powerful.
It says right here that they lowered the shared CD to 20 seconds. This affects both double stacking and aux2bat cruisers. If you haven't tested this on Tribble, do test it. You'll find what I'm saying is true.
As a second note, this is all on Tribble and NOT holodeck. Right now on holodeck, the lowest I can drop the CD is 30 seconds with 1 copy. If I said "double stack" anywhere, what I meant was have 2 copies of the same skill, not an overlap in buff duration.
I also agree with what everyone else is saying about the gap in between EPtX and EPtY. They could fix this gap if they dropped the shared CD to 10 seconds between EPtX and EPtY, but hell everyone would cry overpowered.
EDIT: Here's how the current EPtX (one type only) system (IN TRIBBLE) will work with double stack vs. aux2bat:
Double Stack:
0s: Activate EPtX #1 - this copy goes on 45 second CD; EPtX #2 goes on 20s CD
20s: EPtX #1 wears off. Activate EPtX#2; EPtX#1 is now still on 25s CD and EPtX#2 is now on 45s CD
40s: EPtX #2 wears off. 5s gap begins here. EPtX #1 is on 5s CD and EPtX#2 is on 25s CD
45s: Rinse and repeat.
Aux2Bat (Assuming 3 very rare technicians):
0s: Activate EPtX and Aux2bat #1 - EPtX is now on 45s - 12s = 33s CD and Aux2Bat #1 is on 40s - 12s = 28s CD and Aux2Bat #2 is on 20s - 12s + 2s(capped) = 10s CD.
10s: Activate Aux2Bat #2 - EPtX is now on 23 - 12s = 11s<- this does not get bumped back to 20s (10s has passed since activation of EPtX). Aux2Bat #1 is now on 10s CD.
20s: Rinse and Repeat.
Now that that's idea is in place, lets say they implement the 10s shared CD between EPtX and EPtY. This is how it would work with 2 copies of EPtX and EPtY:
0s: Activate EPtX1 - EPtX1 on 45s, EPtX2 on 20s, EPtY1 and 2 on 10s.
10s: Activate EPtY1 - EPtX1 on 35s, EPtX2 on 10s, EPtY1 on 45s, EPtY2 on 20s
20s: Activate EPtX2 - EPtX1 on 25s, EPtX2 on 45s, EPtY1 on 35s, EPtY2 on 10s (EPtX1 expires)
30s: Activate EPtY2 - EPtX1 on 15s, EPtX2 on 35s, EPtY1 on 25s, EPtY2 on 45s (EPtY1 expires)
40s: (EPtX2 expires - 5s gap between EPtX uptimes)
45s: Rinse and Repeat
5s or 50s: (EPtY2 expires - 5s gap between EPtY uptimes)
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
I'd prefer a slightly different version of this skill...let's call it "Photonic Crew". Ensign to LTC. Aside from the resistance to crew death, make it so that it gives some live crew members.
Currently, the only skill affected by crew death is the Engi Boff skill, Boarding Party. While this skill is useful, nobody uses it because it is unreliable and becomes useless in a drawn out battle (when all your crew is injured/dead). This skill would increase the reliability of BP.
I like this idea for the most part, except the "all damage" should be "all energy weapons damage" (torps and mines aren't affected by weap power). I slightly disagree with the bleedthrough damage, as it would make DEM seem redundant. But overall, an interesting idea nonetheless
Definitely another interesting skill. I wonder what would happen if people run these with BO though...hmm....
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
This interests me as many have suggested a FAW ability that focuses on one target which really would up the power on beam boats. Concentrated Fire is a good name and sharing a universal with FAW is a good idea, but it's weird since you're suggesting a Eng ability that shares a cd with a tactical, but that's not unheard of it would be like the Team abilities.
I like this one. The reduction in the cyclying time especially, the kind of ability an engineer tinkering with his weapons system would come up with.
This is the truth, the over focus on cannons is absurd.
After testing on Tribble, a 3 DCE/2 Tech doff layout can near continuously run any single EPtX ability (with the occassional use of a single A2B). Given that escorts and science ships don't rely on EPtX abilities for offensive/defensive output, I am not sure how these changes do anything but harm cruisers.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If you're going to argue semantics, you might as well be asking what the difference between "emergency" and "auxiliary" power is.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]