Borg shield neutralizer got a massive ninja buff

rodentmaster

In sector encounters and in STFs and ESTFs, the borg shield neutralizer has been freakishly buffed to absurd levels. No matter HOW much shields you have, including mkXII maco and the best shields in the game on a ship with a good shield modifier, your entire ship is shieldless in 2 seconds flat. IF (big if) you can hit hazard emitters fast enough to save SOME shred of your shields, it doesn't matter because borg ships were throwing it around with super fast cooldowns. You'd be hit again and still have 30 seconds of HE cooldown left.

Not that it matters, since inside 2 seconds your shields are down again.

Seems to be mostly from cubes. Unimatrix fires it but not so rapid-fire, though it still drains super fast. Spheres still fire it, but hard to tell how rapidly it's being fired since they come in groups and it could be coming from multiple ships instead of just one.


Seriously, cryptic, change it back. This is nonsense. It's not just happening to me, either. I was seeing people next to me go from full to no shields in 2-3 seconds from the neutralizer as well. About 75% of the time in the past couple days I've been fighting nearly shieldless.

stoutes

Okay.... That explains quite a bit.

I noticed this as well flying my fleet defiant yesterday; in ISE and Ker'rat as well. My shields are gone in seconds. Not to mention hull heal as well, even with a human crew, XII neut's and embassy fleet consoles (HuH) my hull didn't or barely wanted to heal.

alexlancos

It might be possible that the recent sci buff that made aux work on some skills could have affected the cubes, theorically, shield neutraliser gets a buff from cube's aux, and since they seemingly have lot lot points in flow caps (just compare a player's tachyon with standard sphere's), the xtra aux buff could result in such insane drains

blasterpt00

how can we obtain those kind of shields?
Are those only for borgs or can be buyed with dithilium/zen?
I need to know, pls...

fonz71

whenever possible, when fighting borg, i try to have 2 copies of HE.

yes the drain is insane, yes they stack them up on you quickly. best defense to that is try not to be in the vicinity of more than a cube or two at a time. easier said than done i know, but situational awareness is the ticket.

anyway hf\kill bad guys

oh ya, or blow them up very quickly

eatsmart

Another counter is a warp core doff with the % chance to purge all debuffs when activating an emergency power to x ability. If you're poor grab a low quality one.

rodentmaster

1) not all ships can run 2x HE.

2) you shouldn't HAVE to run rare and expensive 1-off doffs just to keep up with the patch from a couple of days ago

3) the NPCs don't HAVE energy levels. Not like we do. Energy drain for them does nothing, for example. It's not that they have a high aux level to boost their attacks -- they use a totally different attack. It just IS, all by itself. There's a massive double standard at work with NPCs vs players. So no, that can't be simply that they are getting an aux boost.

This REALLY needs to be reverted. This game is not meant to be played shield-less, or else there would be no shields at all.

timelord79

Haven't encountered this yet, but in general I like the sound of the Borg getting their shield drain power back.
Let's face it, with the player's insane shield drain resistances they became a bit of a joke.
And their draining abilities was a major feature in Q Who and Best of Both Worlds.

However for game balance reasons they could make it unstackable and provide something like a 10-15 sec immunity before being able to be drained again.

ooooh, and since canonically Rotate Shield Frequency was a viable counter let engineers shine a bit here by making it an immunity power to the drain please.

rodentmaster

No. Don't justify this. The drain was already strong enough, as it was.

Nothing in the original TNG borg encounters applies here, as has been mentioned several times, because the collective species in the galaxy have been waging all-out-war with the borg for a decade and have developed better shields, better counters to the borg technology.

Nor SHOULD we put up with a crappy gameplay mechanic like that.

fonz71

eatsmart wrote: »

Another counter is a warp core doff with the % chance to purge all debuffs when activating an emergency power to x ability. If you're poor grab a low quality one.

yes^^ that works great when you have an emergency power every 15 seconds

markhawkman

timelord79 wrote: »

Haven't encountered this yet, but in general I like the sound of the Borg getting their shield drain power back.
Let's face it, with the player's insane shield drain resistances they became a bit of a joke.
And their draining abilities was a major feature in Q Who and Best of Both Worlds.

However for game balance reasons they could make it unstackable and provide something like a 10-15 sec immunity before being able to be drained again.

ooooh, and since canonically Rotate Shield Frequency was a viable counter let engineers shine a bit here by making it an immunity power to the drain please.

Yeah really, I've had cases where my ship looked like a green bull's eye..... THREE copies of it on my ship simultaneously!!!!

zordar01

timelord79 wrote: »

Haven't encountered this yet, but in general I like the sound of the Borg getting their shield drain power back

It's not the shield neutralizer (the green pulsing aura of doom). It's their tachyon beam. In an ISE today I had about half shields and they suddenly started disappearing - no green aura. After they completely disappeared I hit Evasive and got out of range. That was between two copies of EPtS so there wasn't anything to be done except run, or respawn.

Yeah, the Borg got buffed.

neonevangelion

If we cant 'chain placate' them, why they can chain and gangbang our shields?

Try assaulting all the nanite/spheres on ISE just before a transformer is blown. U can get up with 3 or more tachyons and neutralizers at the same time (norm more). Its funny.

capnshadow27

It is true the Tachyon beams shouldnt stack like that. Aggroing 5 spheres sucks. Cause they all lead off with the tachyon beams and rob you of shields.

While it is a challenge and makes the game harder which i appreciate, limiting it to 2 hitting you with Tachyon beams would be small amount fairer. Still difficult, but not overdone.

If they where attacking all the players i wouldnt really give a darn, but when they all single me out its a tad ridiculous.

futurepastnow

RSP will get you through it.

capnshadow27

futurepastnow wrote: »

RSP will get you through it.

Yes it will but that massive CD is a pretty big drawback....

jetwtf

Yeah the Tachyon beam has increased in effectiveness. Emergency power to shields also stops the drain. And i also noticed if you do not have an emergency power ability being used or on cooldown nad have emergency to shields available it makes tachyon more rare, but hit an emergency power within range of a tac cube, gate, and/or spheres and they will all fire it at once instantly draining your shields, then all launching torps that seem to crit almost everytime or atleast do 20k damage and put plasma on you that eats the hull faster than you can hit haz emitters and evasive.

I got hit by the tachyons lost half my shields, hit with a 20k torp and plasma burn and then another tachyon when i hit evasive and flew 27k away and then was hit by a 50k crit torp the second evasive shut down. Riddle me this, how is that a fun game mechanic?

Now I do not use haz emitters or any emergency power until they start draining my shields, and when i do it comes with evasive and dueterium surplus if they get 50% down.

Personnaly i think it is a great challenge needing to be ready for it but this is just not the way to do it. First only 1 borg should use it on you at 1 time or they do not stack negating every one of them but the first to hit. Second the magic quaranteed 20k and 50k crit torps that give magic 100% buffed plasma damage that come as soon as the shields are 50% down just needs to be removed from the game altogether and the dev that thought it would be a good mechanic slapped silly(joking:P). Normal torps that have the normal crit chance and normal plasma burn is good enough. Not this insta-death bullpucky.

dahminus

...difficulty...increased....mmmmuuusssttt ccccrrrryyy NERF!!!!

HIT IT!!!


Nerf it to the ground
Nerf, nerf NnnneeEEERRRRFFFF IIIIIIITTT!!!!

The cube just killed me. NERF IT
That sphere just killed me. NERF IT
That probe just killed me. NERF IT
That tribble just killed me. NERF IT


But seriously. That cube is one bad motha f...
Shut your mouth
But I'm just talking about Tact(ical cube)
Then we can dig it.

Enough with the fun...
It isn't game breaking, can we please let the Devs worry about "real" issues...please?

scurry5

rodentmaster wrote: »

1)
3) the NPCs don't HAVE energy levels. Not like we do. Energy drain for them does nothing, for example. It's not that they have a high aux level to boost their attacks -- they use a totally different attack. It just IS, all by itself. There's a massive double standard at work with NPCs vs players. So no, that can't be simply that they are getting an aux boost.

Actually, NPCs do have energy levels, and energy drain is certainly effective. I've managed to drain spheres (Siphon 3) to 0 before, no shields and not moving, and drain cubes (Siphon 3, Plas Leech) to 0 as well.

fonz71

fyi i 'm pretty sure sci team clears the tach beam... j\s

khayuung

Just completed ISE under 4mins today. I don't see what's the difference?

ufpterrell

So basically the Borg have been buffed, I think that's a good thing. If your shields are toast EM out of there and heal up outside of weapons range. The Borg managed to drop the Enterprises shields in a few shots in the show so why not in game? The Borg need to be much tougher to the point that taking down a single cube should be impossible with just one ship. If one Borg cube could be classed as an "invasion" and almost get to Earth TWICE then I think it seems a bit ridiculous blowing up dozens of them in a single RA.

kitsunesnout

khayuung wrote: »

Just completed ISE under 4mins today. I don't see what's the difference?

STF borg don't ever drain shields very much from my experience in running hundreds of elites up to this very day, but sector encounter and Ker'rat borg, they I noticed always have Waaaaaay more potent shield drain for some reason, it really makes no sense why this is the case. In STF I can solo a regular or tac cube without a sweat not matter what and keep my shields up, but cubes or spheres in sector encounters can drain my shields almost instantly at times. something is really off, but has been for a long time and nothing new far as I can tell.

roxbad

I took my Constitution into a normal Borg Conduit the other day. Did pretty well. We completed the mission and optional.

I think I only blew up twice.

Stop whining.

mll623

You can drain energy from NPCs - I had a polaron boat when my character was ~level 3x and often removed the sheids from NPCs by chaining 2 polaron procs in a row (-50 power) + leech.

2 copies of HE gives you immunity for 30 seconds of every 45, plus RSP would will a significant portion of the latter. Combine this with 2 copies of EPTS3 and TT and usually your shields stay up on at least one facing.

shmn

Wait, are you saying we might actually have a use for supportive skills and roles? We can't have that, better nerf those suckers quick.

nicha0

STF spheres do use tachyon beam, but STF borg don't use shield neutralizer, imo they should.

I think what people are seeing is the lack of borg cohesion that has been go for so long returned. In ISE if you aoe that mass of spheres out of the gate, it can kill you in seconds, its always been like that.

Borg drains have always been extremely strong, if you aren't running power insulators you'll have no shields very often.

areikou

nicha0 wrote: »

Borg drains have always been extremely strong, if you aren't running power insulators you'll have no shields very often.

Even if you are, the shield neutralizer can demolish your shields quite fast.

http://youtu.be/vPzJSBHG4pI?t=2m12s

And just as a reminder of how powerful the Borg truly are. That was a single assimilation cube against most likely the entire 3rd fleet, as the 3rd fleet guards Utopia Planetia and Earth. The Borg in STO are grossly under powered when compared to their canon counter parts. 6 ships should have no hope what so ever of facing even a single cube. The stronger they make the Borg in all instances, the closer they come to their counter parts.

Also saying that it's 2409 and not 2373 means nothing because the Borg adapt to all situations, including the passage of time and the invention of new technology and weapons by their enemies. They should be as serious of a threat in 2409 as they were in 2373.

drake122svk

capnshadow27 wrote: »

Yes it will but that massive CD is a pretty big drawback....

RSP1 with DOFF lasts for 15 seconds, plenty of time to kill whatever is shooting at you, so no real drawback there.

adamkafei

rodentmaster wrote: »

Seriously, cryptic, change it back. This is nonsense. It's not just happening to me, either. I was seeing people next to me go from full to no shields in 2-3 seconds from the neutralizer as well. About 75% of the time in the past couple days I've been fighting nearly shieldless.

But I like the new shield neutraliser, it actually does some damage to my shields... Seriously though I flew into some borg encounter a while back with my old MACO mk XII shields and was watching my shield HP going up despite having FOUR shield neutralisers on me at the same time. I was using a mix of emergency to shields 1 and Transfer shield strength 2 and my shields her healing faster than 4 neutralisers could take them off me so... no, it should not be nerfed, it should be left as is.

nicha0

There are different strengths of shield neutralizer as well

The standard red alerts/Kerrat stuff is moderate, you can hold out with heals for some time.
The Zeta and Orilleus sector red alerts are elite level, and they'll drain your shields very fast.
The queen uses it in the weakest state in the game, passive regen is enough to ignore it.