No matter what anyone says about PvP vs. PvE with regards to First Person or "zoom", it is outdated, cumbersome and unwise to use. Liken it to taping a toilet paper tube in front of your face to see through and then trying to play dodge ball. It serves no purpose besides the 2 very specific and rare times I listed before. Stick with RPG mode using the X and C buttons only. You might be glad you did. Hypos for life!
What an interesting thread. I exclusively use shooter, I find the weapon and kit range indicator indispensable for me as it gives me more control over which target I can hit and from what distance, except on some occasions on ESD.
Interesting tips and comments about weapons, especially the new Voth Rifle, and movement. I'm finding turning easier but stopping more difficult. Thanks to each of you for the information.
Hypos. First and foremost, hypos. If you're going into a serious fight with less than 60 in your inventory you're doing something wrong.
Seriously? Either I am a Ground God (Laugh with me) or a lot of folks just are really bad at it... I touch a Hypo once in a GREAT while. I generally have one stack of 20 on me and never need to use them. Try moving instead of crouching and you will not just take constant beatings. Flank enemies and kill them instead of letting them flank you. Not sure what I do better but having 60 Hypos on hand seems absolutely ridiculous for how infrequently I ever need them.
Seriously? Either I am a Ground God (Laugh with me) or a lot of folks just are really bad at it... I touch a Hypo once in a GREAT while. I generally have one stack of 20 on me and never need to use them. Try moving instead of crouching and you will not just take constant beatings. Flank enemies and kill them instead of letting them flank you. Not sure what I do better but having 60 Hypos on hand seems absolutely ridiculous for how infrequently I ever need them.
I think guriphu is talking more about PvP than PvE in that sentence. However, I've been in 2+ hour PvP matches and I've never burned more than 40 hypos. So for PvP, 60 is a good round number, but I prefer to go in with 140...because my teamates tend to run out if the match gets longer. As for PvE, if I'm a tactical officer I use about 8 hypos per STF, sometimes fewer. If I'm teamed with other players, then I use maybe 2 hypos the whole game.
I think guriphu is talking more about PvP than PvE in that sentence. However, I've been in 2+ hour PvP matches and I've never burned more than 40 hypos. So for PvP, 60 is a good round number, but I prefer to go in with 140...because my teamates tend to run out if the match gets longer. As for PvE, if I'm a tactical officer I use about 8 hypos per STF, sometimes fewer. If I'm teamed with other players, then I use maybe 2 hypos the whole game.
PvP would indeed be a different matter. I can see your logic about having extra to give to folks who need them. One of those rare instances where the Engineer supply box can be kind of useful.
Kind of like how it can be handy to have a spare Environmental suit when going into the Nekura Ques because a lot of folks don't have them :rolleyes: . Should be like the shuttle missions where you cannot Que for it without a suit on.
Mostly agree with the guide, but there's some things I didn't see in there:
1. As mentioned, flank and cover. This isn't a "shooter", but cover does matter. Crouch next to objects to cover some of your flanks. If enemies are trying to get around you (what military types would actually call "flanking"), stand up and back away. Or kill the ones trying to flank you. Likewise, do it to them. Don't all sit there and hammer that Elite Tac Drone in the face. Surround him and pulsewave him into dust from all sides.
2. Expose/Exploit. The game tries to teach you this, but many many people still don't wind up getting it. Generally, you should be carrying one expose weapon and one exploit weapon. Usually the expose weapon is a pulsewave for its all around DPS. Exploit would be typically Sniper, High Density or Compression Pistol. People have their favorites there as this thread has shown. Lead with the pulsewave, and blast away until you see the orange circle reticle appear. Now you are ready to really kick TRIBBLE. Hit Z to switch to your exploit weapon, and jam its alt fire. Get as many Exploits in as you can before the expose wears off, then switch back to Expose and do it again. This doesn't matter much on regular mobs because they're probably about dead before you see the Expose, but tougher mobs and bosses it matters big. Especially if you are in a ground STF fighting a timer. Some powers like Tachyon Harmonic will generate exposes as well, check the tool tips.
3. Ground consumables do more than heal. Wait, what? Yup, these things are useful for more than their most obvious function. Look at their tool tip and you will see:
Hypo - Clears hold and stun
Shield Charge - Clears Expose <--- This is freaking important
Power Cell - Clears weapon malfunction
The most important secondary effect there, as I indicated, is the power cell clearing expose. You can expose/exploit enemies, and they can do it to you. Ever had a Tac Drone just insta-vape you, leaving you wondering what in Gre'thor just happened? You might've been exploited (or just ate a massive Borg crit). If you see that nasty orange circle appear on your character, hit a shield charge and clear it before you get wrecked. And you get some shields back too, as a bonus!
3. Ground consumables do more than heal. Wait, what? Yup, these things are useful for more than their most obvious function. Look at their tool tip and you will see:
Hypo - Clears hold and stun
Shield Charge - Clears Expose <--- This is freaking important
Power Cell - Clears weapon malfunction
The most important secondary effect there, as I indicated, is the power cell clearing expose. You can expose/exploit enemies, and they can do it to you. Ever had a Tac Drone just insta-vape you, leaving you wondering what in Gre'thor just happened? You might've been exploited (or just ate a massive Borg crit). If you see that nasty orange circle appear on your character, hit a shield charge and clear it before you get wrecked. And you get some shields back too, as a bonus!
Hold and Stun are usually more important than the others you mention. There are a number of holds and stun effects and if you are stuck unable to act you are going to die fast.
I do agree that getting rid of exposes is very important but honestly until the Voth came around I had never ONCE seen an expose on me outside of PvP. So it must be a veeeery rare thing coming from NPC's.
However, I have recently seen a few Voth actually plant an Expose on me but either they failed to exploit it or their exploit was really weak because it never really hurt me much.
With the Borg a BIG thing is that you need to make sure they do not flank you. I have seen a lot of folks get one-shotted by them because they foolishly turned away from them. If you run away from the Borg they WILL shoot you in the back lol.
Usually the expose weapon is a pulsewave for its all around DPS. Exploit would be typically Sniper, High Density or Compression Pistol. People have their favorites there as this thread has shown.
I love my dual pistols as a primary/expose weapon. I usually follow it up with a sniper shot from the MACO rifle.
There really is a lot of versatility in the weapons setups you can adopt. I agree that the miniguns and blast assault weapons are beyond bad, though.
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
I've seen it happen when fighting Borg in quantity. Like if you get swamped in KAGE, something might expose you and something else hits you with the exploit. Granted if your team is good, that's not going to happen. I have trouble getting 5 good ground players together sometimes though, and one of the less experienced ones will aggro the spawn ins. I feel like I'm leading a parade by the time we're at the sixth generator. You are right that in that situation, the flanking is the bigger problem. Positioning on the ground in general is the hardest thing for people to get the hang of. Still, knowing what your consumables do is good knowledge.
I love my dual pistols as a primary/expose weapon. I usually follow it up with a sniper shot from the MACO rifle.
There really is a lot of versatility in the weapons setups you can adopt. I agree that the miniguns and blast assault weapons are beyond bad, though.
Yeah, I've rocked the dual pistols before too. There's something uniquely badass about dual wielding pistols like Neo (Matrix) or Alucard (Hellsing). Still, pulsewave tends to be more common because of the DPS and the knockback. Our stock recommendation for people as a starting place for ground STFs is a sniper (for shooting from behind trigger lines in IGE) and a pulsewave (for Armek and Captain Whatshisface in IGE). For non-STF, the field opens up a bit more. I often swap out my MACO rifle for a high density, and my Rom uses a compression pistol partly just for RP reasons.
...talking to players is like being a mall Santa. Everyone immediately wants to tell you all of the things they want, and you are absolutely powerless to deliver 99% of them.
May not be a "nice" guide, but between the OP and the various other comments here, I have scribbled down several notes & reminders to look at tonight...
Thanks!
CM
"Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure science." - Edwin Hubble
Get as many Exploits in as you can before the expose wears off
Exploit attacks consume the Expose debuff on hit. You can only ever Exploit an Exposed target once.
You can expose/exploit enemies, and they can do it to you. Ever had a Tac Drone just insta-vape you, leaving you wondering what in Gre'thor just happened? You might've been exploited (or just ate a massive Borg crit). If you see that nasty orange circle appear on your character, hit a shield charge and clear it before you get wrecked. And you get some shields back too, as a bonus!
There are no Borg attacks that do Exploit damage. Clearing exposes or taking cover when exposed is not a concern when facing Borg. Most of the enemy races you'll encounter have a few Exploits (NPC guns have the same expose/exploit rules that their PC equivalents have) but the Borg have none.
Exploit attacks consume the Expose debuff on hit. You can only ever Exploit an Exposed target once.
I know there've been times when I've hit something with an exploit and it was still exposed, because I've had to watch it wear off while I waited for the exploit attack to CD. It doesn't happen super often because it usually takes me a second to end whatever animation lock I'm in, switch weapons and fire, so I figured I was only getting one shot because of the overhead there. Is it possible my Boffs or other players are exposing the target again as soon as I exploit it? Can you have multiple exposes on a target at once? Can one player with crappy damage output waste an expose that a better player could have capitalized on more?
There are no Borg attacks that do Exploit damage. Clearing exposes or taking cover when exposed is not a concern when facing Borg. Most of the enemy races you'll encounter have a few Exploits (NPC guns have the same expose/exploit rules that their PC equivalents have) but the Borg have none.
I'll take your word on that, I've never really looked into what their weapons did. I just assumed they had a mix. Maybe what I've seen is just crits taking people out while exposed. The expose itself is a damage resist debuff though, so even if you're not going to get exploited you still want to clear it.
There are no Borg attacks that do Exploit damage. Clearing exposes or taking cover when exposed is not a concern when facing Borg. Most of the enemy races you'll encounter have a few Exploits (NPC guns have the same expose/exploit rules that their PC equivalents have) but the Borg have none.
Forced Plasma Blast is an exploit attack, it receives the exploit damage buff and uses exposes. Unless Cryptic has changed something recently.
I know there've been times when I've hit something with an exploit and it was still exposed, because I've had to watch it wear off while I waited for the exploit attack to CD. It doesn't happen super often because it usually takes me a second to end whatever animation lock I'm in, switch weapons and fire, so I figured I was only getting one shot because of the overhead there. Is it possible my Boffs or other players are exposing the target again as soon as I exploit it? Can you have multiple exposes on a target at once? Can one player with crappy damage output waste an expose that a better player could have capitalized on more?
There is no cooldown on exposes. Any player can use an expose and the target may be immediately exposed again. However, the expose effect (it's not a true debuff) is only active once at a time. You can't stack up exposes on a target. New exposes merely reset the expose duration timer.
There is no cooldown on exposes. Any player can use an expose and the target may be immediately exposed again. However, the expose effect (it's not a true debuff) is only active once at a time. You can't stack up exposes on a target. New exposes merely reset the expose duration timer.
That's all well and good, I figured that's how it works, but what concerns me about it is that potential for them to be wasted. Say Greg Groundchamp is in the Sphere Battlezone and puts an Expose on one of the V-Rex. He dutifully switches to his high end Ultra Rare exploit weapon and hits Ambush and whatever other buffs as quickly as he can. But, a split second before he fires, Ned Noobington happens to fire his Mk X green compression pistol, unbuffed, out of sheer coincidence. Or maybe because he read this thread and learned that Exploits are cool. Did Ned just cost the group a bunch of damage by clearing the expose before Greg could hit it with a much more potent shot (not to mention waste Greg's buffs)?
That's all well and good, I figured that's how it works, but what concerns me about it is that potential for them to be wasted. Say Greg Groundchamp is in the Sphere Battlezone and puts an Expose on one of the V-Rex. He dutifully switches to his high end Ultra Rare exploit weapon and hits Ambush and whatever other buffs as quickly as he can. But, a split second before he fires, Ned Noobington happens to fire his Mk X green compression pistol, unbuffed, out of sheer coincidence. Or maybe because he read this thread and learned that Exploits are cool. Did Ned just cost the group a bunch of damage by clearing the expose before Greg could hit it with a much more potent shot (not to mention waste Greg's buffs)?
A Tactical Officer is going to put out more damage/second point blank shooting a V-Rex than he will get from super buffing sniper shots to hit exposes. Sniper Rifles are high spike damage weapons, useful for taking out single powerful targets from a safe distance. Pulsewaves are all about point blank raw damage. With that said, expose is useful for quickly killi
If you are hitting the battlezone, I'd suggest using a split beam rifle and the Omega Force Autocarbine (with the Armor and Shield) as well as the Fire Team kit (Squad Leader is also an option, but only the Spire Mk XII version). The Omega Autocarbine is a great weapon, the secondary sweep is a guaranteed expose on at least one target in it's attack arc. However, I tend to use the split beam rifle over the Omega Autocarbine most of the time. Use Suppression Fire whenever it comes off cooldown (24 second cooldown with 16 second uptime). If your tactical kit has suppression fire, use it.
Now Science officers are the master expose attackers, they have more abilities capable of triggering (and clearing) an expose than any other class ingame. A Split Beam Rifle with the Omega Force set will additionally work well for Science officers. Tricorder Scan is a Science officer's bread and butter debuff, use it whenever possible. If you don't have it, pick up the Lucky ground trait (race permitting), it doubles your chance to expose the target.
Engineers have the distinction of being the only class without direct damage resistance debuffs. With that said, they are currently most powerful class ingame at the moment on the ground. Engineers do however have a few expose chance attacks, such as their reroute power to shields ability. The Enemy Neutralization kit has a very well rounded group of abilities. Fuse armor and weapon malfunction are excellent debuffs. A full minefield will deal close to 1,000 damage collectively on a normal hit. There are also bunkering style engineering kits, but they aren't all that useful due to the nature of the battlezone. An Engineer should ideally be using the full MACO Set or the MACO Weapon/Armor with the Dyson Set Weapon/Shield. The three piece MACO set bonus will add significant resistances to holds while also adding a chance to proc exposes when anything teamed with the engineer is shot. For a more offensive approach (2pc MACO/2pc Dyson), the experimental Proton Rifle will proc exposes on both primary and secondary firing modes.
Now, is damage wasted when an unbuffed exploit attack shot strikes an exposed enemy? It depends on the situation. Exploit damage is a +200% base damage buff. Due to the fact that the extra damage is off of your base damage, you aren't gaining anything by first activating a pile of buffs. Your damage numbers will be higher, but you will still get the same +damage buff with the extra buffs as you would without. The only thing that really matters is the weapon. A MK XII very rare compression pistol is going to deal a higher amount of exploit damage than a Mk I common compression pistol because the base damage numbers are higher. A tactical officer will probably deal more exploit damage than a engineer or science officer (unless they have the science officer only field researcher trait +25% exploit damage).
If you are fighting a V-Rex, you are better off spamming a split beam rifle. The exploit attack takes 0.5 seconds to activate and the damage numbers are decent. Not to mention if the V-Rex shoots you while you are wearing the Omega shield, he will probably end up proccing an expose on himself (there is a reason the Omega shield is considered to be one of the best ingame). In the long run, your aren't losing much if someone hits that expose with a lower mark weapon. Exposes won't get you very far against a target with 8,000 shields and 24,000 health.
Now, let's just say you were going for a flank expose shot on a target with your damage buffs active. If someone shoots the target, clears the expose, and aggros the target; you are losing potential damage. Not only did they remove the expose, but they also removed the chance for flanking damage (+50% base damage). Remember that exposes are a source of spike damage. If you are going for sustained damage, then expose attacks aren't a good option in most cases.
A Tactical Officer is going to put out more damage/second point blank shooting a V-Rex than he will get from super buffing sniper shots to hit exposes. Sniper Rifles are high spike damage weapons, useful for taking out single powerful targets from a safe distance. Pulsewaves are all about point blank raw damage.
The reason I cite that specific situation, is that somebody needs to cover the Voth trying to steal the particles. Frequently that someone is me, because people are dense like that. I get to hang back and peck at it with the MACO rifle, while I watch for the Voth to spawn. If I see somebody else doing it, yeah I'm more than happy to Rambo in there and start pulsewaving the V-Rex.
If you are hitting the battlezone, I'd suggest using a split beam rifle and the Omega Force Autocarbine (with the Armor and Shield) as well as the Fire Team kit (Squad Leader is also an option, but only the Spire Mk XII version). The Omega Autocarbine is a great weapon, the secondary sweep is a guaranteed expose on at least one target in it's attack arc.
I never got the Omega ground set because like I was saying before, our fleet's STF team prefers pulsewave and sniper, and the autocarbine is neither. Plus as I understand it, burst firing weapons are a bad idea on Borg because of the adaptation. I'll look into it though.
Now Science officers are the master expose attackers, they have more abilities capable of triggering (and clearing) an expose than any other class ingame. A Split Beam Rifle with the Omega Force set will additionally work well for Science officers. Tricorder Scan is a Science officer's bread and butter debuff, use it whenever possible. If you don't have it, pick up the Lucky ground trait (race permitting), it doubles your chance to expose the target.
My Sci toon has been an absolute blast to play on the ground. The Physicist kit is nothing short of non stop hilarity. With the Pyrokinetic field and such, I can often get an expose without even using the pulsewave, so I'll just lead with my exploit weapon. She has one trait slot left, and I was eyeballing the Lucky trait as one I might take (Joined Trill). Good deal.
Now, is damage wasted when an unbuffed exploit attack shot strikes an exposed enemy? It depends on the situation. Exploit damage is a +200% base damage buff. Due to the fact that the extra damage is off of your base damage, you aren't gaining anything by first activating a pile of buffs.
That is really good to know, no sense saving up buffs until I get an expose unless I'm trying to one-shot something for lulz.
I never got the Omega ground set because like I was saying before, our fleet's STF team prefers pulsewave and sniper, and the autocarbine is neither. Plus as I understand it, burst firing weapons are a bad idea on Borg because of the adaptation. I'll look into it though.
Your data here is old. Changes were made a long while back changing how the adaptation mechanics worked, to a time based effect. The sniper rifle/pulsewave strat is still fine. But your cheating yourself and your team out off the best possible damage by not using the Omega set. The Carbine/sniper rifle works very well in fact the Carbine/Proto type proton rifle is exceptional. I'd recommend updating your tactics.
I love this thread. There is so little good discussion of ground combat on the forums, I feel like we're all getting a lot out of this.
Indeed, there are so few ground combat discussions here on the forums. Such a shame really, ground combat is highly enjoyable and has a decent amount of difficulty.
The reason I cite that specific situation, is that somebody needs to cover the Voth trying to steal the particles. Frequently that someone is me, because people are dense like that. I get to hang back and peck at it with the MACO rifle, while I watch for the Voth to spawn. If I see somebody else doing it, yeah I'm more than happy to Rambo in there and start pulsewaving the V-Rex.
I've tried several bridge officer variations over the last few weeks. Of the different abilities, I've found that it's best to run an engineer and a science officer for bridge officers. Science officer: Hypospray Dylovene I, Medical Tricorder II, Vascular Regenerator II, Nanite Health Monitor I. Engineer: Mine Barrier I, Shield Recharge II, Reroute Power to Shields II, and Equipment Diagnostics II.
Now, the trick to this is to use waypoints to place your engineering bridge officer in the center of the stairs leading up to the Omega particle consoles. Order your engineer to lay down mine barrier, this will deal some nice shield bypassing damage to any Voth Engineers on their way up the stairs. Also, Reroute Power to Shields II is currently bugged, there is one too many zeros in the healing value. Meaning, bridge officer engineers will heal 330 shields/second instead of 33 shields/second with the ability....making them almost invincible for the duration. Mortars will still kill them, but not if your science bridge officer gives your engineer nanite health monitor.
I never got the Omega ground set because like I was saying before, our fleet's STF team prefers pulsewave and sniper, and the autocarbine is neither. Plus as I understand it, burst firing weapons are a bad idea on Borg because of the adaptation. I'll look into it though.
The MACO set with a Pulsewave was the golden setup back in Season 5. A lot has changed in the past two years. Full MACO with a pulsewave is great if you are an engineer, but Science and Tactical Officers will get more out of the Omega set. Now for anything outside of Borg STFs, you have a wide range of options.
I see a lot of players going for Elite Fleet Armor and Shields. This is probably due to the fact that Elite Fleet Shields in space are overpowered. On the ground, Elite Fleet Shields aren't that great, even with their high resistances (which you can get anyway with abilities). Remember that shield resistance is capped at 75%. Which means the shields are almost useless if you are an engineer or science officer due to shield resistance abilities. Almost all reputation gear shields come with a special proc while also providing control resistances. The Elite Fleet Shields are only useful for absorbing spike damage. If you are trying to shield tank, then you should be using the Dyson or MACO shields instead. Elite Fleet armor is far below existing reputation gear armor, yet a number of people use it because of the fact that it provides a large health heal when falling to critical levels. Again, it's only useful for surviving high spike hits. Once the heal is used you are looking at a 3 minute cooldown, compare that to the 45 second cooldown (15 under tactical initiative) on the Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus.
In long running fights, a player is better off with set gear because the set gear will has better stats and abilities in the long run. A player with the two piece Adapted MACO set (armor + shield) is going to heal more than someone with an Elite Fleet Shield + Armor. For PvE content, this normally means that set gear is the way to go.
Feel free to experiment, mix and match sets, you'd be surprised what you can do. For example, if you wanted a maximum health healing build, you could go with the Adapted MACO armor + weapon with the Crystaline Matrix Shield (+10% self heals). Now, if you wanted to maximize your ability to shield tank you could go with the MACO Armor + Rifle with the Dyson Shield and an Elite Fleet Phaser Split Beam Rifle [Dmg]x2 [CritX] [SHeal]. There are so many effective set gear combinations available to players. You could even mix in fleet gear, but I'd suggest limiting it to either fleet armor or shields, not both. Fleet weapons are also nice, but for most things I prefer the Romulan Plasma weapons obtained from Tier V New Romulus Reputation or the Phased Tetryon weapons from the Tholian Lockbox. There are other options out there ingame. I'd stay away from polaron, the proc has never been that useful in my opinion.
Your data here is old. Changes were made a long while back changing how the adaptation mechanics worked, to a time based effect. The sniper rifle/pulsewave strat is still fine. But your cheating yourself and your team out off the best possible damage by not using the Omega set. The Carbine/sniper rifle works very well in fact the Carbine/Proto type proton rifle is exceptional. I'd recommend updating your tactics.
I use the full Omega set and a Fleet Advanced Antiproton Pulsewave Assault Mk XII [Dmg]x3 [CritX]. Now that's a nice weapon combination, despite the identical damage types. I leave the exploit damage dealing to the Science officers when fighting borg, they deal +25% more than any other class after all. If the Science officer also have the Covert and Acute Senses traits to go along with Field Researcher that's +245% damage on an exploit. Also, since my main Tactical officer is human, that's +5% more team wide exploit damage from the Teamwork trait.
Now in the Voth Battlezone I enjoy using Target Optics + Aim to oneshot Voth Specialists with the Split Beam Rifle secondary fire mode. The sheer amount of damage a Tactical officer can throw out there can be quite enjoyable. However, science is still my favorite class.
I've seen it happen when fighting Borg in quantity. Like if you get swamped in KAGE, something might expose you and something else hits you with the exploit. Granted if your team is good, that's not going to happen. I have trouble getting 5 good ground players together sometimes though, and one of the less experienced ones will aggro the spawn ins. I feel like I'm leading a parade by the time we're at the sixth generator. You are right that in that situation, the flanking is the bigger problem. Positioning on the ground in general is the hardest thing for people to get the hang of. Still, knowing what your consumables do is good knowledge.
LOL @ "leading a parade"... Oh maaan... I can imagine how that would look and it is sooo bad. It would be funny though in that "Oooh greeeeat" sort of way.
I never got the Omega ground set because like I was saying before, our fleet's STF team prefers pulsewave and sniper, and the autocarbine is neither. Plus as I understand it, burst firing weapons are a bad idea on Borg because of the adaptation. I'll look into it though.
Another thing to note here is that with the integrated remodulator you can easily insta-remod faster than the Borg can stay adapted. So even weapons like the Carbine can be used endlessly without worry.
I see a lot of players going for Elite Fleet Armor and Shields. This is probably due to the fact that Elite Fleet Shields in space are overpowered. On the ground, Elite Fleet Shields aren't that great, even with their high resistances (which you can get anyway with abilities). Remember that shield resistance is capped at 75%. Which means the shields are almost useless if you are an engineer or science officer due to shield resistance abilities. Almost all reputation gear shields come with a special proc while also providing control resistances. The Elite Fleet Shields are only useful for absorbing spike damage. If you are trying to shield tank, then you should be using the Dyson or MACO shields instead. Elite Fleet armor is far below existing reputation gear armor, yet a number of people use it because of the fact that it provides a large health heal when falling to critical levels. Again, it's only useful for surviving high spike hits.
You wanna know how i know you never use fleet gear, or use it correctly? :P
Elite `Fleet shields are just fine for ground; WAY more capacity. If you go with an Advanced/Elite Res A/B version (Elite for the ADAPT) You can most certainly do some fine tanking. That said, I would say the Nukkara T5 shield is probably the best in-game IMHO (not the one you pointed out, the other one): +20% resistance to ALL energy types plus a chance to add additional resistance? Yeah - I'll take that.
The fleet armors are also perfect for builds; If you're going for CriT offense, nothing is better short of the Chrono armor but then you are a glass cannon and wont have much survivability lol. ( I do use that armor on one of my alts...fine for PvE)
I would love to run some missions with you with a parser so we can compare notes with one of my builds; I'm sure you'd be surprised at the results.
There are no Borg attacks that do Exploit damage. Clearing exposes or taking cover when exposed is not a concern when facing Borg. Most of the enemy races you'll encounter have a few Exploits (NPC guns have the same expose/exploit rules that their PC equivalents have) but the Borg have none.
Not going to nail my colours to the mast on it, but I'm 90% sure that all borg carry a ranged inject assimilation nanites exploit attack and are scripted to use it only as a response to expose.
I love this thread. There is so little good discussion of ground combat on the forums, I feel like we're all getting a lot out of this.
The reason I cite that specific situation, is that somebody needs to cover the Voth trying to steal the particles. Frequently that someone is me, because people are dense like that. I get to hang back and peck at it with the MACO rifle, while I watch for the Voth to spawn. If I see somebody else doing it, yeah I'm more than happy to Rambo in there and start pulsewaving the V-Rex.
I usually just throw a turret at that spot. Great being an Engineer on the ground.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Since ground powers are so little understood, let's get some discussion going on those. Does a space style "alpha strike" where you just stack up everything you've got and let loose make sense on the ground? Which powers stack well, or are otherwise useful to use in combination with each other? Is it useful to bind any of your Boffs' powers to your tray and activate them yourself?
With my Tacs, I'll usually stack up two of the damage buffs/resistance debuffs as they become available, and try to time it with my alt fire coming off cooldown. I'll then cycle between two sets of buffs trying to maintain a constant semi-buffed state. Most of the smaller mobs seem to go down quick when you hit them like this, making it wasteful to go full alpha on them. For giant HP bucket bosses like Rebecca or the V-Rex, I figure bursting won't help me as much as maintaining decent DPS over time.
My Sci is all about trying to get exposes. I usually won't waste more than a Tricorder Scan and one other power on a typical NPC group. For a tougher mob or boss, I'll throw powers and pulsewave shots at them until I get an expose, exploit it, then resume throwing stuff at them until I get another. Something like Tric Scan -> Exothermic Induction Field -> Pulsewave -> Hyperonic Radiation -> Sonic Pulse -> Pulsewave -> etc. For dangerous enemies, I'll tend to throw a Dampening Field on them, followed by the Electro-Gravitic Field to try and keep them in the Dampening Field.
I'm totally pulling all this out of my butt though. There is not nearly the level of theorycrafting out there for how to use your ground powers well that you find for space.
Since ground powers are so little understood, let's get some discussion going on those. Does a space style "alpha strike" where you just stack up everything you've got and let loose make sense on the ground? Which powers stack well, or are otherwise useful to use in combination with each other? Is it useful to bind any of your Boffs' powers to your tray and activate them yourself?
With my Tacs, I'll usually stack up two of the damage buffs/resistance debuffs as they become available, and try to time it with my alt fire coming off cooldown. I'll then cycle between two sets of buffs trying to maintain a constant semi-buffed state. Most of the smaller mobs seem to go down quick when you hit them like this, making it wasteful to go full alpha on them. For giant HP bucket bosses like Rebecca or the V-Rex, I figure bursting won't help me as much as maintaining decent DPS over time.
My Sci is all about trying to get exposes. I usually won't waste more than a Tricorder Scan and one other power on a typical NPC group. For a tougher mob or boss, I'll throw powers and pulsewave shots at them until I get an expose, exploit it, then resume throwing stuff at them until I get another. Something like Tric Scan -> Exothermic Induction Field -> Pulsewave -> Hyperonic Radiation -> Sonic Pulse -> Pulsewave -> etc. For dangerous enemies, I'll tend to throw a Dampening Field on them, followed by the Electro-Gravitic Field to try and keep them in the Dampening Field.
I'm totally pulling all this out of my butt though. There is not nearly the level of theorycrafting out there for how to use your ground powers well that you find for space.
I think you nailed it on the head as for your Tac-style; I do something similar. Using fire team I can pretty much have one or two damage buffs available to me at all times and can stack them all for the more difficult situations where you need to put down a lot of enemies FAST. Since I tend to skew for crit builds, prolonged combat has the potential to get dicey so you need to put out A LOT of damage, fast. But yeah, I spread out my buffs, like you.
AS for the med, I also use that kit (surprise surprise!) But I would suggest dropping electro gravitic FIRST before Exothermic induction; DoTs have the tendency to make npcs wander about (unless you use the doff that has the chance to make the ground grav well) - so you want to keep them bunched together before you hit the group with your secondary PW strike. At that point you can mop up the survivors at will. Also consider getting the doff that reduces the CD for Exothermic AND the other one that makes it throw out lava rock chunks. Good times!!!
I do enjoy the theorycrafting of the ground pew-pew. I went that way from the beginning of the game since it was a place where there was so little competition I found I could excel at it easier. Hence, My characters are VERY ground-trait heavy and usually specced for crit.
Comments
Interesting tips and comments about weapons, especially the new Voth Rifle, and movement. I'm finding turning easier but stopping more difficult. Thanks to each of you for the information.
Seriously? Either I am a Ground God (Laugh with me) or a lot of folks just are really bad at it... I touch a Hypo once in a GREAT while. I generally have one stack of 20 on me and never need to use them. Try moving instead of crouching and you will not just take constant beatings. Flank enemies and kill them instead of letting them flank you. Not sure what I do better but having 60 Hypos on hand seems absolutely ridiculous for how infrequently I ever need them.
/10 char
Elite Defense Stovokor
I think guriphu is talking more about PvP than PvE in that sentence. However, I've been in 2+ hour PvP matches and I've never burned more than 40 hypos. So for PvP, 60 is a good round number, but I prefer to go in with 140...because my teamates tend to run out if the match gets longer. As for PvE, if I'm a tactical officer I use about 8 hypos per STF, sometimes fewer. If I'm teamed with other players, then I use maybe 2 hypos the whole game.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
PvP would indeed be a different matter. I can see your logic about having extra to give to folks who need them. One of those rare instances where the Engineer supply box can be kind of useful.
Kind of like how it can be handy to have a spare Environmental suit when going into the Nekura Ques because a lot of folks don't have them :rolleyes: . Should be like the shuttle missions where you cannot Que for it without a suit on.
1. As mentioned, flank and cover. This isn't a "shooter", but cover does matter. Crouch next to objects to cover some of your flanks. If enemies are trying to get around you (what military types would actually call "flanking"), stand up and back away. Or kill the ones trying to flank you. Likewise, do it to them. Don't all sit there and hammer that Elite Tac Drone in the face. Surround him and pulsewave him into dust from all sides.
2. Expose/Exploit. The game tries to teach you this, but many many people still don't wind up getting it. Generally, you should be carrying one expose weapon and one exploit weapon. Usually the expose weapon is a pulsewave for its all around DPS. Exploit would be typically Sniper, High Density or Compression Pistol. People have their favorites there as this thread has shown. Lead with the pulsewave, and blast away until you see the orange circle reticle appear. Now you are ready to really kick TRIBBLE. Hit Z to switch to your exploit weapon, and jam its alt fire. Get as many Exploits in as you can before the expose wears off, then switch back to Expose and do it again. This doesn't matter much on regular mobs because they're probably about dead before you see the Expose, but tougher mobs and bosses it matters big. Especially if you are in a ground STF fighting a timer. Some powers like Tachyon Harmonic will generate exposes as well, check the tool tips.
3. Ground consumables do more than heal. Wait, what? Yup, these things are useful for more than their most obvious function. Look at their tool tip and you will see:
Hypo - Clears hold and stun
Shield Charge - Clears Expose <--- This is freaking important
Power Cell - Clears weapon malfunction
The most important secondary effect there, as I indicated, is the power cell clearing expose. You can expose/exploit enemies, and they can do it to you. Ever had a Tac Drone just insta-vape you, leaving you wondering what in Gre'thor just happened? You might've been exploited (or just ate a massive Borg crit). If you see that nasty orange circle appear on your character, hit a shield charge and clear it before you get wrecked. And you get some shields back too, as a bonus!
Hold and Stun are usually more important than the others you mention. There are a number of holds and stun effects and if you are stuck unable to act you are going to die fast.
I do agree that getting rid of exposes is very important but honestly until the Voth came around I had never ONCE seen an expose on me outside of PvP. So it must be a veeeery rare thing coming from NPC's.
However, I have recently seen a few Voth actually plant an Expose on me but either they failed to exploit it or their exploit was really weak because it never really hurt me much.
With the Borg a BIG thing is that you need to make sure they do not flank you. I have seen a lot of folks get one-shotted by them because they foolishly turned away from them. If you run away from the Borg they WILL shoot you in the back lol.
There really is a lot of versatility in the weapons setups you can adopt. I agree that the miniguns and blast assault weapons are beyond bad, though.
Yeah, I've rocked the dual pistols before too. There's something uniquely badass about dual wielding pistols like Neo (Matrix) or Alucard (Hellsing). Still, pulsewave tends to be more common because of the DPS and the knockback. Our stock recommendation for people as a starting place for ground STFs is a sniper (for shooting from behind trigger lines in IGE) and a pulsewave (for Armek and Captain Whatshisface in IGE). For non-STF, the field opens up a bit more. I often swap out my MACO rifle for a high density, and my Rom uses a compression pistol partly just for RP reasons.
Thanks!
CM
There are no Borg attacks that do Exploit damage. Clearing exposes or taking cover when exposed is not a concern when facing Borg. Most of the enemy races you'll encounter have a few Exploits (NPC guns have the same expose/exploit rules that their PC equivalents have) but the Borg have none.
I know there've been times when I've hit something with an exploit and it was still exposed, because I've had to watch it wear off while I waited for the exploit attack to CD. It doesn't happen super often because it usually takes me a second to end whatever animation lock I'm in, switch weapons and fire, so I figured I was only getting one shot because of the overhead there. Is it possible my Boffs or other players are exposing the target again as soon as I exploit it? Can you have multiple exposes on a target at once? Can one player with crappy damage output waste an expose that a better player could have capitalized on more?
I'll take your word on that, I've never really looked into what their weapons did. I just assumed they had a mix. Maybe what I've seen is just crits taking people out while exposed. The expose itself is a damage resist debuff though, so even if you're not going to get exploited you still want to clear it.
Forced Plasma Blast is an exploit attack, it receives the exploit damage buff and uses exposes. Unless Cryptic has changed something recently.
There is no cooldown on exposes. Any player can use an expose and the target may be immediately exposed again. However, the expose effect (it's not a true debuff) is only active once at a time. You can't stack up exposes on a target. New exposes merely reset the expose duration timer.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
That's all well and good, I figured that's how it works, but what concerns me about it is that potential for them to be wasted. Say Greg Groundchamp is in the Sphere Battlezone and puts an Expose on one of the V-Rex. He dutifully switches to his high end Ultra Rare exploit weapon and hits Ambush and whatever other buffs as quickly as he can. But, a split second before he fires, Ned Noobington happens to fire his Mk X green compression pistol, unbuffed, out of sheer coincidence. Or maybe because he read this thread and learned that Exploits are cool. Did Ned just cost the group a bunch of damage by clearing the expose before Greg could hit it with a much more potent shot (not to mention waste Greg's buffs)?
A Tactical Officer is going to put out more damage/second point blank shooting a V-Rex than he will get from super buffing sniper shots to hit exposes. Sniper Rifles are high spike damage weapons, useful for taking out single powerful targets from a safe distance. Pulsewaves are all about point blank raw damage. With that said, expose is useful for quickly killi
If you are hitting the battlezone, I'd suggest using a split beam rifle and the Omega Force Autocarbine (with the Armor and Shield) as well as the Fire Team kit (Squad Leader is also an option, but only the Spire Mk XII version). The Omega Autocarbine is a great weapon, the secondary sweep is a guaranteed expose on at least one target in it's attack arc. However, I tend to use the split beam rifle over the Omega Autocarbine most of the time. Use Suppression Fire whenever it comes off cooldown (24 second cooldown with 16 second uptime). If your tactical kit has suppression fire, use it.
Now Science officers are the master expose attackers, they have more abilities capable of triggering (and clearing) an expose than any other class ingame. A Split Beam Rifle with the Omega Force set will additionally work well for Science officers. Tricorder Scan is a Science officer's bread and butter debuff, use it whenever possible. If you don't have it, pick up the Lucky ground trait (race permitting), it doubles your chance to expose the target.
Engineers have the distinction of being the only class without direct damage resistance debuffs. With that said, they are currently most powerful class ingame at the moment on the ground. Engineers do however have a few expose chance attacks, such as their reroute power to shields ability. The Enemy Neutralization kit has a very well rounded group of abilities. Fuse armor and weapon malfunction are excellent debuffs. A full minefield will deal close to 1,000 damage collectively on a normal hit. There are also bunkering style engineering kits, but they aren't all that useful due to the nature of the battlezone. An Engineer should ideally be using the full MACO Set or the MACO Weapon/Armor with the Dyson Set Weapon/Shield. The three piece MACO set bonus will add significant resistances to holds while also adding a chance to proc exposes when anything teamed with the engineer is shot. For a more offensive approach (2pc MACO/2pc Dyson), the experimental Proton Rifle will proc exposes on both primary and secondary firing modes.
Now, is damage wasted when an unbuffed exploit attack shot strikes an exposed enemy? It depends on the situation. Exploit damage is a +200% base damage buff. Due to the fact that the extra damage is off of your base damage, you aren't gaining anything by first activating a pile of buffs. Your damage numbers will be higher, but you will still get the same +damage buff with the extra buffs as you would without. The only thing that really matters is the weapon. A MK XII very rare compression pistol is going to deal a higher amount of exploit damage than a Mk I common compression pistol because the base damage numbers are higher. A tactical officer will probably deal more exploit damage than a engineer or science officer (unless they have the science officer only field researcher trait +25% exploit damage).
If you are fighting a V-Rex, you are better off spamming a split beam rifle. The exploit attack takes 0.5 seconds to activate and the damage numbers are decent. Not to mention if the V-Rex shoots you while you are wearing the Omega shield, he will probably end up proccing an expose on himself (there is a reason the Omega shield is considered to be one of the best ingame). In the long run, your aren't losing much if someone hits that expose with a lower mark weapon. Exposes won't get you very far against a target with 8,000 shields and 24,000 health.
Now, let's just say you were going for a flank expose shot on a target with your damage buffs active. If someone shoots the target, clears the expose, and aggros the target; you are losing potential damage. Not only did they remove the expose, but they also removed the chance for flanking damage (+50% base damage). Remember that exposes are a source of spike damage. If you are going for sustained damage, then expose attacks aren't a good option in most cases.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Huh, all this time and I didn't know. Thanks!
The reason I cite that specific situation, is that somebody needs to cover the Voth trying to steal the particles. Frequently that someone is me, because people are dense like that. I get to hang back and peck at it with the MACO rifle, while I watch for the Voth to spawn. If I see somebody else doing it, yeah I'm more than happy to Rambo in there and start pulsewaving the V-Rex.
I never got the Omega ground set because like I was saying before, our fleet's STF team prefers pulsewave and sniper, and the autocarbine is neither. Plus as I understand it, burst firing weapons are a bad idea on Borg because of the adaptation. I'll look into it though.
My Sci toon has been an absolute blast to play on the ground. The Physicist kit is nothing short of non stop hilarity. With the Pyrokinetic field and such, I can often get an expose without even using the pulsewave, so I'll just lead with my exploit weapon. She has one trait slot left, and I was eyeballing the Lucky trait as one I might take (Joined Trill). Good deal.
That is really good to know, no sense saving up buffs until I get an expose unless I'm trying to one-shot something for lulz.
Your data here is old. Changes were made a long while back changing how the adaptation mechanics worked, to a time based effect. The sniper rifle/pulsewave strat is still fine. But your cheating yourself and your team out off the best possible damage by not using the Omega set. The Carbine/sniper rifle works very well in fact the Carbine/Proto type proton rifle is exceptional. I'd recommend updating your tactics.
Nothing like exploiting multiple targets because one of them happened to be exposed, awwwyissssssssssssssssss
Elite Defense Stovokor
I've tried several bridge officer variations over the last few weeks. Of the different abilities, I've found that it's best to run an engineer and a science officer for bridge officers. Science officer: Hypospray Dylovene I, Medical Tricorder II, Vascular Regenerator II, Nanite Health Monitor I. Engineer: Mine Barrier I, Shield Recharge II, Reroute Power to Shields II, and Equipment Diagnostics II.
Now, the trick to this is to use waypoints to place your engineering bridge officer in the center of the stairs leading up to the Omega particle consoles. Order your engineer to lay down mine barrier, this will deal some nice shield bypassing damage to any Voth Engineers on their way up the stairs. Also, Reroute Power to Shields II is currently bugged, there is one too many zeros in the healing value. Meaning, bridge officer engineers will heal 330 shields/second instead of 33 shields/second with the ability....making them almost invincible for the duration. Mortars will still kill them, but not if your science bridge officer gives your engineer nanite health monitor.
The MACO set with a Pulsewave was the golden setup back in Season 5. A lot has changed in the past two years. Full MACO with a pulsewave is great if you are an engineer, but Science and Tactical Officers will get more out of the Omega set. Now for anything outside of Borg STFs, you have a wide range of options.
I see a lot of players going for Elite Fleet Armor and Shields. This is probably due to the fact that Elite Fleet Shields in space are overpowered. On the ground, Elite Fleet Shields aren't that great, even with their high resistances (which you can get anyway with abilities). Remember that shield resistance is capped at 75%. Which means the shields are almost useless if you are an engineer or science officer due to shield resistance abilities. Almost all reputation gear shields come with a special proc while also providing control resistances. The Elite Fleet Shields are only useful for absorbing spike damage. If you are trying to shield tank, then you should be using the Dyson or MACO shields instead. Elite Fleet armor is far below existing reputation gear armor, yet a number of people use it because of the fact that it provides a large health heal when falling to critical levels. Again, it's only useful for surviving high spike hits. Once the heal is used you are looking at a 3 minute cooldown, compare that to the 45 second cooldown (15 under tactical initiative) on the Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus.
In long running fights, a player is better off with set gear because the set gear will has better stats and abilities in the long run. A player with the two piece Adapted MACO set (armor + shield) is going to heal more than someone with an Elite Fleet Shield + Armor. For PvE content, this normally means that set gear is the way to go.
Feel free to experiment, mix and match sets, you'd be surprised what you can do. For example, if you wanted a maximum health healing build, you could go with the Adapted MACO armor + weapon with the Crystaline Matrix Shield (+10% self heals). Now, if you wanted to maximize your ability to shield tank you could go with the MACO Armor + Rifle with the Dyson Shield and an Elite Fleet Phaser Split Beam Rifle [Dmg]x2 [CritX] [SHeal]. There are so many effective set gear combinations available to players. You could even mix in fleet gear, but I'd suggest limiting it to either fleet armor or shields, not both. Fleet weapons are also nice, but for most things I prefer the Romulan Plasma weapons obtained from Tier V New Romulus Reputation or the Phased Tetryon weapons from the Tholian Lockbox. There are other options out there ingame. I'd stay away from polaron, the proc has never been that useful in my opinion.
I use the full Omega set and a Fleet Advanced Antiproton Pulsewave Assault Mk XII [Dmg]x3 [CritX]. Now that's a nice weapon combination, despite the identical damage types. I leave the exploit damage dealing to the Science officers when fighting borg, they deal +25% more than any other class after all. If the Science officer also have the Covert and Acute Senses traits to go along with Field Researcher that's +245% damage on an exploit. Also, since my main Tactical officer is human, that's +5% more team wide exploit damage from the Teamwork trait.
Now in the Voth Battlezone I enjoy using Target Optics + Aim to oneshot Voth Specialists with the Split Beam Rifle secondary fire mode. The sheer amount of damage a Tactical officer can throw out there can be quite enjoyable. However, science is still my favorite class.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
LOL @ "leading a parade"... Oh maaan... I can imagine how that would look and it is sooo bad. It would be funny though in that "Oooh greeeeat" sort of way.
Another thing to note here is that with the integrated remodulator you can easily insta-remod faster than the Borg can stay adapted. So even weapons like the Carbine can be used endlessly without worry.
You wanna know how i know you never use fleet gear, or use it correctly? :P
Elite `Fleet shields are just fine for ground; WAY more capacity. If you go with an Advanced/Elite Res A/B version (Elite for the ADAPT) You can most certainly do some fine tanking. That said, I would say the Nukkara T5 shield is probably the best in-game IMHO (not the one you pointed out, the other one): +20% resistance to ALL energy types plus a chance to add additional resistance? Yeah - I'll take that.
The fleet armors are also perfect for builds; If you're going for CriT offense, nothing is better short of the Chrono armor but then you are a glass cannon and wont have much survivability lol. ( I do use that armor on one of my alts...fine for PvE)
I would love to run some missions with you with a parser so we can compare notes with one of my builds; I'm sure you'd be surprised at the results.
Not going to nail my colours to the mast on it, but I'm 90% sure that all borg carry a ranged inject assimilation nanites exploit attack and are scripted to use it only as a response to expose.
I usually just throw a turret at that spot. Great being an Engineer on the ground.
With my Tacs, I'll usually stack up two of the damage buffs/resistance debuffs as they become available, and try to time it with my alt fire coming off cooldown. I'll then cycle between two sets of buffs trying to maintain a constant semi-buffed state. Most of the smaller mobs seem to go down quick when you hit them like this, making it wasteful to go full alpha on them. For giant HP bucket bosses like Rebecca or the V-Rex, I figure bursting won't help me as much as maintaining decent DPS over time.
My Sci is all about trying to get exposes. I usually won't waste more than a Tricorder Scan and one other power on a typical NPC group. For a tougher mob or boss, I'll throw powers and pulsewave shots at them until I get an expose, exploit it, then resume throwing stuff at them until I get another. Something like Tric Scan -> Exothermic Induction Field -> Pulsewave -> Hyperonic Radiation -> Sonic Pulse -> Pulsewave -> etc. For dangerous enemies, I'll tend to throw a Dampening Field on them, followed by the Electro-Gravitic Field to try and keep them in the Dampening Field.
I'm totally pulling all this out of my butt though. There is not nearly the level of theorycrafting out there for how to use your ground powers well that you find for space.
I think you nailed it on the head as for your Tac-style; I do something similar. Using fire team I can pretty much have one or two damage buffs available to me at all times and can stack them all for the more difficult situations where you need to put down a lot of enemies FAST. Since I tend to skew for crit builds, prolonged combat has the potential to get dicey so you need to put out A LOT of damage, fast. But yeah, I spread out my buffs, like you.
AS for the med, I also use that kit (surprise surprise!) But I would suggest dropping electro gravitic FIRST before Exothermic induction; DoTs have the tendency to make npcs wander about (unless you use the doff that has the chance to make the ground grav well) - so you want to keep them bunched together before you hit the group with your secondary PW strike. At that point you can mop up the survivors at will. Also consider getting the doff that reduces the CD for Exothermic AND the other one that makes it throw out lava rock chunks. Good times!!!
I do enjoy the theorycrafting of the ground pew-pew. I went that way from the beginning of the game since it was a place where there was so little competition I found I could excel at it easier. Hence, My characters are VERY ground-trait heavy and usually specced for crit.