This is the real heart of the matter. A third of the entire ship selection is extremely underwhelming. And the devs don't even seem to think it's an issue. FOR WAY OVER A YEAR! How can such a fundamental balance problem be completely ignored for this long?
The game only has 3 and a half different classes, and one of them is completely broken. In no other game would this be an acceptable state FOR OVER A YEAR. Sorry for the caps outbursts, but I just can't emphasize enough how ridiculous that is.
The worst part is engineer do not do a whole lot better atm they are doing alright due to ATB (but tac captains do even better with it) there is a reason alot of people call this game tactical captain online/escort online.
Think about what science/engineers have got in the last year and know think about what tactical captains have got such as 5 fore weapon slots and 5 tact consoles and insane defense values with near immunity to holds.
The worst part is engineer do not do a whole lot better atm they are doing alright due to ATB (but tac captains do even better with it) there is a reason alot of people call this game tactical captain online/escort online.
Well at least they tried some things for Engineers. Buffing EPtX, adding Marion and other useful Engineering based Doffs (I like the one that cleanses hazards on EPtX use), better Eng consoles via Dil Mine, Warpcores that increase damage with energy levels.
Taken individually it's small things, but it adds up. I believe that Cryptic is trying to improve things for engineering at least.
The worst part is engineer do not do a whole lot better atm they are doing alright due to ATB (but tac captains do even better with it) there is a reason alot of people call this game tactical captain online/escort online.
Think about what science/engineers have got in the last year and know think about what tactical captains have got such as 5 fore weapon slots and 5 tact consoles and insane defense values with near immunity to holds.
that annoys me this immunity to holds that tacs get away with i dont even bother with danubes on my atrox now cause a single tractor has no effect and gravity well is next to useless
im an engineer and i like cruisers i admit but my science captain rarely gets an outing simply because i feel i am a liability to the team in every part of team content in the game and thats plain wrong .
Science ships are fine some abilities may need buffing.
I didn't really say Science ships themselves are weak, more their abilities. Fact is they don't care and they haven't even really bothered to add many. Since some people insist Fleet ships are *new* which I disagree with I will work from a different angle.
Since the Orb Weaver...the first Science ship to be added with lockboxes since then we have only seen three other Science ships. One of them the Temporal Science ship, then the MME which is a want to be Armitage, and then the Romulan Science vessel.
Go there...scroll down...looks at all of the Cruisers, Escorts, and Carriers! Notice there is only one singular lonely Science amongst all of those other lockbox, lobi, and give away ships.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Science ships are TRIBBLE, therefore; they don't sell. They add mostly escorts and carriers to entice buyers. Three of the ships in the giveaways were science ships precisely because they don't sell.
Cryptic can spur the market for science ships by improving them. I suggest giving them all a special console slot. This slot can only utilize universal consoles with an active power. There are now tons of universal consoles that apply science-like effects; it seems fitting that science ships can utilize more of them. And lets face it, the majority of universal consoles that are in demand are passive, so this change will also have the side-effect of spurring the market for clickable universal consoles. Win-win, yes?
Their are not enough totally unique science ships.
Any of the Vesta ships are basically the same ship. Fleet ships are basically the same as their non fleet versions just a little upgrade. Mirror Universe ships have slightly different console and bridge officer layout.
Their needs to be more totally unique science ships. Different looking from others. Different Bridge Officer layout. Different stats. A unique universal console or weapon. Most importantly Science abilities need a buff.
Their are not enough totally unique science ships.
Any of the Vesta ships are basically the same ship. Fleet ships are basically the same as their non fleet versions just a little upgrade. Mirror Universe ships have slightly different console and bridge officer layout.
Their needs to be more totally unique science ships. Different looking from others. Different Bridge Officer layout. Different stats. A unique universal console or weapon. Most importantly Science abilities need a buff.
There are plenty of unique Sci vessels.
The Wells had oodles of possibilities due to it's Universal BO slots. (Unique BO config)
The Vesta can go anywhere from DPS monster to healGod in the blink of a eye (and a gear switch). (Unique BO configs, weapons, and hanger)
The Nebula makes an awesome snooper and cloak denial ship. (Unique playstyle and console)
The Intrepid is the perfect CC ship. (Unique console and playstyle)
The (fleet) RSV combines potent DPS with Sci potential.
But yes, I totally agree. Sci BOff abilities are trash and need reworked. And this is coming from a guy who has been playing almost exclusively as a Sci since Open Beta. Our ships are fine. Our abilities most definitely are not.
Science ships are TRIBBLE, therefore; they don't sell. They add mostly escorts and carriers to entice buyers. Three of the ships in the giveaways were science ships precisely because they don't sell.
Cryptic can spur the market for science ships by improving them. I suggest giving them all a special console slot. This slot can only utilize universal consoles with an active power. There are now tons of universal consoles that apply science-like effects; it seems fitting that science ships can utilize more of them. And lets face it, the majority of universal consoles that are in demand are passive, so this change will also have the side-effect of spurring the market for clickable universal consoles. Win-win, yes?
A better idea would be to make the science boff skills actually work rather than being pretty visuals that don't actually DO anything, if science ships weren't gimped by their own boff skills they would be more useful and would thus sell more.
A better idea would be to make the science boff skills actually work rather than being pretty visuals that don't actually DO anything, if science ships weren't gimped by their own boff skills they would be more useful and would thus sell more.
Lets say Cryptic buffs Tachyon Beam so thats its super effective. How would that buff science ships? Science boff abilities are not unique to science ships.
Lets say Cryptic buffs Tachyon Beam so thats its super effective. How would that buff science ships? Science boff abilities are not unique to science ships.
Because the vast majority of escorts and cruisers would be forced to give up something potentially more usefull to them where science ships wouldn't and what's more is that science ships can use more consoles for it than any other ship type further increasing it's performance.
Lets say Cryptic buffs Tachyon Beam so thats its super effective. How would that buff science ships? Science boff abilities are not unique to science ships.
Because:
- Science ships have the high Aux needed to make Sci abilities shine
- Sci ships have the BO slots available. Escorts or Cruisers would have to give up something (HE/TSS/Tractor Beam).
- Sci ships have access to the high level BO slots.
- Sci ships have the necessary console slots.
What exactly do you think is wrong with Science ships? DPS? Survivability? Utility?
All high-level Science abilities need some definite work done, to be more competitive with the high-level Engineering and Tactical abilities. Most Escorts or Cruisers don't have access to a Lt Cmdr Science slot.
The healing abilities for Science ships are pretty decent, but it's offensive potential leaves much to be desired.
Tachyon Beam/Charged Particle Burst: Shield damage should be percentage based, or significantly increased damage value.
Tyken's Rift/Energy Siphon: Potent power draining combo. Might be better off sharing cooldown, and forcing the player to use either an AoE power drain (Tyken) or a single target power drain (Energy Siphon). Balance draining ability accordingly.
Tractor Beam/Tractor Beam Repulsors: Needs to be potent enough where the players Auxillary power level counteracts the targets Engine power level (and vice versa). Rank 3 should be slightly superior to Emergency Power to Engines 3. (but not necessarily if you include battery boost)
Gravity Well/Photonic Shockwave: Both should do significant damage to targets, with Gravity Well being a damage-over-time (due to drawing the enemy into the well), while Photonic Shockwave should be an instant damage ability. Overall effect should be the same (temporarily disables/hinders enemy target movement, and damages target(s))
Because the vast majority of escorts and cruisers would be forced to give up something potentially more usefull to them where science ships wouldn't and what's more is that science ships can use more consoles for it than any other ship type further increasing it's performance.
If they were forced to give up something potentially more useful, then it wasn't a large enough buff to begin with. Thus, we'd be right back here with complaints about how underpowered sci skills are.
As for sci ships having more consoles for it... it sounds reasonable, considering there are tons of tac vessels with 5 tac consoles. But the reality is that the amount of sci ships with 5 sci consoles can easily be counted on one hand(three fingers to be exact). The vast majority of them have 4 slots, and any tac or engi ship can have 4 sci console slots. A certain tac warbird even comes with 5 sci console slots.
Tachyon Beam/Charged Particle Burst: Shield damage should be percentage based, or significantly increased damage value.
While percentage based is the fairest way it is also less realistic and I think a simple buff to the damage figure is in order.
Tyken's Rift/Energy Siphon: Potent power draining combo. Might be better off sharing cooldown, and forcing the player to use either an AoE power drain (Tyken) or a single target power drain (Energy Siphon). Balance draining ability accordingly.
These don't share a cooldown because they are different systems and should stay that way but should get significant buffs to the abilities and to the skills that buff them while seeing an adjustment to insulators to make them give the same benefit as flow caps
Tractor Beam/Tractor Beam Repulsors: Needs to be potent enough where the players Auxillary power level counteracts the targets Engine power level (and vice versa). Rank 3 should be slightly superior to Emergency Power to Engines 3. (but not necessarily if you include battery boost)
At the moment I would argue that tractor beam is fine, it is one of the few player holds that DOES currently work.
Gravity Well/Photonic Shockwave: Both should do significant damage to targets, with Gravity Well being a damage-over-time (due to drawing the enemy into the well), while Photonic Shockwave should be an instant damage ability. Overall effect should be the same (temporarily disables/hinders enemy target movement, and damages target(s))
Damage isn't the primary purpose of these skills, I would say increase the potency of their main uses (the hold for grav well and the disable for shockwave) and then give a minor buff to the damage through the captain skill table.
In no properly balanced game does resistance outweigh speccing into a skill, it should be that if one specs 6 points into energy syphon and fires it at a player who has specced 6 into insulators then the skill should drain it's base figure from the target as the 6 flow caps points are negated.
If they were forced to give up something potentially more useful, then it wasn't a large enough buff to begin with.
When you use the rest of the quote that reads "more useful to them" then it may be enough of a buff to make the science ship worth having as it would be worth more to a science ship to slot tachyon beam over say scramble sensors while the escort or cruiser would find a heal more useful to them than the tachyon beam. In other words, the superbuffed tachyon beam would be a heaven-send for the science ship but the other ships would see more benefit from an extra heal due to factors including the limited supply of science skill slots so they have to be picky about what they do slot whereas the science ship doesn't have that issue and can freely slot a given skill if it fits their purposes.
Damage isn't the primary purpose of these skills, I would say increase the potency of their main uses (the hold for grav well and the disable for shockwave) and then give a minor buff to the damage through the captain skill table.
I'd argue, that Gravity Well and Photonic Shockwave's main purposes are for damage ability.
A Gravity Well has been shown in Trek to be quite a potent damaging phenomenon. If you are caught too close to one, your ship could literally be torn to shreds. Not unlike another phenomenon, called a Black Hole. Gravity Well should be buffed both in damage, and in hold strength. Remaining in a Gravity Well's sphere of influence should not be a non-issue. The ISS Stadi in the Mirror Incursion, has her own Gravity Well ability which does significantly more damage than the player version.
Photonic Shockwave was used in Trek during the Battle of Vorkado, to disable multiple attacking ships. As such, I suppose your argument could be intrepreted that the current ingame version is "working as intended". In any case, the current shockwave could certainly use a bit more oomph.
When you use the rest of the quote that reads "more useful to them" then it may be enough of a buff to make the science ship worth having as it would be worth more to a science ship to slot tachyon beam over say scramble sensors while the escort or cruiser would find a heal more useful to them than the tachyon beam. In other words, the superbuffed tachyon beam would be a heaven-send for the science ship but the other ships would see more benefit from an extra heal due to factors including the limited supply of science skill slots so they have to be picky about what they do slot whereas the science ship doesn't have that issue and can freely slot a given skill if it fits their purposes.
Sounds good, but reality doesn't play that way. Why would I slot more than 1 hazard emitter when the GCD affects the second copy? Whats better: a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac, or a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci?
All of the top ships in both PvE and PvP have certain commonalities.
1.) No more than 2 tac boff slots, no more than 2 engi boff slots, and no more than 1 sci boff slot.
2.) Highest number of consoles should be tac, followed by engi, and then sci.
3.) The ship should give a higher bonus to weapons power. You can reach the hard cap of 125 with other power systems by customizing your power levels. Weapons power, on the other hand, only has a soft cap.
Tac and engi vessels that don't fit the above mold would be buffed just as much as sci vessels because those are the ships with a slant towards sci. So not only will these ships be able to use super tachyon beams without giving up anything, but they would still retain their larger weapon loudouts and/or the ability to use DHCs. Hence, we'd be right back here complaining about how underpowered sci vessels are.
If you are worried that buffing sci abilities would buff other ships too much too, there is a solution to that:
- Make science abilities scale much much harder with Aux power and skill points.
What's the difference between a GW with no points spent at all at 50 Aux and a GW with 90 points in both skills and 125 Aux? 500 DPS instead of 150 DPS and still no visible effect on the holding part? THAT is the part that can be significantly tuned that would specifically help out science ships.
Skilling into Sci abilities would be worth it again and the need for high Aux to really make the most out of them would also favor pure science ships. Also high number of science console slots could actually make up for lack of tac or eng slots if the scaling is hard enough.
But really there needs to be significant scaling. 100 points in particle generators boosts GW damage by 25%.
For giving up 100 skill points or 3 console slots. This right there is where the system is completely broken. This stuff should be in the ballpark of a 200 or 300% boost.
I only have one suggestion for science. Make it more critical. Meaning mission design and NPC behavior that requires a science ship for a couple of the STFs etc. One area they do fall short in is abilities. Science abilities should be adapted for the newer STFs. Infected for instance has spheres that go all over same thing for the annoying raptors in the Cure. And Donatra in KASE consantly cloaking. How about an ability for a few seconds to prevent the cloak etc. Also you have tractor beam repulsors. Nice for pushing stuff away. But why do tractor beam repulsors get multiple beam and Tractor beams only get one. Why not a tractor beam that does three beams but is not as effective as a single beam. Meaning you can have three beams on three ship at the same time. But it only slows them to 1/3 of a normal tractor beam. Seems like something like that would be pretty effective while trying to kill three raptors in the Cure. And slowing multiple spheres in infected etc.
Also get rid of the annoying Tycons rift that IMO constantly brings in Mirror universe ships way to much. Cool but I have stopped using that ability completely when they started this silly Mirror universe thing.
Fix the rift!
Maybe give the science ships the ability to use more heals as well. There are lots of ways to do it. They jsut need to make the science roll more vital.
Sounds good, but reality doesn't play that way. Why would I slot more than 1 hazard emitter when the GCD affects the second copy? Whats better: a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac, or a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci?
That depends upon what you want to do with your ship, if you want to tank you would want less tactical slots and more eng while maintaining 4 science slots, if you want to CC then you need more sci than and more tac slots than eng while if you want to deal conventional damage you want more tac and eng than sci while unconventional damage wants less tac and more eng and sci so ultimately the best boff setup depends upon play style.
All of the top ships in both PvE and PvP have certain commonalities.
1.) No more than 2 tac boff slots, no more than 2 engi boff slots, and no more than 1 sci boff slot.
2.) Highest number of consoles should be tac, followed by engi, and then sci.
3.) The ship should give a higher bonus to weapons power. You can reach the hard cap of 125 with other power systems by customizing your power levels. Weapons power, on the other hand, only has a soft cap.
Ultimately you have just depicted an fleet patrol escort but the optimal ship is beside the point of this thread.
Tac and engi vessels that don't fit the above mold would be buffed just as much as sci vessels because those are the ships with a slant towards sci. So not only will these ships be able to use super tachyon beams without giving up anything, but they would still retain their larger weapon loudouts and/or the ability to use DHCs. Hence, we'd be right back here complaining about how underpowered sci vessels are.
The thing is we aren't talking about the ships themselves, we're talking about the skills used BY the ships, if the abilities were buffed such that they were capable of working as advertised then the ships wouldn't need a buff though I wouldn't refuse a small hull increase for lower hull fleet science ships but I can live without. The problem here is that CC builds are useless because basic holds like gravity well are too weak to hold anything, I have grav well 3 on my PvE sci build with 6 skill points in gravity generators, a Mk XII Deflector that buffs gravity gens and a Mk XII embassy gravity gen console and with 125 aux power STILL can't stop things without backing it up with a photo shockwave to stop the things moving in the first place.
That to me screams underpowered, if gravity well could hold something by itself with stupid amounts of self buffing then I would have 3 options to keep things where I want them rather than only two because I have to give one up to make another work at all.
Also get rid of the annoying Tykens rift that IMO constantly brings in Mirror universe ships way to much. Cool but I have stopped using that ability completely when they started this silly Mirror universe thing.
Fix the rift!
Firstly I corrected your terminology, secondly that isn't Tykens rift, it also isn't a player skill, it's Tholians only (at the moment) but rift does need a balance pass it is currently laughable.
How about boosting the subsytem targeting abilities by giving sci captains passive abilities from accolades, a universal console that boosts them, and DOFF's that can be stacked like the technician that has a chance to lower the cooldown across the board if any subsytem targeting is used. This way even though weapon power wont be maxed so far fewer DPS you increase the chance and duration of taking a system out and possibly able to take out 2 or more systems. Console could have a chance that there is no way to remove the debuff except wait it out ontop of increasing the chance the system will drop.
That would be 1 improvement that would help sci captains using sci ships that tac or engi wont have without the passive. Then the rest is the abilities anyone can have needs to be made more effective.
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It has gotten to the point where Cruisers can do as much dps if not surpass at times as a Escort...where is my Science DPS?
I mean this game is centered around damage...Cruisers can do great damage and we know Escorts can. So why can't my Science ship and abilities do much damage?
Science ships have the least weapons of any ship and some of the weakest offensive abilities in the game with debuffing that doesn't come close to making up for it in most cases.
It's about time Sci abilities do Exotic damage again since the game doesn't clearly care about roles and just worries about damage.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
That depends upon what you want to do with your ship, if you want to tank you would want less tactical slots and more eng while maintaining 4 science slots, if you want to CC then you need more sci than and more tac slots than eng while if you want to deal conventional damage you want more tac and eng than sci while unconventional damage wants less tac and more eng and sci so ultimately the best boff setup depends upon play style.
Ultimately you have just depicted an fleet patrol escort but the optimal ship is beside the point of this thread.
The thing is we aren't talking about the ships themselves, we're talking about the skills used BY the ships, if the abilities were buffed such that they were capable of working as advertised then the ships wouldn't need a buff though I wouldn't refuse a small hull increase for lower hull fleet science ships but I can live without. The problem here is that CC builds are useless because basic holds like gravity well are too weak to hold anything, I have grav well 3 on my PvE sci build with 6 skill points in gravity generators, a Mk XII Deflector that buffs gravity gens and a Mk XII embassy gravity gen console and with 125 aux power STILL can't stop things without backing it up with a photo shockwave to stop the things moving in the first place.
That to me screams underpowered, if gravity well could hold something by itself with stupid amounts of self buffing then I would have 3 options to keep things where I want them rather than only two because I have to give one up to make another work at all.
It doesn't matter whether someone wants to tank, dps, or CC. I already mentioned this, but the GCD heavily restricts the optimal amount of boff slots. A ship with 3 tac boffs isn't better at DPS than a ship with 2 tac boffs, a ship with 3 engi boffs isn't going to survive better than a ship with 2 engi boffs, and a ship with 3 sci boffs isn't going to control better than a ship with 2 sci boffs.
I also depicted the bug ship, the JHEC, the JHDC, the Jem Dread, the Scimitar, the Risian Corvette, the Chel Grett, the Fleet Assault Cruiser, the Fleet Mogai, the recon Vesta, the Charol/Khyzon Andorian Escort, the Fleet Ha'Feh, the Bortasqu, the Fleet Tor'khat, the Fleet Somraw, the Fleet T'Varo, and a bunch of other top tier ships I'm probably forgetting. They can all survive and they can all DPS. They can't control very well due to 1 sci boff slot, but that doesn't matter because you don't control for the sake of control - you control to increase your survivability or DPS.
This thread is about science ships, not science boff abilities. Buffing science boffs is one thing, buffing science ships is another. You buff science skills because they're underpowered, not because science ships are underpowered. And as I keep repeating, science skills are not mutually exclusive to science ships.
This thread is about science ships, not science boff abilities. Buffing science boffs is one thing, buffing science ships is another. You buff science skills because they're underpowered, not because science ships are underpowered. And as I keep repeating, science skills are not mutually exclusive to science ships.
Actually its about both...I've talked about the lack of new Science ships added and the neglect of Science abilities.
More Science ships would be nice but right now the fact is Science abilities pretty much suck in most cases. They don't have the damage to add up to anything significant in a game that is based around DPS nor do the debuffs have the effect to make up for the lack.
Sure the name of the thread is Science ships but the lack of power on Science abilities only affects Science ships. Like for a example like the Advanced Escort with a Lt Cmdr Sci...they don't really care because they can very well use HE, TSS, and TB and not really have to touch any of the control abilities that are ineffective.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
It has gotten to the point where Cruisers can do as much dps if not surpass at times as a Escort...where is my Science DPS?
I mean this game is centered around damage...Cruisers can do great damage and we know Escorts can. So why can't my Science ship and abilities do much damage?
Science ships have the least weapons of any ship and some of the weakest offensive abilities in the game with debuffing that doesn't come close to making up for it in most cases.
It's about time Sci abilities do Exotic damage again since the game doesn't clearly care about roles and just worries about damage.
If set up primarily for damage output and compared with weaker escorts, then yes. Don't count out science DPS either. Fully specced and equipped Grav well can be just as devastating as a cannon salvo - especially when said sci ship has transphasic torpedoes.
Only a select group of cruisers are effective at dealing damage on par with escorts (Fleet Excelsior and Fleet Sovereign). The rest are for other purposes such as healing and tanking. As for science ship damage output, I suggest you grab a Vesta or Fleet Nova and try it out.
Science ships make up for their low weapons slots with other abilities such as Subsys targeting, sensor analysis stacking bonus, etc. These can affect how a sci ship performs.
Take for example, my Science character's Fleet Nova. LtC tac slot, and 3 tac consoles. By cursory examination it doesn't look too powerful for its size. However, once I bring the ship into battle, Sensor Scan + Subsys target engines + EPtA + Gravwell 3 + Tractor beam + Tacteam + Beam overload + Attack pattern omega + 3 Transphasic consoles + Breen cluster torpedo + Theta radiation vent + Isometric charge... I'm killing ships far faster than my Tactical captain's Fleet Prometheus. How? Using a synergy of abilities, spec, and weapons.
I'm not kidding. Try it out, and spec for graviton and particle generators, projectile weapons, and aux power in addition to the abilities I mentioned above.
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If set up primarily for damage output and compared with weaker escorts, then yes. Don't count out science DPS either. Fully specced and equipped Grav well can be just as devastating as a cannon salvo - especially when said sci ship has transphasic torpedoes.
Only a select group of cruisers are effective at dealing damage on par with escorts (Fleet Excelsior and Fleet Sovereign). The rest are for other purposes such as healing and tanking. As for science ship damage output, I suggest you grab a Vesta or Fleet Nova and try it out.
Science ships make up for their low weapons slots with other abilities such as Subsys targeting, sensor analysis stacking bonus, etc. These can affect how a sci ship performs.
Take for example, my Science character's Fleet Nova. LtC tac slot, and 3 tac consoles. By cursory examination it doesn't look too powerful for its size. However, once I bring the ship into battle, Sensor Scan + Subsys target engines + EPtA + Gravwell 3 + Tractor beam + Tacteam + Beam overload + Attack pattern omega + 3 Transphasic consoles + Breen cluster torpedo + Theta radiation vent + Isometric charge... I'm killing ships far faster than my Tactical captain's Fleet Prometheus. How? Using a synergy of abilities, spec, and weapons.
I'm not kidding. Try it out, and spec for graviton and particle generators, projectile weapons, and aux power in addition to the abilities I mentioned above.
Yeah but look at all of those abilities you need...a good Escort could probably kill stuff with CRF or CSV and you could put every single thing of that on a Escort except GW3 and you would be more effective.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
It doesn't matter whether someone wants to tank, dps, or CC. I already mentioned this, but the GCD heavily restricts the optimal amount of boff slots. A ship with 3 tac boffs isn't better at DPS than a ship with 2 tac boffs, a ship with 3 engi boffs isn't going to survive better than a ship with 2 engi boffs, and a ship with 3 sci boffs isn't going to control better than a ship with 2 sci boffs.
You're assuming everyone has the necessary purple doffs to lower any skills they'd use to GCD. But nevertheless.....
All boff slots used with no GCD overlap. And before anyone asks about the BO2, I've seen MANY Escorts in STFs with 1 DBB using BO2 to bust through a shield arc before hitting CRF to keep it down and THY/TS to take a chunk out of the hull.
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I cannot emphasize how ridiculous this thread is. my god.
The worst part is engineer do not do a whole lot better atm they are doing alright due to ATB (but tac captains do even better with it) there is a reason alot of people call this game tactical captain online/escort online.
Think about what science/engineers have got in the last year and know think about what tactical captains have got such as 5 fore weapon slots and 5 tact consoles and insane defense values with near immunity to holds.
Well at least they tried some things for Engineers. Buffing EPtX, adding Marion and other useful Engineering based Doffs (I like the one that cleanses hazards on EPtX use), better Eng consoles via Dil Mine, Warpcores that increase damage with energy levels.
Taken individually it's small things, but it adds up. I believe that Cryptic is trying to improve things for engineering at least.
But for science I cannot see any such efforts.
that annoys me this immunity to holds that tacs get away with i dont even bother with danubes on my atrox now cause a single tractor has no effect and gravity well is next to useless
im an engineer and i like cruisers i admit but my science captain rarely gets an outing simply because i feel i am a liability to the team in every part of team content in the game and thats plain wrong .
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I didn't really say Science ships themselves are weak, more their abilities. Fact is they don't care and they haven't even really bothered to add many. Since some people insist Fleet ships are *new* which I disagree with I will work from a different angle.
Since the Orb Weaver...the first Science ship to be added with lockboxes since then we have only seen three other Science ships. One of them the Temporal Science ship, then the MME which is a want to be Armitage, and then the Romulan Science vessel.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Playable_starship
Go there...scroll down...looks at all of the Cruisers, Escorts, and Carriers! Notice there is only one singular lonely Science amongst all of those other lockbox, lobi, and give away ships.
Cryptic can spur the market for science ships by improving them. I suggest giving them all a special console slot. This slot can only utilize universal consoles with an active power. There are now tons of universal consoles that apply science-like effects; it seems fitting that science ships can utilize more of them. And lets face it, the majority of universal consoles that are in demand are passive, so this change will also have the side-effect of spurring the market for clickable universal consoles. Win-win, yes?
Any of the Vesta ships are basically the same ship. Fleet ships are basically the same as their non fleet versions just a little upgrade. Mirror Universe ships have slightly different console and bridge officer layout.
Their needs to be more totally unique science ships. Different looking from others. Different Bridge Officer layout. Different stats. A unique universal console or weapon. Most importantly Science abilities need a buff.
There are plenty of unique Sci vessels.
The Wells had oodles of possibilities due to it's Universal BO slots. (Unique BO config)
The Vesta can go anywhere from DPS monster to healGod in the blink of a eye (and a gear switch). (Unique BO configs, weapons, and hanger)
The Nebula makes an awesome snooper and cloak denial ship. (Unique playstyle and console)
The Intrepid is the perfect CC ship. (Unique console and playstyle)
The (fleet) RSV combines potent DPS with Sci potential.
But yes, I totally agree. Sci BOff abilities are trash and need reworked. And this is coming from a guy who has been playing almost exclusively as a Sci since Open Beta. Our ships are fine. Our abilities most definitely are not.
A better idea would be to make the science boff skills actually work rather than being pretty visuals that don't actually DO anything, if science ships weren't gimped by their own boff skills they would be more useful and would thus sell more.
Lets say Cryptic buffs Tachyon Beam so thats its super effective. How would that buff science ships? Science boff abilities are not unique to science ships.
Because the vast majority of escorts and cruisers would be forced to give up something potentially more usefull to them where science ships wouldn't and what's more is that science ships can use more consoles for it than any other ship type further increasing it's performance.
Because:
- Science ships have the high Aux needed to make Sci abilities shine
- Sci ships have the BO slots available. Escorts or Cruisers would have to give up something (HE/TSS/Tractor Beam).
- Sci ships have access to the high level BO slots.
- Sci ships have the necessary console slots.
What exactly do you think is wrong with Science ships? DPS? Survivability? Utility?
The healing abilities for Science ships are pretty decent, but it's offensive potential leaves much to be desired.
Tachyon Beam/Charged Particle Burst: Shield damage should be percentage based, or significantly increased damage value.
Tyken's Rift/Energy Siphon: Potent power draining combo. Might be better off sharing cooldown, and forcing the player to use either an AoE power drain (Tyken) or a single target power drain (Energy Siphon). Balance draining ability accordingly.
Tractor Beam/Tractor Beam Repulsors: Needs to be potent enough where the players Auxillary power level counteracts the targets Engine power level (and vice versa). Rank 3 should be slightly superior to Emergency Power to Engines 3. (but not necessarily if you include battery boost)
Gravity Well/Photonic Shockwave: Both should do significant damage to targets, with Gravity Well being a damage-over-time (due to drawing the enemy into the well), while Photonic Shockwave should be an instant damage ability. Overall effect should be the same (temporarily disables/hinders enemy target movement, and damages target(s))
If they were forced to give up something potentially more useful, then it wasn't a large enough buff to begin with. Thus, we'd be right back here with complaints about how underpowered sci skills are.
As for sci ships having more consoles for it... it sounds reasonable, considering there are tons of tac vessels with 5 tac consoles. But the reality is that the amount of sci ships with 5 sci consoles can easily be counted on one hand(three fingers to be exact). The vast majority of them have 4 slots, and any tac or engi ship can have 4 sci console slots. A certain tac warbird even comes with 5 sci console slots.
While percentage based is the fairest way it is also less realistic and I think a simple buff to the damage figure is in order.
These don't share a cooldown because they are different systems and should stay that way but should get significant buffs to the abilities and to the skills that buff them while seeing an adjustment to insulators to make them give the same benefit as flow caps
At the moment I would argue that tractor beam is fine, it is one of the few player holds that DOES currently work.
Damage isn't the primary purpose of these skills, I would say increase the potency of their main uses (the hold for grav well and the disable for shockwave) and then give a minor buff to the damage through the captain skill table.
In no properly balanced game does resistance outweigh speccing into a skill, it should be that if one specs 6 points into energy syphon and fires it at a player who has specced 6 into insulators then the skill should drain it's base figure from the target as the 6 flow caps points are negated.
When you use the rest of the quote that reads "more useful to them" then it may be enough of a buff to make the science ship worth having as it would be worth more to a science ship to slot tachyon beam over say scramble sensors while the escort or cruiser would find a heal more useful to them than the tachyon beam. In other words, the superbuffed tachyon beam would be a heaven-send for the science ship but the other ships would see more benefit from an extra heal due to factors including the limited supply of science skill slots so they have to be picky about what they do slot whereas the science ship doesn't have that issue and can freely slot a given skill if it fits their purposes.
I'd argue, that Gravity Well and Photonic Shockwave's main purposes are for damage ability.
A Gravity Well has been shown in Trek to be quite a potent damaging phenomenon. If you are caught too close to one, your ship could literally be torn to shreds. Not unlike another phenomenon, called a Black Hole. Gravity Well should be buffed both in damage, and in hold strength. Remaining in a Gravity Well's sphere of influence should not be a non-issue. The ISS Stadi in the Mirror Incursion, has her own Gravity Well ability which does significantly more damage than the player version.
Photonic Shockwave was used in Trek during the Battle of Vorkado, to disable multiple attacking ships. As such, I suppose your argument could be intrepreted that the current ingame version is "working as intended". In any case, the current shockwave could certainly use a bit more oomph.
Sounds good, but reality doesn't play that way. Why would I slot more than 1 hazard emitter when the GCD affects the second copy? Whats better: a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac, or a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as tac? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as engi? What about a ship that uses 3 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci vs. a ship that uses 2 out of 5 of its boff slots as sci?
All of the top ships in both PvE and PvP have certain commonalities.
1.) No more than 2 tac boff slots, no more than 2 engi boff slots, and no more than 1 sci boff slot.
2.) Highest number of consoles should be tac, followed by engi, and then sci.
3.) The ship should give a higher bonus to weapons power. You can reach the hard cap of 125 with other power systems by customizing your power levels. Weapons power, on the other hand, only has a soft cap.
Tac and engi vessels that don't fit the above mold would be buffed just as much as sci vessels because those are the ships with a slant towards sci. So not only will these ships be able to use super tachyon beams without giving up anything, but they would still retain their larger weapon loudouts and/or the ability to use DHCs. Hence, we'd be right back here complaining about how underpowered sci vessels are.
- Make science abilities scale much much harder with Aux power and skill points.
What's the difference between a GW with no points spent at all at 50 Aux and a GW with 90 points in both skills and 125 Aux? 500 DPS instead of 150 DPS and still no visible effect on the holding part? THAT is the part that can be significantly tuned that would specifically help out science ships.
Skilling into Sci abilities would be worth it again and the need for high Aux to really make the most out of them would also favor pure science ships. Also high number of science console slots could actually make up for lack of tac or eng slots if the scaling is hard enough.
But really there needs to be significant scaling. 100 points in particle generators boosts GW damage by 25%.
Source: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
25% !!!
For giving up 100 skill points or 3 console slots. This right there is where the system is completely broken. This stuff should be in the ballpark of a 200 or 300% boost.
Also get rid of the annoying Tycons rift that IMO constantly brings in Mirror universe ships way to much. Cool but I have stopped using that ability completely when they started this silly Mirror universe thing.
Fix the rift!
Maybe give the science ships the ability to use more heals as well. There are lots of ways to do it. They jsut need to make the science roll more vital.
That depends upon what you want to do with your ship, if you want to tank you would want less tactical slots and more eng while maintaining 4 science slots, if you want to CC then you need more sci than and more tac slots than eng while if you want to deal conventional damage you want more tac and eng than sci while unconventional damage wants less tac and more eng and sci so ultimately the best boff setup depends upon play style.
Ultimately you have just depicted an fleet patrol escort but the optimal ship is beside the point of this thread.
The thing is we aren't talking about the ships themselves, we're talking about the skills used BY the ships, if the abilities were buffed such that they were capable of working as advertised then the ships wouldn't need a buff though I wouldn't refuse a small hull increase for lower hull fleet science ships but I can live without. The problem here is that CC builds are useless because basic holds like gravity well are too weak to hold anything, I have grav well 3 on my PvE sci build with 6 skill points in gravity generators, a Mk XII Deflector that buffs gravity gens and a Mk XII embassy gravity gen console and with 125 aux power STILL can't stop things without backing it up with a photo shockwave to stop the things moving in the first place.
That to me screams underpowered, if gravity well could hold something by itself with stupid amounts of self buffing then I would have 3 options to keep things where I want them rather than only two because I have to give one up to make another work at all.
Firstly I corrected your terminology, secondly that isn't Tykens rift, it also isn't a player skill, it's Tholians only (at the moment) but rift does need a balance pass it is currently laughable.
That would be 1 improvement that would help sci captains using sci ships that tac or engi wont have without the passive. Then the rest is the abilities anyone can have needs to be made more effective.
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I mean this game is centered around damage...Cruisers can do great damage and we know Escorts can. So why can't my Science ship and abilities do much damage?
Science ships have the least weapons of any ship and some of the weakest offensive abilities in the game with debuffing that doesn't come close to making up for it in most cases.
It's about time Sci abilities do Exotic damage again since the game doesn't clearly care about roles and just worries about damage.
It doesn't matter whether someone wants to tank, dps, or CC. I already mentioned this, but the GCD heavily restricts the optimal amount of boff slots. A ship with 3 tac boffs isn't better at DPS than a ship with 2 tac boffs, a ship with 3 engi boffs isn't going to survive better than a ship with 2 engi boffs, and a ship with 3 sci boffs isn't going to control better than a ship with 2 sci boffs.
I also depicted the bug ship, the JHEC, the JHDC, the Jem Dread, the Scimitar, the Risian Corvette, the Chel Grett, the Fleet Assault Cruiser, the Fleet Mogai, the recon Vesta, the Charol/Khyzon Andorian Escort, the Fleet Ha'Feh, the Bortasqu, the Fleet Tor'khat, the Fleet Somraw, the Fleet T'Varo, and a bunch of other top tier ships I'm probably forgetting. They can all survive and they can all DPS. They can't control very well due to 1 sci boff slot, but that doesn't matter because you don't control for the sake of control - you control to increase your survivability or DPS.
This thread is about science ships, not science boff abilities. Buffing science boffs is one thing, buffing science ships is another. You buff science skills because they're underpowered, not because science ships are underpowered. And as I keep repeating, science skills are not mutually exclusive to science ships.
Actually its about both...I've talked about the lack of new Science ships added and the neglect of Science abilities.
More Science ships would be nice but right now the fact is Science abilities pretty much suck in most cases. They don't have the damage to add up to anything significant in a game that is based around DPS nor do the debuffs have the effect to make up for the lack.
Sure the name of the thread is Science ships but the lack of power on Science abilities only affects Science ships. Like for a example like the Advanced Escort with a Lt Cmdr Sci...they don't really care because they can very well use HE, TSS, and TB and not really have to touch any of the control abilities that are ineffective.
If set up primarily for damage output and compared with weaker escorts, then yes. Don't count out science DPS either. Fully specced and equipped Grav well can be just as devastating as a cannon salvo - especially when said sci ship has transphasic torpedoes.
Only a select group of cruisers are effective at dealing damage on par with escorts (Fleet Excelsior and Fleet Sovereign). The rest are for other purposes such as healing and tanking. As for science ship damage output, I suggest you grab a Vesta or Fleet Nova and try it out.
Science ships make up for their low weapons slots with other abilities such as Subsys targeting, sensor analysis stacking bonus, etc. These can affect how a sci ship performs.
Take for example, my Science character's Fleet Nova. LtC tac slot, and 3 tac consoles. By cursory examination it doesn't look too powerful for its size. However, once I bring the ship into battle, Sensor Scan + Subsys target engines + EPtA + Gravwell 3 + Tractor beam + Tacteam + Beam overload + Attack pattern omega + 3 Transphasic consoles + Breen cluster torpedo + Theta radiation vent + Isometric charge... I'm killing ships far faster than my Tactical captain's Fleet Prometheus. How? Using a synergy of abilities, spec, and weapons.
I'm not kidding. Try it out, and spec for graviton and particle generators, projectile weapons, and aux power in addition to the abilities I mentioned above.
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Yeah but look at all of those abilities you need...a good Escort could probably kill stuff with CRF or CSV and you could put every single thing of that on a Escort except GW3 and you would be more effective.
You're assuming everyone has the necessary purple doffs to lower any skills they'd use to GCD. But nevertheless.....
It's easy to avoid GCD for a Tac heavy ship
Cmdr: TT1, TS2, APO1, CRF3
Lt.Cmdr: TT1, APB1, CSV2
Lt: THY1, BO2
All boff slots used with no GCD overlap. And before anyone asks about the BO2, I've seen MANY Escorts in STFs with 1 DBB using BO2 to bust through a shield arc before hitting CRF to keep it down and THY/TS to take a chunk out of the hull.
Eng heavy ship
Cmdr: ET1, EPTS2, RSP2, A2S3
Lt.Cmdr: EPTS1, RSP1, EWP1
Lt. ET1, A2S1
Tank build, there are others that don't have GCD overlap.
Sci heavy ship
Cmdr: PH1, TSS2, HE3, SS3
Lt.Cmdr: TB1, ST2, TSS3
Lt: PH1, HE2
There are many other Sci builds that don't have GCD overlap, but most are pointless because of how craptacular a lot of Sci abilities are.