I did this mission again yesterday on Elite difficulty at level 47 with common Mk IX gear. I only died from mistakes that I had made (such as battle cloaking with a torpedo on my tail).
It may bear repeating, but it's a level 29 mission. Most people are in their 30s when they get to it. Yes, the missions still scale, but that difference includes accessibility to tools [that you go on to describe being important to success].
I am inclined to believe it may be better balanced as a level 40+ mission. Went into it again for the blue XI sing core at VA [and after reading your post of how easy it is at 47]. Turns Haakona means no worries when facing the Elachi as well. I even had some of the Romulan defense fleet survive [Bonus!].
What amazes me more is that anyone would only be lvl 29 when this mission comes around, given the extreme rate of XP gain available in the game.
That said the mission is fairly straight forward at 50, or if you scale down to someone lower level helping them out.
On Tribble I was ~32 when I hit it [with 5% vet bonus]. On Live, I was ~36 or 38 [thanks to the a 20% xp boost I popped].
Although, you are very correct. The xp gain versus level requirement for Romulans seems far better than Federation was before-LoR [I don't know about after LoR, Nimbus change is actually fairly nice].
I will however add that I too had much difficulty and then took some of the suggestions I saw here, but I feel as though I discovered an easy trick.
Just like most, I tried different weapon & boff builds and even dusted the mothballs of my Mogai to see if a tactical escort would be better.(?) The only major difference I could achieve in builds, was the use of tetryon weapons. I used three dual beam banks in the fore (1 rare piercing, 2 common) and three turrets in the aft (uncommon). I also equipped the Har'phengh torpedo in the fore.
Now, none of the above is the trick, tetryons helped tare down shields and was helpful in combat... I did do better with them. The real trick was to fight 3 dimensionally combined with Romulan tactics (utilizing battle cloak) instead of 2d fighting styles.. By this, I'm referring to the "command ship". Now this was discovered by making many attempts of other tactics, like take out smaller ships. After more ship explosions with my d'd warbird, I was about to give up again when I gave it an other go, this time I went after the "Command Ship".
I decloaked around 3km at a lower 45degree angle aft position. With the tale of the command ship in my sites I unloaded what my "d'd" warbird could do. For some reason the command ship and all enemies stopped moving and I stayed put and I ran beam overload, tac team II, emergency power to weapons, etc.. over and over again. I took ZERO damage and turned the command ship into history.
I don't know if this was a bug, but if that's all I had to do on the third wave... I'll try it again on my next character.
I'm only a 3 month vet and I was running a science officer.
It may bear repeating, but it's a level 29 mission. Most people are in their 30s when they get to it. Yes, the missions still scale, but that difference includes accessibility to tools [that you go on to describe being important to success].
I am inclined to believe it may be better balanced as a level 40+ mission. Went into it again for the blue XI sing core at VA [and after reading your post of how easy it is at 47]. Turns Haakona means no worries when facing the Elachi as well. I even had some of the Romulan defense fleet survive [Bonus!].
pretty much at around subadmiral you have access to more skills that help and it scales to be way easier then it is at lvl 30-ish
It may bear repeating, but it's a level 29 mission. Most people are in their 30s when they get to it. Yes, the missions still scale, but that difference includes accessibility to tools [that you go on to describe being important to success].
I am inclined to believe it may be better balanced as a level 40+ mission. Went into it again for the blue XI sing core at VA [and after reading your post of how easy it is at 47]. Turns Haakona means no worries when facing the Elachi as well. I even had some of the Romulan defense fleet survive [Bonus!].
I did it on normal difficulty on-level without dying once, again with common gear. It's not a difficult mission if you play it smart.
Everything I mentioned can be had on a D'deridex at level 30.
I did it on normal difficulty on-level without dying once, again with common gear. It's not a difficult mission if you play it smart.
Everything I mentioned can be had on a D'deridex at level 30.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that this mission and most of their fleet action type missions are poorly written. Add to that the fact that almost all of the new Elachi ships have some cheesy mechanics. I mean flying around in the middle of wave 3 and having 4-5 different enemy cone AOEs light up is just stupid. Doesnt matter if you can outrun them or not, thats just lame. Maybe if they had limited it to a special class of ship so that you only see 1 or 2 while in a fight it would be more acceptable. When wave 3 engages on this mission cloak and just let the fight progress and fly from way above the battle and observe. Turn all enemy healthbars on (including shuttles and objects) and just watch what is going on.
-boarding party shuttles
-attack shuttles
-heavy plasma torpedoes
-multiple cone AOEs
-tractor mines
-ship pets
-frigates
-escorts
-dreadnaughts and a command ship
I know you arent meant to kill all that stuff. Even the NPC popup says to focus fire on the command ship at the start of wave 3, which means ignoring the rest of the enemy fleet. But throwing that many ships with that many mechanics at the players is just lame.
Just did that at lvl 37 sci officer on DD and it was insanely too difficult for the level. The allied fleet ships simply either left or were destroyed at the last stage leaving me with dozens of ships including large ships plus the command ship to deal with. I was able to do it but it was more frustrating than fun.
As frustrating as this mission does sound, I will give Cryptic that "cloak and hang around while your allies do all the fighting/die" is one of the more Romulan bits of gameplay I've heard of lately.
I did it on normal difficulty on-level without dying once, again with common gear. It's not a difficult mission if you play it smart.
It wasn't a difficult mission for you. It was more annoying than the No Win Scenario for me. There is a difference in experience and from accounts it mostly in the allies being useful additions or not which banks on the placement of the initial Wave 3 spawn, and the allied reinforcements.
And of course, if you actually try to do what the mission tells you you to do.
-Tried to pick off the small ships, got swarmed and died each time.
-Tried to pull the dreadnaughts, see above.
-Tried to wait for my allies to do the job, but after watching the command ship take no damage for half an hour, gave up.
-Started making kamikaze runs taking the command ship down a few percentage points at a time using quantum torps.
-Died over thirty times, but finally made that sucker go boom.
Total time on Wave 3: 2 hours. I really, really should've gone with eject warp plasma on one of my engineer BO's, and scramble sensors on my sci BO.
The mission is totally doable for experienced players. I wish I hadn't tried it in the damn D'Deridex, I should've gone and recruited a Defiant, but whatever. Yes, you can employ smart tactics. Yes, you can abuse C-Store consoles. You can most likely kick this thing's TRIBBLE without a death if you know what you're doing.
BUT, my concern here would be for people who are new to the game, have not leveled up multiple Lv. 50 characters, and have not learned the ins and outs of how to make a good ship build and play to your strengths. There is nothing else in the campaign on any faction that prepares you for this. This was hard for me, having been playing for a year, and having studied the game mechanics and ship builds more than almost anybody else in my fleet.
I weep for the real novices, confident on their victories so far with no particular attention paid to their Boff layout or what consoles they're using, no understanding of how to choose a shield/deflector/engine, don't know how to whittle down and play hit and run, etc. They will get annihilated. It will be soul crushing, and many of them will probably quit before ever having a chance to learn how to play the game at a high level. That makes me sad.
This is normal difficulty right? Let's keep it in line with other campaign missions. If STO's campaign is going to be cat-on-keyboard easy, we can't spring something like this on people out of the blue.
I was thinking a very long time about how to give feedback without sounding like a lot of flames, therefore I will simply state some 'fun' facts about the second half, the space battle.
- first two waves not easy but doable. third wave can only be described in words that trigger all profanity filters of this forums. A few Elachi 'command ships' with battleship and escort support practically jump on top of your head. Your friendly fleet is overrun and wiped out in less then a minute, the ships send as reinforcement are also disabled for most of the battle, leaving the player to kite and slowly take down an entire fleet.
Bascially the mission is a much fun as a Hive Onslaught Elite camp with 6 cubes waiting at your spawnpoint and I have the feeling the same person was responsible here as well.
I agree with almost all of this. The mission is too hard past wave 2, it's unable to be completed with the Rommie ship we are given (D'Deridex is terrible, don't lie to yourself). The ships that are given to help you die almost instantly, don't use any heals, and the ones that "repair" get instagibbed and go right back into repairing once they've been attacked. I couldn't complete the mission properly at level 39, so I contacted a GM and they had to 1shot it with a Delta Flyer (was pretty amazing to watch tbh). The mission needs some balancing. MAYBE the final stage would be doable if more battleships didn't start warping in at a random time.. but.. yeah.
Yes this mission definately dragged but I wouldn't say it was that hard. Sure I died a few times and getting one shotted the moment the battle starts because I was positioned in front of the main fleet was a cheap shot by the design team.
I would say the mission only becomes really tricky once you're on the last wave with the command ship which you only have a good chance of killing if you reduce the amount of enemy support craft. The fact that these support craft keep jumping in only adds to the frustration.
Not to mention the enemy dreadnoughts. which you really have to wipe out first.
The thing is the Elachi ships leave themselves vulnerable when they power up their one shot kill weapons. Plus they don't move for a few seconds after firing either. Constant use of singularity jump and evasive maneuvers to get out their firing arc is the only way to stay alive. Also calling in the Nimbus Pirate Fleet to help focus fire on the dreadnought works too.
So yes frustrating and annoying but not an exceptionally hard mission either. Just too long a mission.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon, taH pagh, taH be"
Just curious, the NPC contact when the third wave hits tells you to focus fire on the command ship. I figured this wouldn't work with the ridiculous amount of support it has, but has anybody tried it? The mission clear condition only seems to require you take out that one ship. I still had a dreadnought and some other cruft flying around when I put the command ship down, and the mission cleared. I'd be curious if you can in fact just alpha strike and spike damage its balls off, and maybe clear the mission quick without having to dogfight all the support.
My level setting is set to normal, and I'm guessing this mission, and the past few missions are set on Elite. I finally finished the mission last night, and dying a lot just to defeat the command ship. The dev really needs to change the last few missions, and including this mission. I don't care if I just got through it should be way easier set on normal setting.
I've played for about 1 years on normal, and I still don't really know how to build a ship.
The mission is totally doable for experienced players. I wish I hadn't tried it in the damn D'Deridex, I should've gone and recruited a Defiant, but whatever. Yes, you can employ smart tactics. Yes, you can abuse C-Store consoles. You can most likely kick this thing's TRIBBLE without a death if you know what you're doing.
I agree with most of this. I disagree that the D'D sucks. It (and it's upgraded versions) can tank better than any of the other Romulan ships. I was actually able to tank the Elachi cone weapons in my D'D.
BUT, my concern here would be for people who are new to the game, have not leveled up multiple Lv. 50 characters, and have not learned the ins and outs of how to make a good ship build and play to your strengths. There is nothing else in the campaign on any faction that prepares you for this. This was hard for me, having been playing for a year, and having studied the game mechanics and ship builds more than almost anybody else in my fleet.
QFT. I actually found this challenging and I used a build that utterly wrecks other PvE....
I weep for the real novices, confident on their victories so far with no particular attention paid to their Boff layout or what consoles they're using, no understanding of how to choose a shield/deflector/engine, don't know how to whittle down and play hit and run, etc. They will get annihilated. It will be soul crushing, and many of them will probably quit before ever having a chance to learn how to play the game at a high level. That makes me sad.
This is normal difficulty right? Let's keep it in line with other campaign missions. If STO's campaign is going to be cat-on-keyboard easy, we can't spring something like this on people out of the blue.
I've seen a few players who could be easily replaced with a cat, even if they AREN'T leeching... But yeah, newbies would probably cry for help.
Just curious, the NPC contact when the third wave hits tells you to focus fire on the command ship. I figured this wouldn't work with the ridiculous amount of support it has, but has anybody tried it? The mission clear condition only seems to require you take out that one ship. I still had a dreadnought and some other cruft flying around when I put the command ship down, and the mission cleared. I'd be curious if you can in fact just alpha strike and spike damage its balls off, and maybe clear the mission quick without having to dogfight all the support.
I'll have to try this next time I do it. When I did it I just shot everything in sight and slowly chewed up the Elachi fleet. I think the NPCs may have killed the command ship while I had the fleet "distracted".
i tried it was going pretty well until the allies got annihilated then it went back to cluster F and whittling down the support ships and hit and run cloaking
Just curious, the NPC contact when the third wave hits tells you to focus fire on the command ship. I figured this wouldn't work with the ridiculous amount of support it has, but has anybody tried it? The mission clear condition only seems to require you take out that one ship. I still had a dreadnought and some other cruft flying around when I put the command ship down, and the mission cleared. I'd be curious if you can in fact just alpha strike and spike damage its balls off, and maybe clear the mission quick without having to dogfight all the support.
On all of my attempts, I've started off trying to follow the advice. On tribble around 32, I managed to get it down to 97% before first core breach. Although, I eventually cheesed ramming speed to take down the command ship on tribble. On holodeck at 36, didn't manage to actually pierce the shield at all before I chose to clear the pack (want to say it was after about a minute or so). My 50 run was similar in that I have up trying to pierce the shield before moving on to clean up targets.
However, I was flying a cruiser style each time, and both alpha strikes and exploiting the shield drop are a bit more difficult than with an escort type.
NO SERIOUSLY! IF YOU NO WANT TO READ LE SPOILERIFIC DETAILS, THEN SCRAMOOSE!!
LAST WARNING!!!!
(SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE)
Took me about 30 mins to complete this in a D'D.
First two waves weren't bad (although I too died by the cheap opening shot).
Third wave she specifically tells you to concentrate firepower on the command ship.
I used my ability to call in the pirate ships for support and then died magnificently numerous times.
By using Ramming Speed and also the singularity ability that teleports you and leaves a singularity where you were, I was able to take the command ship out in about 20 mins (I know because I was able to call in the pirate support twice:D )
Once you defeat the Command Ship, well, everyone else pretty much just leaves.
I think the problem people are making is trying to mop up the support before taking on the "Boss Ship" rather than ignoring them and going after the Boss to begin with.
Just curious, the NPC contact when the third wave hits tells you to focus fire on the command ship. I figured this wouldn't work with the ridiculous amount of support it has, but has anybody tried it? The mission clear condition only seems to require you take out that one ship. I still had a dreadnought and some other cruft flying around when I put the command ship down, and the mission cleared. I'd be curious if you can in fact just alpha strike and spike damage its balls off, and maybe clear the mission quick without having to dogfight all the support.
It works, on my first attempt in a D'D i started taking out weak enemies first. But by the time i noticed the popup it was too late for me to do a proper attack run.
The second time i did this mission (i actually quit the first attempt) i did it in a Mogai. Once the third wave was coming i stealthed and worked my way into a good position to attack the Command Ship. I hit it with everything i had and i burned all my tanking and offensive cooldowns. The shields were at 60-70% i think and i burned all the way through it, and i got it to around 4% hull but then i died. Even with me not doing any kind of AOE abilities I still got aggro from the 2 dreadnaughts and maybe 1-3 escorts. It might have been 'healing' aggro i dunno. The other friendly ships were probably stuck spamming self repair. But anyways i got him to 4% and while i was respawning it died. Reason for this was because on my attack run i chose the same side one of my friendly NPC ships was attacking, so he finished it off for me.
the big difference if it;s easy or not is if the allies survive that is the only change that needs to be made and why there are so many differing stories on this mission
it comes down to if there are allies left i personally have NEVER had any allies left they all die during the warp in leaving me with 4 constantly repairing useless ships
I'm quite sure it has not been playtested by anyone really before launch.but well i have no problem with a hard mission in fact i do like it the only thing i found a bit to much in this one was this special cone attack which came a lot more often than my evasive had time to recharge. So tone that down (a lot) or remove it completely and all is fine.
Comments
It may bear repeating, but it's a level 29 mission. Most people are in their 30s when they get to it. Yes, the missions still scale, but that difference includes accessibility to tools [that you go on to describe being important to success].
I am inclined to believe it may be better balanced as a level 40+ mission. Went into it again for the blue XI sing core at VA [and after reading your post of how easy it is at 47]. Turns Haakona means no worries when facing the Elachi as well. I even had some of the Romulan defense fleet survive [Bonus!].
That said the mission is fairly straight forward at 50, or if you scale down to someone lower level helping them out.
On Tribble I was ~32 when I hit it [with 5% vet bonus]. On Live, I was ~36 or 38 [thanks to the a 20% xp boost I popped].
Although, you are very correct. The xp gain versus level requirement for Romulans seems far better than Federation was before-LoR [I don't know about after LoR, Nimbus change is actually fairly nice].
I will however add that I too had much difficulty and then took some of the suggestions I saw here, but I feel as though I discovered an easy trick.
Just like most, I tried different weapon & boff builds and even dusted the mothballs of my Mogai to see if a tactical escort would be better.(?) The only major difference I could achieve in builds, was the use of tetryon weapons. I used three dual beam banks in the fore (1 rare piercing, 2 common) and three turrets in the aft (uncommon). I also equipped the Har'phengh torpedo in the fore.
Now, none of the above is the trick, tetryons helped tare down shields and was helpful in combat... I did do better with them. The real trick was to fight 3 dimensionally combined with Romulan tactics (utilizing battle cloak) instead of 2d fighting styles.. By this, I'm referring to the "command ship". Now this was discovered by making many attempts of other tactics, like take out smaller ships. After more ship explosions with my d'd warbird, I was about to give up again when I gave it an other go, this time I went after the "Command Ship".
I decloaked around 3km at a lower 45degree angle aft position. With the tale of the command ship in my sites I unloaded what my "d'd" warbird could do. For some reason the command ship and all enemies stopped moving and I stayed put and I ran beam overload, tac team II, emergency power to weapons, etc.. over and over again. I took ZERO damage and turned the command ship into history.
I don't know if this was a bug, but if that's all I had to do on the third wave... I'll try it again on my next character.
I'm only a 3 month vet and I was running a science officer.
The only way I was able to do it was to pick off all the weaker ships first, before destroying the dreads and command ship.
The cloaking, then retreating to line up an attack run was the only way I could do this.
However; it was still one of the most frustrating battles I've ever played, and I died a lot.
pretty much at around subadmiral you have access to more skills that help and it scales to be way easier then it is at lvl 30-ish
I did it on normal difficulty on-level without dying once, again with common gear. It's not a difficult mission if you play it smart.
Everything I mentioned can be had on a D'deridex at level 30.
That still doesnt excuse the fact that this mission and most of their fleet action type missions are poorly written. Add to that the fact that almost all of the new Elachi ships have some cheesy mechanics. I mean flying around in the middle of wave 3 and having 4-5 different enemy cone AOEs light up is just stupid. Doesnt matter if you can outrun them or not, thats just lame. Maybe if they had limited it to a special class of ship so that you only see 1 or 2 while in a fight it would be more acceptable. When wave 3 engages on this mission cloak and just let the fight progress and fly from way above the battle and observe. Turn all enemy healthbars on (including shuttles and objects) and just watch what is going on.
-boarding party shuttles
-attack shuttles
-heavy plasma torpedoes
-multiple cone AOEs
-tractor mines
-ship pets
-frigates
-escorts
-dreadnaughts and a command ship
I know you arent meant to kill all that stuff. Even the NPC popup says to focus fire on the command ship at the start of wave 3, which means ignoring the rest of the enemy fleet. But throwing that many ships with that many mechanics at the players is just lame.
It wasn't a difficult mission for you. It was more annoying than the No Win Scenario for me. There is a difference in experience and from accounts it mostly in the allies being useful additions or not which banks on the placement of the initial Wave 3 spawn, and the allied reinforcements.
And of course, if you actually try to do what the mission tells you you to do.
-Tried to pick off the small ships, got swarmed and died each time.
-Tried to pull the dreadnaughts, see above.
-Tried to wait for my allies to do the job, but after watching the command ship take no damage for half an hour, gave up.
-Started making kamikaze runs taking the command ship down a few percentage points at a time using quantum torps.
-Died over thirty times, but finally made that sucker go boom.
Total time on Wave 3: 2 hours. I really, really should've gone with eject warp plasma on one of my engineer BO's, and scramble sensors on my sci BO.
My character Tsin'xing
BUT, my concern here would be for people who are new to the game, have not leveled up multiple Lv. 50 characters, and have not learned the ins and outs of how to make a good ship build and play to your strengths. There is nothing else in the campaign on any faction that prepares you for this. This was hard for me, having been playing for a year, and having studied the game mechanics and ship builds more than almost anybody else in my fleet.
I weep for the real novices, confident on their victories so far with no particular attention paid to their Boff layout or what consoles they're using, no understanding of how to choose a shield/deflector/engine, don't know how to whittle down and play hit and run, etc. They will get annihilated. It will be soul crushing, and many of them will probably quit before ever having a chance to learn how to play the game at a high level. That makes me sad.
This is normal difficulty right? Let's keep it in line with other campaign missions. If STO's campaign is going to be cat-on-keyboard easy, we can't spring something like this on people out of the blue.
I agree with almost all of this. The mission is too hard past wave 2, it's unable to be completed with the Rommie ship we are given (D'Deridex is terrible, don't lie to yourself). The ships that are given to help you die almost instantly, don't use any heals, and the ones that "repair" get instagibbed and go right back into repairing once they've been attacked. I couldn't complete the mission properly at level 39, so I contacted a GM and they had to 1shot it with a Delta Flyer (was pretty amazing to watch tbh). The mission needs some balancing. MAYBE the final stage would be doable if more battleships didn't start warping in at a random time.. but.. yeah.
I would say the mission only becomes really tricky once you're on the last wave with the command ship which you only have a good chance of killing if you reduce the amount of enemy support craft. The fact that these support craft keep jumping in only adds to the frustration.
Not to mention the enemy dreadnoughts. which you really have to wipe out first.
The thing is the Elachi ships leave themselves vulnerable when they power up their one shot kill weapons. Plus they don't move for a few seconds after firing either. Constant use of singularity jump and evasive maneuvers to get out their firing arc is the only way to stay alive. Also calling in the Nimbus Pirate Fleet to help focus fire on the dreadnought works too.
So yes frustrating and annoying but not an exceptionally hard mission either. Just too long a mission.
"You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon, taH pagh, taH be"
I've played for about 1 years on normal, and I still don't really know how to build a ship.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
On all of my attempts, I've started off trying to follow the advice. On tribble around 32, I managed to get it down to 97% before first core breach. Although, I eventually cheesed ramming speed to take down the command ship on tribble. On holodeck at 36, didn't manage to actually pierce the shield at all before I chose to clear the pack (want to say it was after about a minute or so). My 50 run was similar in that I have up trying to pierce the shield before moving on to clean up targets.
However, I was flying a cruiser style each time, and both alpha strikes and exploiting the shield drop are a bit more difficult than with an escort type.
SPOILER ALERT!
SPOILER ALERT!
NO SERIOUSLY! IF YOU NO WANT TO READ LE SPOILERIFIC DETAILS, THEN SCRAMOOSE!!
LAST WARNING!!!!
(SPOILERS BELOW THIS LINE)
Took me about 30 mins to complete this in a D'D.
First two waves weren't bad (although I too died by the cheap opening shot).
Third wave she specifically tells you to concentrate firepower on the command ship.
I used my ability to call in the pirate ships for support and then died magnificently numerous times.
By using Ramming Speed and also the singularity ability that teleports you and leaves a singularity where you were, I was able to take the command ship out in about 20 mins (I know because I was able to call in the pirate support twice:D )
Once you defeat the Command Ship, well, everyone else pretty much just leaves.
I think the problem people are making is trying to mop up the support before taking on the "Boss Ship" rather than ignoring them and going after the Boss to begin with.
It works, on my first attempt in a D'D i started taking out weak enemies first. But by the time i noticed the popup it was too late for me to do a proper attack run.
The second time i did this mission (i actually quit the first attempt) i did it in a Mogai. Once the third wave was coming i stealthed and worked my way into a good position to attack the Command Ship. I hit it with everything i had and i burned all my tanking and offensive cooldowns. The shields were at 60-70% i think and i burned all the way through it, and i got it to around 4% hull but then i died. Even with me not doing any kind of AOE abilities I still got aggro from the 2 dreadnaughts and maybe 1-3 escorts. It might have been 'healing' aggro i dunno. The other friendly ships were probably stuck spamming self repair. But anyways i got him to 4% and while i was respawning it died. Reason for this was because on my attack run i chose the same side one of my friendly NPC ships was attacking, so he finished it off for me.
it comes down to if there are allies left i personally have NEVER had any allies left they all die during the warp in leaving me with 4 constantly repairing useless ships
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
Let's face it, the scaling on missions like this sucks. :P
P.S. Felspar, your signature is going to demolish the Earth!
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.