... so escorts are supposed to sit and watch the whole time?
nope you are supposed to engage (in order of preference)
Fighters
other Escorts
Destroyers
Bops
Mines
turrets
you know fiddly or fast stuff
You've got issues, mate. I think you need to spend some time learning what it means to cooperate and play as a team.
it means
Command and control (usually a sci ship or a carrier) picks targets
Cruisers Close and Engage
Escorts DEFEND the command ship and any defence objective and act as fighters
(thats what escorts are for escorting)
Just because you're shooting a ship doesn't automatically mean it is solely your domain and target.
and just because you are in an escort does not mean you have to straff the living daylights out of everything and fail the mission
You should be grateful someone else (escort, cruiser, science ship; doesn't matter) came over to give you a hand, even if you feel you don't need it.
cruisers do not zero people (its nearly impossible for them to)
Science ships are C+C and They are the ones who should be choosing the targets for cruisers and escorts
Concentrated fire shortens the combat, allowing you more time to move to the next encounter or wait for cooldowns.
No it Zeroes the ship that CAN win the mission leaving a couple of sad little escorts trying to take down a Carrier
As a side note, if you're flying too close to an enemy ship, and with such low hull strength that its warp core breach kills you, then you may want to re-evaluate your tactics.
and if you are blowing up ships while others are right next to them you might like to join the Borg
A ship on low hull (such as one that just took down a couple of cubes ) often close engages so that if destroyed their OWN explosion takes out the enemy
Ramming speed and plasma are used for this
Here's a thought - don't blind PuG STFs. If you don't have mates or a fleet that haven't all burned out on the grind, use an STF chat channel.
I always see people throw this "solution" around, like it solves all problems and complaints. I thought I'd answer it simply here:
I'm not in high school anymore. I have no interest in social groups ("cliques"). The STF channels are full of them, and I'm friends with quite a number of people who all report the same bad experiences. If you don't act exactly as required by the channel, you're chastised, insulted, and ignored. You've got to be a good little worker-ant and do exactly as you're told, even when it's bad advice, or you get no assistance, no group, and a bad day in chat.
No one in this game can be called a "kid". Anyone under high-school age shouldn't be playing an online game (and parents who would let their young kids do so are seriously irresponsible!). If everyone would just act like a mature individual, we wouldn't have these problems, and the STF channel "cliques" would be even more of a waste of time than they already are.
Perhaps we should also put a 5 minute cool down on DHC's
Because there you are close engaged (nearly hull to hull) and some complete riker in an escort comes in and zeroes you (blows up the enemy vessel and you with it )
I would accept this if they also made all the mages spells take up weapons slots like they should.
nope you are supposed to engage (in order of preference)
Fighters
other Escorts
Destroyers
Bops
Mines
turrets
you know fiddly or fast stuff
No, escorts deal the highest damage in the game. Their job is to go after the most threatening target first. This is almost always the biggest ship with the most hull points (unless PvP, in which case yes, it is other escorts).
Command and control (usually a sci ship or a carrier) picks targets
Cruisers Close and Engage
Escorts DEFEND the command ship and any defence objective and act as fighters
(thats what escorts are for escorting)
No, it means cruisers redirect as much enemy fire into themselves as they can reasonably handle (via threat control and AOE attacks) while sending heals to the team as-needed.
Science ships confuse and control the enemies through slows, gravity wells, energy drains, etc. in order to soften targets.
Escorts provide the raw firepower needed to actually destroy ships, and move around the encounter as needed in order to keep the mission on-track.
and just because you are in an escort does not mean you have to straff the living daylights out of everything and fail the mission
Anyone flying an escort in the manner you described is simply a bad pilot. An escort is actually much better served by parking 4km from their target and acting as a weapons platform. Strafing is a waste of buffs, since an average pass at appropriate weapon ranges will only fire off 2-3 volleys, with 1-2 still buffed when you pass your target or have to turn around (thereby getting wasted). The negligible bonus to defense gained by flying fast is easily offset by having a proper healer (cruiser) in your group.
cruisers do not zero people (its nearly impossible for them to)
Science ships are C+C and They are the ones who should be choosing the targets for cruisers and escorts
... why? Everyone has a brain, and this is not a military simulator. Because, in your words, "cruisers do not zero people", they shouldn't be picking targets. The escorts should be picking targets according to threat priorities. Cruisers don't need to worry about killing or picking targets, they need to worry about keeping their team alive. That's their role in the game.
No it Zeroes the ship that CAN win the mission leaving a couple of sad little escorts trying to take down a Carrier
Are we talking about PvE or PvP here? If PvE, an escort is just as servicable as a cruiser, especially when the cruiser captain is short-sighted enough to try and max their DPS instead properly fill their group support role. If PvP, when was the last time you saw a cruiser consistently kill anyone? Kills equate to wins in PvP, so the ships that can kill the easiest (escorts) are most important and "win the mission", not the cruisers.
This doesn't discount the importance of cruisers in either scenario. Properly timed heals and covering fire are essential to a good group. Most players seriously under-value the effectiveness of a properly-spec'd cruiser. I'll take a healing or tanking cruiser over any 2 escorts any day, because they'll keep myself and my team alive while we collectively get the job done.
and if you are blowing up ships while others are right next to them you might like to join the Borg
There's no polite way to say this. I'm not going to stop shooting the proper target just because you were too stupid to stay 3km away. Mines are still quite effective at 3km, as are high-yield torpedoes, fighters, etc. There's barely enough time to register their presence and attempt to shoot them down before they're already on top of you. As for FAW, the various gas clouds, etc. that are used as AOE screens, they'll eat your mines whether you drop them at 5km or 0.5km. Get a sense of timing and don't fire them while your enemy is prepared.
A ship on low hull (such as one that just took down a couple of cubes ) often close engages so that if destroyed their OWN explosion takes out the enemy
Ramming speed and plasma are used for this
Completely ineffective in PvE, since warp core breaches don't do much damage to anything larger than a fighter, and a waste in PvP except for the very rare case that your target is already below 25% hull AND has all their heals on cooldown AND has BFI on cooldown.
1. In Donatra's stf the repulsors are excellent for those of us who guard the gates/time portal, we can keep the probes back in an emergency, there have been several times where I would have let a probe through the portal if I hadn't had repulsors, I have yet to let a single probe through btw.
I'm not trying to sound negative in any way, this is just constructive criticism: You don't have enough DPS. Even a Science vessel should be able to handle probes without TBR (A Shield Stripping Torp Boat would probably work, and Gravity well is all around better than TBR since it keeps them in one area, Damages them continuously, and keeps them packed together for other AoE). A Cruiser should be able to do with with just 125 Weapons Power, and either FAW or CSV (depending on which weapons you use).
I always see people throw this "solution" around, like it solves all problems and complaints. I thought I'd answer it simply here:
I'm not in high school anymore. I have no interest in social groups ("cliques"). The STF channels are full of them, and I'm friends with quite a number of people who all report the same bad experiences. If you don't act exactly as required by the channel, you're chastised, insulted, and ignored. You've got to be a good little worker-ant and do exactly as you're told, even when it's bad advice, or you get no assistance, no group, and a bad day in chat.
No one in this game can be called a "kid". Anyone under high-school age shouldn't be playing an online game (and parents who would let their young kids do so are seriously irresponsible!). If everyone would just act like a mature individual, we wouldn't have these problems, and the STF channel "cliques" would be even more of a waste of time than they already are.
A fleet or friends is preferable to an STF channel, but an STF channel is still preferable to PuGging by a long shot.
I'm not in high school either, but I've never had a problem with cliques in any of the STF grouping channels. I've run into two players I thought had and attitude problem and just avoided them from then on, which wasn't hard. And as for poorly led runs, presuming you don't have a fleet and are therefore reliant on the channel, you can either go along with it and just avoid that guy in future, or you can go back to PuGing. And my experience (and the experience of everyone I know in game) is that you are far more likely run into a team where people have no clue what's going on, don't read their chat, are trolling, or don't have properly built ships, by PuGging than you are to get enter a run that isn't being led properly through an STF channel.
Secondly, STO is not a single-player game. And group content is not and should not be designed for people with no co-ordination whatsoever to just waltz into and faceroll it to oblivion, or to be easily done even if one player is not contributing or actively trying to obstruct his team-mates. You want to do group content? You have to deal with other people and their neuroses. That's how MMOs work.
Now that being said, thanks to the power creep in the game over the last few months, we are actually reaching a point where 5 players can band together with little or no co-ordination and just plain out have gear to zerg their way through nearly anything, but that's not a direction I think the game should be going in.
There's plenty of solo content in this game if you don't like cliques or just don't want to talk to people online. Why should the group content be continually watered down, or anything that can be exploited at all by a bad egg removed (cos the latter is what we're talking about here), to suit people who aren't bothered making any effort to organise a run properly?
No, escorts deal the highest damage in the game. Their job is to go after the most threatening target first. This is almost always the biggest ship with the most hull points.
totally incorrect
Escorts do high damage in short bursts
Cruisers do DPE not DPS
Command and control (usually a sci ship or a carrier) picks targets
Cruisers Close and Engage
Escorts DEFEND the command ship and any defence objective and act as fighters
(thats what escorts are for escorting)
No, it means cruisers redirect as much enemy fire into themselves as they can reasonably handle (via threat control and AOE attacks) while sending heals to the team as-needed.
Ah "the holy trinty" which has lost so many STF's
no one tanks
Science ships confuse and control the enemies through slows, gravity wells, energy drains, etc. in order to soften targets.
command and control
Escorts provide the raw firepower needed to actually destroy ships, and move around the encounter as needed in order to keep the mission on-track.
you mean fail it
I have Never seen an escort only mission succeed
you lack staying power you lack DPE and you lack co-ordination
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
and just because you are in an escort does not mean you have to straff the living daylights out of everything and fail the mission
Anyone flying an escort in the manner you described is simply a bad pilot. An escort is actually much better served by parking 4km from their target and acting as a weapons platform.
Get a tactical officer in a battle cruiser
Escorts are fighters not turrets
Strafing is a waste of buffs, since an average pass at appropriate weapon ranges will only fire off 2-3 volleys, with 1-2 still buffed when you pass your target or have to turn around (thereby getting wasted).
And doing your job (taking out the fast ships) will waste none at all
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
cruisers do not zero people (its nearly impossible for them to)
Science ships are C+C and They are the ones who should be choosing the targets for cruisers and escorts
... why? Everyone has a brain, and this is not a military simulator.
It is you know
its not an MMO
Because, in your words, "cruisers do not zero people", they shouldn't be picking targets.
you realise that Zero means "destroy a friendly"?
The escorts should be picking targets according to threat priorities.
Escorts rank lowest
The list goes
Carrier
Science ship
Cruiser
Misc
Escorts and fighters
Cruisers don't need to worry about killing or picking targets, they need to worry about keeping their team alive. That's their role in the game.
no thats Your role
to keep the big guys from getting swarmed
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
No it Zeroes the ship that CAN win the mission leaving a couple of sad little escorts trying to take down a Carrier
Are we talking about PvE or PvP here?
its not that different
in "hardcore" pvp (losers do not respawn) escorts barely exist
If PvE, an escort is just as servicable as a cruiser, especially when the cruiser captain is short-sighted enough to try and max their DPS instead properly fill their group support role. If PvP, when was the last time you saw a cruiser consistently kill anyone?
depends if you class the Breen ship as a cruiser if you do Wednesday
Kills equate to wins in PvP, so the ships that can kill the easiest (escorts) are most important and "win the mission", not the cruisers.
Escorts die as well
This doesn't discount the importance of cruisers in either scenario. Properly timed heals and covering fire are essential to a good group. Most players seriously under-value the effectiveness of a properly-spec'd cruiser. I'll take a healing or tanking cruiser over any 2 escorts any day, because they'll keep myself and my team alive while we collectively get the job done.
Thing is the Cruiser needs his tractor beams as much as you need your cannons
they are just as deadly
A few minutes ago I pushed a seige ship in fleet alert right into the middle of his support ships just before he exploded
this works maybe one time in three but its worth it when it does
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
and if you are blowing up ships while others are right next to them you might like to join the Borg
There's no polite way to say this. I'm not going to stop shooting the proper target just because you were too stupid to stay 3km away
.
then please Call your target FIRST
so people can get otu of your way
Mines are still quite effective at 3km, as are high-yield torpedoes, fighters, etc. There's barely enough time to register their presence and attempt to shoot them down before they're already on top of you. As for FAW, the various gas clouds, etc. that are used as AOE screens, they'll eat your mines whether you drop them at 5km or 0.5km. Get a sense of timing and don't fire them while your enemy is prepared.
its almost never the Enemy that gets me when I do this
its usually someone in a cloaked defiant
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
A ship on low hull (such as one that just took down a couple of cubes ) often close engages so that if destroyed their OWN explosion takes out the enemy
Ramming speed and plasma are used for this
Completely ineffective in PvE, since warp core breaches don't do much damage to anything larger than a fighter, and a waste in PvP except for the very rare case that your target is already below 25% hull AND has all their heals on cooldown AND has BFI on cooldown.
More damage than exploding clear of the enemy however
Quote:
Originally Posted by sollvax
As to soloing a tac cube doesn't EVERYONE??
Yeah, OK, have fun with that. Tactical Cube != Cube.
I usually do
Actually I prefer the Siege cube in fleet alert
if you can get about 8km off and slightly below it you can put a full spread into it and pretty much take 20% off it in one shot (if you are lucky)
I see Sollvax is posting the usual misinformation.
For the record, all escort STFs will often succeed better than an all cruiser or mix and match team, unless said cruisers are competent players in good ships like the Galor, Excelsior or Fleet Assault.
In addition, to suggest a nerf on a perfectly viable crowd control ability because you had one bad experience is ludicrous to say the least. Whilst it is annoying if someone pushes something like Donatra out the way with TBR, you do have engines and you can actually give chase. I would suggest popping an engine battery and hitting evasive maneuvers.
Personally I will gladly take an idiot spamming TBR over the horrid collection of rainbow whales I see in pugs any day.
And anyone and everyone that reads the forums knows that the previous poster is known for trolling and bad or incorrect information. Just like your spam on the post about making Keys account bound. I just hope that the new players that come here dont actually listen to anything you have to say.
Except that my information is GOOD
and just from a different view point
Right. So you do realise there's multiple perspectives. Good.
Could you now please accept other people's perspectives and stop telling them theirs are wrong?
I'm fine with you being a minority of one, but why be so vocal about it, all the time, mostly in thread about completely different topics?
/offtopic
TBR, I do indeed see people use it to adverse affects, but there really are people using them to good ends. Maybe the push-effect just needs to scale a little differently, like someone coined.
Flip damage and repel? Damage based on aux, repel fixed (around upper low to middle of its current effects)? That way you can still use it for good damage, but you'd really have to keep chasing a target to push it a long way away...
But as a Dental you are not a credible witness really
All Escort STFs and indeed fleet actions tend to end badly
Actually as a Dental, coupled with the fact I have a youtube channel full of PvP videos of our fleet blasting people to bits shows that I do in fact know what I am talking about. Given your opinion of how escorts should be flown it is unsurprising that an all escort team you are involved in fails miserably, but a team full of competent escorts will blast through STFs just fine by virtue of enormous brute force.
You should also listen to Thlaylierah, as an escort you should never stop moving, ever. No movement = minus defence bonus. Those Borg HYTs do love stationary escorts.
Dear OP
I'm so sorry to hear your outrage about abilities and the terrible experience in the STF.
Please understand Cryptic has provided a solution for your situation my friend.
That answer is to grow your fleet, use voice chat or join a fleet that is bigger and does.
I help run two very active 500 member fleet that gives us plenty of people for private STFs. Please understand part of the mechanics Cryptic gave us is Fleets.
Voice chat(Team Speak)in a fleet helped us increase everyone's DPS by 25%, get optionals.
We even have a team that helps others get the ground optionals.
Even though the answer is there and people know about it.
I see so many people upset who just don't use Fleets and voice chat for what they are.
They are tools for success, so don't ignore this option because others will not be kind to you.
Frankly we all know the dentals exist to mess people up
So you cannot counter our statements with fact and common sense, and instead choose to attack the integrity of my fleet. I assume then you concede to our arguments.
Frankly we all know the dentals exist to mess people up
But he's right about the Escort Defense Bonus and the fact that if I get stuck in an STF with all Cruisers, I'm basically doing it myself with the cruisers merely distracting the Borg.
Thankfully they also sometimes heal me, but rarely.
Sollvax, you have a laughably transparent way of trying to convince that your opinion concerning how things should be is, in fact, how they really are. Problem is, everyone here on the forums has plenty of experience directly contrary to your claims.
Cruisers can never match the DPS or overall damage output of even a mediocre escort, no matter how hard they try. "Command and control" implies intelligent direction (hence "command"), which science captains rarely provide. Escorts are currently (and have been since almost the beginning) the best ship for any PvE encounter (except maybe the new CE, haven't played it yet) since they have the highest damage output and can mostly kill ships long before the ships become a real threat. An all-escort group will finish content faster, and with less deaths (often times 0 deaths) than a mixed group. This is primarily a failing of players to properly set up their ships and builds, but cruisers and science ships do need a little love as well.
---
To the other posters here, I'll concede somewhat that a moving escort is "better". It mostly boils down to preferred playstyle. My "weapons platform" escort is just as effective as your "fighter" moving escort. I just choose to play a different way, and have become quite effective at doing so. I only need to move when I've run out of all other options with which to handle torpedoes.
Also, for the sake of transparency, Spork is my friend and in my fleet. I have enough fleet mates to run any queue content I want without having to resort to PUGs. I find, however, that my friends and I are quite competent, and even just two of us with 3 PUGs can finish everything, optionals included. The STF channels are quite irrelevant to me for that reason alone, but once you add the information from one of my previous posts, they become laughably anachronistic.
So you cannot counter our statements with fact and common sense, and instead choose to attack the integrity of my fleet. I assume then you concede to our arguments.
what arguments
You basically said nothing
Some escorts do a good job
some ships with Repulsors do a good job
this is not in dispute
but if you nerf the hell out of tractor beams you ALSO have to nerf cannons
and your fleets integrity is plain from your web page where you freely declare you exist to destroy peoples game
Anyone who uses a repulsor shouls have the word Noob appear above their ship.
In that case , call me the 3 year old noob , reporting for duty !
Repulsors have no place, repeat NO PLACE DAMMIT! In STF.
Let's take ISE as an example :
- Repulsors can be used on any of the Cubes (normal & Tac) . When in use , they do minimal damage , but more importantly the Cube can't shoot plasma torps that endanger the Sci ship & anyone close to it .
This = protection for most of the team as long as the power is active .
- Repulsors can be used to push the nanite probes away if one of the 4 small transformers is blown too soon . Once the probes are pushed away (as far as they can , depending on the pushing ships speed) -- then the probes can be locked in a Grav Well .
This combo of Sci powers usually gives the rest of the team time enough to blow all 4 transformers + the main transformer .
There are other uses for Reulsors , but they can be made useful in ALL STF's -- if you know what you are doing + if you have a correct position & angle .
If you need me , I can walk you through their usefulness in the other STF's .
I'm not in high school anymore. I have no interest in social groups ("cliques"). The STF channels are full of them, and I'm friends with quite a number of people who all report the same bad experiences.
Try for yourself .
I am in 3 such channels , and 98% of the time it's smooth sailing , with a bit of minimal interaction (aka just the opposite of cliques) .
Plus the seeming fact that you worry about cliques make me think that high school may not be such a distant memory for you .
but if you nerf the hell out of tractor beams you ALSO have to nerf cannons
... why? They are not related, and if you feel TBR is the only answer to escorts, you apparently have never heard of reverse shield polarity, regular tractor beams, feedback pulse, eject warp plasma......... There are plenty of other ways to handle combat against an escort.
TBR can be very useful in ESTFs if used right. I myself use it quite often. I use it usually in the following ways. In Khitomer, to push probes back from the gate or back towards team members with better DPS than me who can hammer them. In Cure, to push them away from the Kang and back towards the team. I use it a lot in Infected because I PUG and usually have some yahoo who blows a generator before the others are ready, so I usually do a gravity well/TBR to keep the nanite probes away from the transformer. If done right, it is a good power. With great power comes great responsibility(sorry couldn't resist).
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] "There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."-Commander William Adama
To the other posters here, I'll concede somewhat that a moving escort is "better". It mostly boils down to preferred playstyle. My "weapons platform" escort is just as effective as your "fighter" moving escort. I just choose to play a different way, and have become quite effective at doing so. I only need to move when I've run out of all other options with which to handle torpedoes.
This is actual game mechanics:
A "weapons platform" has a negative Defense Bonus while sitting still.
It has nothing to do with a play style and more to do with how the ship is made.
The equivalent would be to drive a Nascar in regular traffic. The engine will bog down and eventual stall, needing a lengthy and involved rebuilding to undo this "driving style" damage.
Use the correct ship for the playstyle, in this case a Cruiser is a Weapons Platform as it doesn't have a movement influenced Defense Bonus and can Tank.
If we're getting rid of repulsors can we also get rid of cannon scatter volley while we're at it?
I'm getting tired of CSV messing up so many different encounters, like attracting the attention of the tactical cube, or just any cube or sphere, when really the single target rapid fire would keep everything so much smoother.
Too many people relying on pew pew pew and not enough on tactics, so if we're going to start taking away abilities that have tactical advantages, let's keep this trend going and take the AoE spammfest out of the equation too.
I'd give up the DPS advantage and welcome the challenge of having to utilize more teamwork! What say the rest of you?
Comments
nope you are supposed to engage (in order of preference)
Fighters
other Escorts
Destroyers
Bops
Mines
turrets
you know fiddly or fast stuff
it means
Command and control (usually a sci ship or a carrier) picks targets
Cruisers Close and Engage
Escorts DEFEND the command ship and any defence objective and act as fighters
(thats what escorts are for escorting)
and just because you are in an escort does not mean you have to straff the living daylights out of everything and fail the mission
cruisers do not zero people (its nearly impossible for them to)
Science ships are C+C and They are the ones who should be choosing the targets for cruisers and escorts
No it Zeroes the ship that CAN win the mission leaving a couple of sad little escorts trying to take down a Carrier
and if you are blowing up ships while others are right next to them you might like to join the Borg
A ship on low hull (such as one that just took down a couple of cubes ) often close engages so that if destroyed their OWN explosion takes out the enemy
Ramming speed and plasma are used for this
As to soloing a tac cube doesn't EVERYONE??
I always see people throw this "solution" around, like it solves all problems and complaints. I thought I'd answer it simply here:
I'm not in high school anymore. I have no interest in social groups ("cliques"). The STF channels are full of them, and I'm friends with quite a number of people who all report the same bad experiences. If you don't act exactly as required by the channel, you're chastised, insulted, and ignored. You've got to be a good little worker-ant and do exactly as you're told, even when it's bad advice, or you get no assistance, no group, and a bad day in chat.
No one in this game can be called a "kid". Anyone under high-school age shouldn't be playing an online game (and parents who would let their young kids do so are seriously irresponsible!). If everyone would just act like a mature individual, we wouldn't have these problems, and the STF channel "cliques" would be even more of a waste of time than they already are.
I would accept this if they also made all the mages spells take up weapons slots like they should.
No, escorts deal the highest damage in the game. Their job is to go after the most threatening target first. This is almost always the biggest ship with the most hull points (unless PvP, in which case yes, it is other escorts).
No, it means cruisers redirect as much enemy fire into themselves as they can reasonably handle (via threat control and AOE attacks) while sending heals to the team as-needed.
Science ships confuse and control the enemies through slows, gravity wells, energy drains, etc. in order to soften targets.
Escorts provide the raw firepower needed to actually destroy ships, and move around the encounter as needed in order to keep the mission on-track.
Anyone flying an escort in the manner you described is simply a bad pilot. An escort is actually much better served by parking 4km from their target and acting as a weapons platform. Strafing is a waste of buffs, since an average pass at appropriate weapon ranges will only fire off 2-3 volleys, with 1-2 still buffed when you pass your target or have to turn around (thereby getting wasted). The negligible bonus to defense gained by flying fast is easily offset by having a proper healer (cruiser) in your group.
... why? Everyone has a brain, and this is not a military simulator. Because, in your words, "cruisers do not zero people", they shouldn't be picking targets. The escorts should be picking targets according to threat priorities. Cruisers don't need to worry about killing or picking targets, they need to worry about keeping their team alive. That's their role in the game.
Are we talking about PvE or PvP here? If PvE, an escort is just as servicable as a cruiser, especially when the cruiser captain is short-sighted enough to try and max their DPS instead properly fill their group support role. If PvP, when was the last time you saw a cruiser consistently kill anyone? Kills equate to wins in PvP, so the ships that can kill the easiest (escorts) are most important and "win the mission", not the cruisers.
This doesn't discount the importance of cruisers in either scenario. Properly timed heals and covering fire are essential to a good group. Most players seriously under-value the effectiveness of a properly-spec'd cruiser. I'll take a healing or tanking cruiser over any 2 escorts any day, because they'll keep myself and my team alive while we collectively get the job done.
There's no polite way to say this. I'm not going to stop shooting the proper target just because you were too stupid to stay 3km away. Mines are still quite effective at 3km, as are high-yield torpedoes, fighters, etc. There's barely enough time to register their presence and attempt to shoot them down before they're already on top of you. As for FAW, the various gas clouds, etc. that are used as AOE screens, they'll eat your mines whether you drop them at 5km or 0.5km. Get a sense of timing and don't fire them while your enemy is prepared.
Completely ineffective in PvE, since warp core breaches don't do much damage to anything larger than a fighter, and a waste in PvP except for the very rare case that your target is already below 25% hull AND has all their heals on cooldown AND has BFI on cooldown.
Yeah, OK, have fun with that. Tactical Cube != Cube.
A fleet or friends is preferable to an STF channel, but an STF channel is still preferable to PuGging by a long shot.
I'm not in high school either, but I've never had a problem with cliques in any of the STF grouping channels. I've run into two players I thought had and attitude problem and just avoided them from then on, which wasn't hard. And as for poorly led runs, presuming you don't have a fleet and are therefore reliant on the channel, you can either go along with it and just avoid that guy in future, or you can go back to PuGing. And my experience (and the experience of everyone I know in game) is that you are far more likely run into a team where people have no clue what's going on, don't read their chat, are trolling, or don't have properly built ships, by PuGging than you are to get enter a run that isn't being led properly through an STF channel.
Secondly, STO is not a single-player game. And group content is not and should not be designed for people with no co-ordination whatsoever to just waltz into and faceroll it to oblivion, or to be easily done even if one player is not contributing or actively trying to obstruct his team-mates. You want to do group content? You have to deal with other people and their neuroses. That's how MMOs work.
Now that being said, thanks to the power creep in the game over the last few months, we are actually reaching a point where 5 players can band together with little or no co-ordination and just plain out have gear to zerg their way through nearly anything, but that's not a direction I think the game should be going in.
There's plenty of solo content in this game if you don't like cliques or just don't want to talk to people online. Why should the group content be continually watered down, or anything that can be exploited at all by a bad egg removed (cos the latter is what we're talking about here), to suit people who aren't bothered making any effort to organise a run properly?
totally incorrect
Escorts do high damage in short bursts
Cruisers do DPE not DPS
Ah "the holy trinty" which has lost so many STF's
no one tanks
command and control
you mean fail it
I have Never seen an escort only mission succeed
you lack staying power you lack DPE and you lack co-ordination
Get a tactical officer in a battle cruiser
Escorts are fighters not turrets
And doing your job (taking out the fast ships) will waste none at all
It is you know
its not an MMO
you realise that Zero means "destroy a friendly"?
Escorts rank lowest
The list goes
Carrier
Science ship
Cruiser
Misc
Escorts and fighters
no thats Your role
to keep the big guys from getting swarmed
its not that different
in "hardcore" pvp (losers do not respawn) escorts barely exist
depends if you class the Breen ship as a cruiser if you do Wednesday
Escorts die as well
Thing is the Cruiser needs his tractor beams as much as you need your cannons
they are just as deadly
A few minutes ago I pushed a seige ship in fleet alert right into the middle of his support ships just before he exploded
this works maybe one time in three but its worth it when it does
.
then please Call your target FIRST
so people can get otu of your way
its almost never the Enemy that gets me when I do this
its usually someone in a cloaked defiant
More damage than exploding clear of the enemy however
I usually do
Actually I prefer the Siege cube in fleet alert
if you can get about 8km off and slightly below it you can put a full spread into it and pretty much take 20% off it in one shot (if you are lucky)
Usually while the cruisers are snoozing safely out at 10kms.
No sure what the Scis are doing... I'm kind of busy in an STF.
If you are in an Escort and not moving you have NO Defence Bonus.
For the record, all escort STFs will often succeed better than an all cruiser or mix and match team, unless said cruisers are competent players in good ships like the Galor, Excelsior or Fleet Assault.
In addition, to suggest a nerf on a perfectly viable crowd control ability because you had one bad experience is ludicrous to say the least. Whilst it is annoying if someone pushes something like Donatra out the way with TBR, you do have engines and you can actually give chase. I would suggest popping an engine battery and hitting evasive maneuvers.
Personally I will gladly take an idiot spamming TBR over the horrid collection of rainbow whales I see in pugs any day.
All Escort STFs and indeed fleet actions tend to end badly
and just from a different view point
try it
fly a cruiser for a while and watch how the escorts mess things up with their straffing
as to keys
if they were account bound there would be a lot less spam about selling them
Right. So you do realise there's multiple perspectives. Good.
Could you now please accept other people's perspectives and stop telling them theirs are wrong?
I'm fine with you being a minority of one, but why be so vocal about it, all the time, mostly in thread about completely different topics?
/offtopic
TBR, I do indeed see people use it to adverse affects, but there really are people using them to good ends. Maybe the push-effect just needs to scale a little differently, like someone coined.
Flip damage and repel? Damage based on aux, repel fixed (around upper low to middle of its current effects)? That way you can still use it for good damage, but you'd really have to keep chasing a target to push it a long way away...
AGAIN: An Escort that is not strafing does NOT have a DEFENSE BONUS!
Actually as a Dental, coupled with the fact I have a youtube channel full of PvP videos of our fleet blasting people to bits shows that I do in fact know what I am talking about. Given your opinion of how escorts should be flown it is unsurprising that an all escort team you are involved in fails miserably, but a team full of competent escorts will blast through STFs just fine by virtue of enormous brute force.
You should also listen to Thlaylierah, as an escort you should never stop moving, ever. No movement = minus defence bonus. Those Borg HYTs do love stationary escorts.
"Sorry, but if I hadn't used repulsors you definitely would've lost your precious optional. You're welcome."
I'm so sorry to hear your outrage about abilities and the terrible experience in the STF.
Please understand Cryptic has provided a solution for your situation my friend.
That answer is to grow your fleet, use voice chat or join a fleet that is bigger and does.
I help run two very active 500 member fleet that gives us plenty of people for private STFs. Please understand part of the mechanics Cryptic gave us is Fleets.
Voice chat(Team Speak)in a fleet helped us increase everyone's DPS by 25%, get optionals.
We even have a team that helps others get the ground optionals.
Even though the answer is there and people know about it.
I see so many people upset who just don't use Fleets and voice chat for what they are.
They are tools for success, so don't ignore this option because others will not be kind to you.
So you cannot counter our statements with fact and common sense, and instead choose to attack the integrity of my fleet. I assume then you concede to our arguments.
But he's right about the Escort Defense Bonus and the fact that if I get stuck in an STF with all Cruisers, I'm basically doing it myself with the cruisers merely distracting the Borg.
Thankfully they also sometimes heal me, but rarely.
Cruisers can never match the DPS or overall damage output of even a mediocre escort, no matter how hard they try. "Command and control" implies intelligent direction (hence "command"), which science captains rarely provide. Escorts are currently (and have been since almost the beginning) the best ship for any PvE encounter (except maybe the new CE, haven't played it yet) since they have the highest damage output and can mostly kill ships long before the ships become a real threat. An all-escort group will finish content faster, and with less deaths (often times 0 deaths) than a mixed group. This is primarily a failing of players to properly set up their ships and builds, but cruisers and science ships do need a little love as well.
---
To the other posters here, I'll concede somewhat that a moving escort is "better". It mostly boils down to preferred playstyle. My "weapons platform" escort is just as effective as your "fighter" moving escort. I just choose to play a different way, and have become quite effective at doing so. I only need to move when I've run out of all other options with which to handle torpedoes.
Also, for the sake of transparency, Spork is my friend and in my fleet. I have enough fleet mates to run any queue content I want without having to resort to PUGs. I find, however, that my friends and I are quite competent, and even just two of us with 3 PUGs can finish everything, optionals included. The STF channels are quite irrelevant to me for that reason alone, but once you add the information from one of my previous posts, they become laughably anachronistic.
what arguments
You basically said nothing
Some escorts do a good job
some ships with Repulsors do a good job
this is not in dispute
but if you nerf the hell out of tractor beams you ALSO have to nerf cannons
and your fleets integrity is plain from your web page where you freely declare you exist to destroy peoples game
shame on you all
Make it easier for Birds of Prey ran by players to have easier line ups and take downs of your little cruisers!!!
I'm game! :cool:
In that case , call me the 3 year old noob , reporting for duty !
Let's take ISE as an example :
- Repulsors can be used on any of the Cubes (normal & Tac) . When in use , they do minimal damage , but more importantly the Cube can't shoot plasma torps that endanger the Sci ship & anyone close to it .
This = protection for most of the team as long as the power is active .
- Repulsors can be used to push the nanite probes away if one of the 4 small transformers is blown too soon . Once the probes are pushed away (as far as they can , depending on the pushing ships speed) -- then the probes can be locked in a Grav Well .
This combo of Sci powers usually gives the rest of the team time enough to blow all 4 transformers + the main transformer .
There are other uses for Reulsors , but they can be made useful in ALL STF's -- if you know what you are doing + if you have a correct position & angle .
If you need me , I can walk you through their usefulness in the other STF's .
Try for yourself .
I am in 3 such channels , and 98% of the time it's smooth sailing , with a bit of minimal interaction (aka just the opposite of cliques) .
Plus the seeming fact that you worry about cliques make me think that high school may not be such a distant memory for you .
Empire Approved
... why? They are not related, and if you feel TBR is the only answer to escorts, you apparently have never heard of reverse shield polarity, regular tractor beams, feedback pulse, eject warp plasma......... There are plenty of other ways to handle combat against an escort.
That post of yours was nothing but smokescreen.
the enemy escorts are no threat
its the friendlys who mess people up
I'm getting tired of CSV messing up so many different encounters, like attracting the attention of the tactical cube, or just any cube or sphere, when really the single target rapid fire would keep everything so much smoother.
Too many people relying on pew pew pew and not enough on tactics, so if we're going to start taking away abilities that have tactical advantages, let's keep this trend going and take the AoE spammfest out of the equation too.
I'd give up the DPS advantage and welcome the challenge of having to utilize more teamwork! What say the rest of you?