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Voth Bastion review/feedback
momaw
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
This is a combination of feedback for Cryptic if they ever look for feedback on the subject, and a review for people that might be thinking about getting one.
Availability:
Voth lockbox, or exchange.
Visuals:
I call it the death carrot.
The point is menacing, and the slight organic irregularities make it seem more alien. It has visible armor plating, a simple and massive structure, a relatively small amount of vulnerable windows, and in general looks like a tremendously solid lump of metal. I really like the "trench", which hints at its internal complexity while underscoring the fact that it's a ship built for toughness by protecting those parts of the decks. Also very fond of the ventral surface which reminds me of elaborate renaissance steel body armor combining both artistic style and great strength.
My criticisms are in 3 areas.
1.) The structures on the side of the hull don't really fit in with the overall theme. They disrupt the overall spear point feeling to the ship and also don't seem very well integrated into the otherwise very robust armored hull.
2.) The overall height of the ship seems excessive, giving it an almost overweight/chubby sort of impression when viewed from the side. The fact that it's half-round/half-organic doesn't help with that. Compare to the profile of a Star Destroyer, which is substantially flatter on the bottom and gives more of an impression of a battleship with most of its structure built up "above the water line".
3.) The engine seems wholly inadequate to propel a ship of this size. It seems like the 3 bright "nodes" on each side of the main drive should also be engines. (and again, if the ship had a bunch of mass chopped off the bottom, the engines would be vertically centered)
Stats:
Turn rate = 6
She's a whale for sure. Though the installation of Fleet armor with the +turn modifier helps enormously, making it merely "slow" rather than "mobile starbase".
Hull = 44,000
Shield = x1.2
Definitely near the top of the pack for toughness. Some ships have stronger hulls, some have stronger shields but there's few that have both.
Weaponry = 4/4
Dual cannons = no
Number of slots is standard for cruisers, and the Voth are in love with beam arrays so the lack of dual cannons fits with their faction.
Consoles =
X X X X
X X X
X X X
This is an excellent, all-around arrangement that is well suited to a variety of personal preferences.
Bridge stations =
X X X X
X X X
X X
X X
X
Offers a lot of options for offense, defense, and support. I'm not sure which officers I like most in the universal slots yet, right now I'm trying a lieutenant tactical and ensign engineer. You won't turn it into a DPS-barge without high level tactical slots, but as a cruiser this station layout is fantastic.
Hangar bay = 1
Flight deck cruiser. I think this is actually the first FDC that Feds can get? What an introduction to this class!
Cruiser commands = Shield buff, Draw fire
I really wish this thing came with all 4 cruiser commands. It could really make good use of them given its flexibility.
The console:
"Reflective Shield Amplifier"
Makes you immune to energy based attacks and reflects energy based damage at the attacker at full strength, for 20 seconds or until you've negated 100K damage whichever comes first. While the shield is active your damage, speed, and turn rate are all significantly reduced. Recharge time is 3 minutes.
Basically this is awesome, here meaning "inspires awe". One of the few universal consoles that I feel is actually worth its cooldown time. Aside from the fact that it doesn't negate or reflect torpedoes this is pretty much an ultimate panic button. Because of the reduction in mobility and damage output, I see this purely as Uber Turtle Mode when you're getting overwhelmed. You won't get away and enemies generally won't kill themselves with the reflect (they do little damage relative to their own hitpoints), but it gives you a generous slab of ablative hitpoints so you can get your other defenses back up.
The pet:
"Voth Heavy Fighter"
These guys have 2 beam arrays and a rear mounted transphasic chroniton torpedo launcher (high shield bypass plus chance to slow). Their cooldown time is longer than basic fighters like Peregrine or To'duj and you only get 2 per wing, but they have 18K hull points which pushes them to the halfway point between fighters and frigates. These pets have the abilities Emergency Power to Shields, and Emergency Power to Weapons.
Ultimately... These are disappointing on several fronts.
* Offensively they extremely weak. Pet AI is absolutely terrible with the rear mounted torpedo launcher and hardly ever actually fires it. It's a low DPS torpedo anyway, with both fighter-level low damage and long reload time.
* Defensively they do stay alive longer than basic fighters, but it has everything to do with their hull strength and nothing to do with their EPTS. They do use EPTS somewhat intelligently (i.e. right after they lose their shields), but their shield capacity is so pathetic that it doesn't really do anything for them.
* The EPTW is harder to quantify, but let's just say that the voth heavy fighters do as well with their beam arrays as other pets do (i.e. poorly).
So basically you have a pet which has irrelevant abilities, does really low damage, but stays alive longer than fighters. Which... isn't really really much of an advantage since their cooldown is also longer and what's the point of having them deployed if they aren't going to help you much.
What the Heavy Fighters need is for their torpedo launcher to be moved to the front, so that they get to shoot it more often, and for the damage on it to be tripled to make it approximately competitive with the basic torpedo spam of other fighters. And since the whole Voth gimmick is survivability: Increase their basic shield strength to a useful level and then give them Transfer Shield Strength instead of emergency power. At Advanced level give them "Added armor plating" (25% damage resistance) and Auxiliary to Structural, and at Elite give them High Yield 1.
Executive summary:
Very good flight deck cruiser with a lot of raw potential and room for flexible loadouts, very good console that can save your bacon, toothless and sad pets that need a lot of help.
Availability:
Voth lockbox, or exchange.
Visuals:
I call it the death carrot.
The point is menacing, and the slight organic irregularities make it seem more alien. It has visible armor plating, a simple and massive structure, a relatively small amount of vulnerable windows, and in general looks like a tremendously solid lump of metal. I really like the "trench", which hints at its internal complexity while underscoring the fact that it's a ship built for toughness by protecting those parts of the decks. Also very fond of the ventral surface which reminds me of elaborate renaissance steel body armor combining both artistic style and great strength.
My criticisms are in 3 areas.
1.) The structures on the side of the hull don't really fit in with the overall theme. They disrupt the overall spear point feeling to the ship and also don't seem very well integrated into the otherwise very robust armored hull.
2.) The overall height of the ship seems excessive, giving it an almost overweight/chubby sort of impression when viewed from the side. The fact that it's half-round/half-organic doesn't help with that. Compare to the profile of a Star Destroyer, which is substantially flatter on the bottom and gives more of an impression of a battleship with most of its structure built up "above the water line".
3.) The engine seems wholly inadequate to propel a ship of this size. It seems like the 3 bright "nodes" on each side of the main drive should also be engines. (and again, if the ship had a bunch of mass chopped off the bottom, the engines would be vertically centered)
Stats:
Turn rate = 6
She's a whale for sure. Though the installation of Fleet armor with the +turn modifier helps enormously, making it merely "slow" rather than "mobile starbase".
Hull = 44,000
Shield = x1.2
Definitely near the top of the pack for toughness. Some ships have stronger hulls, some have stronger shields but there's few that have both.
Weaponry = 4/4
Dual cannons = no
Number of slots is standard for cruisers, and the Voth are in love with beam arrays so the lack of dual cannons fits with their faction.
Consoles =
X X X X
X X X
X X X
This is an excellent, all-around arrangement that is well suited to a variety of personal preferences.
Bridge stations =
X X X X
X X X
X X
X X
X
Offers a lot of options for offense, defense, and support. I'm not sure which officers I like most in the universal slots yet, right now I'm trying a lieutenant tactical and ensign engineer. You won't turn it into a DPS-barge without high level tactical slots, but as a cruiser this station layout is fantastic.
Hangar bay = 1
Flight deck cruiser. I think this is actually the first FDC that Feds can get? What an introduction to this class!
Cruiser commands = Shield buff, Draw fire
I really wish this thing came with all 4 cruiser commands. It could really make good use of them given its flexibility.
The console:
"Reflective Shield Amplifier"
Makes you immune to energy based attacks and reflects energy based damage at the attacker at full strength, for 20 seconds or until you've negated 100K damage whichever comes first. While the shield is active your damage, speed, and turn rate are all significantly reduced. Recharge time is 3 minutes.
Basically this is awesome, here meaning "inspires awe". One of the few universal consoles that I feel is actually worth its cooldown time. Aside from the fact that it doesn't negate or reflect torpedoes this is pretty much an ultimate panic button. Because of the reduction in mobility and damage output, I see this purely as Uber Turtle Mode when you're getting overwhelmed. You won't get away and enemies generally won't kill themselves with the reflect (they do little damage relative to their own hitpoints), but it gives you a generous slab of ablative hitpoints so you can get your other defenses back up.
The pet:
"Voth Heavy Fighter"
These guys have 2 beam arrays and a rear mounted transphasic chroniton torpedo launcher (high shield bypass plus chance to slow). Their cooldown time is longer than basic fighters like Peregrine or To'duj and you only get 2 per wing, but they have 18K hull points which pushes them to the halfway point between fighters and frigates. These pets have the abilities Emergency Power to Shields, and Emergency Power to Weapons.
Ultimately... These are disappointing on several fronts.
* Offensively they extremely weak. Pet AI is absolutely terrible with the rear mounted torpedo launcher and hardly ever actually fires it. It's a low DPS torpedo anyway, with both fighter-level low damage and long reload time.
* Defensively they do stay alive longer than basic fighters, but it has everything to do with their hull strength and nothing to do with their EPTS. They do use EPTS somewhat intelligently (i.e. right after they lose their shields), but their shield capacity is so pathetic that it doesn't really do anything for them.
* The EPTW is harder to quantify, but let's just say that the voth heavy fighters do as well with their beam arrays as other pets do (i.e. poorly).
So basically you have a pet which has irrelevant abilities, does really low damage, but stays alive longer than fighters. Which... isn't really really much of an advantage since their cooldown is also longer and what's the point of having them deployed if they aren't going to help you much.
What the Heavy Fighters need is for their torpedo launcher to be moved to the front, so that they get to shoot it more often, and for the damage on it to be tripled to make it approximately competitive with the basic torpedo spam of other fighters. And since the whole Voth gimmick is survivability: Increase their basic shield strength to a useful level and then give them Transfer Shield Strength instead of emergency power. At Advanced level give them "Added armor plating" (25% damage resistance) and Auxiliary to Structural, and at Elite give them High Yield 1.
Executive summary:
Very good flight deck cruiser with a lot of raw potential and room for flexible loadouts, very good console that can save your bacon, toothless and sad pets that need a lot of help.
Post edited by momaw on
0
Comments
Fleet alert.
My total damage output over the course of the mission: 2.6 million
Total damage contributed by voth heavy fighters: 214K
The full squadron barely managed to outperform my Cutting Beam, and that's a kinetic weapon which means it's 90% useless against shields. They launched a grand total of 13 torpedoes (at an average damage of 1063) over the course of 414 seconds, which equates to one torpedo per fighter every two minutes.
Cryptic: Please, please, buff (fix) these poor things. Absolute minimum, put their torpedo launcher on the front or give them the proper AI to use the rear mounted launcher. Highly desired, damage increase. This torpedo is very weak and has a very long reload time and is in no way comparable to the photon torpedo spam that most other pets provide.
That's not the point when talking about the Voth Fighters. The point is that these craft are only usable on the Voth Bastion Cruiser. Generally, most of the ship-unique hangar units are good, Atrox the only other one having unique hangars that are underwhelming. I consider Voth Hvy Fighter access as part of the deal if one goes with the Bastion Cruiser. If that facet of the ship sucks, this can be a deal breaker for some.
The Voth Cloak is great, my only wish is that it would become a battle cloak, as the Voth ships can cloak in combat.
If they didn't give battlecloak to the adapted tal shiar ships I doubt they're going to do it for the voth.
Sucks to hear about the voth fighters, I was considering getting this ship but I thought it was odd the aft torpedo launcher...clearly it almost never is in arc.
It's true they stay alive reasonably well and generally sustain higher ranks than other fighters. Except max rank pets only get a damage bonus of 10%. Voth heavy fighters need 50-75% more damage output than what they can do now in order to be competitive with basic fighters, and that's including the rank bonuses. And says nothing about their effectiveness at Advanced and Elite. Other pets get added weapons which is a pretty obvious advantage, voth heavy fighters higher levels of emergency power... Frankly I am not inclined to spend dil to find out if they become amazing at elite level because I think it's unlikely that the extra power is going to triple their beam damage. I'll wait for somebody else to risk that and review it, I've already experimented enough this month.
As far as the Voth Cloak feature, honestly I would have expected to get the thing that the frigates do where they "blink" rather than a straight up cloaking device. Something like: jumps you 1km in a random direction, momentarily breaks target locks and and gives a large bonus to Defense for 3 seconds.
I can't help but think the Voth fighters might need an entirely different philosophy. Instead of being damage dealers, how about giving them Energy Siphon, or mini Aceton fields? The Voth do love their power drains, strange the fighters don't reflect that. Perhaps increase the proc rate on their Voth antiproton arrays, making it easier to debuff damage over a wide area?
I would be thrilled if the Voth fighters traded damage for drains, reliable debuffs, and survivability. TRIBBLE Beam Overload and EPTW, give them Energy Siphon or Aceton fields.
Really if you want to give them something more uniquely Voth-y without increasing damage, what they could do is simulate the Ward repair ships by spraying heal-beams at allies who are at low hitpoints. Sort of a hybrid of a fighter bay and the Varanus' repair drone platform.