Although Donatra's behavior seems erratic all the symptoms that I've seen points to desynchronization of the client to the server port that the player is connected to. I am instakilled when she decloaks with the thalaron but it still continues to charge. I notice that this happens quite frequently when it seems laggy or when other players are lagging. Its either the client or the server trying to catch up hence resynchronization. Most of the time it is the client catching up to the server which can seem out of sync for over 12 seconds. When it catches up you are instakilled as she decloaks. I can confirm the 5km distance is when she cloaks.
Me and a team the other night stayed over 5km away and held her with grav wells. We had the escorts just tear her to shreds. She did not once cloak. You have to remember though the Scimitar class is supposed to have the "perfect cloak" according to the movie Nemesis. So it is possible that her cloak could pass through all of our abilities. Before you go off saying well I have a Scimitar as well; "Why can't I do the same." For the sake of balance I'm sure that is why you can't. Also remember that this is a Borg ship. The ship is no longer Romulan/Reman and has been adapted to suit the needs of the Borg. The Borg have acquired many advanced technologies through assimilation. So its possible they may have come across a species that can do what we are dealing with.
She may seem overpowered but she really isn't. The fact that I can take a new level 50 character with no gear and still rip her a new one. Although it is quite enjoyable to use a thalaron blast on her. I use the Scimitar on all of my Romulan characters I have to say the devs did a great job on balancing it. Just stock up on parts to repair damage.
I remember the days when you could use dpb 3 with Tricobalt mines and insta kill her or any gate.
Cloaking versus damage or cloaking versus range of 5km? Which is it? These people who claim distance can't explain her eradic behavior and cloaking. One thing I have noticed is she always tries to catch the ship doing the most damage in her blast zone when she decloaks. And of course that person is always within the 5km range. On the other hand how much damage does she take before cloaking? Can anyone say for sure?
Cloaking versus damage or cloaking versus range of 5km? Which is it? These people who claim distance can't explain her eradic behavior and cloaking. One thing I have noticed is she always tries to catch the ship doing the most damage in her blast zone when she decloaks. And of course that person is always within the 5km range. On the other hand how much damage does she take before cloaking? Can anyone say for sure?
The old "5 km rule" was that she cloaks whenever the player she is currently targeting (usually the one doing the most damage) gets within 5 km of her. But Borticus seems to be saying that the probability only increases when you get closer to her. (I'm not sure whether her behavior was changed or this was always the case.)
I don't wanna give away the WHOLE thing, as learning to deal with a Boss Encounter is half the fun of beating them. But, I'll lay a few truth-bombs on ya, just to clear the air.
Firstly, as long as she is in Combat, it is guaranteed that she will eventually Cloak, no matter how far away from her you stay.
It is true that this behavior occurs more frequently if you get within a certain distance from her. It is also true, however, that getting close to her is not an instant 100% guarantee that she will suddenly Cloak.
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. A Boss Encounter requires a schtick - a powerful attack or ability that can only be countered by players if they know how to properly counter it, and pay attention to the fight. There are very few Boss Encounters in the MMO gaming world where anticipation or prevention are considered valid counters - reaction is nearly always required.
In the case of Donatra, her schtick is the Cloak+Thalaron maneuver. But honestly, the counter to it is fairly simple - keeping maneuvering abilities in reserve, and reacting to her charge-up when she decloaks, after you've examined her firing arc. The charge-up time on this blast is 12seconds -- the challenge of the fight is learning to move out of the clearly-marked 90-degree firing arc of this weapon, before it goes off. If you cannot do so within this 12 second window, keep practicing. You shouldn't need more time than that.
Borticus, the reason players don't want her to cloak is not that we can't avoid the thalaron pulse: it's that it takes longer to kill her.
Sometimes, her behavior is quite strange. I once saw her cloak, run several kilometers away, decloak, and fire her thalaron pulse at no one. Then, she recloaked and again fired her thalaron pulse while targeting no one.
Cloaks alot (not really a problem just frustrating)
Fires Thelaron during charge up sequence. (someone needs to get a video of this)
And the lack of our cloak beating abilities (the ones that stop cloak not pull you out) do not work on donatra due to his fancy Battle Cloak.
Maybe its a bug in the visual? Like a form of video lag. (Things are happening before they visually happen)
Dont get me wrong i like me a challenge. But unstoppable super weapon is not ok.
But i would like the see Donatra get some of the same nifty tricks his D-bag non-borg romulan playerbase.
Cloaked Barrage, Drones, Secondary shields, Singularity Distributor unit.
Real Weapons and a fighting chance.
Cause hate to tell you guys down in Cryptic/PWE your "Boss" fights are not boss fights.
Its fighting some Gimped OverMuscled loser. I have been attacked by players tougher than theses "Boss" characters.
Hive Space and Ground Have a real challenge. Fight insurmountable odds, challenge a heavily muscled, dirty trick using Boss.
Give Donatra more Teeth. Make the Probes use weapons and fight back. DO NOT GIVE THEM EPtE (thats just childish) toss some spare probes in around the Generators to protect it.
Now lets just say they do this, AWESOME. Now do little things with the others.
Stop just giving things a million hull, and super plasma balls. its not fun. its not a challenge. its just frustrating and obnoxious. Just saying.
Not only this if you do it correctly, you can put a real reason to use the rpg trinity you put the ships in to use!
Now tanks will be needed to keep the attention of all those weapons on the boss. Healers to heal those tanks, and the nimble Glass cannons to tear into the boss and scoot out.
You guys have an amazing oppurtunity here. Start with the borg Elite STFS. Please.
ASK FOR INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY
If you did it right, and we could get Real and good drops at the end, and it was a real challenge (not just a bunch of d-ish tricks) it would be the start of some really good and fun End-Game content!:eek:
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I've investigated this claim in the past, and never been able to reproduce it. It's logically impossible, unless she's actually skipping a step in her AI logic chain. Which should never be possible. The exit condition to the "Fire Thalaron" step requires the successful completion of the "Face Target and Decloak" step. If she doesn't do one, she should be incapable of doing the other.
This in fact does happen. As others have said she de-cloaks and begins the Thalaron Charge animation, but immediately fires. The animation continues as if she didn't fire then fires a second time as normal at the end of the animation. I'm not certain if the second pulse is actually firing since I'm either dead because she insta-fired coming out of cloak or I've been lucky enough to not be in her arc at the time. Either way it's a little frustrating when it happens.
A couple days ago I was in KASE and Donatra was warming up her Thalaron attack, and one-shotted me when her attack went off early.
What's worse?
I was out of the Cone of Doom by about half my ship length (and getting further away). In other words, take half the length of the Vo'Quv I was in and that how far outside the cone I was.
So she double-dunked me on that go. :P
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Comments
Me and a team the other night stayed over 5km away and held her with grav wells. We had the escorts just tear her to shreds. She did not once cloak. You have to remember though the Scimitar class is supposed to have the "perfect cloak" according to the movie Nemesis. So it is possible that her cloak could pass through all of our abilities. Before you go off saying well I have a Scimitar as well; "Why can't I do the same." For the sake of balance I'm sure that is why you can't. Also remember that this is a Borg ship. The ship is no longer Romulan/Reman and has been adapted to suit the needs of the Borg. The Borg have acquired many advanced technologies through assimilation. So its possible they may have come across a species that can do what we are dealing with.
She may seem overpowered but she really isn't. The fact that I can take a new level 50 character with no gear and still rip her a new one. Although it is quite enjoyable to use a thalaron blast on her. I use the Scimitar on all of my Romulan characters I have to say the devs did a great job on balancing it. Just stock up on parts to repair damage.
I remember the days when you could use dpb 3 with Tricobalt mines and insta kill her or any gate.
The old "5 km rule" was that she cloaks whenever the player she is currently targeting (usually the one doing the most damage) gets within 5 km of her. But Borticus seems to be saying that the probability only increases when you get closer to her. (I'm not sure whether her behavior was changed or this was always the case.)
Borticus, the reason players don't want her to cloak is not that we can't avoid the thalaron pulse: it's that it takes longer to kill her.
Sometimes, her behavior is quite strange. I once saw her cloak, run several kilometers away, decloak, and fire her thalaron pulse at no one. Then, she recloaked and again fired her thalaron pulse while targeting no one.
Cloaks alot (not really a problem just frustrating)
Fires Thelaron during charge up sequence. (someone needs to get a video of this)
And the lack of our cloak beating abilities (the ones that stop cloak not pull you out) do not work on donatra due to his fancy Battle Cloak.
Maybe its a bug in the visual? Like a form of video lag. (Things are happening before they visually happen)
Dont get me wrong i like me a challenge. But unstoppable super weapon is not ok.
But i would like the see Donatra get some of the same nifty tricks his D-bag non-borg romulan playerbase.
Cloaked Barrage, Drones, Secondary shields, Singularity Distributor unit.
Real Weapons and a fighting chance.
Cause hate to tell you guys down in Cryptic/PWE your "Boss" fights are not boss fights.
Its fighting some Gimped OverMuscled loser. I have been attacked by players tougher than theses "Boss" characters.
Hive Space and Ground Have a real challenge. Fight insurmountable odds, challenge a heavily muscled, dirty trick using Boss.
Give Donatra more Teeth. Make the Probes use weapons and fight back. DO NOT GIVE THEM EPtE (thats just childish) toss some spare probes in around the Generators to protect it.
Now lets just say they do this, AWESOME. Now do little things with the others.
Stop just giving things a million hull, and super plasma balls. its not fun. its not a challenge. its just frustrating and obnoxious. Just saying.
Not only this if you do it correctly, you can put a real reason to use the rpg trinity you put the ships in to use!
Now tanks will be needed to keep the attention of all those weapons on the boss. Healers to heal those tanks, and the nimble Glass cannons to tear into the boss and scoot out.
You guys have an amazing oppurtunity here. Start with the borg Elite STFS. Please.
ASK FOR INPUT FROM THE COMMUNITY
If you did it right, and we could get Real and good drops at the end, and it was a real challenge (not just a bunch of d-ish tricks) it would be the start of some really good and fun End-Game content!:eek:
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
This in fact does happen. As others have said she de-cloaks and begins the Thalaron Charge animation, but immediately fires. The animation continues as if she didn't fire then fires a second time as normal at the end of the animation. I'm not certain if the second pulse is actually firing since I'm either dead because she insta-fired coming out of cloak or I've been lucky enough to not be in her arc at the time. Either way it's a little frustrating when it happens.
What's worse?
I was out of the Cone of Doom by about half my ship length (and getting further away). In other words, take half the length of the Vo'Quv I was in and that how far outside the cone I was.
So she double-dunked me on that go. :P
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.