Solo: Fine.
PUG: Selfish.
Premade: Lack of Synergy.
Last time I brought my Eng into a Panda premade, it was a liability. Not because it kept getting popped or anything, but because having another SNB/APA is infinitely more valuable than all of the Eng buffs combined.
Last time I brought my Eng into a Panda premade, it was a liability. Not because it kept getting popped or anything, but because having another SNB/APA is infinitely more valuable than all of the Eng buffs combined.
The Tac/DPS, Eng/Tank, Sci/Support Trinity that Cryptic has for the Careers...doesn't belong in STO at all when it comes to the Eng/Tank. It's obviously not there for PvP and what's kind of twisted is that it's not even there for PvE.
I applaud them not going the route of having a PvE queue thing requiring X of A, Y of B, and Z of C...but it's kind of left things in the state that they are.
I love my Engineers - have four of them, but I'm not going to kid myself about their place in things. If it weren't for the fact that there are so many folks out there that are worse than me on an epic level, I'd probably feel differently about my Engineers. But still, I acknowledge that all the folks on the same level as me or beyond me on an epic level - yeah, I'm not going to kid myself in the least.
It's why over on Tribble I've mainly been testing Sci Romulans. I'm not going to roll Tac - hate the Career with a passion. But if I'm looking to be more of a team player, yeah - I'm going to start looking away from my Engineers and get back into playing Sci more.
The Tac/DPS, Eng/Tank, Sci/Support Trinity that Cryptic has for the Careers...doesn't belong in STO at all when it comes to the Eng/Tank. It's obviously not there for PvP and what's kind of twisted is that it's not even there for PvE.
I applaud them not going the route of having a PvE queue thing requiring X of A, Y of B, and Z of C...but it's kind of left things in the state that they are.
I love my Engineers - have four of them, but I'm not going to kid myself about their place in things. If it weren't for the fact that there are so many folks out there that are worse than me on an epic level, I'd probably feel differently about my Engineers. But still, I acknowledge that all the folks on the same level as me or beyond me on an epic level - yeah, I'm not going to kid myself in the least.
It's why over on Tribble I've mainly been testing Sci Romulans. I'm not going to roll Tac - hate the Career with a passion. But if I'm looking to be more of a team player, yeah - I'm going to start looking away from my Engineers and get back into playing Sci more.
That's before taking into account the various new mechanics and gear.
My two Sci are used to the following:
Lt, Lt/En, Cmdr/LCdr 2, 3, 4
Cmdr/LCdr/Lt/Lt 3, 3, 3
They were headed:
Lt, Lt/En, Cmdr/LCdr 2, 3, 5
Cmdr/LCdr/LCdr/Lt 3, 3, 3
And yeah...it's more a case I'm looking for somebody to give me a proper example with what's available for the Romulans, lol.
It's a little risky, imho, to pick up a Haakona and Fleet Haakona to fly the Escort module with a RSV build...so I'm kind of waiting to see what folks do.
well the engineers tanking could be useful if it had skills to redirect damage from allies to itself
heck and they could start at ensign level ;-)
I have seen that in pvp in other game. The tank casted his redirect skill, then died from the focus fire lol. Thanks, but no thanks.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Ah now I remember, it was SWTOR where tank could easily die when protecting someone else using the guard ability. So protecting a crappy player was actually a suicide.
Tanks are only good if you cannot ignore them. So maybe that paladin like aura for cruiser is not bad idea. As long as the tank-cruiser lives, he gives bonuses hence he is a valuable target.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Tac - DPS
Eng - Defensive Support (including healing)
Sci - Offensive Support
Both Eng and Sci complained...lol.
id rather it be
tac- spike
eng- steady dps and 150 effect caped energy levels
sci- cc, support
healing has little to do with the captain, every heal you can cast on others is 100% from a ship station power. every single ship can have multiple heals, which again are ship not captain based, for it self and others. as a result there is absolutely no place in the game for a 'cleric'
I would rather noone is pidgeon holed to a single role, just has slight advantage in give area.
tac - spike / offense / tac debuff
eng - pressure / defense / support
sci - sci debuff and control / support
But I guess we all have our STO visions and it is very subjective.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
I would rather noone is pidgeon holed to a single role, just has slight advantage in give area.
tac - spike / offense / tac debuff
eng - pressure / defense / support
sci - sci debuff and control / support
But I guess we all have our STO visions and it is very subjective.
Well, to be honest...the more fleshed out version - the one I was suggesting earlier before I kind of became - er, jaded, er - was along the following lines:
The 2x Self +DPS of the Tac would be better than the 1x Self +DPS of either the Eng or the Sci.
The 2x +Defensive Support of the Eng would be better than the 2x +Defensive Support of the Sci which would be better than the 1x +Defensive Support of the Tac.
The 2x +Offensive Support of the Sci would be better than the 2x +Offensive Support of the Tac or the Eng.
Depending on the ship selected, then one might say that if you were to min/max that the Eng would be best for the Defensive Support and the Sci best for the Offensive Support.
However, because of the nature of playstyles - all the gear in the game - the different ships - folks would still have some play in regard to something perhaps not being the best min/max...but still being best for the individual or the team.
It would allow for that wiggle room - do you need more Off Support than Def Support? Well, you can get it from either the Sci or the Eng. More Def than Off? The same.
Sure, there would be the groups that do the min/max thing...but for the vast majority of folks out there - it would add more options to group variety, imho.
Tac - DPS
Eng - Defensive Support (including healing)
Sci - Offensive Support
Both Eng and Sci complained...lol.
You guys are stuck on roles... All classes need to be killing machines, they just need to do it slightly different. The slight difference can be exagerated into roles for fleet warfare, but its ruinous to design the class around the role. Dont ever say "support class"
I've never seen a faster evolving meta than what's been going on between SP and IC these days.
If you aren't directly involved in the evolution of the meta, you might not even notice it happening.
I am soooo very sorry how dare I make such a mistake.
How could I forget, everything in the PvP world revolves around those two fleets and nothing/no one else's play experiences matter one tiny bit. Who cares if the 'scrubs' don't like the PvP in this game they are not the sun it revolves around.
You guys are stuck on roles... All classes need to be killing machines, they just need to do it slightly different. The slight difference can be exagerated into roles for fleet warfare, but its ruinous to design the class around the role. Dont ever say "support class"
The class is the ship. The career is flavoring for the class.
Consider everything that goes into what that character in space is, eh?
Ship.
All the various gearing options for that ship.
All the various BOFF options for that ship.
All the various DOFF options applicable to the BOFFs for that ship.
The Career presents 5 innate abilities. That's all that separates the Tac from the Eng from the Sci...the 5 innate abilities each has. The majority of the abilities have lengthy cooldowns. Cryptic likes 15 minute chunks of time (480 Dil for your 15 minutes!)...and the Captain abilities will average around a 73% downtime during any given 15 minute period.
You can play through PvE without using any of the Career abilities...just using everything that you've got from the ship selection, gearing the ship, BOFFs, and DOFFs.
PvP...well, you need that spike damage and you need that SNB/Scan. Folks fly around in circles, cooldowns expires, they try to kill each other again. Course, they don't do it right as the CDs expire...there's juggling for position, timing, and all the rest - it's not that simple, but if you step back - it's kind of where those abilities come into play and why the Eng tends to sit on the bench.
Flipping over to Ships for a moment from Careers...
Escort - high damage, fast damage...hopes to kill the target before dying.
Cruiser - medium damage...will outlast the target.
Science Vessel - medium damage...combination of debuffing the target and buffing self to reach the middle-ground between Escort and Cruiser.
...the Classes are Killing Machines. They kill differently.
The Careers add flavor to the Ships/Classes. The Careers aren't the Classes. Ask Geko...
There's a couple of problems with this.
1) It doesn't really work in PvP. It's debuff (nuke) and spike (nuke). Hello 3 Wells and 2 Bugs, eh?
2) It doesn't really work in PvE. Escorts have too much survivability, Cruisers take too long, and NPCs don't really have anything that warrants what the Science Vessel can bring.
Even in discussing whether something is support or not - in the end, even that just comes down to point of view. Consider the following:
Eng w/ Sci & Tac...
Is the Eng supporting the Sci and Tac or are they supporting the Eng?
Sci w/ Eng & Tac...
Is the Sci supporting the Eng and Tac or are they supporting the Sci?
Tac w/ Eng & Sci...
Is the Tac supporting the Eng and Sci or are they supporting the Tac?
If there's any form of interdependence that can be created, then it's a case that they're all supporting each other. If there's a lack of balance, then it may appear that two are supporting the other.
Even simpler...
Is the Sci using SNB the tool of a Tac?
Is the Tac doing DPS the tool of a Sci?
Tac - DPS
Eng - Defensive Support (including healing)
Sci - Offensive Support
Both Eng and Sci complained...lol.
I imagine:
ENG Complained because some want ENG to be pressure damage while also retaining mitigation advantages. They don't actually see ENG as a support role, hency why many threads inexplicably complain that TAC has replaced ENG.
SCI Complained because to make ENG support, you need to steal from SCI. Scattering fleet has to go, Sci Fleet has to go. Essentially ENG has no role because SCI already covers it adequately enough while bringing other valuable tools and because TAC is, has been and always should be, DMG.
We are PvPers trying to shoehorn PvP roles onto PvE classes.
tac- spike
eng- steady dps and 150 effect caped energy levels
sci- cc, support
What mitigation do you take from ENG to give them better offense?
This is the question that has always plagued "Tank" classes.
Just to reiterate from earlier in (I think it was this thread).
Maikai made an assertion that "people only bring Sci for SNB".
I don't believe that's true completely, but SNB is definitely the most important.
I made the counter assertion that people only bring Tac because of APA.
So we have two offense focus tools being the main reasons anyone brings Tac or Sci.
Eng already has a counter for APA, and it could be workable to counter SNB.
The main issue is that Eng's counters for APA (and potentially SNB) are only useable on themselves. Fix that and I think Eng jumps up into a better position than right now.
Just to reiterate from earlier in (I think it was this thread).
Maikai made an assertion that "people only bring Sci for SNB".
I don't believe that's true completely, but SNB is definitely the most important.
I made the counter assertion that people only bring Tac because of APA.
So we have two offense focus tools being the main reasons anyone brings Tac or Sci.
Eng already has a counter for APA, and it could be workable to counter SNB.
The main issue is that Eng's counters for APA (and potentially SNB) are only useable on themselves. Fix that and I think Eng jumps up into a better position than right now.
Almost any idea is better than the status quo. That said the biggest thing to address would be how they execute any changes to RSF.
IE, if RSF becomes castable it doesn't exactly negate the benefit of a SNB. It actually makes a sci heavy team more viable. IE, APA/RSF share the same CD so SNB stacking would be needed more given defense bonus/APO. It's a tough call whether that would make engys more applicable either. The ability to SNB two captain level powers with one SNB could cause issues with teams less strategic. For the rest, you kind of make a zombie group. Then the argument can be raised, does RSF act similar to extends and a stun would be needed to remove it verse SNB. Anyway, it would be nice, but I think it would make teams too zombie so most would stick with 2-3 sci anyway.
Some simple ways to mitigate the impact in PVP would be making RSF dependent on the applied players shield power. That would still make it a very strong heal while not benefiting from a 100+/shield pwr caster. That also raises other questions but not going to write a book here.
That said, perhaps making RSF a ranged ability similar to scattering field might be a good idea too. The caster gets the primary benefit but the teammates in range also benefit with slightly less effective results. The idea being, the caster uploads new shield rotations at a slightly slower rate to allies than to self. A computer lag perhaps... That said, a stun would temporarily remove the effect to allies if it's applied to the caster and SNB would remove it entirely.
Make nadion a similar ability. Perhaps even provide some type of disincentive to the opposing team. Like slightly negated power recovery. The effect would be slight, obviously not OP and moderately negated by points in electro-plasma systems.
And with EPS, provide bonus to all sub-systems to the target. IE, similar to Maint Engs and batteries. Ideally treat it similar to RMC with minimal benefit.
Just some ideas. I think these ideas would also reinforce the roll of an engineer as support. Draw the line perhaps?
What mitigation do you take from ENG to give them better offense?
This is the question that has always plagued "Tank" classes.
The main issue is that Eng's counters for APA (and potentially SNB) are only useable on themselves. Fix that and I think Eng jumps up into a better position than right now.
i'll reefer to this outline i made earlier in the thread, about what to do with eng. my mitigation is to cut the heals in half and boost everything else. making nadion an aoe field skill, having a 150 power effect cap which would make EPS much more useful and give an eng actual synergy as a DPS cruiser user or sci ship user.
i think the current state of eng, being the best tank, is totally misguided. it shouldn't be about that at all, thats basically useless. heres what i would do to eng, make them an energy sorcerer, not a repair man. but, energy hard caps cut an eng off at the kneecaps in terms of effective energy manipulation, thus the first change.
-an always on 150 power effect cap for all 4 subsystems. maybe from a trait or something, but its always on and just for the eng captain.
-nadion becoming an AOE field skill that reduces energy drain the way it does now, and grants immunity to siphon drone drain.
-EPS transfer, with the first change, this will be much more useful as is. but, it should also have the effect of everyone of the EPt skills, at half magnitude of the version 1 of that power.
-MW being castable, but the heal cut in half, and providing a 15 second immunity to SNB. this would be helpful for protecting an escort using a highly buffed GDF, or help protect a target from chain SNBs, and do a WHOLE lot for eng usefulness on a team.
-RSF effects cut in half, but once activated activates on all your team mates at once
the 150 power effect cap would allow an eng actual synergy in everything finally, like a tac or sci already has. remember, its not exactly going to be easy to get a subsystem up to 150 power, even with all the power buffs there are now.
for weapons, he could deal stronger pressure damage in whatever he is in, it would be a higher plateau of damage, not spiky like a tac captain, and not based on debuffs like a sci. he could have the strongest shield resistance with more shield power, at this point i hardly think thats to much of a concern. its not that hard to cap your shield res already. an eng could have the fastest engines too, thats just canon, eng officers making engines go as fast as possible lol. he could also buff aux levels highest, and have synergy with sci skills, buffing effect the highest amount. like i said, energy sorcerers, not zombie tanks.
i'll reefer to this outline i made earlier in the thread, about what to do with eng. my mitigation is to cut the heals in half and boost everything else. making nadion an aoe field skill, having a 150 power effect cap which would make EPS much more useful and give an eng actual synergy as a DPS cruiser user or sci ship user.
i think the current state of eng, being the best tank, is totally misguided. it shouldn't be about that at all, thats basically useless. heres what i would do to eng, make them an energy sorcerer, not a repair man. but, energy hard caps cut an eng off at the kneecaps in terms of effective energy manipulation, thus the first change.
-an always on 150 power effect cap for all 4 subsystems. maybe from a trait or something, but its always on and just for the eng captain.
-nadion becoming an AOE field skill that reduces energy drain the way it does now, and grants immunity to siphon drone drain.
-EPS transfer, with the first change, this will be much more useful as is. but, it should also have the effect of everyone of the EPt skills, at half magnitude of the version 1 of that power.
-MW being castable, but the heal cut in half, and providing a 15 second immunity to SNB. this would be helpful for protecting an escort using a highly buffed GDF, or help protect a target from chain SNBs, and do a WHOLE lot for eng usefulness on a team.
-RSF effects cut in half, but once activated activates on all your team mates at once
the 150 power effect cap would allow an eng actual synergy in everything finally, like a tac or sci already has. remember, its not exactly going to be easy to get a subsystem up to 150 power, even with all the power buffs there are now.
for weapons, he could deal stronger pressure damage in whatever he is in, it would be a higher plateau of damage, not spiky like a tac captain, and not based on debuffs like a sci. he could have the strongest shield resistance with more shield power, at this point i hardly think thats to much of a concern. its not that hard to cap your shield res already. an eng could have the fastest engines too, thats just canon, eng officers making engines go as fast as possible lol. he could also buff aux levels highest, and have synergy with sci skills, buffing effect the highest amount. like i said, energy sorcerers, not zombie tanks.
One thought I had while glancing through the thread here, was, with the new Increased Cap to specific Power settings via Warpcores, what if an Engineer's EPS actually could increase all systems above that 125-130 Hard cap?
For example, if you normally have 125 Shields, what if you could use EPS to actually reach above that. Say EPS is +32 to all systems. Making your shields now actually 157.
What about to Aux, or Engines.. Even weapons, even though it can be "Overcapped" could still improve damage if it actually went up above the normal Overcap. And if it was limited to an Engineering Class ability only, which is also castable on others, it gives the Engineer a way to improve anyone flying any ship in ways they can't. Sure it's not really much. But having a 152 Aux would be interesting for better Stealth detection, even if not much.. Better Damage from powers like FBP, or Gravity Well. Better speed and turn rate with a higher Engine capability.
For Nadion inversion, what if they changed it so that it effected ALL power settings, not just Weapons. Maybe even add in a true protection against Power draining effects like Tyken's rift, Polaron Weapons, or Siphon Drones. Perhaps as well as protecting against knocking subsystems off line via Phasers or Target Subsystems. Then give Nadion Inversion the effect of being castable to another target, or perhaps a Shared effect, where you get the full benefit, and if you cast it on some one else they get a weaker benefit as well for the same duration. This way it would still let Marion be useful, but it would also give the Engineer a way to also be useful in the role that they play. (And yes I realize DDIS gave a similar suggestion )
Otherwise I really don't see any other changes that really are needed. I mean sure making Miracle Worker a castable would be a nifty effect, but honestly we have enough sharable healing powers as it is.
Same with Rotate Shield Frequency. Although it could be argued that your helping your ally by giving them a way to rotate their shield frequencies, but it still doesn't feel right to me. Not to mention, again, we have enough healing we can share. We don't need more sharable healing powers right now. :rolleyes:
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i'll reefer to this outline i made earlier in the thread, about what to do with eng. my mitigation is to cut the heals in half and boost everything else. making nadion an aoe field skill, having a 150 power effect cap which would make EPS much more useful and give an eng actual synergy as a DPS cruiser user or sci ship user.
i think the current state of eng, being the best tank, is totally misguided. it shouldn't be about that at all, thats basically useless. heres what i would do to eng, make them an energy sorcerer, not a repair man. but, energy hard caps cut an eng off at the kneecaps in terms of effective energy manipulation, thus the first change.
-an always on 150 power effect cap for all 4 subsystems. maybe from a trait or something, but its always on and just for the eng captain.
-nadion becoming an AOE field skill that reduces energy drain the way it does now, and grants immunity to siphon drone drain.
-EPS transfer, with the first change, this will be much more useful as is. but, it should also have the effect of everyone of the EPt skills, at half magnitude of the version 1 of that power.
-MW being castable, but the heal cut in half, and providing a 15 second immunity to SNB. this would be helpful for protecting an escort using a highly buffed GDF, or help protect a target from chain SNBs, and do a WHOLE lot for eng usefulness on a team.
-RSF effects cut in half, but once activated activates on all your team mates at once
the 150 power effect cap would allow an eng actual synergy in everything finally, like a tac or sci already has. remember, its not exactly going to be easy to get a subsystem up to 150 power, even with all the power buffs there are now.
for weapons, he could deal stronger pressure damage in whatever he is in, it would be a higher plateau of damage, not spiky like a tac captain, and not based on debuffs like a sci. he could have the strongest shield resistance with more shield power, at this point i hardly think thats to much of a concern. its not that hard to cap your shield res already. an eng could have the fastest engines too, thats just canon, eng officers making engines go as fast as possible lol. he could also buff aux levels highest, and have synergy with sci skills, buffing effect the highest amount. like i said, energy sorcerers, not zombie tanks.
All these changes sound like they would completely relegate the sci class. If the nuke is mitigated by a castable eng ability for 15 secs, why would we bother running sci's in premades?
Major power increase to 150? BO double tap city every 30 secs. The difference for a tactical ship from 100 to 125 is massive. Imagine what it would do from 125 to 150?
All these changes will just super buff an eng and possibly dare i say it, also start putting tacs out of the game.
5 man eng escort team with that many castable effects cycled just sounds like an "I win" setup with 5 burst damage output points.
2 things would make the eng viable again and not OP. Yes just 2 things:
1. Make Miracle worker castable with the same cooldown as an APA, add a bit of resist to it but reduce the heal by about a third.
2. Give all engineers an inate % resistace to power drain which is useful but not OP
The trick is to make the eng useful without destroying / reducing the other two captain role effectivity.
Why not just remove the careeers...I said it before, I said it now. It's hard to balance, someone is always unhappy. Why not change it like the trait system ? You would just pick your captain ability every XX level. Full customization, everyone same options. Maybe do some of take this or that, cant have both etc. choices.
Then we can moan and argue that XX ability sucks, instead this my career sucks.
There could also be some faction specific skills etc.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
Why not just remove the careeers...I said it before, I said it now. It's hard to balance, someone is always unhappy. Why not change it like the trait system ? You would just pick your captain ability every XX level. Full customization, everyone same options. Maybe do some of take this or that, cant have both etc. choices.
Then we can moan and argue that XX ability sucks, instead this my career sucks.
There could also be some faction specific skills etc.
Expect to see a lot of: APA, SNB, Scattering Field, GDF, and Tac or Sci fleet set-ups on a lot of people then.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Almost any idea is better than the status quo. That said the biggest thing to address would be how they execute any changes to RSF.
IE, if RSF becomes castable it doesn't exactly negate the benefit of a SNB. It actually makes a sci heavy team more viable. IE, APA/RSF share the same CD so SNB stacking would be needed more given defense bonus/APO. It's a tough call whether that would make engys more applicable either. The ability to SNB two captain level powers with one SNB could cause issues with teams less strategic. For the rest, you kind of make a zombie group. Then the argument can be raised, does RSF act similar to extends and a stun would be needed to remove it verse SNB. Anyway, it would be nice, but I think it would make teams too zombie so most would stick with 2-3 sci anyway.
Some really good points here. It's definitely a massive balance consideration, and why tossing out an idea that seems to be a good one (cast-able RSF) could actually have extremely dramatic and possibly even very negative effects.
i think the current state of eng, being the best tank, is totally misguided. it shouldn't be about that at all, thats basically useless.
Well it's less about being misguided and more about Cryptic long being a PvE focused game designer catering to what is largely a PvE playerbase.
Nothing will change those aspects of the discussion anytime in the near future as far as I can tell, and for us to ignore it, deride it or similarly state that it has no value does not help our cause. Because frankly, it's very likely the lion's share of Cryptic's income.
-an always on 150 power effect cap for all 4 subsystems. maybe from a trait or something, but its always on and just for the eng captain.
Honestly, I think this would be way overpowered.
A well played Eng, for all of the complains, is already ridiculously hard to kill.
Giving them an extra magnifier to their heals (Aux at 150) or debuffs (Aux 150) this would actually make them better at all Sci powers than Sci captains, in a way more dramatic than Tac using TBR or FBP ever has.
Giving them a 150 cap to Shields and Weapons also has a similar effect due to how power increases these.
We can't "fix" Eng by making them extremely amazing at everything.
-EPS transfer, with the first change, this will be much more useful as is. but, it should also have the effect of everyone of the EPt skills, at half magnitude of the version 1 of that power.
Why should Eng get more damage, more power to particle gens damage effects and even more tank with more shield res?
They are already too tanky to realistically give them any kind of offense. This change would give them more of both.
-MW being castable, but the heal cut in half, and providing a 15 second immunity to SNB. this would be helpful for protecting an escort using a highly buffed GDF, or help protect a target from chain SNBs, and do a WHOLE lot for eng usefulness on a team.
This one was Jorf's idea I believe, I like this one.
-RSF effects cut in half, but once activated activates on all your team mates at once
This one could work if it was given MW's cooldown and MW given RSFs cooldown, otherwise having basically Sci fleet with RSF's uptime would be too strong IMO.
Still I think -Xtremenoob- brings up a good point about how the meta could actually make SNB even more required with changes like these.
the 150 power effect cap would allow an eng actual synergy in everything finally, like a tac or sci already has. remember, its not exactly going to be easy to get a subsystem up to 150 power, even with all the power buffs there are now.
for weapons, he could deal stronger pressure damage in whatever he is in, it would be a higher plateau of damage, not spiky like a tac captain, and not based on debuffs like a sci.
At 50 power your energy weapons do listed damage, at 100 power you get double damage. (Formula: Base Damage * (Power/50) ).
This means at 125 a ship does 2.5x damage, and at 150 it would do 3x as much damage, or a full 20% more damage (vs. 125) all of the time.
I think you are underestimating what that much extra damage + higher boost from EPTW (your EPS change) + Nadion would actually achieve.
Why would I make a "pressure damage" BA build at that point, when I can run around with 3 DHCs & DBB popping off double tap BOs with nearly half of APA's damage boost on all of the time, on the single tankiest career with the best all around methods for completely negating drain?
That would the very first thing I build, with the changes you suggest.
A self mitigating Escort or hybrid destroyer with high spike potential (150 weapons power, APO 3, EPTW), massive "pressure" through 150 weapon power fueled DHCs, the ability to heal myself at 150 aux or resist at 150 shield power and a suite of Team supporting abilities.
Please list 5, very successful, MMO RPGs that do not have any career or career-like mechanism of any kind.
Now imagine that your game is already 3 years old, with a huge successful turn around through new ownership/producer/marketing and a free to play model that has the rest of the industry taking notice.
This means you are risk adverse, and do not make massive sweeping changes such as "removing all classes".
But careers are not classes. Ships are classes in MMORPG senses, at least according to Geko and his previous podcast. Captains and their careers are just part of itemization basically.
Expect to see a lot of: APA, SNB, Scattering Field, GDF, and Tac or Sci fleet set-ups on a lot of people then.
Not if some very mutually exclusive. Like you can have APA, but its on the same tier like SNB. Well there is lots of variations you can do. But granted, people would be unpredictable. It would be no longer - HA tac in cruiser, KILL HIM.
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All these changes sound like they would completely relegate the sci class. If the nuke is mitigated by a castable eng ability for 15 secs, why would we bother running sci's in premades?
Major power increase to 150? BO double tap city every 30 secs. The difference for a tactical ship from 100 to 125 is massive. Imagine what it would do from 125 to 150?
All these changes will just super buff an eng and possibly dare i say it, also start putting tacs out of the game.
5 man eng escort team with that many castable effects cycled just sounds like an "I win" setup with 5 burst damage output points.
2 things would make the eng viable again and not OP. Yes just 2 things:
1. Make Miracle worker castable with the same cooldown as an APA, add a bit of resist to it but reduce the heal by about a third.
2. Give all engineers an inate % resistace to power drain which is useful but not OP
The trick is to make the eng useful without destroying / reducing the other two captain role effectivity.
In regards to this, I think the original post meant to say increase the overall cap of power levels, not how high you can set them. Currently, we're able to adjust the power levels of our weapons to about 100, but the hard cap to a weapon's damage multiplier based on power is at 125 (probably a *1.25 at that level). Increasing the Power Level cap will benefit Engi's more due to the fact that they are "power wizards". Should a Tact. or Sci vessel use EPtW to bump their damage up to those levels, they would be sacrificing much needed survivability to do so.
Edit: But yes, you do have a point about the Engiscorts - they'll be even crazier with their tankability and damage output should this come to pass.
__________________________________________________
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Comments
PUG: Selfish.
Premade: Lack of Synergy.
Last time I brought my Eng into a Panda premade, it was a liability. Not because it kept getting popped or anything, but because having another SNB/APA is infinitely more valuable than all of the Eng buffs combined.
The Tac/DPS, Eng/Tank, Sci/Support Trinity that Cryptic has for the Careers...doesn't belong in STO at all when it comes to the Eng/Tank. It's obviously not there for PvP and what's kind of twisted is that it's not even there for PvE.
I applaud them not going the route of having a PvE queue thing requiring X of A, Y of B, and Z of C...but it's kind of left things in the state that they are.
I love my Engineers - have four of them, but I'm not going to kid myself about their place in things. If it weren't for the fact that there are so many folks out there that are worse than me on an epic level, I'd probably feel differently about my Engineers. But still, I acknowledge that all the folks on the same level as me or beyond me on an epic level - yeah, I'm not going to kid myself in the least.
It's why over on Tribble I've mainly been testing Sci Romulans. I'm not going to roll Tac - hate the Career with a passion. But if I'm looking to be more of a team player, yeah - I'm going to start looking away from my Engineers and get back into playing Sci more.
heck and they could start at ensign level ;-)
sounds like a plan, give them a proper example!!!
Heh, that's another story entirely...
T'varo Retrofit
Fleet T'varo Retrofit
Cmdr/Lt/En, LCdr, Lt
4(5), 3, 2
Dhelan Retrofit
Fleet Dhelan Retrofit
Cmdr/En, LCdr, Lt, Lt
3, 3(4), 3
Mogai Retrofit
Fleet Mogai Retrofit
Cmdr/Lt, En, LCdr, Lt
4, 2, 3(4)
D'Deridex Retrofit
Fleet D'Deridex Retrofit
Lt/En, Cmdr, LCdr, Lt
2, 4(5), 3
Ha'apax
Fleet Ha'apax
LCdr/En, Cmdr/Lt, Lt (LCdr/En, Cmdr, Lt, Lt)
3(4), 4, 2
Haakona (Ha'apax Refit)
Fleet Ha'apax Refit
Lt/En, Lt, Cmdr, LCdr
3, 2, 4(5)
That's before taking into account the various new mechanics and gear.
My two Sci are used to the following:
Lt, Lt/En, Cmdr/LCdr
2, 3, 4
Cmdr/LCdr/Lt/Lt
3, 3, 3
They were headed:
Lt, Lt/En, Cmdr/LCdr
2, 3, 5
Cmdr/LCdr/LCdr/Lt
3, 3, 3
And yeah...it's more a case I'm looking for somebody to give me a proper example with what's available for the Romulans, lol.
It's a little risky, imho, to pick up a Haakona and Fleet Haakona to fly the Escort module with a RSV build...so I'm kind of waiting to see what folks do.
I have seen that in pvp in other game. The tank casted his redirect skill, then died from the focus fire lol. Thanks, but no thanks.
If miracle worker was castable every 2 minutes or 1 min 30 on others, that would change appeal of the eng in PvP significantly.
Instead of the eng being a tank, make it a better healer than scis. Re balance it to do that instead.
Tanks are only good if you cannot ignore them. So maybe that paladin like aura for cruiser is not bad idea. As long as the tank-cruiser lives, he gives bonuses hence he is a valuable target.
I've tried suggesting the following route:
Tac - DPS
Eng - Defensive Support (including healing)
Sci - Offensive Support
Both Eng and Sci complained...lol.
id rather it be
tac- spike
eng- steady dps and 150 effect caped energy levels
sci- cc, support
healing has little to do with the captain, every heal you can cast on others is 100% from a ship station power. every single ship can have multiple heals, which again are ship not captain based, for it self and others. as a result there is absolutely no place in the game for a 'cleric'
tac - spike / offense / tac debuff
eng - pressure / defense / support
sci - sci debuff and control / support
But I guess we all have our STO visions and it is very subjective.
Well, to be honest...the more fleshed out version - the one I was suggesting earlier before I kind of became - er, jaded, er - was along the following lines:
Tac - DPS, Offensive Support, Defensive Support
Eng - Defensive Support, Offensive Support, DPS
Sci - Offensive Support, Defensive Support, DPS
So broken down further into what the abilities might be like...
Tac - 2x Self +DPS, 2x +Offensive Support, 1x +Defensive Support
Eng - 2x +Defensive Support, +2x Offensive Support, 1x Self +DPS
Sci - 2x +Offensive Support, +2x Defensive Support, 1x Self +DPS
The 2x Self +DPS of the Tac would be better than the 1x Self +DPS of either the Eng or the Sci.
The 2x +Defensive Support of the Eng would be better than the 2x +Defensive Support of the Sci which would be better than the 1x +Defensive Support of the Tac.
The 2x +Offensive Support of the Sci would be better than the 2x +Offensive Support of the Tac or the Eng.
Depending on the ship selected, then one might say that if you were to min/max that the Eng would be best for the Defensive Support and the Sci best for the Offensive Support.
However, because of the nature of playstyles - all the gear in the game - the different ships - folks would still have some play in regard to something perhaps not being the best min/max...but still being best for the individual or the team.
It would allow for that wiggle room - do you need more Off Support than Def Support? Well, you can get it from either the Sci or the Eng. More Def than Off? The same.
Sure, there would be the groups that do the min/max thing...but for the vast majority of folks out there - it would add more options to group variety, imho.
You guys are stuck on roles... All classes need to be killing machines, they just need to do it slightly different. The slight difference can be exagerated into roles for fleet warfare, but its ruinous to design the class around the role. Dont ever say "support class"
Me thinks this went over everyone's head.
Wanted to make sure I QFTed it.
I am soooo very sorry how dare I make such a mistake.
How could I forget, everything in the PvP world revolves around those two fleets and nothing/no one else's play experiences matter one tiny bit. Who cares if the 'scrubs' don't like the PvP in this game they are not the sun it revolves around.
The class is the ship. The career is flavoring for the class.
Consider everything that goes into what that character in space is, eh?
Ship.
All the various gearing options for that ship.
All the various BOFF options for that ship.
All the various DOFF options applicable to the BOFFs for that ship.
The Career presents 5 innate abilities. That's all that separates the Tac from the Eng from the Sci...the 5 innate abilities each has. The majority of the abilities have lengthy cooldowns. Cryptic likes 15 minute chunks of time (480 Dil for your 15 minutes!)...and the Captain abilities will average around a 73% downtime during any given 15 minute period.
You can play through PvE without using any of the Career abilities...just using everything that you've got from the ship selection, gearing the ship, BOFFs, and DOFFs.
PvP...well, you need that spike damage and you need that SNB/Scan. Folks fly around in circles, cooldowns expires, they try to kill each other again. Course, they don't do it right as the CDs expire...there's juggling for position, timing, and all the rest - it's not that simple, but if you step back - it's kind of where those abilities come into play and why the Eng tends to sit on the bench.
Flipping over to Ships for a moment from Careers...
Escort - high damage, fast damage...hopes to kill the target before dying.
Cruiser - medium damage...will outlast the target.
Science Vessel - medium damage...combination of debuffing the target and buffing self to reach the middle-ground between Escort and Cruiser.
...the Classes are Killing Machines. They kill differently.
The Careers add flavor to the Ships/Classes. The Careers aren't the Classes. Ask Geko...
There's a couple of problems with this.
1) It doesn't really work in PvP. It's debuff (nuke) and spike (nuke). Hello 3 Wells and 2 Bugs, eh?
2) It doesn't really work in PvE. Escorts have too much survivability, Cruisers take too long, and NPCs don't really have anything that warrants what the Science Vessel can bring.
Even in discussing whether something is support or not - in the end, even that just comes down to point of view. Consider the following:
Eng w/ Sci & Tac...
Is the Eng supporting the Sci and Tac or are they supporting the Eng?
Sci w/ Eng & Tac...
Is the Sci supporting the Eng and Tac or are they supporting the Sci?
Tac w/ Eng & Sci...
Is the Tac supporting the Eng and Sci or are they supporting the Tac?
If there's any form of interdependence that can be created, then it's a case that they're all supporting each other. If there's a lack of balance, then it may appear that two are supporting the other.
Even simpler...
Is the Sci using SNB the tool of a Tac?
Is the Tac doing DPS the tool of a Sci?
It's point of view.
Yup yup. Exactly.
I imagine:
ENG Complained because some want ENG to be pressure damage while also retaining mitigation advantages. They don't actually see ENG as a support role, hency why many threads inexplicably complain that TAC has replaced ENG.
SCI Complained because to make ENG support, you need to steal from SCI. Scattering fleet has to go, Sci Fleet has to go. Essentially ENG has no role because SCI already covers it adequately enough while bringing other valuable tools and because TAC is, has been and always should be, DMG.
We are PvPers trying to shoehorn PvP roles onto PvE classes.
Engineer < > Science < > Tactical
Defense (D) < > D/O Support < > Offense (O)
This ishow the careers are currently designed. The role indications are clearly there.
Nevermind the fact that neither the PvP nor PvE environment really support those roles.
What mitigation do you take from ENG to give them better offense?
This is the question that has always plagued "Tank" classes.
Just to reiterate from earlier in (I think it was this thread).
Maikai made an assertion that "people only bring Sci for SNB".
I don't believe that's true completely, but SNB is definitely the most important.
I made the counter assertion that people only bring Tac because of APA.
So we have two offense focus tools being the main reasons anyone brings Tac or Sci.
Eng already has a counter for APA, and it could be workable to counter SNB.
The main issue is that Eng's counters for APA (and potentially SNB) are only useable on themselves. Fix that and I think Eng jumps up into a better position than right now.
Almost any idea is better than the status quo. That said the biggest thing to address would be how they execute any changes to RSF.
IE, if RSF becomes castable it doesn't exactly negate the benefit of a SNB. It actually makes a sci heavy team more viable. IE, APA/RSF share the same CD so SNB stacking would be needed more given defense bonus/APO. It's a tough call whether that would make engys more applicable either. The ability to SNB two captain level powers with one SNB could cause issues with teams less strategic. For the rest, you kind of make a zombie group. Then the argument can be raised, does RSF act similar to extends and a stun would be needed to remove it verse SNB. Anyway, it would be nice, but I think it would make teams too zombie so most would stick with 2-3 sci anyway.
Some simple ways to mitigate the impact in PVP would be making RSF dependent on the applied players shield power. That would still make it a very strong heal while not benefiting from a 100+/shield pwr caster. That also raises other questions but not going to write a book here.
That said, perhaps making RSF a ranged ability similar to scattering field might be a good idea too. The caster gets the primary benefit but the teammates in range also benefit with slightly less effective results. The idea being, the caster uploads new shield rotations at a slightly slower rate to allies than to self. A computer lag perhaps... That said, a stun would temporarily remove the effect to allies if it's applied to the caster and SNB would remove it entirely.
Make nadion a similar ability. Perhaps even provide some type of disincentive to the opposing team. Like slightly negated power recovery. The effect would be slight, obviously not OP and moderately negated by points in electro-plasma systems.
And with EPS, provide bonus to all sub-systems to the target. IE, similar to Maint Engs and batteries. Ideally treat it similar to RMC with minimal benefit.
Just some ideas. I think these ideas would also reinforce the roll of an engineer as support. Draw the line perhaps?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
i'll reefer to this outline i made earlier in the thread, about what to do with eng. my mitigation is to cut the heals in half and boost everything else. making nadion an aoe field skill, having a 150 power effect cap which would make EPS much more useful and give an eng actual synergy as a DPS cruiser user or sci ship user.
i think the current state of eng, being the best tank, is totally misguided. it shouldn't be about that at all, thats basically useless. heres what i would do to eng, make them an energy sorcerer, not a repair man. but, energy hard caps cut an eng off at the kneecaps in terms of effective energy manipulation, thus the first change.
-an always on 150 power effect cap for all 4 subsystems. maybe from a trait or something, but its always on and just for the eng captain.
-nadion becoming an AOE field skill that reduces energy drain the way it does now, and grants immunity to siphon drone drain.
-EPS transfer, with the first change, this will be much more useful as is. but, it should also have the effect of everyone of the EPt skills, at half magnitude of the version 1 of that power.
-MW being castable, but the heal cut in half, and providing a 15 second immunity to SNB. this would be helpful for protecting an escort using a highly buffed GDF, or help protect a target from chain SNBs, and do a WHOLE lot for eng usefulness on a team.
-RSF effects cut in half, but once activated activates on all your team mates at once
the 150 power effect cap would allow an eng actual synergy in everything finally, like a tac or sci already has. remember, its not exactly going to be easy to get a subsystem up to 150 power, even with all the power buffs there are now.
for weapons, he could deal stronger pressure damage in whatever he is in, it would be a higher plateau of damage, not spiky like a tac captain, and not based on debuffs like a sci. he could have the strongest shield resistance with more shield power, at this point i hardly think thats to much of a concern. its not that hard to cap your shield res already. an eng could have the fastest engines too, thats just canon, eng officers making engines go as fast as possible lol. he could also buff aux levels highest, and have synergy with sci skills, buffing effect the highest amount. like i said, energy sorcerers, not zombie tanks.
Huh, I like it.
Nouveau riche LTS member
For example, if you normally have 125 Shields, what if you could use EPS to actually reach above that. Say EPS is +32 to all systems. Making your shields now actually 157.
What about to Aux, or Engines.. Even weapons, even though it can be "Overcapped" could still improve damage if it actually went up above the normal Overcap. And if it was limited to an Engineering Class ability only, which is also castable on others, it gives the Engineer a way to improve anyone flying any ship in ways they can't. Sure it's not really much. But having a 152 Aux would be interesting for better Stealth detection, even if not much.. Better Damage from powers like FBP, or Gravity Well. Better speed and turn rate with a higher Engine capability.
For Nadion inversion, what if they changed it so that it effected ALL power settings, not just Weapons. Maybe even add in a true protection against Power draining effects like Tyken's rift, Polaron Weapons, or Siphon Drones. Perhaps as well as protecting against knocking subsystems off line via Phasers or Target Subsystems. Then give Nadion Inversion the effect of being castable to another target, or perhaps a Shared effect, where you get the full benefit, and if you cast it on some one else they get a weaker benefit as well for the same duration. This way it would still let Marion be useful, but it would also give the Engineer a way to also be useful in the role that they play. (And yes I realize DDIS gave a similar suggestion
Otherwise I really don't see any other changes that really are needed. I mean sure making Miracle Worker a castable would be a nifty effect, but honestly we have enough sharable healing powers as it is.
Same with Rotate Shield Frequency. Although it could be argued that your helping your ally by giving them a way to rotate their shield frequencies, but it still doesn't feel right to me. Not to mention, again, we have enough healing we can share. We don't need more sharable healing powers right now. :rolleyes:
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
All these changes sound like they would completely relegate the sci class. If the nuke is mitigated by a castable eng ability for 15 secs, why would we bother running sci's in premades?
Major power increase to 150? BO double tap city every 30 secs. The difference for a tactical ship from 100 to 125 is massive. Imagine what it would do from 125 to 150?
All these changes will just super buff an eng and possibly dare i say it, also start putting tacs out of the game.
5 man eng escort team with that many castable effects cycled just sounds like an "I win" setup with 5 burst damage output points.
2 things would make the eng viable again and not OP. Yes just 2 things:
1. Make Miracle worker castable with the same cooldown as an APA, add a bit of resist to it but reduce the heal by about a third.
2. Give all engineers an inate % resistace to power drain which is useful but not OP
The trick is to make the eng useful without destroying / reducing the other two captain role effectivity.
Then we can moan and argue that XX ability sucks, instead this my career sucks.
There could also be some faction specific skills etc.
Expect to see a lot of: APA, SNB, Scattering Field, GDF, and Tac or Sci fleet set-ups on a lot of people then.
Some really good points here. It's definitely a massive balance consideration, and why tossing out an idea that seems to be a good one (cast-able RSF) could actually have extremely dramatic and possibly even very negative effects.
Well it's less about being misguided and more about Cryptic long being a PvE focused game designer catering to what is largely a PvE playerbase.
Nothing will change those aspects of the discussion anytime in the near future as far as I can tell, and for us to ignore it, deride it or similarly state that it has no value does not help our cause. Because frankly, it's very likely the lion's share of Cryptic's income.
Honestly, I think this would be way overpowered.
A well played Eng, for all of the complains, is already ridiculously hard to kill.
Giving them an extra magnifier to their heals (Aux at 150) or debuffs (Aux 150) this would actually make them better at all Sci powers than Sci captains, in a way more dramatic than Tac using TBR or FBP ever has.
Giving them a 150 cap to Shields and Weapons also has a similar effect due to how power increases these.
We can't "fix" Eng by making them extremely amazing at everything.
This one is good, I've suggested this myself.
Why should Eng get more damage, more power to particle gens damage effects and even more tank with more shield res?
They are already too tanky to realistically give them any kind of offense. This change would give them more of both.
This one was Jorf's idea I believe, I like this one.
This one could work if it was given MW's cooldown and MW given RSFs cooldown, otherwise having basically Sci fleet with RSF's uptime would be too strong IMO.
Still I think -Xtremenoob- brings up a good point about how the meta could actually make SNB even more required with changes like these.
At 50 power your energy weapons do listed damage, at 100 power you get double damage. (Formula: Base Damage * (Power/50) ).
This means at 125 a ship does 2.5x damage, and at 150 it would do 3x as much damage, or a full 20% more damage (vs. 125) all of the time.
I think you are underestimating what that much extra damage + higher boost from EPTW (your EPS change) + Nadion would actually achieve.
Why would I make a "pressure damage" BA build at that point, when I can run around with 3 DHCs & DBB popping off double tap BOs with nearly half of APA's damage boost on all of the time, on the single tankiest career with the best all around methods for completely negating drain?
That would the very first thing I build, with the changes you suggest.
A self mitigating Escort or hybrid destroyer with high spike potential (150 weapons power, APO 3, EPTW), massive "pressure" through 150 weapon power fueled DHCs, the ability to heal myself at 150 aux or resist at 150 shield power and a suite of Team supporting abilities.
Please list 5, very successful, MMO RPGs that do not have any career or career-like mechanism of any kind.
Now imagine that your game is already 3 years old, with a huge successful turn around through new ownership/producer/marketing and a free to play model that has the rest of the industry taking notice.
This means you are risk adverse, and do not make massive sweeping changes such as "removing all classes".
Not if some very mutually exclusive. Like you can have APA, but its on the same tier like SNB. Well there is lots of variations you can do. But granted, people would be unpredictable. It would be no longer - HA tac in cruiser, KILL HIM.
In regards to this, I think the original post meant to say increase the overall cap of power levels, not how high you can set them. Currently, we're able to adjust the power levels of our weapons to about 100, but the hard cap to a weapon's damage multiplier based on power is at 125 (probably a *1.25 at that level). Increasing the Power Level cap will benefit Engi's more due to the fact that they are "power wizards". Should a Tact. or Sci vessel use EPtW to bump their damage up to those levels, they would be sacrificing much needed survivability to do so.
Edit: But yes, you do have a point about the Engiscorts - they'll be even crazier with their tankability and damage output should this come to pass.
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!