I think escort dps is fine, if they didn't do a lot of damage then nobody would fly them, the problem is damage has scaled a lot better than survivability has and there are more multiplicative damage abilities/console combos than there are defensive ones.
I think cruisers should be a lot stronger defensively, more in the mitigating damage area than anything else. They should do a lot less damage than an escort but I think the defensive consoles are really lacklustre and overall provides a near meaningless boost to what is already a mediocre difference between escort and cruiser base stats in terms of shield and hull.
This shows a mis-understanding. BO basically bundles up damage to give you a spike, but if you use it repeatedly it doesn't do much for your overall damage. In PvE, where enemies have huge hit point pools, BO doesn't help you.
Beam Overload doesn't do anything for your overall damage if you don't mitigate the drain, which is something I didn't explain because I thought it was a given. If you just fire off Beam Overloads without paying attention to the drain, then yeah, it doesn't help. If you build around minimizing the effects of the drain, and maximizing the benefits of the stacked damage, then it does. That said, I did clearly misunderstand what you were asking for, since evidently what you are asking for is a single target high uptime high magnitude pressure damage buff from the easiest to use and most flexible weapons in the game. And also a bouncy castle and a pony.
Wait - actually, that exact thing (well, except the castle and pony, but we can't have everything) is already available from BFAW, as long as you are willing to put in the effort to manipulate the battlefield such that there is only one target in range. Even if there are multiple targets, BFAW is still a pressure damage buff, it's just spread out, which is unimportant in PVE, given the dearth of NPC healing.
And it only helps you in PvP if it is part of an alpha strike that can overwhelm an enemy in one volley.
Or if you use it as a finisher, or if you use it to draw out their best heals to put them on CD. Honestly, given the over-abundance of heals in PvP, spike damage is frequently the only thing that can kill anyone, and B:O is the spike damage king.
Only if the cruiser is doing it wrong. Escorts have an easier time cycling two copies of Beam Overload, but rarely want to do that, because of the drain. Cruisers, on the other hand, can more easily stack batteries and Ep:W to offset the drain, as well as using the DEM "Nadion light" Doff to further mitigate the drain (although that will take some planning and timing). Oh, and if you really wanted to, a cruiser could stack EPS consoles to refill the energy loss fast enough that by the end of the firing cycle, the power has been restored.
So, short of making cruisers just like escorts, they need more damage over time, so beams need to be buffed, and cruisers need buffs to beams that are engineer boff abilities, like DEM is.
Cruisers already do the most damage over time, because beams backed up by Beam Fire at Will are already the best weapons for that, and Engineering buffs like DEM already exist. They are called "DEM", and they operate more or less exactly like the DEM power. I must be misunderstanding here, because I'm not sure anymore what the context is for the cruiser's supposed shortcomings. What is the in-game scenario right now that necessitates cruiser's doing the same (or close to) the single target "pressure" damage that DHC plus rapid fire bring, and if we make that change, what then is the role of the escort, other than looking cool?
Evacuation
A vast number of colonists must be beamed up and transfered to rescue ships some distance away
Each ship can beam up a number equal to its Crew size (life support)
reward is based on total number rescued by all team members / number of players who actively beamed someone up
The Shield
An unusual shield has been raised over the planet
it causes feed back damage Equal to any inflicted upon it on the attacking ship (bypassing shields )
but it MUST come down
These two are clearly designed to punish Escort pilots, not give a space for Cruisers and Sci vessels to be useful.
Providing a role for all ships to play effectively means not clearly punishing one. The idea is to fix the problem, not shift it over onto someone else.
Funny thread. I laughed a lot when the OP talked about the Defiant. It's kind of a joke in PvP compared to even the patrol escort.
JHAS isn't really OP. To be OP, it would have to have another ship in its field to compare it against. There isn't one. That's the point of the JHAS. Honestly, a good cruiser build can hold off some of the best JHAS builds in a 1v1 situation.
We can complain about the cloak all we want, but come on, 2/3 of the game factions are cloak based. Maybe folks should not rely so much on the Federation as they are clearly not the best in the galaxy. Heck, the Romulans were nearly wiped out and their equipment kind of smoke the Federation. :P
You know what hurts more than a group of Escorts? A group of Cruisers.
As far as the whole "TANKING" concept. This isn't WoW/LOTR/EQ. There is nothing in STO that says "You are the Tank". If there was such a thing as a "TANKING CLASS". wouldn't they be the only ones allowed to train into THREAT and get the DEF BONUS from doing so? (honestly, the threat skill should work in reverse imo)
cheers
(edit) @mcconna, Correct, but they made the game this way on purpose because they wanted the three class rolls to be interchangeable. The only thing that separates the classes is how they go about the task at hand. People like to think of Engineers as Tanks, Science as Buffer/Debuffer and Tactical as the DPS, but we all know that just isn't the way STO was purposely built and it's why these threads keep being created three years after release. Folks just can't seem to wrap their heads around the "INTERCHANGEABLITY" of the classes. (Is interchangeablity a word lol)
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online!
Funny thread. I laughed a lot when the OP talked about the Defiant. It's kind of a joke in PvP compared to even the patrol escort.
Ummm, no it's not. Although compared to the new Rommie ships it might be. Before the Rommie faction came out it was one of the best escorts in the game for pvp.
Ummm, no it's not. Although compared to the new Rommie ships it might be. Before the Rommie faction came out it was one of the best escorts in the game for pvp.
Only in a Sniper Build, which has it's limitations because it uses a console non battle cloak. A speed build Fleet Patrol Escort can smoke a Fleet Defiant and get more kills with less deaths. It just has the numbers and better boff layout. That fifth console will only get you so much. I'm not trying to step on Defiant pilot toes or anything. It's just the Defiant was never the end all be all escort on the Federation faction.
We can agree to disagree though.
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online!
Only in a Sniper Build, which had it's limitations because it uses a console non battle cloak. A speed build Fleet Patrol Escort can smoke a Fleet Defiant and get more kills with less deaths. It just has the numbers and boff layout. That fifth console will only get you so much. I'm not trying to step on Defiant pilot toes or anything. It's just the Defiant was never the end all be all escort on the Federation faction.
We can agree to disagree though.
I can see your point. It's probably not the best ship to go pugging with, but in a premade it did quite well and before the Rommies came out I'd say it was one of the more popular choices for premades. It was the only fed ship in the game that could pull off a decloak alpha strike (besides the Dreadnaught...lul), and it was better than the comparable KDF Raptors I'd say. Many called it a glass cannon, but it definitely had some survivability to it...well, at least it could survive long enough to let your team heal you. Against premade teams you need as large of an alpha strike as you can get, and the Defiant provided that. In Pugland, yeah the Fleet Patrol Escort would probably do better because you'd have less heal support and people are just easier to kill so you don't need as big of an alpha strike.
So I can agree with you about the Fleet Patrol Escort, just not about the Defiant being a joke. Although as I said in my previous post, it is clearly out-classed by the Rommie escorts on several different fronts. At this point in time, I think it probably could use a boost to its stats to make it comparable to the Romulan faction's ships.
Ok... after monitoring this thread since it's inception I finally have something to add.
Escorts in and of themselves are not OP, there is a power problem with regard to them but the design is fine as it is.
The problems with escorts then... Boff powers
Attack pattern Omega: immunity to all movement debuffs + defence + damage
This is simply too much for one skill, it's somewhat and omni-skill, a fix would be to remove the movement debuff immunity making them more suseptable to their main weakness
Tactical team: + damage + shield distribution
This is a necessary skill for the vast majority of builds as the shield distribution is exclusive.
Healing
This is a general point as Cryptic have attempted to balance healing across the classes and have failed to properly do so naturally as it can't be done properly with set figures for each skill. A fix for this would be percentage based healing allowing healing to be better regulated across the classes using the base stats for each ship. (On a side note however a base HP reduction may still be in order to make this system work properly)
Having covered the problems with escorts and suggestions on how to fix those lets move on to the other classes.
Cruisers Boff skills
General: Low potency in offensive powers
These could be buffed after changes to tactical captain buffs limiting them to weapon damage.
Weapons
General: Low potency
Minor buff (about 13% to base damage) and a change to drain mechanics to make every shot drain individually while maintaining the current cycle based returns meaning each shot would do more damage but cruisers wouldn't be able to maintain full weapon power.
Science Boff powers
General: Low potency
These could be buffed after previously mentioned adjustments to tactical captain powers but need all stats looking at not just damage.
Weapons
Same as cruisers
NPCs have some major issues also as noted below... Intelligence
Or more accurately the severe lack there-of, even the enemies of Final Fantasy VII have a sense of self preservation in some cases (debuffing you characters to reduce the damage they take, sometimes healing themselves and or others), though this is moderated it is still there. Strangely though the NPCs in STO have no such sense and they need one, they should also at endgame use a range of offensive and defensive powers and target in an intelligent manner (with threat control taken into account of course) for example if it has a HYT prep-ed but it's target has full shields and the escort behind it has low shields it may switch to fire the torp at the escort and then swap back (this giving healers a use in PvE) just as they should have a range of disables around in some cases to give more challenge and further use for a variety of PvE builds.
Damage
Extreme: Either too low to matter or too high to do anything about.
This needs to be normalised, the minimum needs to be raised to endanger escorts and the high lowered to eliminate the "one shot kill" but still make tanks sweat (a tough balance yes but it must be struck) this would work in conjunction with the intelligence buff to create a more challenging encounter and give a use for a more varied team.
Resistances
Science: The large resistance (immunity in some cases) to science powers does not help this class of ship or captain to be useful to a team, this needs to be removed, though the borg should either have a resistance to Viral matrix or a weakness to it for the sheer amount of processing power at their disposal.
Yes, this would require that tactical captain powers be limited to weapons damage but what science damage buffs do sci captains get, eh? Also overall it would serve to increase the viability of a lot of builds and of science, cruisers and engineers in PvE while making it a greater challenge.
TL,DR: Balance needs: adjustments to tactical skills, remodel of healing mechanics, changes to beam damage and drain mechanics, buffs to science and engineering offensive powers (more general for science though) and PvE needs a complete remodel to make more classes viable.
I'd still put it in the top 6, but like a BoP, it's situational. I would imagine a speed build fleet defiant would work nicely, as that is the thing everyone is doing these days. Kind of hard to die when you are only in range of enemy(s) for three seconds
/bind W "+down$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind D "+right$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind A "+left$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind S "+up$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
So that distribute Shields thing on Tact Team doesn't matter. Outside of movement keys, many also tie Distribute Shields to their spacebar along with boff powers.
Heal w/Battery > Heal w/o Battery regardless of rank heal or class of caster. That's by design. Escorts have less device slots for this reason.
Cruisers in a pack own. The problem with most Cruiser pilots is they go it alone. Silly Captains..
Most of the problems a player has with their Cruiser is DOFF selection, not the build of the ship or captain skill choices. For example, on a Cruiser, how many have even bothered to maximize their device slots with Battery Effect Doffs and a Battery Time Reduction Doff. This would give them bonuses to 'X' skill while maintaining max power in a subsystem like Shields/Aux/Engines. I doubt there are many captains that have even thought about that and yet the escort captains that do this own and they only have two slots...
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online!
(edit) @mcconna, Correct, but they made the game this way on purpose because they wanted the three class rolls to be interchangeable. The only thing that separates the classes is how they go about the task at hand. People like to think of Engineers as Tanks, Science as Buffer/Debuffer and Tactical as the DPS, but we all know that just isn't the way STO was purposely built and it's why these threads keep being created three years after release. Folks just can't seem to wrap their heads around the "INTERCHANGEABLITY" of the classes. (Is interchangeablity a word lol)
You make it sound as if "Interchangeability" is a good thing in this game, which it isn't. Yes it's nice that if I wanted to fly a escort as a engineer/science, or a cruiser as a tactical then I can for fanboyism. However when it comes down to what classes do best in which ships, the selections are obviously class specific. Even the bridge officer abilities reflect what each class is more design for, as well as the captain abilities you earn as you level up.
Thus why the 3 classes have their labels, it isn't merely out of randomness that they have those labels. So of course if someone was to list the three classes they would say "Tank for Engineer, Debuff/buffer for Science, and DPS for Tactical". If anything I feel the interchangeability in the game was more due to laziness than it being apart of some grand plan of great gameplay. So that they didn't have to complicate the content, by just making most of the PVE content DPS races for completions and optional's.
In other words, because each class isn't special at what they do, it makes it less fun than more fun to play anything besides a Tactical when in PVE. Granted merely my humble opinion on the matter. :P
Ok... after monitoring this thread since it's inception I finally have something to add.
Escorts in and of themselves are not OP, there is a power problem with regard to them but the design is fine as it is.
The problems with escorts then... Boff powers
Attack pattern Omega: immunity to all movement debuffs + defence + damage
This is simply too much for one skill, it's somewhat and omni-skill, a fix would be to remove the movement debuff immunity making them more suseptable to their main weakness
Tactical team: + damage + shield distribution
This is a necessary skill for the vast majority of builds as the shield distribution is exclusive.
Healing
This is a general point as Cryptic have attempted to balance healing across the classes and have failed to properly do so naturally as it can't be done properly with set figures for each skill. A fix for this would be percentage based healing allowing healing to be better regulated across the classes using the base stats for each ship. (On a side note however a base HP reduction may still be in order to make this system work properly)
Having covered the problems with escorts and suggestions on how to fix those lets move on to the other classes.
Cruisers Boff skills
General: Low potency in offensive powers
These could be buffed after changes to tactical captain buffs limiting them to weapon damage.
Weapons
General: Low potency
Minor buff (about 13% to base damage) and a change to drain mechanics to make every shot drain individually while maintaining the current cycle based returns meaning each shot would do more damage but cruisers wouldn't be able to maintain full weapon power.
Science Boff powers
General: Low potency
These could be buffed after previously mentioned adjustments to tactical captain powers but need all stats looking at not just damage.
Weapons
Same as cruisers
NPCs have some major issues also as noted below... Intelligence
Or more accurately the severe lack there-of, even the enemies of Final Fantasy VII have a sense of self preservation in some cases (debuffing you characters to reduce the damage they take, sometimes healing themselves and or others), though this is moderated it is still there. Strangely though the NPCs in STO have no such sense and they need one, they should also at endgame use a range of offensive and defensive powers and target in an intelligent manner (with threat control taken into account of course) for example if it has a HYT prep-ed but it's target has full shields and the escort behind it has low shields it may switch to fire the torp at the escort and then swap back (this giving healers a use in PvE) just as they should have a range of disables around in some cases to give more challenge and further use for a variety of PvE builds.
Damage
Extreme: Either too low to matter or too high to do anything about.
This needs to be normalised, the minimum needs to be raised to endanger escorts and the high lowered to eliminate the "one shot kill" but still make tanks sweat (a tough balance yes but it must be struck) this would work in conjunction with the intelligence buff to create a more challenging encounter and give a use for a more varied team.
Resistances
Science: The large resistance (immunity in some cases) to science powers does not help this class of ship or captain to be useful to a team, this needs to be removed, though the borg should either have a resistance to Viral matrix or a weakness to it for the sheer amount of processing power at their disposal.
Yes, this would require that tactical captain powers be limited to weapons damage but what science damage buffs do sci captains get, eh? Also overall it would serve to increase the viability of a lot of builds and of science, cruisers and engineers in PvE while making it a greater challenge.
TL,DR: Balance needs: adjustments to tactical skills, remodel of healing mechanics, changes to beam damage and drain mechanics, buffs to science and engineering offensive powers (more general for science though) and PvE needs a complete remodel to make more classes viable.
You make it sound as if "Interchangeability" is a good thing in this game, which it isn't.
Well, I don't want to take sides on that, but I know they designed the game to be that way on purpose. It was part of their ground breaking ideas for this STOMMO. There are many things they tried to do differently in STO, many of them are so foreign to the veteran gamer that they come off as "meh" or flat out hated.
The captains have classes, but not the ships. All the captain class does is determine your basic strategy on how you attack a target. The ship doesn't really even come into it.
I'd of never built the game this way, but..
@blakes7tvseries, the most DPS I ever did was in a Cruiser. Over 21k DPS. Right build, right Doffs and right location at the right time. I think people would be surprised just how much more DMG/DPS they can do in PvE/P with the right location. Cruisers are not weak, so it falls to the player really.
You know Cryptic has Jumped the Proverbial Shark when they introduced Tractor Pulling to Star Trek Online!
As to that layout you keep pushing, I don't think for a moment that would work for a multitude of reasons. But its not necessary to go into that. Suffice it to say that Cryptic's game development, engagement, retention and monetization model would not work at all with it.
An example of handwaving...perfect example. You say "suffice to say" without any supporting evidence. Boom, somebody's point no longer matters...because you say. You don't say why you say...but you say, and that's that. /sigh
What you describe sounds a lot like what the game's original meta was suppossed to be like. In practice being at the extreme squishy end of things was problematic at best but that was more a result of unpolished and untested game balance than anything else.
It fits the Trinity that I despise. Tank, Healer/Support, DPS. It fits in with Cryptic's desire for folks to fly (having bought) multiple ships.
You're a Tac out there solo, things are a bit rough, eh? Well, fly your Cruiser instead of your Escort. You're on a team, going to do the DPS thing while somebody else tanks and somebody else heals - grab that Escort.
See...unlike your suffice to say thing, it actually would support their goals to have it more like that...fewer toons with more ships. There's backlash on trying to keep up with Rep on multiple toons - so some folks are no longer adding more toons, they're not doing the Rep on multiple toons, and they're not buying as many ships for their toons because of the way it works. So yeah, no...there is no suffice to say. /sigh
However, as Cryptic tries to release bitesize content and include both a way to monetize it and carrots for players to chase they cannot hope to keep the innate balance you are pushing for. What you want is based on classes and ships being balanced. That's great but as gear and rep passives get released that balance will shift while the classes and ships remain static.
They have to, not only would changing them represent a PR nightmare if they are store bought, Cryptic doesn't work in a way that allows organic growth in existing aspects of the game. They work on whatever new thing they have and the rest of the game can become a bug ridden ant farm and nothing would get done unless its too game breaking or somehow allows for players circumventing the grinds.
So folks should just give up on Cryptic and STO? How is that good PR?
What balance we have now, with Crpytic pushing for a lot of new gear and benefits for cruisers is how they hope to balance the game in the eyes of players. The days of rigind class roles are pretty much gone, now everyone tanks, does DPS and CC's. Destroyers and Hybrids rule the skies as they should. The mere dea of a ship that's a glass cannon or a toothless tank is pretty silly for fantasy RPGs, but downright idiotic for a space game.
That's kind of...um...well...I don't even know where to start on that. Silly? Idiotic? Er...I'm not sure where you've got the idea that it doesn't work that way in both Fantasy and Science Fiction...it works that way in reality as well. There are a series of checks and balances...sacrifices made here and there. There's always something that has to be given up for something else.
If things were as unbalanced as you claim, why is it that when i look around me all I see is cruisers and carriers with a few escorts and sci vessels scattered here and there?
I get that everyone wants to do damage and feel cool, but if you can't get that feeling out of doing space magic or being a juggernaught cruiser then those ships are not for you. No matter how much you wish it cruisers will never be as DPS-y as escorts, and while you can argue that things are not balanced (the measure of balance is subjective after all) I will disagree based on my own ships and builds I've done and play with constantly.
Again, point to where I said anything about doing damage and feeling cool? Point to where I said anything about Cruisers doing as much DPS as Escorts? I guess it is not even a case of you handwaving stuff off...you're not even reading in the first place. /sigh
I HAVE a tacscort and an engi cruiser. I like that they play differently and i personally feel that if you add the tankyness and DPS of each they are pretty similar. One performs better in some cases and that varies based on many factors. With one I can stay in the middle of any fight and wade through anything, with the other I have to constantly be zipping about. And yet both are fun and entertaining. Yet my cruiser is no slouch in the damage dealing department and my escort can usually go one on one with the E-Cure Negh'Var and Raptor, unless the cube butts in then its a lot dicier.
I have 4 Engineers, 3 Science, and 2 Tac.
Eng #1: Breen Chel Grett Warship, Mirror Assault Cruiser, Mirror Star Cruiser, Support Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Recon Science Vessel, Mirror Deep Space Science Vessel, Mirror Advanced Escort, Advanced Escort
Eng #2: Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier, Breen Chel Grett Warship, Negh'Var Heavy Battle Cruiser, Kamarag Battle Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Vor'cha Battle Cruiser, Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor
Eng #3: Mirror Star Cruiser, Assault Cruiser
Eng #4: Mirror Vor'cha Battle Cruiser, Negh'Var Heavy Battle Cruiser
I rerolled everybody for S7 that existed at the time. I used to reroll toons every 2-3 weeks for almost a year, trying out different builds(ships/careers/gear/etc/etc/etc). The addition of Rep would change that. It was one thing to level a toon in a weekend and have him geared before the next weekend...it's another thing to spend a month or more to do it. You can tell what toons were created after the Winter Event by the lack of the Chel Grett. You can tell what toons were created after the Anniversary by the lack of the Ambassador/Kamarag Retros. Will be interesting to see if any of them actually end up flying the Corvette with the Summer Event.
Doing the one-man fleet thing for both KDF and Fed, while grinding Rep, etc, etc, etc...has left some of those guys in ships for the time being outside of what I'd prefer. Eng #3 wants to be a Yamaguchi (T3 shipyard). Eng #4 wants to be in a K'Maj (T3 shipyard). Sci #1 wants to be in a Fleet Deep Space (T1 shipyard)...though I've held off on that while thinking about picking up an Orb Weaver or a Llaihr. Sci #3 had been thinking about a Fleet Norgh (T3 shipyard), but I've also been thinking about the Llaihr there as well. Tac #1 was looking at a Fleet Patrol (T1 shipyard)...but may end up trying to run the Corvette (whatever it actually ends up being)...though I'm still waiting to see if they do the broadsiding Andorian Battle Cruiser. Tac #2 on the other hand, has been looking at a Fleet Corsair (T3 shipyard) while secretly hoping they add the Breen Sarr Theln carrier...oh well.
Heck, there's also the Tac in a Ha'feh and Sci in a Ha'nom over on Tribble.
Tac, Eng, Sci...Fed, KDF...Escort, Cruiser, Sci Vessel, Carrier, Raider, Raptor, Hybrids...yeah, I try to avoid limiting myself and getting any sort of tunnel vision that would blind me to issues in the game like some.
Honestly, I feel a lot of player's perception is based on not having worked out how to play and gear up a cruiser right. I will wholeheartedly admit that cruiser while being easier to pilot require a bit more resources invested into them before they shine. So most people are reluctant to do it without being sure of it being a worthwhile investment. But players that want to do damage in a cruiser just need to suck it up and get working on figuring out how to play a cruiser and what gear they want.
In a discussion about Escorts being too tanky, why you do keep bringing up these mysterious folks that want Cruisers to do more DPS? I mean, c'mon - that's what I said to your first reply to me...but here I am saying it again? Hrmm, yeah - you're not even handwaving...you're just not reading. Maybe you're just lumping me in with this image you have of certain people...who knows? Who cares at this point?
The captains have classes, but not the ships. All the captain class does is determine your basic strategy on how you attack a target. The ship doesn't really even come into it.
I kind of latched on to something that Geko once said, and it's pretty hard not to see it that way once you do see it that way. Kind of like a spot on a tie, eh?
The Ships are actually the Classes. Careers are not Classes. Careers provide 5 Abilities and 2 possible Traits. Careers are simply a part of the itemization for the Class, which is the Ship.
Look at what comes from the Career, eh?
Then look at what comes from the Ship, right?
Career: 5 Abilities and 2 possible Traits. That's it. Careers do not restrict anything in the game. You can have the same "Space" skill build regardless of Career. You can fly the same ship (complete build) regardless of Career.
Ship: Wham, bam, thank you ma'am...the meat of any build. BOFFs, DOFFs, Weapons, Consoles, etc, etc, etc...this is the heart of a build.
Yep, when you compare the 5 + 2 of Careers versus the countless possibilities/restricted possibilities of a Ship...it is hard to let that go.
Hmmm, I was using an escort for a while, and I suppose that's down to (despite its tier) it being more powerful than the cruiser I obtained at Lv45.
However, I'm using a Venture Class Jem'Hadar build and love it. Granted it's slower and the tactical abilities were insane which I no longer have access to, but I've been collecting zen for weeks to purchase it and make the most of it. The game is what you make it, I suppose. Unless you're doing PvP, I don't see how escorts' superiority impact the game too much
Get some friends, learn how to build your ships and THEN come back here and see if you still think the same way...
BTW: JHAS ships and Defiants are not overpowered. They ALL have their weaknesses and you don't know them otherwise you wouldn't be here asking for nerfs...
write down the weaknesses of the jem hader bug and post it
How about this? You tell me what you are trying to do to that JHAS or Defiant (as the enemy) that makes it OP in your eyes?
But to name a few: Holds (Reduces defenses to a -% and need to be timed between APO or Polorize hull if using tractor beams), Shield draining builds (No shields, not enough hull to stay an fight). Couple those two together on an escort that has no friends to heal him and he/she is dead... Like I said, learn their weaknesses and you learn the game and how to play... Oh and viral matrix is an easy kill for an escort (JHAS included).
write down the weaknesses of the jem hader bug and post it
The average person that buys one and thinks that it will be enough to make them a rockstar is generally the first weakness of the ship that comes to mind.
Hrmmm, how about comparing it to a Fleet Ha'feh, eh?
+400 Hull
+0.01 Shield Mod
+4 Turn
+0.02 Impulse Mod
+30 Inertia
+1 Eng Console/-1 Sci Console
-Battle Cloak
-Singularity Abilities
+10 Power/Subsystem
-Access to T1-T4 Warbird Consoles
I have read this entire forum, to the OP, your asking for escort tanking to be nerfed, and your asking for cruiser dps to be buffed, I suggest asking for one thing, not the world.
Escorts cannot tank as well as a cruiser, in pvp or pve, escorts cannot tank as well as a science ship, these are facts. If an escort is tanking better than your cruiser, than your cruiser is not setup correctly (boff powers/gear/spec). PERIOD. Arguing to nerf that escort that's out tanking you is more a personal problem than the games problem.
To defeat an escort in PVP, spam HOLDS ,tractors, eject warp plasma, theta radiation, graviton pulse, so on. Its not how much damage you do, its how you do it. Also learn to see who is healing who, if this escort is getting healed then it will appear AMAZING and UNBEATABLE. Also, stack ACC on your weapons/traits/spec to even reliably hit an escort, since they have such high defense rateing.
Bottom line, PvP is a TEAM based environment, not 1v1. It will nvr be balanced around 1v1.
The roles of cruisers and escorts in STO are set by cryptic not set in cannon, yes on TV shows the big bad ship beats the little one with big bad TRIBBLE beams. But this is a game first a TV show second. You`d do well to remember that.
I wanna state I have an engineer, a tactical captain, and a science captn, have experienced pvp against the sad pandas permades with premades of my own and won, not against there top team. So I say the only difference between a cruiser and an escort is the burst damage, the sustained damage is near equal. (with equally geared ships) Its the burst that kills super tanky targets in pvp, preasure will not in most cases, cause its a TEAM based enviroment. If you can`t deal escort damage in a cruiser then get out of the cruiser an into an escort, or get in one of the DHC cruisers, D`kora comes to mind.
Otherwise accept the role that is given to the ship, DPS or TANKY or SUPPORT. Choose your ship you fly by the style of gameplay you wish to play, Don't try to bend the game to your style, you`ll just never get what you want out of it an hate it for it.
It's not about X doing Y as well as Z. It's about X doing Y better than X should be capable of doing Y. For some, this also presents the issue of A not being able to do B as well as A should...which does not mean they are asking for A to do B as well as C does B.
Discussions tend to end up with those extremes...when most folks are actually somewhere between.
It IS warships online. DPS or Wasting Time. As far as PvE is concerned.
PS: I can tank anything in a warship long enough to kill it so no it doesn't matter. I can also equip enough tricks either via consoles or hybrid boff layouts to fill the CC/Exotic holes that I feel necessary.
PPS: Warships come in many varieties from the highly power overcapped and borderline drain immune beam boats to the standard DHC monsters.
I think the game is more like dps online. This is strictly a PvE problem, where you are restricted to flying specific type of ships to do any good (ships with at least 3 tactical rank boff slots or carriers).
Isn't any MMO all about DPS in PvE?
Numbers don't always mean everything. I have seen people/NPC's killed in this game with ALOT less DPS than the next guy who was strictly DPS...
DPS races do plague many games out there...however, some do make the attempt to mix it up a little beyond that. Sure, that often just means scripted don't stand in the fire things...but they try to go beyond DPS races.
Also, as much as I loathe the Trinity, it is better than a DPS Unity.
DPS races do plague many games out there...however, some do make the attempt to mix it up a little beyond that. Sure, that often just means scripted don't stand in the fire things...but they try to go beyond DPS races.
Also, as much as I loathe the Trinity, it is better than a DPS Unity.
But in the end, no matter how much you "mix it up" (unless bosses specifically need another power other than DPS to destroy them), DPS still reigns the king in PvE. I don't care how you look at it.
Comments
I think cruisers should be a lot stronger defensively, more in the mitigating damage area than anything else. They should do a lot less damage than an escort but I think the defensive consoles are really lacklustre and overall provides a near meaningless boost to what is already a mediocre difference between escort and cruiser base stats in terms of shield and hull.
Beam Overload doesn't do anything for your overall damage if you don't mitigate the drain, which is something I didn't explain because I thought it was a given. If you just fire off Beam Overloads without paying attention to the drain, then yeah, it doesn't help. If you build around minimizing the effects of the drain, and maximizing the benefits of the stacked damage, then it does. That said, I did clearly misunderstand what you were asking for, since evidently what you are asking for is a single target high uptime high magnitude pressure damage buff from the easiest to use and most flexible weapons in the game. And also a bouncy castle and a pony.
Wait - actually, that exact thing (well, except the castle and pony, but we can't have everything) is already available from BFAW, as long as you are willing to put in the effort to manipulate the battlefield such that there is only one target in range. Even if there are multiple targets, BFAW is still a pressure damage buff, it's just spread out, which is unimportant in PVE, given the dearth of NPC healing.
Or if you use it as a finisher, or if you use it to draw out their best heals to put them on CD. Honestly, given the over-abundance of heals in PvP, spike damage is frequently the only thing that can kill anyone, and B:O is the spike damage king.
Only if the cruiser is doing it wrong. Escorts have an easier time cycling two copies of Beam Overload, but rarely want to do that, because of the drain. Cruisers, on the other hand, can more easily stack batteries and Ep:W to offset the drain, as well as using the DEM "Nadion light" Doff to further mitigate the drain (although that will take some planning and timing). Oh, and if you really wanted to, a cruiser could stack EPS consoles to refill the energy loss fast enough that by the end of the firing cycle, the power has been restored.
Cruisers already do the most damage over time, because beams backed up by Beam Fire at Will are already the best weapons for that, and Engineering buffs like DEM already exist. They are called "DEM", and they operate more or less exactly like the DEM power. I must be misunderstanding here, because I'm not sure anymore what the context is for the cruiser's supposed shortcomings. What is the in-game scenario right now that necessitates cruiser's doing the same (or close to) the single target "pressure" damage that DHC plus rapid fire bring, and if we make that change, what then is the role of the escort, other than looking cool?
These two are clearly designed to punish Escort pilots, not give a space for Cruisers and Sci vessels to be useful.
Providing a role for all ships to play effectively means not clearly punishing one. The idea is to fix the problem, not shift it over onto someone else.
Correct, but I think you're missing the point. Escorts should not be able to tank!!
JHAS isn't really OP. To be OP, it would have to have another ship in its field to compare it against. There isn't one. That's the point of the JHAS. Honestly, a good cruiser build can hold off some of the best JHAS builds in a 1v1 situation.
We can complain about the cloak all we want, but come on, 2/3 of the game factions are cloak based. Maybe folks should not rely so much on the Federation as they are clearly not the best in the galaxy. Heck, the Romulans were nearly wiped out and their equipment kind of smoke the Federation. :P
You know what hurts more than a group of Escorts? A group of Cruisers.
As far as the whole "TANKING" concept. This isn't WoW/LOTR/EQ. There is nothing in STO that says "You are the Tank". If there was such a thing as a "TANKING CLASS". wouldn't they be the only ones allowed to train into THREAT and get the DEF BONUS from doing so? (honestly, the threat skill should work in reverse imo)
cheers
(edit) @mcconna, Correct, but they made the game this way on purpose because they wanted the three class rolls to be interchangeable. The only thing that separates the classes is how they go about the task at hand. People like to think of Engineers as Tanks, Science as Buffer/Debuffer and Tactical as the DPS, but we all know that just isn't the way STO was purposely built and it's why these threads keep being created three years after release. Folks just can't seem to wrap their heads around the "INTERCHANGEABLITY" of the classes. (Is interchangeablity a word lol)
@DevolvedOne
Only in a Sniper Build, which has it's limitations because it uses a console non battle cloak. A speed build Fleet Patrol Escort can smoke a Fleet Defiant and get more kills with less deaths. It just has the numbers and better boff layout. That fifth console will only get you so much. I'm not trying to step on Defiant pilot toes or anything. It's just the Defiant was never the end all be all escort on the Federation faction.
We can agree to disagree though.
I can see your point. It's probably not the best ship to go pugging with, but in a premade it did quite well and before the Rommies came out I'd say it was one of the more popular choices for premades. It was the only fed ship in the game that could pull off a decloak alpha strike (besides the Dreadnaught...lul), and it was better than the comparable KDF Raptors I'd say. Many called it a glass cannon, but it definitely had some survivability to it...well, at least it could survive long enough to let your team heal you. Against premade teams you need as large of an alpha strike as you can get, and the Defiant provided that. In Pugland, yeah the Fleet Patrol Escort would probably do better because you'd have less heal support and people are just easier to kill so you don't need as big of an alpha strike.
So I can agree with you about the Fleet Patrol Escort, just not about the Defiant being a joke. Although as I said in my previous post, it is clearly out-classed by the Rommie escorts on several different fronts. At this point in time, I think it probably could use a boost to its stats to make it comparable to the Romulan faction's ships.
@DevolvedOne
Escorts in and of themselves are not OP, there is a power problem with regard to them but the design is fine as it is.
The problems with escorts then...
Boff powers
Attack pattern Omega: immunity to all movement debuffs + defence + damage
This is simply too much for one skill, it's somewhat and omni-skill, a fix would be to remove the movement debuff immunity making them more suseptable to their main weakness
Tactical team: + damage + shield distribution
This is a necessary skill for the vast majority of builds as the shield distribution is exclusive.
Healing
This is a general point as Cryptic have attempted to balance healing across the classes and have failed to properly do so naturally as it can't be done properly with set figures for each skill. A fix for this would be percentage based healing allowing healing to be better regulated across the classes using the base stats for each ship. (On a side note however a base HP reduction may still be in order to make this system work properly)
Having covered the problems with escorts and suggestions on how to fix those lets move on to the other classes.
Cruisers
Boff skills
General: Low potency in offensive powers
These could be buffed after changes to tactical captain buffs limiting them to weapon damage.
Weapons
General: Low potency
Minor buff (about 13% to base damage) and a change to drain mechanics to make every shot drain individually while maintaining the current cycle based returns meaning each shot would do more damage but cruisers wouldn't be able to maintain full weapon power.
Science
Boff powers
General: Low potency
These could be buffed after previously mentioned adjustments to tactical captain powers but need all stats looking at not just damage.
Weapons
Same as cruisers
NPCs have some major issues also as noted below...
Intelligence
Or more accurately the severe lack there-of, even the enemies of Final Fantasy VII have a sense of self preservation in some cases (debuffing you characters to reduce the damage they take, sometimes healing themselves and or others), though this is moderated it is still there. Strangely though the NPCs in STO have no such sense and they need one, they should also at endgame use a range of offensive and defensive powers and target in an intelligent manner (with threat control taken into account of course) for example if it has a HYT prep-ed but it's target has full shields and the escort behind it has low shields it may switch to fire the torp at the escort and then swap back (this giving healers a use in PvE) just as they should have a range of disables around in some cases to give more challenge and further use for a variety of PvE builds.
Damage
Extreme: Either too low to matter or too high to do anything about.
This needs to be normalised, the minimum needs to be raised to endanger escorts and the high lowered to eliminate the "one shot kill" but still make tanks sweat (a tough balance yes but it must be struck) this would work in conjunction with the intelligence buff to create a more challenging encounter and give a use for a more varied team.
Resistances
Science: The large resistance (immunity in some cases) to science powers does not help this class of ship or captain to be useful to a team, this needs to be removed, though the borg should either have a resistance to Viral matrix or a weakness to it for the sheer amount of processing power at their disposal.
Yes, this would require that tactical captain powers be limited to weapons damage but what science damage buffs do sci captains get, eh? Also overall it would serve to increase the viability of a lot of builds and of science, cruisers and engineers in PvE while making it a greater challenge.
TL,DR: Balance needs: adjustments to tactical skills, remodel of healing mechanics, changes to beam damage and drain mechanics, buffs to science and engineering offensive powers (more general for science though) and PvE needs a complete remodel to make more classes viable.
@adamkafei,
/bind W "+down$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind D "+right$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind A "+left$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
/bind S "+up$$+Power_Exec Distribute_Shields"
So that distribute Shields thing on Tact Team doesn't matter. Outside of movement keys, many also tie Distribute Shields to their spacebar along with boff powers.
Heal w/Battery > Heal w/o Battery regardless of rank heal or class of caster. That's by design. Escorts have less device slots for this reason.
Cruisers in a pack own. The problem with most Cruiser pilots is they go it alone. Silly Captains..
Most of the problems a player has with their Cruiser is DOFF selection, not the build of the ship or captain skill choices. For example, on a Cruiser, how many have even bothered to maximize their device slots with Battery Effect Doffs and a Battery Time Reduction Doff. This would give them bonuses to 'X' skill while maintaining max power in a subsystem like Shields/Aux/Engines. I doubt there are many captains that have even thought about that and yet the escort captains that do this own and they only have two slots...
You make it sound as if "Interchangeability" is a good thing in this game, which it isn't. Yes it's nice that if I wanted to fly a escort as a engineer/science, or a cruiser as a tactical then I can for fanboyism. However when it comes down to what classes do best in which ships, the selections are obviously class specific. Even the bridge officer abilities reflect what each class is more design for, as well as the captain abilities you earn as you level up.
Thus why the 3 classes have their labels, it isn't merely out of randomness that they have those labels. So of course if someone was to list the three classes they would say "Tank for Engineer, Debuff/buffer for Science, and DPS for Tactical". If anything I feel the interchangeability in the game was more due to laziness than it being apart of some grand plan of great gameplay. So that they didn't have to complicate the content, by just making most of the PVE content DPS races for completions and optional's.
In other words, because each class isn't special at what they do, it makes it less fun than more fun to play anything besides a Tactical when in PVE. Granted merely my humble opinion on the matter. :P
bravo well said I agree 100 % make it so
People are running cruisers with all beams and others escorts with cannons.
The DPS numbers all come in really close.
There is even a thread in the forums that explains how to build a DPS cruiser.
I don't see why this thread went on for mile.
I see many people say its just of matter how you do your build that's correct.
If you need help load up TeamSpeak I will send you a link to our fleet help desk.
Why because our fleet is about being helpful to anyone and any fleet.
Well, I don't want to take sides on that, but I know they designed the game to be that way on purpose. It was part of their ground breaking ideas for this STOMMO. There are many things they tried to do differently in STO, many of them are so foreign to the veteran gamer that they come off as "meh" or flat out hated.
The captains have classes, but not the ships. All the captain class does is determine your basic strategy on how you attack a target. The ship doesn't really even come into it.
I'd of never built the game this way, but..
@blakes7tvseries, the most DPS I ever did was in a Cruiser. Over 21k DPS. Right build, right Doffs and right location at the right time. I think people would be surprised just how much more DMG/DPS they can do in PvE/P with the right location. Cruisers are not weak, so it falls to the player really.
Which is why I brought that up...as for why you keep doing that...and how it cannot lead to constructive debates.
An example of handwaving...perfect example. You say "suffice to say" without any supporting evidence. Boom, somebody's point no longer matters...because you say. You don't say why you say...but you say, and that's that. /sigh
It fits the Trinity that I despise. Tank, Healer/Support, DPS. It fits in with Cryptic's desire for folks to fly (having bought) multiple ships.
You're a Tac out there solo, things are a bit rough, eh? Well, fly your Cruiser instead of your Escort. You're on a team, going to do the DPS thing while somebody else tanks and somebody else heals - grab that Escort.
See...unlike your suffice to say thing, it actually would support their goals to have it more like that...fewer toons with more ships. There's backlash on trying to keep up with Rep on multiple toons - so some folks are no longer adding more toons, they're not doing the Rep on multiple toons, and they're not buying as many ships for their toons because of the way it works. So yeah, no...there is no suffice to say. /sigh
Modifiers. Limits.
So folks should just give up on Cryptic and STO? How is that good PR?
That's kind of...um...well...I don't even know where to start on that. Silly? Idiotic? Er...I'm not sure where you've got the idea that it doesn't work that way in both Fantasy and Science Fiction...it works that way in reality as well. There are a series of checks and balances...sacrifices made here and there. There's always something that has to be given up for something else.
People will see what they want to see, eh?
Again, point to where I said anything about doing damage and feeling cool? Point to where I said anything about Cruisers doing as much DPS as Escorts? I guess it is not even a case of you handwaving stuff off...you're not even reading in the first place. /sigh
I have 4 Engineers, 3 Science, and 2 Tac.
Eng #1: Breen Chel Grett Warship, Mirror Assault Cruiser, Mirror Star Cruiser, Support Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Recon Science Vessel, Mirror Deep Space Science Vessel, Mirror Advanced Escort, Advanced Escort
Eng #2: Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier, Breen Chel Grett Warship, Negh'Var Heavy Battle Cruiser, Kamarag Battle Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Vor'cha Battle Cruiser, Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor
Eng #3: Mirror Star Cruiser, Assault Cruiser
Eng #4: Mirror Vor'cha Battle Cruiser, Negh'Var Heavy Battle Cruiser
Sci #1: Fleet T'varo Light Warbird Retrofit, T'varo Light Warbird Retrofit, Ha'feh Assault Warbird
Sci #2: Mirror Deep Space Science Vessel, Breen Chel Grett Warship, Mirror Recon Science Vessel, Patrol Escort, Support Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Star Cruiser
Sci #3: Hegh'ta Heavy Bird-of-Prey
Tac #1: Mirror Advanced Escort, Support Cruiser Retrofit, Assault Cruiser
Tac #2: Mirror Vo'Quv Carrier, Breen Chel Grett Warship, Vo'Quv Carrier, Kamarag Battle Cruiser Retrofit, Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor
I rerolled everybody for S7 that existed at the time. I used to reroll toons every 2-3 weeks for almost a year, trying out different builds(ships/careers/gear/etc/etc/etc). The addition of Rep would change that. It was one thing to level a toon in a weekend and have him geared before the next weekend...it's another thing to spend a month or more to do it. You can tell what toons were created after the Winter Event by the lack of the Chel Grett. You can tell what toons were created after the Anniversary by the lack of the Ambassador/Kamarag Retros. Will be interesting to see if any of them actually end up flying the Corvette with the Summer Event.
Doing the one-man fleet thing for both KDF and Fed, while grinding Rep, etc, etc, etc...has left some of those guys in ships for the time being outside of what I'd prefer. Eng #3 wants to be a Yamaguchi (T3 shipyard). Eng #4 wants to be in a K'Maj (T3 shipyard). Sci #1 wants to be in a Fleet Deep Space (T1 shipyard)...though I've held off on that while thinking about picking up an Orb Weaver or a Llaihr. Sci #3 had been thinking about a Fleet Norgh (T3 shipyard), but I've also been thinking about the Llaihr there as well. Tac #1 was looking at a Fleet Patrol (T1 shipyard)...but may end up trying to run the Corvette (whatever it actually ends up being)...though I'm still waiting to see if they do the broadsiding Andorian Battle Cruiser. Tac #2 on the other hand, has been looking at a Fleet Corsair (T3 shipyard) while secretly hoping they add the Breen Sarr Theln carrier...oh well.
Heck, there's also the Tac in a Ha'feh and Sci in a Ha'nom over on Tribble.
Tac, Eng, Sci...Fed, KDF...Escort, Cruiser, Sci Vessel, Carrier, Raider, Raptor, Hybrids...yeah, I try to avoid limiting myself and getting any sort of tunnel vision that would blind me to issues in the game like some.
In a discussion about Escorts being too tanky, why you do keep bringing up these mysterious folks that want Cruisers to do more DPS? I mean, c'mon - that's what I said to your first reply to me...but here I am saying it again? Hrmm, yeah - you're not even handwaving...you're just not reading. Maybe you're just lumping me in with this image you have of certain people...who knows? Who cares at this point?
I kind of latched on to something that Geko once said, and it's pretty hard not to see it that way once you do see it that way. Kind of like a spot on a tie, eh?
The Ships are actually the Classes. Careers are not Classes. Careers provide 5 Abilities and 2 possible Traits. Careers are simply a part of the itemization for the Class, which is the Ship.
Look at what comes from the Career, eh?
Then look at what comes from the Ship, right?
Career: 5 Abilities and 2 possible Traits. That's it. Careers do not restrict anything in the game. You can have the same "Space" skill build regardless of Career. You can fly the same ship (complete build) regardless of Career.
Ship: Wham, bam, thank you ma'am...the meat of any build. BOFFs, DOFFs, Weapons, Consoles, etc, etc, etc...this is the heart of a build.
Yep, when you compare the 5 + 2 of Careers versus the countless possibilities/restricted possibilities of a Ship...it is hard to let that go.
However, I'm using a Venture Class Jem'Hadar build and love it. Granted it's slower and the tactical abilities were insane which I no longer have access to, but I've been collecting zen for weeks to purchase it and make the most of it. The game is what you make it, I suppose. Unless you're doing PvP, I don't see how escorts' superiority impact the game too much
To the OP, L2P first of all...
Get some friends, learn how to build your ships and THEN come back here and see if you still think the same way...
BTW: JHAS ships and Defiants are not overpowered. They ALL have their weaknesses and you don't know them otherwise you wouldn't be here asking for nerfs...
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
How about this? You tell me what you are trying to do to that JHAS or Defiant (as the enemy) that makes it OP in your eyes?
But to name a few: Holds (Reduces defenses to a -% and need to be timed between APO or Polorize hull if using tractor beams), Shield draining builds (No shields, not enough hull to stay an fight). Couple those two together on an escort that has no friends to heal him and he/she is dead... Like I said, learn their weaknesses and you learn the game and how to play... Oh and viral matrix is an easy kill for an escort (JHAS included).
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
The average person that buys one and thinks that it will be enough to make them a rockstar is generally the first weakness of the ship that comes to mind.
Hrmmm, how about comparing it to a Fleet Ha'feh, eh?
+400 Hull
+0.01 Shield Mod
+4 Turn
+0.02 Impulse Mod
+30 Inertia
+1 Eng Console/-1 Sci Console
-Battle Cloak
-Singularity Abilities
+10 Power/Subsystem
-Access to T1-T4 Warbird Consoles
Interesting, eh?
Escorts cannot tank as well as a cruiser, in pvp or pve, escorts cannot tank as well as a science ship, these are facts. If an escort is tanking better than your cruiser, than your cruiser is not setup correctly (boff powers/gear/spec). PERIOD. Arguing to nerf that escort that's out tanking you is more a personal problem than the games problem.
To defeat an escort in PVP, spam HOLDS ,tractors, eject warp plasma, theta radiation, graviton pulse, so on. Its not how much damage you do, its how you do it. Also learn to see who is healing who, if this escort is getting healed then it will appear AMAZING and UNBEATABLE. Also, stack ACC on your weapons/traits/spec to even reliably hit an escort, since they have such high defense rateing.
Bottom line, PvP is a TEAM based environment, not 1v1. It will nvr be balanced around 1v1.
The roles of cruisers and escorts in STO are set by cryptic not set in cannon, yes on TV shows the big bad ship beats the little one with big bad TRIBBLE beams. But this is a game first a TV show second. You`d do well to remember that.
I wanna state I have an engineer, a tactical captain, and a science captn, have experienced pvp against the sad pandas permades with premades of my own and won, not against there top team. So I say the only difference between a cruiser and an escort is the burst damage, the sustained damage is near equal. (with equally geared ships) Its the burst that kills super tanky targets in pvp, preasure will not in most cases, cause its a TEAM based enviroment. If you can`t deal escort damage in a cruiser then get out of the cruiser an into an escort, or get in one of the DHC cruisers, D`kora comes to mind.
Otherwise accept the role that is given to the ship, DPS or TANKY or SUPPORT. Choose your ship you fly by the style of gameplay you wish to play, Don't try to bend the game to your style, you`ll just never get what you want out of it an hate it for it.
Discussions tend to end up with those extremes...when most folks are actually somewhere between.
That wouldn't only effect escorts it would effect Klingon cruisers who use them which they can.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
It IS warships online. DPS or Wasting Time. As far as PvE is concerned.
PS: I can tank anything in a warship long enough to kill it so no it doesn't matter. I can also equip enough tricks either via consoles or hybrid boff layouts to fill the CC/Exotic holes that I feel necessary.
PPS: Warships come in many varieties from the highly power overcapped and borderline drain immune beam boats to the standard DHC monsters.
Isn't any MMO all about DPS in PvE?
Numbers don't always mean everything. I have seen people/NPC's killed in this game with ALOT less DPS than the next guy who was strictly DPS...
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
DPS races do plague many games out there...however, some do make the attempt to mix it up a little beyond that. Sure, that often just means scripted don't stand in the fire things...but they try to go beyond DPS races.
Also, as much as I loathe the Trinity, it is better than a DPS Unity.
But in the end, no matter how much you "mix it up" (unless bosses specifically need another power other than DPS to destroy them), DPS still reigns the king in PvE. I don't care how you look at it.
=/\= 106th Fleet =/\=
Website | Fleet Charter | Mission Statement | Forums | Join | F.A.Q.
Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard