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What makes beams so powerful?
dahminus
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Is it the distance damage drop off less then cannons?
Is it how they "buffer" weapon energy drain?
Is it that they have a bigger arc for aoe?
What the hell pushes them to 50k dps?
I know it's not aux2batting bfaw3/dem/ap:b3...it helps but you get bloody close results when going to global cooldown with 1 rank lower abilities.
Could it be that beams are just more suited for sto's endgame? Where everything may not be clumped together but are still close enough for beam aoe to take advantage of?
I just don't know....but I do want to find out
Is it how they "buffer" weapon energy drain?
Is it that they have a bigger arc for aoe?
What the hell pushes them to 50k dps?
I know it's not aux2batting bfaw3/dem/ap:b3...it helps but you get bloody close results when going to global cooldown with 1 rank lower abilities.
Could it be that beams are just more suited for sto's endgame? Where everything may not be clumped together but are still close enough for beam aoe to take advantage of?
I just don't know....but I do want to find out
Post edited by dahminus on
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BFAW spam can generate very high numbers, but this damage is usually scattered among many different targets instead of scoring meaningful quick kills. BFAW will also target "unkillable" objects like ISE Nodes still being healed by generators, resulting in damage numbers that are still logged but counter-healed immediately.
Why if you want to take down one target in a hurry, you load cannons and get cannon rapid fire.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Beam still suck.
Their firing cycle is quite long and drawn-out
They proc much less often than cannons (partially due to the above)
Their weapons drain is pulled after the first shot, causing a major drop in damage for the rest of the firing cycle.
It is actually all the other stuff that makes beams 'good'. All the weapon drain resists, all the new DOFFs, other new equipment, traits, BOFFs, and so on and so on that makes beams seem 'good'.
Beams technically aren't good still. It's all the other stuff that makes them good.
AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong, Beams do more damage to shields than Cannons, while Cannons do a bit more damage to hull.
Cannons have falloff damage at ranges > 5km whereas Beams do not have any damage falloff.
Beams have faster recharge time than Cannons do.
From my own testing beams and cannons equal out the same vs shields and hull.
All energy weapons have falloff at range, beams are a bit more efficient at long ranges but not by much.
Cannons cycle faster than beams, that is why dps rating scores higher for cannon weapons vs beams.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
You forgot the Marion DOff in there. When using DEM it reduces energy drain dramatically. Any cruiser can use A2B with 3 technician DOffs, but the energy drain from their beams will cripple them to the point of doing almost no damage anyways without Marion. It's Marion that enables beam boat cruisers (but i think one of the Scimitar Warbirds is best at this) to get +40k dps.
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
Without the cloaking bonus, a fed cruiser can technically achieve better results due to the new comm commands helping eliminate 25% wp drain. Scimitar w/aligned boff's are more effective at spike dmg.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Except with all the other (cheaper/free) toys available, its getting to a point where one can run without Marion and keep your energy at 110+. He's one tool in the toolbox, but not the only one.
That's not true, Beams cycle faster than Cannons. Cannons have a higher DPS value because their damage per hit is higher, even though they fire more slowly.
AFAIK, Beams have no falloff range. Inform me with a source and I will stand corrected.
Beams, 1 sec recharge.
DHC, 2 sec recharge.
Good ole fashioned massed fire tactics never do seem to go out of style, do they?
http://theenginescannaetakeit.wordpress.com/articles-3/weapon-ranges/
While this may or may not be 100% accurate is does show the variance.
Also ba's fire a 4 shot cycle than a 1 sec recycle, while cannons fire a quick 2 shot cycle followed by a 2 sec recycle.
ba's also mitigate drain at the first shot causing them to constantly drain wp during the course of the 4 shot cycle, while cannons make quick drain during its 2 shot cycle followed by a 2 sec quick recycle of wp making them quicker to recharge and begin another volley at full wp.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
You're leaving a very important fact out: the longer firing cycle of beams means that overcapped weapons power fills back in, making shots after the first do considerably more damage as weapon power jumps back up. Stagger the firing cycles correctly and, with a high enough power transfer rate and weapon power pool, you'll effectively be permanently firing at 125 WP.
That is the soul reason why aux2batt+dem+marion+emp2w+omega amp+comm command has become so effective for ba's as of late. If you can mitigate wp drain than effectively ba's can fire at full strength 80-90% of the time they are firing, but they still lack the speed and damage of a dhc against single opponents when buffed by crf.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
No they are working fine as of late, beam boats are meant to take on multiple adversaries with their better survivability (beam boatscorts not included), but are slower on the single opponent. While escorts excel at single engagements and are effective at multiple to some extent. Oh and purple doff's are free if you are willing to grind for them.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
^This. However, the fall off, better shield damage, weapon's power overcharging, and the fact that for single target damage not much beats Beam Overload III with a big DBB do help beams be a lot more powerful.
However... That said: DHC's still rule the roost when it comes to making DPS that makes a difference instead of just clearing spam and pinging everything around them. FAW is still a pretty pathetic skill unless you need to clear spam. If you are focusing on one target the attack you want is BO III.
Pretty much agreed, BO is beams best spike punch against single enemy, but crf+dhc put up more efficient dps in the same scenario. I for one love a good bo3 followed by a massive torp crit when the enemy shield just went down due to bo3 massive spike dmg. :P
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
er....no?
Not everyone runs the same generic build or has 80 mill to spend to make a ship just like everyone else.
I'm not familiar with the A2B build, since I've never used it. I run a tanking setup in my excelsior with weapons power maxed while dual chaining EPTS+EPTW. Since I don't bother with PvP, this setup is more than sufficient to get me through PvE and eSTF's.
If it works than stick with it, really all a aux2batt build is good for is quick spamming of apb and eliminating multiple enemy engagements and possibly draw agro away from others. Single encountered enemy they are just effective is all and work great to support the team by again quick battering of multiple enemies or boss shields and agro drawing.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
"Damage-padding" may be true in ISE but not true in something like SB24, mirror invasion, fleet alert, or any other content with 5+ targets per team member. With BFAW yes you are spreading the damage out and the first target dies slower but the flip side is each consecutive target dies faster until you are killing them with 1 beam/shot out of all 8. There are no wasted shots if the target doesnt heal and the larger the crowd the more effective it gets. 5 beam boats in a fleet alert can finish faster than 5 escorts, but 5 escorts in ISE can finish faster than 5 beam boats.
They excell in many targets at once why escorts excell at 1 at a time and slow moving or not moving at all.
Marion is not required today and was not really required before. Use the weapon command, plasmonic leech, and overcap weapon power and Marion is not required. I know this for a fact because I have 2 Aux2bat beam boats, 1 has Marion and the other does not. Also Marion only covers the drain before the Leech kicks in and overcapping becomes high enough to mitigate the drain. You could do the same thing by popping a weapon or aux battery just before firing your weapons to cover the gap between first shot and leech kicking in.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
This right here.
Totally agree.
Kanharn's Memory Alpha.
I assumed that the mention of dem would have marion implied...
Back on topic, I didn't see a real reason as to why beams are so much better then cannons. A post here and there saying their "build" works with turrets and the like...another about how marion isn't a necessity anymore.
Seems like fireing cycles and the damage drop off factor are rather important, but to double that of cannons? I dunno...
It's the secret to how a cannon boat does 20k, when a beam boat variant (beam skills and weapons are the only thing that change) does 50k. That is what I'm trying to figure out.
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
20k crf+csv vs single to 3 enemy encounters, or beam boat bfaw+bo 50k vs 5+ enemies. You do the math!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Was something I was considering...
I really hate how STO is all about aoe damage and not about single target...
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Single targets are where escorts are at their best, beam boat faw is where they are at their best, just two builds doing what they do best is all.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
In answer to the OP, the following produces 50k DPS:
MIn/maxed tac captain flying any of the later cruisers (Fleet Excel/Regent/Scimmy/Avenger), full set of Rommie plasma beam arrays, all tactical and science consoles tuned to plasma damage and more proc, cookie cutter Aux2Batt build using DEM+Marion, FAW+APB.
That with repeaters of the same build spamming everything in range (possibly best if they chain eachother's APBs to maintain full uptime). for best results trying to preserve the insta-healing targets to get more spam numbers. Or you can get 5 of these builds and spam through everything to death before your team's alpha strikes are finished.
In my experience the highest solo dps readout I can produce that is useful is for my engineer and it sits at nine point something thousand.
This is why when I read the parser numbers I prefer to go based off the entire match numbers and average dps figures to get a better idea of how much dps I am sustaining at any given moment when engaging an enemy.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!