the ship subtype 'dreadnought warbird' should quite literally not be able to slot beam arrays. to be the first ship like that
If there was ever an effortless fix (the kind that devs seem to settle on for the most part) you're probably right. I don't recall seeing the scimi in nemesis firing off any beams at all. Just a load of cannon shots even though there are references to "banks" but no beams though.
I don't know why people say the only real DPS builds for beamcruisers is aux2bat. I can deal a rather large amount of DPS easily using an eng-oddy and NOT aux2bat. You just need the right DOffs and the right abilities.
But I am inclined to agree. Starting to get sick of seeing only one build in every PvP and PvE queue. I mean honestly, I am probably one of the only Scimitars that still uses a DHC torp build. Because Aux2bat is just so effective and easy to use. You barely need to pay attention, you don't need to line up your shots, you just need to get your broadside, push the spacebar, and go to sleep.
Seeing it on cruisers, I kinda expected that, it's a good way to get DPS and easy to do. But you start putting it on ships like the Scimitar? I mean really??
bleh... -.-
/rant
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.
I don't know why people say the only real DPS builds for beamcruisers is aux2bat. I can deal a rather large amount of DPS easily using an eng-oddy and NOT aux2bat. You just need the right DOffs and the right abilities.
But I am inclined to agree. Starting to get sick of seeing only one build in every PvP and PvE queue. I mean honestly, I am probably one of the only Scimitars that still uses a DHC torp build. Because Aux2bat is just so effective and easy to use. You barely need to pay attention, you don't need to line up your shots, you just need to get your broadside, push the spacebar, and go to sleep.
Seeing it on cruisers, I kinda expected that, it's a good way to get DPS and easy to do. But you start putting it on ships like the Scimitar? I mean really??
bleh... -.-
/rant
I didn't see you in your Scimitar in the matches I mentioned in the original post. You would have stood out like a sore thumb. But in a good way!!
A2B Scims are laziness mixed with a good dose of lack of imagination.
Simple, try entering the fed vs fed PvP not premade. 9 out of 10 times, I come against a team of 5 Scimitars running aux2bat and spamming FAW. You go into a STF, and a Scimitar with aux2bat can practically solo it.
Like it has been pointed out, the problem comes down to the doff. Most doffs are programmed in with chances of x happening. With 3 technicians, you can just run around with a single copy of each boff power, and have space for 2-3 more doffs (spire unlock). The devs have to either limit what abilities get a cooldown reduction or add some chance to the effect.
I'm sorry OP, you're asking for a nerf, not a fix. You cannot fix what is not broken. And, unfortunately for you, A2B is WAI. So Cryptic is not going to "fix" it, nor "nerf" it either. Not now, not ever.
Evidence? The whole Romulan flotilla. Almost every single Romulan ship was built in such a way that it allows for (semi-) optimal A2B builds. The Scimitar itself was designed to allow for what is pretty much an ideal A2B build. Moving forward in time, the Avenger, Cryptics latest finest, is also, clearly, an A2B boat. Oh, and the yet unannounced (as of this writing) Klingon Battlecruiser will almost certainly be an A2B boat.
For Cryptic, and for a large percentage of the playing population that either does not have access, or does not want to pay for, AP/EW doffs, A2B is WAI. Now, you can either adapt to the game, play some other game, or continue to be miserable.
Sorry, only the photonic officer part was really directed at you Mimey, I just quoted you as I was leading on from it. I'll put an edit in to make it clear.
Once again, this is not directed at you Mimey outside of the first 3 sentences.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
dont forget the additonal 7.5% crit chance scimitar drivers get from the points on their ears also contribute greatly to the amount of damage they do over regular Fed and klingon players
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
mmm no guys, its not the aux2batteries to e OP, its the scimitar to be OP.
the scimitar and the possibility to equip up to 10 universal consoles.
now:
many of them are unuseful, but there are many others that are really OP.
The valdore console for example.
so, universal consoles should be bound to their ships:
valdore console, for example, should be bound to the mogai warbirds.
or at least, ships should not be able to equip more than one of these (3, for 3 pack ship consoles).
Simple, try entering the fed vs fed PvP not premade. 9 out of 10 times, I come against a team of 5 Scimitars running aux2bat and spamming FAW. You go into a STF, and a Scimitar with aux2bat can practically solo it.
Wait, you're COMPLAINING that you can find a 90% predictable opposing force that you can troll with Gravwell, AMS, Scramble Sensors, and Acetones for an easy win as they blow each other apart?
I'm sorry OP, you're asking for a nerf, not a fix. You cannot fix what is not broken. And, unfortunately for you, A2B is WAI. So Cryptic is not going to "fix" it, nor "nerf" it either. Not now, not ever.
Evidence? The whole Romulan flotilla. Almost every single Romulan ship was built in such a way that it allows for (semi-) optimal A2B builds. The Scimitar itself was designed to allow for what is pretty much an ideal A2B build. Moving forward in time, the Avenger, Cryptics latest finest, is also, clearly, an A2B boat. Oh, and the yet unannounced (as of this writing) Klingon Battlecruiser will almost certainly be an A2B boat.
For Cryptic, and for a large percentage of the playing population that either does not have access, or does not want to pay for, AP/EW doffs, A2B is WAI. Now, you can either adapt to the game, play some other game, or continue to be miserable.
Actually, Aux2bat is NOT WAI. If it was WAI it would still share cds with EPtX like it used to. As soon as they removed this, Aux2bat went OP bat **** nuts.
I didn't see you in your Scimitar in the matches I mentioned in the original post. You would have stood out like a sore thumb. But in a good way!!
A2B Scims are laziness mixed with a good dose of lack of imagination.
Actually if this was a week after the Scimi first came out, my build would NOT have stuck out at all. It only sticks out now because I use archaic and dated builds (that are still very effective).
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.
Wait, you're COMPLAINING that you can find a 90% predictable opposing force that you can troll with Gravwell, AMS, Scramble Sensors, and Acetones for an easy win as they blow each other apart?
Whilst you're doing that the 5 scimitars have completed the wave or the STF and are stomping the next. This is why people say science ships are laughably under performing, it's not that they can't get kills with them if left to their own devices, it's that in the current meta there's no need for them as any other option would do it in less than half the time.
I think this is why the majority of the people in the nerf A2B camp are PvPers too, they don't like being beaten by builds designed for maximum killing in PvE. I mean seriously the amount of arguments, insults and general behaviour of some PvPers is like a cancer. Then we get high dps players who didn't invest so heavily in PvP stroll in and annihilate them, think it stepped on a lot of egos.
"I'm in the top 10% of players...only about 10% of people PvP"
"The top 1% of players are all PvPers"
Those are 2 comments that really stick in my mind, one was said the other day. However as I say, if other doffs were cheap as chips then you would see A2B disappear on many ships.
Someone suggested we stop scimitars from using beams. Ok, so do we lock out escorts from beams too, make them use cannons? Locking ships out of weapon types all other ships can use isn't a good idea unless they're very unlikely to make full use of them like with dual cannons. As for preventing universal consoles being slotted on other ships...well there would be no reason to buy older ships, the lockbox consoles would be a mess (older ones not new ones) and generally it would probably TRIBBLE off a lot of people who had bought ships before.
Actually, Aux2bat is NOT WAI. If it was WAI it would still share cds with EPtX like it used to. As soon as they removed this, Aux2bat went OP bat **** ).
Sorry, no. This is, by definition, WAI. Did the devs accidentally remove the cooldown? Are they supposed to share a cooldown, but due to some bug the shared cooldown does not trigger? No? Then WAI.
Sorry, you seem to think that WAI means "Working As Herticknight would like". I assure you it means working as the developers intended.
However as I say, if other doffs were cheap as chips then you would see A2B disappear on many ships.
Welll, I'm not sure, there. I mean, regular cooldown doffs will free up one boff slot for 2 doffs (TT, AP), generally, and 2 slots for 3 doffs (EPtX). That effectively brings your effective amount of boff abilities to 13 in the first case, 14 in the second case, or 15 if using both (note, that uses up 5 doff slots). A2B brings your total effective boff abilities to 22 (or 23 if using single A2B), including reducing cooldowns on abilities that don't have their own cooldown doff. All while using just 3 doffs, leaving 2 open for utility purposes. Why would you choose anything else?
Whilst you're doing that the 5 scimitars have completed the wave or the STF and are stomping the next. This is why people say science ships are laughably under performing, it's not that they can't get kills with them if left to their own devices, it's that in the current meta there's no need for them as any other option would do it in less than half the time.
I think this is why the majority of the people in the nerf A2B camp are PvPers too, they don't like being beaten by builds designed for maximum killing in PvE. I mean seriously the amount of arguments, insults and general behaviour of some PvPers is like a cancer. Then we get high dps players who didn't invest so heavily in PvP stroll in and annihilate them, think it stepped on a lot of egos.
Sure, a lot of complaints are coming from the PvP crowd, but a lot of frowns are also coming from those that play both, or play PvE cruisers but would like to see more viable builds around than just the one. And those are often the same people looking for a rough parity between all ship types, including science vessels. I read community responses to A2B rather along the lines of "those that just want to melt stuff in any way that's quickest", vs "those that would prefer to see some ship type parity, general semblance of balance and build variety"...
they don't like being beaten by builds designed for maximum killing in PvE. I mean seriously the amount of arguments, insults and general behaviour of some PvPers is like a cancer. Then we get high dps players who didn't invest so heavily in PvP stroll in and annihilate them, think it stepped on a lot of egos.
i think there sums up ALL these BFAW threads right there ..!!!
stop complaining just coz you were beaten by a pve player
go away....learn and here wait for this ADAPT !!
yes i am a bfaw player and one of the best pve dps out there and i can prove that
and NO i DONT use A2B!!
as woodwhitty said at the begining THERE IS NO NEED FOR A2B the scim simply doesnt need it as it has the PERFECT boff layout
Yeah, I should probably stress that I have zero issues with FaW itself, really. It's just the A2B doffs that irk me, because of my previous points. If you want to FaW, go for it, but I can choose to SS, JS, Reflect etc as a response. Or not, and just outheal the spread-out dps.
I just have an issue with some ships effectively having access to over 50% more boff abilities than some others do, while still only using 3 doffs.
Welll, I'm not sure, there. I mean, regular cooldown doffs will free up one boff slot for 2 doffs (TT, AP), generally, and 2 slots for 3 doffs (EPtX). That effectively brings your effective amount of boff abilities to 13 in the first case, 14 in the second case, or 15 if using both (note, that uses up 5 doff slots). A2B brings your total effective boff abilities to 22 (or 23 if using single A2B), including reducing cooldowns on abilities that don't have their own cooldown doff. All while using just 3 doffs, leaving 2 open for utility purposes. Why would you choose anything else?
True but I also like being able to heal when I want and need to as opposed to having to keep track of my cycle and either wait or make do with a really weak heal. That is a major downside to the whole aux to bat cycling of 2 abilities. If you only use 1 then it's not as bad but short cool down abilities get little to no benefit from a single copy so you're only doubling up on the long cool down abilities which apart from APO are some of the most lacking abilities for PvE, different story for PvP but DDIS would be better for commenting on that.
Sure, a lot of complaints are coming from the PvP crowd, but a lot of frowns are also coming from those that play both, or play PvE cruisers but would like to see more viable builds around than just the one. And those are often the same people looking for a rough parity between all ship types, including science vessels. I read community responses to A2B rather along the lines of "those that just want to melt stuff in any way that's quickest", vs "those that would prefer to see some ship type parity, general semblance of balance and build variety"...
I would love it if there was parity between ship type, I'd love it if a science ship fought using science abilities as the main part of its style but unfortunately this isn't the case and hasn't been for years. I'd be happy to let A2B go if the damage from warp plasma was worth a damn in PvE or if aceton beam did something in PvE but the vast majority of the time they don't or due to said long cool down it just isn't worth using on anything that isn't big and threatening, to which there isn't much.
I mean you've seen first hand how threatening the Borg are to our fleet when we have the higher damage players grouping, they might as well hand over their neural processors and dilithium.
When we teamed up in our wells ships with complimentary builds we were wrecking face but it required timing, knowing what the other had and what we had used, keeping track of each other's abilities etc etc to be as effective as 1 fast cycling APB/FAW spamming scimitar. I enjoyed flying like that but it's a lot more effort for what really is the same reward, less if you were to have 2 high DPSers there instead.
Meh this is turning into more of a rant about other things now. A2B is powerful, no denying but as I said earlier, it's more of a symptom. You make other things like photonic officer more effective, make cool down reduction doffs more common and you will see an over night drop in A2B. People don't like running at 4-5 aux most of the time, it's very risky.
Oh and about PvPers, some are sore losers and bad sportsmen but not all PvPers are like that so let's not blanket say PvPers are rubbish or that PvEers are rubbish. Good players are good players regardless of what they do. <--- directed at readers in general, not Twam.
Whilst you're doing that the 5 scimitars have completed the wave or the STF and are stomping the next. This is why people say science ships are laughably under performing, it's not that they can't get kills with them if left to their own devices, it's that in the current meta there's no need for them as any other option would do it in less than half the time.
I think this is why the majority of the people in the nerf A2B camp are PvPers too, they don't like being beaten by builds designed for maximum killing in PvE. I mean seriously the amount of arguments, insults and general behaviour of some PvPers is like a cancer. Then we get high dps players who didn't invest so heavily in PvP stroll in and annihilate them, think it stepped on a lot of egos.
"I'm in the top 10% of players...only about 10% of people PvP"
"The top 1% of players are all PvPers"
Those are 2 comments that really stick in my mind, one was said the other day. However as I say, if other doffs were cheap as chips then you would see A2B disappear on many ships.
Someone suggested we stop scimitars from using beams. Ok, so do we lock out escorts from beams too, make them use cannons? Locking ships out of weapon types all other ships can use isn't a good idea unless they're very unlikely to make full use of them like with dual cannons. As for preventing universal consoles being slotted on other ships...well there would be no reason to buy older ships, the lockbox consoles would be a mess (older ones not new ones) and generally it would probably TRIBBLE off a lot of people who had bought ships before.
I PvP and I feel that if I get beaten, I get beaten. That's how the game goes. Since I've been posting on these forums, however, I've always pressed for balance and fairness in this game. A2B Scimitars are not balanced. Nor are they fair. In the interest of fairness, something needs to be done to decouple the relationship this particular ship has with A2B.
Just wondering: did anybody try an "Aux-denial"-build to counter that A2B-spam? Because no Aux, no A2B and without A2B all these cookie-cutter-builds become just mediocre faw-beamboats.
I PvP and I feel that if I get beaten, I get beaten. That's how the game goes. Since I've been posting on these forums, however, I've always pressed for balance and fairness in this game. A2B Scimitars are not balanced. Nor are they fair. In the interest of fairness, something needs to be done to decouple the relationship this particular ship has with A2B.
Oh aye, I've not seen you complaining about being beaten for the record. Sure it's crazy powerful and has a lot of advantages but if you start saying "this ship with this combo is too powerful" and then take steps to prevent it you're starting to make specific rules and complicating things for casuals which is not a direction the game wants to go in.
The other option is to nerf the A2B combo but as woodwhitty said, it won't hurt the scimitar, it'll only cripple ships like the failaxy. Heretic has seen my scimitar and to be honest I don't need the lower cool down on my science abilities, I have 5 engineering abilities, 2 of which are A2B so I can get FAW and APB as close to 20s as possible. Take out A2B and I can double up on my abilities instead or run damage control doffs and use 2 different engineering abilities too, then with 2 conn officers I get APB back at 21s. My scimitar is just as powerful as before, maybe more so because then I can have full aux for heals when I need it.
What about the guy in his galaxy dreadnought though? He's got to double up on a lot of engineering abilities and now is just slipping behind in performance. Best thing he can do is tank up and hope he can draw aggro because he's got no chance of coming close to useful on the dps scale or making up for it in general utility.
Honestly if you wanted to make it more balanced increasing the shared cool down of A2B as well as it's duration to 20s would probably solve it. Still think it's a huge nerf to the ships that do kinda need it to stay competitive though.
Also, the Aux2Damp doff needs a nerf. The dmg resist is way too high.
How about a compromise on this one, modify the energy resist it adds (the only resist it adds) scale the same way as the kinetic one from the ability itself does, I would be happy enough with this.
As to A2B, what's the point in playing a game if you are just going to make everything automated on a single button? That's not playing the game, that's making the game play itself.
I agree there should be parity between ships and the current NPC design really gives science ships the short end of the stick. If said NPCs got some skills then science ships would get a use in pve, simple as, still I'm deviating...
Just a question to Aux2Bat players, why automate the game at the cost of aux power when you can do similar or better dps with an escort and keep your aux power?
EDIT: As to nerfing A2B crippling older ships including but not limited to the Sovi, I can make that do 8k DPS without thinking (and probably with no doffs at all) if I use doffs and sacrifice some team utility (APB) I can get a good 12k out of it maybe push 15k and that's with an engineer captain, use a tac and I can get 15k easily, maybe push 17k. The galaxy can do similar things if you use the engineering and science slots to make up for missing tac team. (EDIT: This without A2B)
The other option is to nerf the A2B combo but as woodwhitty said, it won't hurt the scimitar, it'll only cripple ships like the failaxy.
...
What about the guy in his galaxy dreadnought though? He's got to double up on a lot of engineering abilities and now is just slipping behind in performance. Best thing he can do is tank up and hope he can draw aggro because he's got no chance of coming close to useful on the dps scale or making up for it in general utility.
Most notable features of the scimitar are:
* When it's in trouble it can prolong its fighting with the secondary shields. No other ship can do that.
* It has a battle cloak. When it gets in trouble it can cloak and get away. This puts it ahead of all of the Fed cruisers that need to escape without cloak or tough it out and try to heal with close to zero auxiliary.
* It maintains shields during cloak if it needs to escape. No other ship can do that.
* Its pets can SS. No other ship has that.
* The critical hit that Romulans can achieve is incredible.
By themselves, each of the above abilities/benefits is OK, but roll it all in to one ship and slap A2B on it and you have an OP powerhouse. This is why I believe that the scimitar A2B relationship needs to be modified, not A2B. As you say, just modifying A2B would cripple all of those other ships, an outcome which would hurt the game as a whole.
* When it's in trouble it can prolong its fighting with the secondary shields. No other ship can do that.
* It has a battle cloak. When it gets in trouble it can cloak and get away. This puts it ahead of all of the Fed cruisers that need to escape without cloak or tough it out and try to heal with close to zero auxiliary.
* It maintains shields during cloak if it needs to escape. No other ship can do that.
* Its pets can SS. No other ship has that.
* The critical hit that Romulans can achieve is incredible.
By themselves, each of the above abilities/benefits is OK, but roll it all in to one ship and slap A2B on it and you have an OP powerhouse. This is why I believe that the scimitar A2B relationship needs to be modified, not A2B. As you say, just modifying A2B would cripple all of those other ships, an outcome which would hurt the game as a whole.
Then you start drawing lines and splitting what can and cannot be done on a ship and there's just no way in hell the debs are gonna do that. They won't even make abilities do different levels of what they do vs players/NPCs if they can help it so they will never turn round and say you cannot run these abilities on a certain ship.
I think it's a terrible idea to limit the abilities a ship can use just for the sake of saying it will be OP. If that's the case the ship shouldn't have had more than 1 lt engineering station.
As for the abilities like secondary shields and shields while cloaked, I don't know a single scimitar that runs that, sure it's the best of a poor bunch but it's still pretty meh when you can use the singularity heal instead and use something else.
But say we do remove A2B from scimitars and then they are still as powerful as ever, do we then say they can't slot certain doffs? What happens to the next ship that becomes the most powerful ship in the game? Do we start arbitrarily saying it can't run ability Y because it can spam it to hell and back?
The scimitar and A2B are a symptom not the cause of it being so OP. All of this all stems from the massive imbalance between abilities and the fact this game is all about doing damage with DoTs being almost completely worthless due to how much direct fire you can do.
I really don't see a problem with A2B in PVP. Any ship with FBP, GW and TR will instantly disable auxiliary and reflect back more damage then it takes. The top end DPS scimitars are also usually running with no resist consoles (or only one), meaning that any damage you inflict will cut them to pieces.
The pressure damage ships use RSP to survive the alpha, then deal too much continuous damage for an escort to heal. The alpha strikers kill the sci boat before it can take advantage of its abilities (or simply use A2D plus EPTE to run away until the sci is on cooldown), and the sci boats kill the A2B by disabling them (and most A2B are cruisers which use EPTS and EPTW instead of EPTE).
In PVE however, it is a stomp. You only need aux heals to cleanse DoT, the hull heals are barely needed as you kill everything before it can load a second torpedo.
Then you start drawing lines and splitting what can and cannot be done on a ship and there's just no way in hell the debs are gonna do that. They won't even make abilities do different levels of what they do vs players/NPCs if they can help it so they will never turn round and say you cannot run these abilities on a certain ship.
I think it's a terrible idea to limit the abilities a ship can use just for the sake of saying it will be OP. If that's the case the ship shouldn't have had more than 1 lt engineering station.
As for the abilities like secondary shields and shields while cloaked, I don't know a single scimitar that runs that, sure it's the best of a poor bunch but it's still pretty meh when you can use the singularity heal instead and use something else.
But say we do remove A2B from scimitars and then they are still as powerful as ever, do we then say they can't slot certain doffs? What happens to the next ship that becomes the most powerful ship in the game? Do we start arbitrarily saying it can't run ability Y because it can spam it to hell and back?
The scimitar and A2B are a symptom not the cause of it being so OP. All of this all stems from the massive imbalance between abilities and the fact this game is all about doing damage with DoTs being almost completely worthless due to how much direct fire you can do.
You make very good points, but remember that there are already limits placed on ships. Some can use cannons, others cannot. (D'Kora and Galor, one can, one can't. Why?) Some ships can use certain pets, other can't. Why? Some ships can use certain consoles, others can't. Why?
I think the reason for these points is because the devs felt that allowing all ships to do all things creates imbalance. Restrictions help create balance. Restricting the scimitar from doing certain things would help create balance.
I think the reason for these points is because the devs felt that allowing all ships to do all things creates imbalance. Restrictions help create balance. Restricting the scimitar from doing certain things would help create balance.
I agree restrictions do help create balance, or rather stop some things becoming massively more powerful than intended. However they have to follow rules and you can't really just discriminate.
Best example is the double tap nerf. They could have just made the change for beam overload but then it would have stood out and be a little unfair, not to mention short sighted. So they put it with all tactical abilities, even the ones you can't really double up on like CRF.
You make very good points, but remember that there are already limits placed on ships. Some can use cannons, others cannot. (D'Kora and Galor, one can, one can't. Why?) Some ships can use certain pets, other can't. Why? Some ships can use certain consoles, others can't. Why?
In all these examples it's the gear that is being limited, some of which to be honest is just silly to use on those ships anyway but still a lot of them are exceptions to the rule too. You're free to fit any universal console on those ships and any universal pets it's just some have more advanced and powerful options.
If we were to say a scimitar can't use A2B it would be akin to saying ship X can't use a specific console but all others can. That's just breaking rules and implementing arbitrary limits which may or may not change anything. Most things in the game follow a logical order.
VA/RA level ships usually get special consoles that can only be used on those ships. Only exception is the fed cloak and possibly 2 piece set bonuses from lobi/lockbox ships but it still follows the rules of being limited.
Any other c-store ship console below RA can be used on any ship, keeps it being a worthwhile purchase.
Most carriers have standard pets but can use frigate type pets. Frigates tend to be more powerful and locked to that specific carrier. Only exception as far as I know is the kitty carrier but then Feds don't get frigates.
Lots of universal concepts we all maybe take for granted but we all kinda know what will happen when a new thing comes out. It also allows for Cryptic to break the rules for a special ship and allow for it to be unique. Example is the dkora being a cruiser really but can fit DHCs.
If they didn't want the scimitar to run A2B they would alter the boff layout so it couldn't run it but that would mess with so many people it wouldn't be a good idea.
I agree restrictions do help create balance, or rather stop some things becoming massively more powerful than intended. However they have to follow rules and you can't really just discriminate.
Best example is the double tap nerf. They could have just made the change for beam overload but then it would have stood out and be a little unfair, not to mention short sighted. So they put it with all tactical abilities, even the ones you can't really double up on like CRF.
In all these examples it's the gear that is being limited, some of which to be honest is just silly to use on those ships anyway but still a lot of them are exceptions to the rule too. You're free to fit any universal console on those ships and any universal pets it's just some have more advanced and powerful options.
If we were to say a scimitar can't use A2B it would be akin to saying ship X can't use a specific console but all others can. That's just breaking rules and implementing arbitrary limits which may or may not change anything. Most things in the game follow a logical order.
VA/RA level ships usually get special consoles that can only be used on those ships. Only exception is the fed cloak and possibly 2 piece set bonuses from lobi/lockbox ships but it still follows the rules of being limited.
Any other c-store ship console below RA can be used on any ship, keeps it being a worthwhile purchase.
Most carriers have standard pets but can use frigate type pets. Frigates tend to be more powerful and locked to that specific carrier. Only exception as far as I know is the kitty carrier but then Feds don't get frigates.
Lots of universal concepts we all maybe take for granted but we all kinda know what will happen when a new thing comes out. It also allows for Cryptic to break the rules for a special ship and allow for it to be unique. Example is the dkora being a cruiser really but can fit DHCs.
If they didn't want the scimitar to run A2B they would alter the boff layout so it couldn't run it but that would mess with so many people it wouldn't be a good idea.
I agree that having one ship stand out by being prevented from using an ability would be odd, but I'm really unsure how else they could fix the issue without wrecking all the other ships, like the Galaxy.
In principle I disagree with my idea of disallowing the ship from using the ability, but in practice I see no other way.
I know, there's just no sensible option really and having it share CD with emergency power abilities isn't a good idea.
Only thing I can think of doing is altering A2B to really give a bigger drawback and less benefit to spamming like altering the shared cool down but even then it's not going to do much to the power of the scimitar and will affect other builds a lot more.
Perhaps if they made cool down doffs in general more available and improved photonic officer we would see less A2B usage and more of a spread out of cool down reductions.
Comments
If there was ever an effortless fix (the kind that devs seem to settle on for the most part) you're probably right. I don't recall seeing the scimi in nemesis firing off any beams at all. Just a load of cannon shots even though there are references to "banks" but no beams though.
I vote for this. Even if this were to take place the Scimitar would still be a powerhouse. A strong powerhouse, but not a ludicrously OP powerhouse.
But I am inclined to agree. Starting to get sick of seeing only one build in every PvP and PvE queue. I mean honestly, I am probably one of the only Scimitars that still uses a DHC torp build. Because Aux2bat is just so effective and easy to use. You barely need to pay attention, you don't need to line up your shots, you just need to get your broadside, push the spacebar, and go to sleep.
Seeing it on cruisers, I kinda expected that, it's a good way to get DPS and easy to do. But you start putting it on ships like the Scimitar? I mean really??
bleh... -.-
/rant
I didn't see you in your Scimitar in the matches I mentioned in the original post. You would have stood out like a sore thumb. But in a good way!!
A2B Scims are laziness mixed with a good dose of lack of imagination.
Simple, try entering the fed vs fed PvP not premade. 9 out of 10 times, I come against a team of 5 Scimitars running aux2bat and spamming FAW. You go into a STF, and a Scimitar with aux2bat can practically solo it.
Like it has been pointed out, the problem comes down to the doff. Most doffs are programmed in with chances of x happening. With 3 technicians, you can just run around with a single copy of each boff power, and have space for 2-3 more doffs (spire unlock). The devs have to either limit what abilities get a cooldown reduction or add some chance to the effect.
Evidence? The whole Romulan flotilla. Almost every single Romulan ship was built in such a way that it allows for (semi-) optimal A2B builds. The Scimitar itself was designed to allow for what is pretty much an ideal A2B build. Moving forward in time, the Avenger, Cryptics latest finest, is also, clearly, an A2B boat. Oh, and the yet unannounced (as of this writing) Klingon Battlecruiser will almost certainly be an A2B boat.
For Cryptic, and for a large percentage of the playing population that either does not have access, or does not want to pay for, AP/EW doffs, A2B is WAI. Now, you can either adapt to the game, play some other game, or continue to be miserable.
Ah ok Bpharma, my mistake on that.
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
the scimitar and the possibility to equip up to 10 universal consoles.
now:
many of them are unuseful, but there are many others that are really OP.
The valdore console for example.
so, universal consoles should be bound to their ships:
valdore console, for example, should be bound to the mogai warbirds.
or at least, ships should not be able to equip more than one of these (3, for 3 pack ship consoles).
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Actually, Aux2bat is NOT WAI. If it was WAI it would still share cds with EPtX like it used to. As soon as they removed this, Aux2bat went OP bat **** nuts.
Actually if this was a week after the Scimi first came out, my build would NOT have stuck out at all. It only sticks out now because I use archaic and dated builds (that are still very effective).
Whilst you're doing that the 5 scimitars have completed the wave or the STF and are stomping the next. This is why people say science ships are laughably under performing, it's not that they can't get kills with them if left to their own devices, it's that in the current meta there's no need for them as any other option would do it in less than half the time.
I think this is why the majority of the people in the nerf A2B camp are PvPers too, they don't like being beaten by builds designed for maximum killing in PvE. I mean seriously the amount of arguments, insults and general behaviour of some PvPers is like a cancer. Then we get high dps players who didn't invest so heavily in PvP stroll in and annihilate them, think it stepped on a lot of egos.
"I'm in the top 10% of players...only about 10% of people PvP"
"The top 1% of players are all PvPers"
Those are 2 comments that really stick in my mind, one was said the other day. However as I say, if other doffs were cheap as chips then you would see A2B disappear on many ships.
Someone suggested we stop scimitars from using beams. Ok, so do we lock out escorts from beams too, make them use cannons? Locking ships out of weapon types all other ships can use isn't a good idea unless they're very unlikely to make full use of them like with dual cannons. As for preventing universal consoles being slotted on other ships...well there would be no reason to buy older ships, the lockbox consoles would be a mess (older ones not new ones) and generally it would probably TRIBBLE off a lot of people who had bought ships before.
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.
Sorry, no. This is, by definition, WAI. Did the devs accidentally remove the cooldown? Are they supposed to share a cooldown, but due to some bug the shared cooldown does not trigger? No? Then WAI.
Sorry, you seem to think that WAI means "Working As Herticknight would like". I assure you it means working as the developers intended.
Welll, I'm not sure, there. I mean, regular cooldown doffs will free up one boff slot for 2 doffs (TT, AP), generally, and 2 slots for 3 doffs (EPtX). That effectively brings your effective amount of boff abilities to 13 in the first case, 14 in the second case, or 15 if using both (note, that uses up 5 doff slots). A2B brings your total effective boff abilities to 22 (or 23 if using single A2B), including reducing cooldowns on abilities that don't have their own cooldown doff. All while using just 3 doffs, leaving 2 open for utility purposes. Why would you choose anything else?
Which brings me to:
Sure, a lot of complaints are coming from the PvP crowd, but a lot of frowns are also coming from those that play both, or play PvE cruisers but would like to see more viable builds around than just the one. And those are often the same people looking for a rough parity between all ship types, including science vessels. I read community responses to A2B rather along the lines of "those that just want to melt stuff in any way that's quickest", vs "those that would prefer to see some ship type parity, general semblance of balance and build variety"...
i think there sums up ALL these BFAW threads right there ..!!!
stop complaining just coz you were beaten by a pve player
go away....learn and here wait for this ADAPT !!
yes i am a bfaw player and one of the best pve dps out there and i can prove that
and NO i DONT use A2B!!
as woodwhitty said at the begining THERE IS NO NEED FOR A2B the scim simply doesnt need it as it has the PERFECT boff layout
Solo STF's With Optional ISE: 3:34
i have all logs saved of these so if you would like to view them send me a pm and it can be arranged
Yeah, I should probably stress that I have zero issues with FaW itself, really. It's just the A2B doffs that irk me, because of my previous points. If you want to FaW, go for it, but I can choose to SS, JS, Reflect etc as a response. Or not, and just outheal the spread-out dps.
I just have an issue with some ships effectively having access to over 50% more boff abilities than some others do, while still only using 3 doffs.
True but I also like being able to heal when I want and need to as opposed to having to keep track of my cycle and either wait or make do with a really weak heal. That is a major downside to the whole aux to bat cycling of 2 abilities. If you only use 1 then it's not as bad but short cool down abilities get little to no benefit from a single copy so you're only doubling up on the long cool down abilities which apart from APO are some of the most lacking abilities for PvE, different story for PvP but DDIS would be better for commenting on that.
I would love it if there was parity between ship type, I'd love it if a science ship fought using science abilities as the main part of its style but unfortunately this isn't the case and hasn't been for years. I'd be happy to let A2B go if the damage from warp plasma was worth a damn in PvE or if aceton beam did something in PvE but the vast majority of the time they don't or due to said long cool down it just isn't worth using on anything that isn't big and threatening, to which there isn't much.
I mean you've seen first hand how threatening the Borg are to our fleet when we have the higher damage players grouping, they might as well hand over their neural processors and dilithium.
When we teamed up in our wells ships with complimentary builds we were wrecking face but it required timing, knowing what the other had and what we had used, keeping track of each other's abilities etc etc to be as effective as 1 fast cycling APB/FAW spamming scimitar. I enjoyed flying like that but it's a lot more effort for what really is the same reward, less if you were to have 2 high DPSers there instead.
Meh this is turning into more of a rant about other things now. A2B is powerful, no denying but as I said earlier, it's more of a symptom. You make other things like photonic officer more effective, make cool down reduction doffs more common and you will see an over night drop in A2B. People don't like running at 4-5 aux most of the time, it's very risky.
Oh and about PvPers, some are sore losers and bad sportsmen but not all PvPers are like that so let's not blanket say PvPers are rubbish or that PvEers are rubbish. Good players are good players regardless of what they do. <--- directed at readers in general, not Twam.
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 PvP and I feel that if I get beaten, I get beaten. That's how the game goes. Since I've been posting on these forums, however, I've always pressed for balance and fairness in this game. A2B Scimitars are not balanced. Nor are they fair. In the interest of fairness, something needs to be done to decouple the relationship this particular ship has with A2B.
Oh aye, I've not seen you complaining about being beaten for the record. Sure it's crazy powerful and has a lot of advantages but if you start saying "this ship with this combo is too powerful" and then take steps to prevent it you're starting to make specific rules and complicating things for casuals which is not a direction the game wants to go in.
The other option is to nerf the A2B combo but as woodwhitty said, it won't hurt the scimitar, it'll only cripple ships like the failaxy. Heretic has seen my scimitar and to be honest I don't need the lower cool down on my science abilities, I have 5 engineering abilities, 2 of which are A2B so I can get FAW and APB as close to 20s as possible. Take out A2B and I can double up on my abilities instead or run damage control doffs and use 2 different engineering abilities too, then with 2 conn officers I get APB back at 21s. My scimitar is just as powerful as before, maybe more so because then I can have full aux for heals when I need it.
What about the guy in his galaxy dreadnought though? He's got to double up on a lot of engineering abilities and now is just slipping behind in performance. Best thing he can do is tank up and hope he can draw aggro because he's got no chance of coming close to useful on the dps scale or making up for it in general utility.
Honestly if you wanted to make it more balanced increasing the shared cool down of A2B as well as it's duration to 20s would probably solve it. Still think it's a huge nerf to the ships that do kinda need it to stay competitive though.
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.
How about a compromise on this one, modify the energy resist it adds (the only resist it adds) scale the same way as the kinetic one from the ability itself does, I would be happy enough with this.
As to A2B, what's the point in playing a game if you are just going to make everything automated on a single button? That's not playing the game, that's making the game play itself.
I agree there should be parity between ships and the current NPC design really gives science ships the short end of the stick. If said NPCs got some skills then science ships would get a use in pve, simple as, still I'm deviating...
Just a question to Aux2Bat players, why automate the game at the cost of aux power when you can do similar or better dps with an escort and keep your aux power?
EDIT: As to nerfing A2B crippling older ships including but not limited to the Sovi, I can make that do 8k DPS without thinking (and probably with no doffs at all) if I use doffs and sacrifice some team utility (APB) I can get a good 12k out of it maybe push 15k and that's with an engineer captain, use a tac and I can get 15k easily, maybe push 17k. The galaxy can do similar things if you use the engineering and science slots to make up for missing tac team. (EDIT: This without A2B)
Most notable features of the scimitar are:
* When it's in trouble it can prolong its fighting with the secondary shields. No other ship can do that.
* It has a battle cloak. When it gets in trouble it can cloak and get away. This puts it ahead of all of the Fed cruisers that need to escape without cloak or tough it out and try to heal with close to zero auxiliary.
* It maintains shields during cloak if it needs to escape. No other ship can do that.
* Its pets can SS. No other ship has that.
* The critical hit that Romulans can achieve is incredible.
By themselves, each of the above abilities/benefits is OK, but roll it all in to one ship and slap A2B on it and you have an OP powerhouse. This is why I believe that the scimitar A2B relationship needs to be modified, not A2B. As you say, just modifying A2B would cripple all of those other ships, an outcome which would hurt the game as a whole.
Then you start drawing lines and splitting what can and cannot be done on a ship and there's just no way in hell the debs are gonna do that. They won't even make abilities do different levels of what they do vs players/NPCs if they can help it so they will never turn round and say you cannot run these abilities on a certain ship.
I think it's a terrible idea to limit the abilities a ship can use just for the sake of saying it will be OP. If that's the case the ship shouldn't have had more than 1 lt engineering station.
As for the abilities like secondary shields and shields while cloaked, I don't know a single scimitar that runs that, sure it's the best of a poor bunch but it's still pretty meh when you can use the singularity heal instead and use something else.
But say we do remove A2B from scimitars and then they are still as powerful as ever, do we then say they can't slot certain doffs? What happens to the next ship that becomes the most powerful ship in the game? Do we start arbitrarily saying it can't run ability Y because it can spam it to hell and back?
The scimitar and A2B are a symptom not the cause of it being so OP. All of this all stems from the massive imbalance between abilities and the fact this game is all about doing damage with DoTs being almost completely worthless due to how much direct fire you can do.
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.
There almost seems to be a new trinity in PVP:
A2B Pressure Damage -> Alpha Strikers -> Sci Boats -> A2B...
The pressure damage ships use RSP to survive the alpha, then deal too much continuous damage for an escort to heal. The alpha strikers kill the sci boat before it can take advantage of its abilities (or simply use A2D plus EPTE to run away until the sci is on cooldown), and the sci boats kill the A2B by disabling them (and most A2B are cruisers which use EPTS and EPTW instead of EPTE).
In PVE however, it is a stomp. You only need aux heals to cleanse DoT, the hull heals are barely needed as you kill everything before it can load a second torpedo.
You make very good points, but remember that there are already limits placed on ships. Some can use cannons, others cannot. (D'Kora and Galor, one can, one can't. Why?) Some ships can use certain pets, other can't. Why? Some ships can use certain consoles, others can't. Why?
I think the reason for these points is because the devs felt that allowing all ships to do all things creates imbalance. Restrictions help create balance. Restricting the scimitar from doing certain things would help create balance.
I agree restrictions do help create balance, or rather stop some things becoming massively more powerful than intended. However they have to follow rules and you can't really just discriminate.
Best example is the double tap nerf. They could have just made the change for beam overload but then it would have stood out and be a little unfair, not to mention short sighted. So they put it with all tactical abilities, even the ones you can't really double up on like CRF.
In all these examples it's the gear that is being limited, some of which to be honest is just silly to use on those ships anyway but still a lot of them are exceptions to the rule too. You're free to fit any universal console on those ships and any universal pets it's just some have more advanced and powerful options.
If we were to say a scimitar can't use A2B it would be akin to saying ship X can't use a specific console but all others can. That's just breaking rules and implementing arbitrary limits which may or may not change anything. Most things in the game follow a logical order.
VA/RA level ships usually get special consoles that can only be used on those ships. Only exception is the fed cloak and possibly 2 piece set bonuses from lobi/lockbox ships but it still follows the rules of being limited.
Any other c-store ship console below RA can be used on any ship, keeps it being a worthwhile purchase.
Most carriers have standard pets but can use frigate type pets. Frigates tend to be more powerful and locked to that specific carrier. Only exception as far as I know is the kitty carrier but then Feds don't get frigates.
Lots of universal concepts we all maybe take for granted but we all kinda know what will happen when a new thing comes out. It also allows for Cryptic to break the rules for a special ship and allow for it to be unique. Example is the dkora being a cruiser really but can fit DHCs.
If they didn't want the scimitar to run A2B they would alter the boff layout so it couldn't run it but that would mess with so many people it wouldn't be a good idea.
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 agree that having one ship stand out by being prevented from using an ability would be odd, but I'm really unsure how else they could fix the issue without wrecking all the other ships, like the Galaxy.
In principle I disagree with my idea of disallowing the ship from using the ability, but in practice I see no other way.
Only thing I can think of doing is altering A2B to really give a bigger drawback and less benefit to spamming like altering the shared cool down but even then it's not going to do much to the power of the scimitar and will affect other builds a lot more.
Perhaps if they made cool down doffs in general more available and improved photonic officer we would see less A2B usage and more of a spread out of cool down reductions.
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.