I wasn't trying to help scis persay. I was merely offering a suggestion as to what would fix all this complaining about how tac BOff and tac captain powers are buffing sci damage, when ideally the two should be very VERY separate. I mean in all honesty, an attack pattern should not affect an artificial singularity. Just like an attack pattern shouldn't affect a subspace rift, and so on and so forth.
In all honesty, I am in the camp that says tac powers should affect weapons only, and not exotic damage, and exotic damage should be completely separated from all other sources of damage. But seeing as this won't happen, the only recourse is simply to facepalm at the fact that this is the case, and then abuse it to it's fullest (in all honesty, there is nothing more amusing than hitting something with a GW3 backed by 5 mk XII purple prtg with 99 in prtg skill, the full reman set, and an apa3 and tf2. the tics hit somewhere around 6-7k, and when the aftershocks appear... it's just gravy at that point).
Yes, exactly. The problem is that something like this amount of damage (or perhaps somewhat less, but approaching it) should be possible for a Sci/Sci heavily invested and specced in a specific "neat Sci trick", but not for a Tac/Sci looning around.
And it is absolutely absurd from any sort of internal logic lore-wise, that an "attack pattern" could buff "exotic damage" to such an extent. That it could buff weapon power or debuff an enemy to weapons makes some kind of sense (good flying and shooting), but exotic damage, no sense at all.
Tac Buff's need to work on Sci (damage) powers for Tactical Captains to remain a (moderately) useful choice to put into a Sci Ship as per Cryptic's earlier stated design goal of not actively punishing players for taking non-class aligned ships.
Sci Debuffs need to work on targets that had their cleanses SNB'd off so that they can properly cripple targets, and in PvP to a large degree do. In PvE crippling things and then killing them is effective, but rarely efficient, as often the debuffs that Sci ships can field are just not as relevant as "kill it faster." If targets could not be killed efficiently or reliably without being setup up to die, then the debuffs would prove more useful.
However, counter to that last statement, another part of Cryptic's design plan has long been "any Captain/Ship combo, any content" which translates to, essentially, designing scenarios that crowd control will often only have a moderate impact on as they need to be able to be cleared by anything.
To be perfectly frank, removing a Tactical Captain's ability to buff the mediocre-to-moderate damage output Science, really Crowd Control, powers do is not going to suddenly mean that Science powers will auto-magically get a hand-in-hand buff to their damage output (and as long as their crowd-control effects are functional, shouldn't).
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Sci Debuffs need to work on targets that had their cleanses SNB'd off so that they can properly cripple targets, and in PvP to a large degree do. In PvE crippling things and then killing them is effective, but rarely efficient, as often the debuffs that Sci ships can field are just not as relevant as "kill it faster." If targets could not be killed efficiently or reliably without being setup up to die, then the debuffs would prove more useful.
I think that kind of sums it up nicely. Though I will say that while a science captain on it's own isn't exactly bad it doesn't exactly synergise quite the way tactical captains do with just about everything. Engineers even less so but can boost power substantially with the right doffs and abilities.
I'm in 2 minds about it though and really it comes down to this for me. I have tactical captains in escorts/destroyers/cruisers and they hit 11-16k on their own, a lot more with like minded and similarly built ships. I love all that awesome raw power they have and how quickly they finish all content, most of it comes from tactical boff abilities (though my tactical captains get way more out of it that my science captain) but it's just making the game a bit bland.
Why should I take the 50% dps decrease to go for a science ship if I can't complete objectives as quickly with a similar if not more investment? The abilities all (as pointed out by khuyaang) require heavy investments to be effective but then it severly limits you in what you can bring and often means you need a full set of other boffs, doffs and consoles to switch out between missions when there's a high number of shielded enemies which dispersing with TBR is a bad if not hate inspiring move. Conversely having a shield/power drain build and then having to switch them out because there's a lot of structures.
I never have this problem in an escort or cruiser regardless of Captain. I think the best thing for science is to have a complete from the ground up reduction, changing and modification of skills abilities and consoles. Essentially kill it and then make a full on new set of abilities and ways they're buffed to make using different abilities less penalising. Then you can also take into account if tactical abilities should buff science abilities.
I think the best thing for science is to have a complete from the ground up reduction, changing and modification of skills abilities and consoles. Essentially kill it and then make a full on new set of abilities and ways they're buffed to make using different abilities less penalising. Then you can also take into account if tactical abilities should buff science abilities.
I would like to go a step further. As long as we are re-imagining science why not do the same with engineering and tactical abilities as well?
Science abilities are a mess of cross purposes and pre-nurfing.
Engineering abilities are a mess of shared cool downs that render ensign slots less desirable. Engineering team 1 isn't an option because of tactical team 1. Emergency power to X 3 abilities are fantastic, but if we use them on a ship with two ensign engineering abilities we are spending a lot of time with a wasted ability slot.
Tactical abilities have no attack patterns or mines at ensign level and no beams at commander level. Might be nice to have something cool to do with a beam-scort, or to have dispersal patern beta 3 on an assault cruser.
And the realy nice thing about re-building the ability system, is that in addition to opening up our ship building options its something cryptic can market to new players.
The current system of boff training allows us to pick and chose those abilities we want to use (within the constrains of our ships) opening up new options to us as we level. This is effectively the same as: 'Congratulations you leveled up, you can pick a new ability' style progression in other games, but its dressed up very differently and looks more complicated then it is.
The current system of training while simple to most of us now, is a nightmare for new players. Many of whom don't even realize the options available to them and use what ever abilities their random boffs happen to have.
If cryptic re-built our ability system they could dress it up with a shiny new interface and make it look a little more like the traditional 'ability tree' that players expect. Cryptic obviously care about the new players experience given the work they are putting into the tutorials right now so I feel this could be something they might be interested in.
Now I am not proposing we do away with boff slots or radically change the system so that we have any fewer options then we have now, or so that we can not change our abilities as easily. I am just saying we could bundle a complete ability re-vamp with an ability interface re-vamp that makes the system of boff training more intuitive for new players.
Tac Buff's need to work on Sci (damage) powers for Tactical Captains to remain a (moderately) useful choice to put into a Sci Ship as per Cryptic's earlier stated design goal of not actively punishing players for taking non-class aligned ships.
Sci Debuffs need to work on targets that had their cleanses SNB'd off so that they can properly cripple targets, and in PvP to a large degree do. In PvE crippling things and then killing them is effective, but rarely efficient, as often the debuffs that Sci ships can field are just not as relevant as "kill it faster." If targets could not be killed efficiently or reliably without being setup up to die, then the debuffs would prove more useful.
However, counter to that last statement, another part of Cryptic's design plan has long been "any Captain/Ship combo, any content" which translates to, essentially, designing scenarios that crowd control will often only have a moderate impact on as they need to be able to be cleared by anything.
To be perfectly frank, removing a Tactical Captain's ability to buff the mediocre-to-moderate damage output Science, really Crowd Control, powers do is not going to suddenly mean that Science powers will auto-magically get a hand-in-hand buff to their damage output (and as long as their crowd-control effects are functional, shouldn't).
But it doesn't bother you at all that a fully specced sci (as in full points into every sci damage skill) will still get vastly out-damaged by an unspecced tactical captain?
I mean consider this: I put a sci fully specced (IE 99 into particle generators) out into a fleet ha'nom, with 5 mk XII purple sci consoles (also particle generators, bringing the total bonus to 249), and then hit something with a GW3 (also after activating Sensor Scan 3 and APB2 on the target). I did roughly 4k-6k per tic. Pretty nice.
Then I took a completely unspecced tactical (as in no points in anything meaningful in the sci area), put it in the same ship with the same loadout (so now it only had 150 in particle generators instead of 249), hit APA3, FOMM3, TF2, and APB2 on the target, hit it with a GW2 (because you can't get 3 without training, and this was to prove a point), and I was hitting 7k-10k per tic. Then I had one of my friends train a GW3 onto that one, did the same thing, and was hitting 9-12k per tic.
So tell me, how is that fair to the science? Even a fully specced specialized sci only does 50-60% of the damage of an unspecced tactical captain. I can see your desire for hybrid builds, and keeping things varied with ship choice etc, but it's not really fair when a fully specced fully geared pure niche build gets completely blown away by some random tac captain who decides to derp around in science. Hence why I stand in the camp of removing tac power buffs to sci.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
But it doesn't bother you at all that a fully specced sci (as in full points into every sci damage skill) will still get vastly out-damaged by an unspecced tactical captain?
I mean consider this: I put a sci fully specced (IE 99 into particle generators) out into a fleet ha'nom, with 5 mk XII purple sci consoles (also particle generators, bringing the total bonus to 249), and then hit something with a GW3 (also after activating Sensor Scan 3 and APB2 on the target). I did roughly 4k-6k per tic. Pretty nice.
Then I took a completely unspecced tactical (as in no points in anything meaningful in the sci area), put it in the same ship with the same loadout (so now it only had 150 in particle generators instead of 249), hit APA3, FOMM3, TF2, and APB2 on the target, hit it with a GW2 (because you can't get 3 without training, and this was to prove a point), and I was hitting 7k-10k per tic. Then I had one of my friends train a GW3 onto that one, did the same thing, and was hitting 9-12k per tic.
So tell me, how is that fair to the science? Even a fully specced specialized sci only does 50-60% of the damage of an unspecced tactical captain. I can see your desire for hybrid builds, and keeping things varied with ship choice etc, but it's not really fair when a fully specced fully geared pure niche build gets completely blown away by some random tac captain who decides to derp around in science. Hence why I stand in the camp of removing tac power buffs to sci.
This, very much this. ^
Thank you for that test. And I totally agree: that difference is both insane and unfair.
For a while I thought I was the only one finding that gap odd, but I'm glad to find more people irked by it.
I don't see how this is a debate at all, it should simply be done. If the devs buff science and engineer attack powers to be capable of what they used to be capable of only through attack pattern alpha/go down fighting/whatever else, then tac captains are essentially unaffected by the change but engineers and sci's become more effective.
Example: Lets say directed energy modulation 3 does 50 damage per pulse through shields, a tac uses attack pattern alpha to buff that to 100 damage per pulse. (using nice round numbers here.) If we make it so that attack pattern alpha does not buff directed energy modulation but make directed energy modulation to 100 damage per pulse in general, then engineers and science captains get a boost to using the skill and tac captains get the same performance they always did.
This logic applies to all effected skills. So basically, provided the devs take a moment to go through and buff the skills that used to essentially be nerfed for eng and sci captains because a tac captain would be able to destroy the universe with it otherwise, we get tac captains that are just as effective as they have always been, and sci captains and eng captains that are more competitive. So... again, how is this a topic for debate and not a public service announcement from captain obvious- soon to be implemented?
Comments
Yes, exactly. The problem is that something like this amount of damage (or perhaps somewhat less, but approaching it) should be possible for a Sci/Sci heavily invested and specced in a specific "neat Sci trick", but not for a Tac/Sci looning around.
And it is absolutely absurd from any sort of internal logic lore-wise, that an "attack pattern" could buff "exotic damage" to such an extent. That it could buff weapon power or debuff an enemy to weapons makes some kind of sense (good flying and shooting), but exotic damage, no sense at all.
Sci Debuffs need to work on targets that had their cleanses SNB'd off so that they can properly cripple targets, and in PvP to a large degree do. In PvE crippling things and then killing them is effective, but rarely efficient, as often the debuffs that Sci ships can field are just not as relevant as "kill it faster." If targets could not be killed efficiently or reliably without being setup up to die, then the debuffs would prove more useful.
However, counter to that last statement, another part of Cryptic's design plan has long been "any Captain/Ship combo, any content" which translates to, essentially, designing scenarios that crowd control will often only have a moderate impact on as they need to be able to be cleared by anything.
To be perfectly frank, removing a Tactical Captain's ability to buff the mediocre-to-moderate damage output Science, really Crowd Control, powers do is not going to suddenly mean that Science powers will auto-magically get a hand-in-hand buff to their damage output (and as long as their crowd-control effects are functional, shouldn't).
I think that kind of sums it up nicely. Though I will say that while a science captain on it's own isn't exactly bad it doesn't exactly synergise quite the way tactical captains do with just about everything. Engineers even less so but can boost power substantially with the right doffs and abilities.
I'm in 2 minds about it though and really it comes down to this for me. I have tactical captains in escorts/destroyers/cruisers and they hit 11-16k on their own, a lot more with like minded and similarly built ships. I love all that awesome raw power they have and how quickly they finish all content, most of it comes from tactical boff abilities (though my tactical captains get way more out of it that my science captain) but it's just making the game a bit bland.
Why should I take the 50% dps decrease to go for a science ship if I can't complete objectives as quickly with a similar if not more investment? The abilities all (as pointed out by khuyaang) require heavy investments to be effective but then it severly limits you in what you can bring and often means you need a full set of other boffs, doffs and consoles to switch out between missions when there's a high number of shielded enemies which dispersing with TBR is a bad if not hate inspiring move. Conversely having a shield/power drain build and then having to switch them out because there's a lot of structures.
I never have this problem in an escort or cruiser regardless of Captain. I think the best thing for science is to have a complete from the ground up reduction, changing and modification of skills abilities and consoles. Essentially kill it and then make a full on new set of abilities and ways they're buffed to make using different abilities less penalising. Then you can also take into account if tactical abilities should buff science abilities.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
I would like to go a step further. As long as we are re-imagining science why not do the same with engineering and tactical abilities as well?
Science abilities are a mess of cross purposes and pre-nurfing.
Engineering abilities are a mess of shared cool downs that render ensign slots less desirable. Engineering team 1 isn't an option because of tactical team 1. Emergency power to X 3 abilities are fantastic, but if we use them on a ship with two ensign engineering abilities we are spending a lot of time with a wasted ability slot.
Tactical abilities have no attack patterns or mines at ensign level and no beams at commander level. Might be nice to have something cool to do with a beam-scort, or to have dispersal patern beta 3 on an assault cruser.
And the realy nice thing about re-building the ability system, is that in addition to opening up our ship building options its something cryptic can market to new players.
The current system of boff training allows us to pick and chose those abilities we want to use (within the constrains of our ships) opening up new options to us as we level. This is effectively the same as: 'Congratulations you leveled up, you can pick a new ability' style progression in other games, but its dressed up very differently and looks more complicated then it is.
The current system of training while simple to most of us now, is a nightmare for new players. Many of whom don't even realize the options available to them and use what ever abilities their random boffs happen to have.
If cryptic re-built our ability system they could dress it up with a shiny new interface and make it look a little more like the traditional 'ability tree' that players expect. Cryptic obviously care about the new players experience given the work they are putting into the tutorials right now so I feel this could be something they might be interested in.
Now I am not proposing we do away with boff slots or radically change the system so that we have any fewer options then we have now, or so that we can not change our abilities as easily. I am just saying we could bundle a complete ability re-vamp with an ability interface re-vamp that makes the system of boff training more intuitive for new players.
But it doesn't bother you at all that a fully specced sci (as in full points into every sci damage skill) will still get vastly out-damaged by an unspecced tactical captain?
I mean consider this: I put a sci fully specced (IE 99 into particle generators) out into a fleet ha'nom, with 5 mk XII purple sci consoles (also particle generators, bringing the total bonus to 249), and then hit something with a GW3 (also after activating Sensor Scan 3 and APB2 on the target). I did roughly 4k-6k per tic. Pretty nice.
Then I took a completely unspecced tactical (as in no points in anything meaningful in the sci area), put it in the same ship with the same loadout (so now it only had 150 in particle generators instead of 249), hit APA3, FOMM3, TF2, and APB2 on the target, hit it with a GW2 (because you can't get 3 without training, and this was to prove a point), and I was hitting 7k-10k per tic. Then I had one of my friends train a GW3 onto that one, did the same thing, and was hitting 9-12k per tic.
So tell me, how is that fair to the science? Even a fully specced specialized sci only does 50-60% of the damage of an unspecced tactical captain. I can see your desire for hybrid builds, and keeping things varied with ship choice etc, but it's not really fair when a fully specced fully geared pure niche build gets completely blown away by some random tac captain who decides to derp around in science. Hence why I stand in the camp of removing tac power buffs to sci.
This, very much this. ^
Thank you for that test. And I totally agree: that difference is both insane and unfair.
For a while I thought I was the only one finding that gap odd, but I'm glad to find more people irked by it.
Example: Lets say directed energy modulation 3 does 50 damage per pulse through shields, a tac uses attack pattern alpha to buff that to 100 damage per pulse. (using nice round numbers here.) If we make it so that attack pattern alpha does not buff directed energy modulation but make directed energy modulation to 100 damage per pulse in general, then engineers and science captains get a boost to using the skill and tac captains get the same performance they always did.
This logic applies to all effected skills. So basically, provided the devs take a moment to go through and buff the skills that used to essentially be nerfed for eng and sci captains because a tac captain would be able to destroy the universe with it otherwise, we get tac captains that are just as effective as they have always been, and sci captains and eng captains that are more competitive. So... again, how is this a topic for debate and not a public service announcement from captain obvious- soon to be implemented?