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Serious rethink of EPTx abilities on NPCs.
topset
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I'm surprised I haven't seen a thread about this yet, but up until the launch of LoR I had no idea just how many enemy NPCs used Emergency Power To Engines 2. It's pretty much every borg ship, all of the spheres, raptors, neghvars - and frankly it's made them incredibly irritating.
The spheres in Infected Space Elite scatter and spread out in very un-borg-like fashion and it feels like you spend most of the event herding spheres. Our chat channel actually calls ISE "Sphere Herding Elite" now, it's that bad.
The same for the Raptors in Cure, they just dart off all over the place!
I thoroughly support the changes to EPTx abilities but perhaps some of the borg ships should have a little variation in abilities? Give them EPTS, EPTW and EPTA also, to make them harder to kill, more powerful, more draining and less irritating.
Thoughts?
The spheres in Infected Space Elite scatter and spread out in very un-borg-like fashion and it feels like you spend most of the event herding spheres. Our chat channel actually calls ISE "Sphere Herding Elite" now, it's that bad.
The same for the Raptors in Cure, they just dart off all over the place!
I thoroughly support the changes to EPTx abilities but perhaps some of the borg ships should have a little variation in abilities? Give them EPTS, EPTW and EPTA also, to make them harder to kill, more powerful, more draining and less irritating.
Thoughts?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Kirk's Protege.
Kirk's Protege.
Post edited by topset on
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Kirk's Protege.
Join the Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet
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Totally agreed. It was the only Sci ability that could count as a Sci one and actually CC. Now, it has become worthless since every second NPC ship seems to have EptE.
And that was the problem. Even after the Sci-Mega nerf, it was still a somewhat useful Sci ability. They had to rectify that.
I guess on balance it would be EPTA2, but most borg ships don't really use science powers so that seems a bit useless.
Give them EPTW2 and everyone will cry nerf, even though personally I think the borg could use a buff.
Give them EPTS2? This seems like a fair compromise to me, make them a little harder to kill at the expensive being less irritating and time consuming to chase. Sounds like it would even out to me.
Thoughts?
Kirk's Protege.
Suck it up and stop expecting one science power to do everything. Grav well still works perfectly fine at corralling ships that aren't using +movement abilities. TB, EWP, Theta and TBMs work just as well for tackling runners.
NPCs actually deriving noticeable buffs from their abilities is far from a bad thing.
I completely agree with you, but the question is "Why does every borg ship have EPTE2?" All of the spheres have it, neghvars and raptors. Why aren't some of them using EPTW2? I'd love it if spheres hit harder and had a 20% damage buff, or if negh'vars used EPTS2 and had a -30% shield damage reduction to make them a bit tankier. They would be really mean then and would really require 3 people focus firing to get it down ASAP, where at the moment it's one or two.
I just think a little variety and using boff skills that make SENSE for NPCs is better than giving everything EPTE2 and watching them fly all over the map pointlessly so you have to go chasing them for no apparent reason.
Since when did the borg ever do that? The borg don't run, they don't charge, they have a slow steady pace and pound the living **** out of you
Kirk's Protege.
They just flew out of your weapons range. This is a very bad decision, for both Sci and Tac captains. And cruisers already bad turnate is not really good with this change either.
Giving them EPTW would make them hit harder...but they hit hard enough.
Giving them EPTS may help. It would make them more durable like EPTE "miss" thing, but still allow abilities like Grav well or Scatter/spread volleys to be useful.
They don't. Probes, Cubes, Tac Cubes, Unimatrix ships and the Assimilated Scimiatar don't carry EPtE.
Three ships of one faction having EPtE (and one or two from a handful of other factions) is a far, far cry from "everything having EPtE".
That's debatable. There's a steady progression shown of the Borg getting more aggressive and mobile. Consider it them adapting to the rampant amount of player mobility options.
So adapt. Add mobility options of your own, or abilities or weapons that allow you to prevent the target from getting out of range.
People complain that the AI is too easy, then when a slightly new wrinkle is introduced, they get annoyed and want to change it back. I know, it's probably not the same people who wanted harder AI, but still, it's serving some one.
IMO it's made stuff like tractor beam more important than it used to be, just to hold these zippy little ships in a firing arc. Same for gravity well and energy siphon. And Subnuc is more valuable in PvE than it used to be.
Sure, it's annoying, but I don't think it's unfair or against the spirit of the game.
it does seem they tend to fly off the map or get stuck because they flew into something. lol it is pretty annoying especially when targeting has also been an issue lately
also twice while doing sector patrol in tau dewa, i could not complete the mission. the only thing i could come up with is the raptor flew off the map and i couldn't find it. lol kinda funny, but not really :P
I'm all for making the borg harder. I want them to be buffed, the power creep and STF nerfs which we've seen over the last year has made STFs pittifully easy.
The problem with EPTE2 is that it hasn't made the STFs any harder at all, just a bit more time consuming and infinitely more irritating.
Cubes and the unimatrix ships don't actually move, so giving them EPTE would be a complete waste of time. I haven't checked probes, actually that's one ship I think giving EPTE2 makes sense, it would make STFs harder and I'm all for it. It wouldn't make them irritating, but you'd need to hit them harder and faster to stop them escaping (which is what they're trying to do) so I say GO FOR IT!
I should have clarified - I'll change to "almost everything in STFs"
Fair point, I can accept that. Then again, it's always been like that ever since the borg were first shown on-screen.
Kirk's Protege.
You know, I'm going to say that I think this is ok.
Herding them into an easy-to-AoE kill ball was always a poor, and boring encounter.
Have you tried EWPing the gate before they spawn?
Are you using a full Graviton Spec + Consoles + Full Aux with your Gravity Well?
Stirling said it really well:
I really question whether or not most players are actually using a full graviton spec + aux + GW 3 to try and corral spheres.
Or, GASP!!, a Tank build with Threat Control!! :eek::eek::eek:
If that's what it takes, then good.
Because some hybrid escort able to DPS like a machine + survive + do crowd control with 0 in gravitons, minimal aux and GW 1 has always been a silly thing that marginalizes other ship builds.
I'm not sure if the OP is running that, maybe you are not and I am wrong.
I do think however that it's finally nice that NPCs actually move at speeds slower than a TRIBBLE melting in the sun.
I think you are misunderstanding me - I don't run a gravity well build at all. I'm not specced for it and have no interest in it (Unless I'm running No-Win, when it's pretty much compulsory) and I'm completely fine with spheres escaping gravity wells. What's annoying is the fact they just flee away from you and out of weapons range immediately. You have to chase them to kill them.
Having a dedicated tank does *nothing* for this, they don't zero-in and attack the tank with 4 +threat consoles spamming FAW. They flee instead, which is stupid.
It wasn't me that brought up the G-well issue, that was a few posters below me - I'm fine with that.
Kirk's Protege.
I'll bring out a threat focused build (Eng Cruiser with beams, worst possible scenario as opposed to my Tac threat Machines) tonight to test and report back.
If you engage while the target is on a pre-programmed flight path (such as spheres in ISE looping around to the sides of the gate) then yes, it looks like they're fleeing. They're actually not.
On the other hand, if you engage a target not riding on rails (such as raptors jumping you in CSE, or any EPtE wielding enemies in other maps) they turn into you quite a bit.
This. Spheres run away from you because they often execute a wide-curve movement in time with their EptE use. They'll come crawling back to you when they've finished the maneuver, though you will have to chase them a bit because it's quite often they'll come back just in time to swoop off again.
Besides I have a lot of fun in my AP:O escorts chasing them down. Way way more fun than I did at quarter impulse pew-pewing them.