Right now, a2b cruisers are just over the top. Beeing the best dmg dealer (dealing 4-5x the amount of dmg than escorts could ever do) while beeing the best tank in a match at the same time is just wrong and totaly unbalanced...and that's about it.
This right here is right to the point.
I was in an STF yesterday, ISE to be exact, with a couple friends and a couple random people (since we teamed and pugged it). Now, I could've probably done a bit better had I known my friend was running a parser (I would've put on a more PvE setup, rather than my PvP build which does fine in PvE), and the numbers might be off a bit just because that's the nature of programs like it, but the point still stands.
An A2Bing, FAW ship (might've been scimitar) with random junk gear did twice the dps of my fleet/lock box/reputation geared JHAS. There was another A2Bing ship that did more dps than me also.
Now, as I mentioned above there's a lot of variables that probably could swing the numbers by some, but still. That's beyond ridiculous.
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.
Besides the fact that those A2B cruisers are dealing huge amounts of damage, I guess the main problem here is the use of RSP which they are pulling of all the time^^
Mostly an Alpha strike on them is a giant waste of your precious dmg buffs considering that the opportunity to kill them is only there somewhere between their 2 copies of RSP.
I'd say there are some limitations needed for RSP in general because the "long" cooldown evidently does not limit it enough.
One thing I'm wondering is does anyone on these forums care that this is a Star Trek role playing game? Why in the name of Jebus would you fit a Scimitar Dreadnought with beam arrays? It's a travesty!
Hm... pity I do not have fraps or other such program. Because destroying cubes before probes are down in CSE could make a good point for A2B, overcapping and all the problems they cause.
Science for the win. / Czechoslovak Fleet 1st Division
Hm... pity I do not have fraps or other such program. Because destroying cubes before probes are down in CSE could make a good point for A2B, overcapping and all the problems they cause.
yeah, pretty much what you said. Tric mines where nerfed because of doing the same thing. What's different this time?
I was in an STF yesterday, ISE to be exact, with a couple friends and a couple random people (since we teamed and pugged it). Now, I could've probably done a bit better had I known my friend was running a parser (I would've put on a more PvE setup, rather than my PvP build which does fine in PvE), and the numbers might be off a bit just because that's the nature of programs like it, but the point still stands.
An A2Bing, FAW ship (might've been scimitar) with random junk gear did twice the dps of my fleet/lock box/reputation geared JHAS. There was another A2Bing ship that did more dps than me also.
Or could it quite simply be that the nature of the mission and the high constant damage of the build is actually better in that situation than a spike damage DHC escort like the JHAS?
I mean you said it yourself, yours was a PvP build, there's nothing wrong with that and a good PvP build will still get optionals in STF but it won't hold a candle to a PvE optimised build.
Or could it quite simply be that the nature of the mission and the high constant damage of the build is actually better in that situation than a spike damage DHC escort like the JHAS?
I mean you said it yourself, yours was a PvP build, there's nothing wrong with that and a good PvP build will still get optionals in STF but it won't hold a candle to a PvE optimised build.
But isn't something off when single beams are the only weapons that overcap above 135? Power drain, before overcapping was what balanced weapons.
Aux2batt is the only thing that makes my galaxy retro able to compete with escorts and tac cruisers. Aux2batt isn't the issue though, nore are the duty officers its used with. In fact, its gfiving tac cruisers the ability to use 2 of them that makes it so op'd. Nerfing the components of aux2batt would make certain ships useless. I would suggest instead taking away 1 of the lieutenant eng slots and switching it for ansign slots on tac cruisers. Make only 2 aux2batt available for these ships, and leave everything else as is.
Aux2batt is the only thing that makes my galaxy retro able to compete with escorts and tac cruisers.
I beg to differ, using engineering slots to make up for the lack of a tac team your can run dual FAW and BAMM your ship performs the way it would with A2B only that your aux based stuff works as well.
In fact, its gfiving tac cruisers the ability to use 2 of them that makes it so op'd. Nerfing the components of aux2batt would make certain ships useless. I would suggest instead taking away 1 of the lieutenant eng slots and switching it for ansign slots on tac cruisers. Make only 2 aux2batt available for these ships, and leave everything else as is.
So I should be forced to stop using A2D because I have an LTC tac slot on my ship? That sure as hell ain't fair especially when people will just drop DEM, take RSP 3 and continue to use A2B so you've achieved nothing. Well done.
Aux2batt is the only thing that makes my galaxy retro able to compete with escorts and tac cruisers.
Well then you should be asking for a buff to your galaxy retro... or come the realization that its a Role playing and not a PvPing ship.
Leaving tech doffs as they are benifits everyone not just your under performing ship. If your idea was implemented I can hear it now... everyone that flys a Galaxy Retro complaining that they have to waste another doff slot to be effective... or that they have to spend more to get the third tech doff.
Fix the skills and doffs....
Then if ships need to be buffed they can be.
Frankly I don't see cruisers as needing aux to bat... they just got Command Auras. THAT was intended to be there buff. I would say it has worked as well... tac cruisers have built in weapon drain nullification... healers have built in Resistance that they can share to those in range... and Tanks can also make use of that or even the turn rate buffs.
If cruisers still need buffed on top of that. (which I highly doubt) then they should get it. Instead of doffs that basicly remove the games balance mechanic (cool downs).
Skills that where given longer cool downs on purpose are now 30s just like everything else.
Fix the skills... then fix the ships if they are broken.
Aux2batt is the only thing that makes my galaxy retro able to compete with escorts and tac cruisers.
Compete in what? Damage? Tanking?
I don't think cruisers are meant to deal as much damage (well twice the dmg would be more accurate) as escorts do. They are meant to be tanks only.
I also don't get how you can seriously say "compete" while you're far far far on top of every escort atm.
btw, if you aren't able to "compete" with others ships without using an "I-win-build"...then you're probably doing a lot of things wrong.
I don't wanna sound to offensive, but I just can't understand your point of view. I'm almost shocked by those opinions, there's nothing clearer in the world to me than this build is terribly overpowered.
I beg to differ, using engineering slots to make up for the lack of a tac team your can run dual FAW and BAMM your ship performs the way it would with A2B only that your aux based stuff works as well.
So I should be forced to stop using A2D because I have an LTC tac slot on my ship? That sure as hell ain't fair especially when people will just drop DEM, take RSP 3 and continue to use A2B so you've achieved nothing. Well done.
You've just proven my point. Dem comes off. Now they have to choose to be less tanky or do less damage. No matter what happens, something is going to end up being less useful, and I think its only fair that tactical based ships take a hit for once, rather than eng based ones.
And I don't rely on tac team, nor do I use faw. I don't go right for the cookie cutter setup, I prefer to use my own ideas. I only use aux2batt to keep my science team and engineering teams on 15 second cooldowns, and to get my epts back up faster. I have eliminated all but aux based skill to compensate for the lack of aux power, and I make up for the lack of tac slots on my ship by getting bo1 and thy2 back up as fast as possible.
Eng cruiser captain make a lot of sacrifices tactically to survive, and nerfing even 1 component of what makes aux2batt work would ruin unique builds and concepts. The game would dissolve into tactical ships online.
But isn't something off when single beams are the only weapons that overcap above 135? Power drain, before overcapping was what balanced weapons.
EDIT: didn't want to sound so snarky.
It's ok, you make a valid point and I have seen enough of your posts to know you don't mean to be snarky
Yes it is a bit weird and both ultimatum and I do agree (OMG we agree on something lol) that it's more the drain mechanics that are making beams over perform.
As I linked earlier you can see there's a lot of builds hitting stupid levels of DPS without A2B.
However beams haven't been altered since I think it was Gecko said beams are fine as they are. We all laughed at him...the fools we were.
On the one hand I do feel beams are perhaps over performing with the 9000 other things added but we also don't want to return to the days where if you had beams you were trolled and laughed at.
You've just proven my point. Dem comes off. Now they have to choose to be less tanky or do less damage. No matter what happens, something is going to end up being less useful, and I think its only fair that tactical based ships take a hit for once, rather than eng based ones.
The thing is they will lose about 1% of their dps by dropping DEM to keep RSP to keep the build viable, that's 1% nobody will notice but if you take the Lt slot off the Excel for example and replace it with two ensign slots in it's place you leave it a 100% useless ability slot, you take away it'a ability to run a jack of all trades build, you remove the viability of an A2D build on it. Congrats you nerfed all but one build on one ship (and many others) and made no noticeable difference to the build you attempted to nerf. Nice work!
Eng cruiser captain make a lot of sacrifices tactically to survive, and nerfing even 1 component of what makes aux2batt work would ruin unique builds and concepts. The game would dissolve into tactical ships online.
I won't comment further on your build, engineers don't have issues being effensively competent anymore than science characters do, it's all about doing it right, if you can't kill someone yourself throw your EPS power transfer to a team mate.
Actually there is a difference between A2B and Tric mines from awhile back:
Tric mines only needed a single BOFF slot, and a weapon slot to really be effective.
A2B needs 1 or 2 Lt. Engy BOFF slots, along with up to 3 DOFFs for what it can do. (Ignoring all other factors for the moment)
Tric mines could literally work on EVERY single ship in the game at the time, and had much less of a cost for it. A2B you could technically use on any ship in the game (though you'd have a lot better choices for many ships), but still has much more you need to do to use it.
Trics were also just a 'drop it and forget it' situation. As long as a team coordinated enough, you could just drop them and blow up anyone. Even a lone player could do it if they had a good enough build.
I'm not saying that this makes it right on either of these things. Just that there is a difference.
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.
Running it was limited to one copy (as you say running 2 would really mean no EPTx at all)... so yes having every single skill on your bar at cool down wasn't a real option... and to run one copy you had to trade one EPTx... meaning you could run EPTS at 100% uptime as well as aux to bat tech doffs reducing most of your cool downs darn close to cool down.
It wasn't broken before... it just required some skill to use... it had a real cost... there was also a real pay off to doing it properly.
Now its a 100% skillless brain dead mechanic that makes the game boring.
Pull 10 cruisers aside at random and see if they are running aux to bat tech doffs. lol
When the answer is going to be obviously 80% of them are then something is broken. Crusiers got there command stuffz... if they still need balancing then so be it... but giving them 2x the boff slots isn't a fix. lmao (also I love that Cryptic has been using the "its Trek cannon" lately for things like faw... so I say where the heck in Trek lore did you ever see a captain yell out... auxiliary to battaries... and then Mr. Worf/Obrian/Jordy/data/spock who ever would yell out... 30s to Deflector charge captain... oh wait good thing you used that a2b captain it recharged that puppy instant like. lol)
Its also not just a cruiser thing, I don't think its fair to say cruisers need it... I don't believe they do... but regardless its not just crusiers using it. lol Hey you should see my Science ship that can spam Tykens/GW 100% of the time... with a VM every 30s... a tractor I can have up 75% of the time... with 2 hazards 2 tss 2 tac teams 2 copies of faw.
Of course there are also a ton of good destroyer style builds out there using it not to mention the shims...
Its out of control... yes I say put it back the way it was... make its use have a real use.
Aux to bat with OUT doffs would be balanced on the global its on now.
With doffs its completely broken.
been meaning to get back to this. the line of thinking that cruisers, escorts and sci ships were all magically balanced as is, in the pre doff days, is hilarious. how many people were out there seriously playing tac cruisers before the AtB change? how many of you rolled your eyes when you saw a useless and underpowered tac cruisers on your team back then? how good for nothing were they? do you all really not remember what a joke they were before? they didn't even really have the benefit of a functioning FAW back then, at least not one as strong as we have had lately.
back in those days there there wasn't even wide spread fleet ships, no fleet shields, bug ship were totally, utterly, dominating, and in pvp there was pretty much escort spike and sci debuffing, and the slow moving targets. healing was easily handled by those sci ships too, cruisers were at their lowest point.
1 AtB cruiser, pre cooldown system change, lol those were not that great. they only got to run EPtS, and even before the other EPt skills got a buff, that was pretty suck on a cruiser. a damage control doff build was superior back then, and they would be again. i used to duel a friend of mine with one of those 1 AtB cruisers back in the day, he even had a galor and my damage control excelsior showed it up all the time. thats how i knew so much about AtB without maining it back then, and how i was so immediately able to put 2 AtB to use as soon as the patch that moved it to the AtS/AtD tree went live. now that every good cruiser and escort runs EPtS in addition to EPtW or E, such a nerf of reverting that would put AtB builds to death, at least on cruisers were it maters most. it would again be an inferior choice, and the list of usable tac cruisers would go from all of them, to just ones with at least a LTC tac.
then 2 AtB potential came along, and with it every skill the cruiser had slotted useable at about global with 1 copy, thats what it took for these slow, underpowered ships to actually be sorta competitive with the escorts and sci ships. they need that oh so 'OP', oh so 'broken' uptime on all the skills they have, because cruisers are a mix of all the worst attributes a ship can have. they have the lowest speed, lowest turn, and thus no evasive or speed tanking potential, in exchange for about 10% more hitpoints, barely enough to make a difference, and have to actually be healed unlike shots that dont even land. and cruisers have the highest amount of station powers that merely prolonged the inevitable, or have no impact on enemies. every non cruiser has enough eng stations to run all the EPt skills they need, thats all they need from eng, and they arent wasting higher end stations slots on anything else eng has to offer.
since then there has been a wide variate of cruisers added to the game that are quite tactically powerful. having 4 or 5 tac station powers available to them. these ships actually get less out of Atb builds then the old COM/LTC eng ships do, but it still gives them closer to escort damage, with more durability. these LTC tac, 4 tac console cruisers and fleet cruisers are beneficial power creep, but this still just keeping pace with the other ship type creep, not to mention war birds. AtB is still needed on the vast majority of these tac cruisers if they want to be competitive.
the avenger and mogh are the first cruisers, in my opinion, that can be weened of AtB and still be high end ships. of all the non AtB builds ive used in them, and theres been about 6 quite distinct and effective ones so far, non have been quite as good as AtB builds, but what can you expect, its still a cruiser. this is more like what a balanced cruiser looks like, compared to the common escort. 1 more weapon, but 1 more up front, not behind. when using escort weapons this matters, even for beams it maters in the time before you can acquire a broadside with the target. this can help make up for the lack of COM tac and lack of mobility, this is the raw firepower that should be the standard of just about all cruisers. they need raw power, raw stats, and raw dps if they are going to be stuck with the station setup and mobility they currently have. till then, we have AtB is in place of that true balancing.
and what about warbirds and destroyers that can run AtB easily? are they a balance concern? sort of, at least they are more so then any AtB cruiser. many can pair a COM tac with AtB, and that has great potential. but in every case i can think of, these destroyers have like 13 to 15 turn rate, funky hitpoints, so they tend to have a hell of a time engaging any other pure escorts. once again, AtB is there to make up for built in limitations. some even have to forgo sci complacently to run it, and wile that might not be to big a deal in a premade, without team support thats a pretty terrible idea.
like, all the warbirds can run it too. but those ships are best suited for vapeing, not hanging out uncloaked for a long time dog fighting were high uptime would mater. besides, AtB can be your worst enemy if you have a battle cloak, potentially decloaking you if your aux flat lines. AtB balances itself at every turn.
and whats the 2 big problems with these AtB boogeyman ships these days? FAW teams and beam array scimitars. each of these things is mutually exclusive, with regards to AtB, nether thing depends on the other. the top 2 beam array using ships, the scimitar, and jem dread, arent even cruisers, dont need to run AtB and arent cruisers so they dont have those cruiser commands. a nice little addition those were to cruisers, enfaces on little. not even the drain res aura is enough to even make them the best beam boats, the shield res adding 10% after all the math is done is proboly adding closer to 2 or 3 % resistance, the turn aura does next to nothing but increase your inertia score that actually a bad thing on DHC battlecruisers, and that threat control one can offer pretty good hull res, but only if you have like 4 other allied objects in its range. it makes cruisers feel more special at least.
so why is AtB so popular, why does everyone use it? because its the best way to get cruisers to deal more damage, and thats basically what star trek fans want to do, use cruisers to kill things. space magic and star fighter escorts arent trek, slow mover tall ship combat is trek, and AtB brings out the best in those ships. it will stop being FOTM, or year(s), as soon as star trek is something fundamentally different. until then its as much a boilerplate of this game as DHC and SNB.
they arent wasting higher end stations slots on anything else eng has to offer.
...
AtB is still needed on the vast majority of these tac cruisers if they want to be competitive.
...
we have AtB is in place of that true balancing.
...
AtB brings out the best in those ships.
The above reasons only underline why I will NEVER again run A2B.
A2b is NOT a necessity to be competent and if you ask me, if you feel it is then you're doing it wrong. Engineering boff skills if you use them to your advantage are NOT a weakness, rather a STRENGTH.
If you want to fly an escort then fly a damned escort! Don't turn your cruiser into one!
The above reasons only underline why I will NEVER again run A2B.
A2b is NOT a necessity to be competent and if you ask me, if you feel it is then you're doing it wrong. Engineering boff skills if you use them to your advantage are NOT a weakness, rather a STRENGTH.
If you want to fly an escort then fly a damned escort! Don't turn your cruiser into one!
yes cruiser users, go back to serving no purpose and wasting space, and like it this time!
yes cruiser users, go back to serving no purpose and wasting space, and like it this time!
So I can't spam FAW, do I care? No.
Can I contribute to a team? Yes. I can throw heals when needed, hold my own while I do so, I play an engineer in my cruiser so I can throw power at people to help them secure a kill while I add some decent single target pressure damage.
Do I die a lot? Only if i get focussed but then again, who doesn't?
You know drunk your avatar reminds me if a street fighter movie I saw where zangeif got hurt and made a face like that.
oh im almost positive thats what it is. i thought it made a nice intense avatar pic, even though i dont know who it is. i think the name did started with a Z
Can I contribute to a team? Yes. I can throw heals when needed, hold my own while I do so, I play an engineer in my cruiser so I can throw power at people to help them secure a ill while I add some decent single target pressure damage.
Do I die a lot? Only if i get focussed but then again, who doesn't?
Do I enjoy it? Yes, thank you, I do.
you can enjoy whatever you want, that doesn't put what you like in the same effectiveness league as anything else. between the recluse, vesta and wells, theres no heal cruisers needed, other then the odd odyssey now and then. speaking of things bringing nothing of value to a team, the eng captain. thats just the way it is, dont take it personal.
Well yes there where very good tac cruisers in the past, and just like there where very bad escorts I laughed at there where very bad cruisers I laughed at. Lets be honest though if you ran into a RP type person PvPing in a terrible build they where almost always in a cruiser cause who wouldn't want to fly their own Enterprise. For the Record... Eyatani, NinjaBoy, TFomega just to name a few off the top of my head that did tac cruiser with the big boys, before it was cool, and with out A2B.
However I never claimed the ships where in perfect balance before DOFFS... I am not even claiming doffs are overall bad... just that some are obviously 10x better then the rest and are there fore deserving of an adjustment.
Sill cruisers have gotten command auras... Escorts and Sci ships I think where pretty well balanced against each other. As I was saying if Cruisers still need buffs so be it ... but broken doffs that force cruisers into one build is no fix at all.
Engi Captains got some very good traits that have at least in part made them much more viable in general.
1 AtB cruiser, pre cooldown system change, lol those were not that great.
I ran one and I found it to be quite effective... I even flew it in high end matches more then once in fact. (not matches we lost either) It was in fact a high skill build... where as current a2b builds are LOW skill builds.
They dumbed it down... but left the Doffs as is which was a MAJOR mistake shortsighted... and frankly stupid. When they changed the global they should have at that time added an RNG element to the Tech doffs. Had they done that no one would be complaining... and I am going to bet most people would still be running a2b... but at least they wouldn't get a free pass on balance mechanics everyone else(other builds) has to deal with.
Really ask yourself should someone be able to have EPTW EPTS up 100% of the time... as well as dumping 40-50 power into those systems every 20s on top of that... its no wonder we have people running around with perma overcapped 200 weapon power. lol My cruiser can run 130 shields 125 engines and be super overcapped on wepaon power ALL the time... if I can do it so can everyone else... its broken no other way to put it.
Anyway we agree on many things Dont... I for one would like to see what would happen with no tech doffs... and command Auras only... because frankly i think they would be just fine. Really if not I would rather see them get further buffs.
However.... lets look at what makes a crusiers different then an escort.
1) DHC... ok any cruiser you would fly as a DPS cruisers can slot them.
2) Weapon slots... Cruisers still have one more... even if it is rear facing which for beams don't matter anyway.
3) Turn rate... Escorts still have the edge here... however not by much anymore... RCS just got a major buff... and We also got armour units that loose nothing but add RCS values... Win for the escort... but not by much. Escorts turn to hard for most people these days I would say they have maxed out... and a well built cruiser turns with 90% of them now. Aux to Damp doff helps there to if you can live with out A2B... which is sort of funny.
4) Hull points... win for the cruiser... but I will agree that it isn't a big deal.
5) shield points... mostly similer very slight edge for the cruisers... Some (galor) have franikly sci ship level shield mods as well.
6) device slots... not a major deal... but with battaries lasting 20s... and some of the Engi Trait buffs for them... it is worth nothing that Crusiers can slot the SubSpace Unit + 3 types of battaries.
7) Command Auras Vs +10% defense. I would give the win to cruisers here pretty handily... defense is nice don't get me wrong... but if all you care about is defense the free Shield Resistance is better the +10... and the Weapon Drain Aura is a HUGE buff. (I am sure it will shine when they get the FAW power fix right lol)
yes cruiser users, go back to serving no purpose and wasting space, and like it this time!
Crusiers are very useful in the current meta... as Healers as they always where..
Seriously though they are also very good pressure dmg dealers... because I think that is(should) be working ok... WITH OUT the A2B.
Faw needs a few more little tweeks... but really with out the stupid overcapping people are getting out of having EPTW + leech + a2b + omega Amp... they instead of dealing game breaking everyone must do it dmg... be providing I think pretty balanced pressure. Hard to prove with out removing A2B... or finding 2 good teams willing to try flying 2 teams with a couple curisers witih no A2B on them.
you can enjoy whatever you want, that doesn't put what you like in the same effectiveness league as anything else. between the recluse, vesta and wells, theres no heal cruisers needed, other then the odd odyssey now and then. speaking of things bringing nothing of value to a team, the eng captain. thats just the way it is, dont take it personal.
I don't think I agree anymore that Engi brings nothing ot the team... there just isn't much need for more then one... just like there isn't much need for more then one Spiking tac.
A proper engi is still the best way to defend a team against bleed attacks that are popular. Nothing says your dem ain't nutten then a high aux Sif 3 from a cruiser sporting a bunch of Sif Consoles. (which don't work with the current global of a2b funny enough... so I am saying that engi should NOT be using a2b)
1. FaWBalls are not new under the sun. There was a time they never missed and had much stronger phaser procs. The over capping has been around since then. So, yes it was worse then w/much less passive repairs/resist boosts/base HPs of ships. The problems started w/maco shields and then later Fleet shields. The Maco required DHCs to inflict pressure damage (neutering FaW builds) and Fleet shields neutered DHCs (not counting KDF Fleet weapon proc). This pushed spikes builds. Those were nerfed and the bleed through procs w/debuff procs brought FaW back. Aux2batt didn't.
2. Aux2batt started as a chance based doff w/a higher effectiveness when it proc'd. It was then made 100% effective. It then had it's shared cooldown w/eptx removed. The important note of this is epta removes the 5 power level hard cap. Allowing not only the power gain from epta, but all other others to be applied such as plas leech gains. Then a TRIBBLE ton of other abilities like HE and PH had their shared cooldowns removed.
3. This goes back to the point Thissler made earlier in this thread. Aux2batt boosts much more than FaWballs. Before fleet shields came out aux2batt CVS battle cruiser builds mopped the floor. Even before the RSP doff you could still have 2x effective RSP w/ETPS3 on a single aux2batt build. Yes, those were/are effective as well. Aux2batt will nearly double the effectiveness of the boffs of w/e FoTM build is at the time.
I've used single aux2batt builds on destroyers, battle cruisers, b'rel, and warbirds w/Sci and Tac Captains. It's false to say it boosts cruisers and it's false to say it's why cruisers are effective or not. It makes w/e FoTM that may benefit Cruisers and other ships better.
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Comments
This right here is right to the point.
I was in an STF yesterday, ISE to be exact, with a couple friends and a couple random people (since we teamed and pugged it). Now, I could've probably done a bit better had I known my friend was running a parser (I would've put on a more PvE setup, rather than my PvP build which does fine in PvE), and the numbers might be off a bit just because that's the nature of programs like it, but the point still stands.
An A2Bing, FAW ship (might've been scimitar) with random junk gear did twice the dps of my fleet/lock box/reputation geared JHAS. There was another A2Bing ship that did more dps than me also.
Now, as I mentioned above there's a lot of variables that probably could swing the numbers by some, but still. That's beyond ridiculous.
Well, simply sign up for the tournament. Look around this time next week for it. The tournament itself will be held on the 1st of the new year.
Mostly an Alpha strike on them is a giant waste of your precious dmg buffs considering that the opportunity to kill them is only there somewhere between their 2 copies of RSP.
I'd say there are some limitations needed for RSP in general because the "long" cooldown evidently does not limit it enough.
yeah, pretty much what you said. Tric mines where nerfed because of doing the same thing. What's different this time?
Cryptic didn't expect a proportion of us would min/max builds so they nerf it for the Casual players
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
Or could it quite simply be that the nature of the mission and the high constant damage of the build is actually better in that situation than a spike damage DHC escort like the JHAS?
I mean you said it yourself, yours was a PvP build, there's nothing wrong with that and a good PvP build will still get optionals in STF but it won't hold a candle to a PvE optimised build.
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.
But isn't something off when single beams are the only weapons that overcap above 135? Power drain, before overcapping was what balanced weapons.
EDIT: didn't want to sound so snarky.
I beg to differ, using engineering slots to make up for the lack of a tac team your can run dual FAW and BAMM your ship performs the way it would with A2B only that your aux based stuff works as well.
So I should be forced to stop using A2D because I have an LTC tac slot on my ship? That sure as hell ain't fair especially when people will just drop DEM, take RSP 3 and continue to use A2B so you've achieved nothing. Well done.
Well then you should be asking for a buff to your galaxy retro... or come the realization that its a Role playing and not a PvPing ship.
Leaving tech doffs as they are benifits everyone not just your under performing ship. If your idea was implemented I can hear it now... everyone that flys a Galaxy Retro complaining that they have to waste another doff slot to be effective... or that they have to spend more to get the third tech doff.
Fix the skills and doffs....
Then if ships need to be buffed they can be.
Frankly I don't see cruisers as needing aux to bat... they just got Command Auras. THAT was intended to be there buff. I would say it has worked as well... tac cruisers have built in weapon drain nullification... healers have built in Resistance that they can share to those in range... and Tanks can also make use of that or even the turn rate buffs.
If cruisers still need buffed on top of that. (which I highly doubt) then they should get it. Instead of doffs that basicly remove the games balance mechanic (cool downs).
Skills that where given longer cool downs on purpose are now 30s just like everything else.
Fix the skills... then fix the ships if they are broken.
Compete in what? Damage? Tanking?
I don't think cruisers are meant to deal as much damage (well twice the dmg would be more accurate) as escorts do. They are meant to be tanks only.
I also don't get how you can seriously say "compete" while you're far far far on top of every escort atm.
btw, if you aren't able to "compete" with others ships without using an "I-win-build"...then you're probably doing a lot of things wrong.
I don't wanna sound to offensive, but I just can't understand your point of view. I'm almost shocked by those opinions, there's nothing clearer in the world to me than this build is terribly overpowered.
You've just proven my point. Dem comes off. Now they have to choose to be less tanky or do less damage. No matter what happens, something is going to end up being less useful, and I think its only fair that tactical based ships take a hit for once, rather than eng based ones.
And I don't rely on tac team, nor do I use faw. I don't go right for the cookie cutter setup, I prefer to use my own ideas. I only use aux2batt to keep my science team and engineering teams on 15 second cooldowns, and to get my epts back up faster. I have eliminated all but aux based skill to compensate for the lack of aux power, and I make up for the lack of tac slots on my ship by getting bo1 and thy2 back up as fast as possible.
Eng cruiser captain make a lot of sacrifices tactically to survive, and nerfing even 1 component of what makes aux2batt work would ruin unique builds and concepts. The game would dissolve into tactical ships online.
Nothing. And that's what bothers me. Perhaps some of us should start making an example of this.
It's ok, you make a valid point and I have seen enough of your posts to know you don't mean to be snarky
Yes it is a bit weird and both ultimatum and I do agree (OMG we agree on something lol) that it's more the drain mechanics that are making beams over perform.
As I linked earlier you can see there's a lot of builds hitting stupid levels of DPS without A2B.
However beams haven't been altered since I think it was Gecko said beams are fine as they are. We all laughed at him...the fools we were.
On the one hand I do feel beams are perhaps over performing with the 9000 other things added but we also don't want to return to the days where if you had beams you were trolled and laughed at.
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.
The thing is they will lose about 1% of their dps by dropping DEM to keep RSP to keep the build viable, that's 1% nobody will notice but if you take the Lt slot off the Excel for example and replace it with two ensign slots in it's place you leave it a 100% useless ability slot, you take away it'a ability to run a jack of all trades build, you remove the viability of an A2D build on it. Congrats you nerfed all but one build on one ship (and many others) and made no noticeable difference to the build you attempted to nerf. Nice work!
I won't comment further on your build, engineers don't have issues being effensively competent anymore than science characters do, it's all about doing it right, if you can't kill someone yourself throw your EPS power transfer to a team mate.
Tric mines only needed a single BOFF slot, and a weapon slot to really be effective.
A2B needs 1 or 2 Lt. Engy BOFF slots, along with up to 3 DOFFs for what it can do. (Ignoring all other factors for the moment)
Tric mines could literally work on EVERY single ship in the game at the time, and had much less of a cost for it. A2B you could technically use on any ship in the game (though you'd have a lot better choices for many ships), but still has much more you need to do to use it.
Trics were also just a 'drop it and forget it' situation. As long as a team coordinated enough, you could just drop them and blow up anyone. Even a lone player could do it if they had a good enough build.
I'm not saying that this makes it right on either of these things. Just that there is a difference.
been meaning to get back to this. the line of thinking that cruisers, escorts and sci ships were all magically balanced as is, in the pre doff days, is hilarious. how many people were out there seriously playing tac cruisers before the AtB change? how many of you rolled your eyes when you saw a useless and underpowered tac cruisers on your team back then? how good for nothing were they? do you all really not remember what a joke they were before? they didn't even really have the benefit of a functioning FAW back then, at least not one as strong as we have had lately.
back in those days there there wasn't even wide spread fleet ships, no fleet shields, bug ship were totally, utterly, dominating, and in pvp there was pretty much escort spike and sci debuffing, and the slow moving targets. healing was easily handled by those sci ships too, cruisers were at their lowest point.
1 AtB cruiser, pre cooldown system change, lol those were not that great. they only got to run EPtS, and even before the other EPt skills got a buff, that was pretty suck on a cruiser. a damage control doff build was superior back then, and they would be again. i used to duel a friend of mine with one of those 1 AtB cruisers back in the day, he even had a galor and my damage control excelsior showed it up all the time. thats how i knew so much about AtB without maining it back then, and how i was so immediately able to put 2 AtB to use as soon as the patch that moved it to the AtS/AtD tree went live. now that every good cruiser and escort runs EPtS in addition to EPtW or E, such a nerf of reverting that would put AtB builds to death, at least on cruisers were it maters most. it would again be an inferior choice, and the list of usable tac cruisers would go from all of them, to just ones with at least a LTC tac.
then 2 AtB potential came along, and with it every skill the cruiser had slotted useable at about global with 1 copy, thats what it took for these slow, underpowered ships to actually be sorta competitive with the escorts and sci ships. they need that oh so 'OP', oh so 'broken' uptime on all the skills they have, because cruisers are a mix of all the worst attributes a ship can have. they have the lowest speed, lowest turn, and thus no evasive or speed tanking potential, in exchange for about 10% more hitpoints, barely enough to make a difference, and have to actually be healed unlike shots that dont even land. and cruisers have the highest amount of station powers that merely prolonged the inevitable, or have no impact on enemies. every non cruiser has enough eng stations to run all the EPt skills they need, thats all they need from eng, and they arent wasting higher end stations slots on anything else eng has to offer.
since then there has been a wide variate of cruisers added to the game that are quite tactically powerful. having 4 or 5 tac station powers available to them. these ships actually get less out of Atb builds then the old COM/LTC eng ships do, but it still gives them closer to escort damage, with more durability. these LTC tac, 4 tac console cruisers and fleet cruisers are beneficial power creep, but this still just keeping pace with the other ship type creep, not to mention war birds. AtB is still needed on the vast majority of these tac cruisers if they want to be competitive.
the avenger and mogh are the first cruisers, in my opinion, that can be weened of AtB and still be high end ships. of all the non AtB builds ive used in them, and theres been about 6 quite distinct and effective ones so far, non have been quite as good as AtB builds, but what can you expect, its still a cruiser. this is more like what a balanced cruiser looks like, compared to the common escort. 1 more weapon, but 1 more up front, not behind. when using escort weapons this matters, even for beams it maters in the time before you can acquire a broadside with the target. this can help make up for the lack of COM tac and lack of mobility, this is the raw firepower that should be the standard of just about all cruisers. they need raw power, raw stats, and raw dps if they are going to be stuck with the station setup and mobility they currently have. till then, we have AtB is in place of that true balancing.
and what about warbirds and destroyers that can run AtB easily? are they a balance concern? sort of, at least they are more so then any AtB cruiser. many can pair a COM tac with AtB, and that has great potential. but in every case i can think of, these destroyers have like 13 to 15 turn rate, funky hitpoints, so they tend to have a hell of a time engaging any other pure escorts. once again, AtB is there to make up for built in limitations. some even have to forgo sci complacently to run it, and wile that might not be to big a deal in a premade, without team support thats a pretty terrible idea.
like, all the warbirds can run it too. but those ships are best suited for vapeing, not hanging out uncloaked for a long time dog fighting were high uptime would mater. besides, AtB can be your worst enemy if you have a battle cloak, potentially decloaking you if your aux flat lines. AtB balances itself at every turn.
and whats the 2 big problems with these AtB boogeyman ships these days? FAW teams and beam array scimitars. each of these things is mutually exclusive, with regards to AtB, nether thing depends on the other. the top 2 beam array using ships, the scimitar, and jem dread, arent even cruisers, dont need to run AtB and arent cruisers so they dont have those cruiser commands. a nice little addition those were to cruisers, enfaces on little. not even the drain res aura is enough to even make them the best beam boats, the shield res adding 10% after all the math is done is proboly adding closer to 2 or 3 % resistance, the turn aura does next to nothing but increase your inertia score that actually a bad thing on DHC battlecruisers, and that threat control one can offer pretty good hull res, but only if you have like 4 other allied objects in its range. it makes cruisers feel more special at least.
so why is AtB so popular, why does everyone use it? because its the best way to get cruisers to deal more damage, and thats basically what star trek fans want to do, use cruisers to kill things. space magic and star fighter escorts arent trek, slow mover tall ship combat is trek, and AtB brings out the best in those ships. it will stop being FOTM, or year(s), as soon as star trek is something fundamentally different. until then its as much a boilerplate of this game as DHC and SNB.
The above reasons only underline why I will NEVER again run A2B.
A2b is NOT a necessity to be competent and if you ask me, if you feel it is then you're doing it wrong. Engineering boff skills if you use them to your advantage are NOT a weakness, rather a STRENGTH.
If you want to fly an escort then fly a damned escort! Don't turn your cruiser into one!
yes cruiser users, go back to serving no purpose and wasting space, and like it this time!
So I can't spam FAW, do I care? No.
Can I contribute to a team? Yes. I can throw heals when needed, hold my own while I do so, I play an engineer in my cruiser so I can throw power at people to help them secure a kill while I add some decent single target pressure damage.
Do I die a lot? Only if i get focussed but then again, who doesn't?
Do I enjoy it? Yes, thank you, I do.
oh im almost positive thats what it is. i thought it made a nice intense avatar pic, even though i dont know who it is. i think the name did started with a Z
you can enjoy whatever you want, that doesn't put what you like in the same effectiveness league as anything else. between the recluse, vesta and wells, theres no heal cruisers needed, other then the odd odyssey now and then. speaking of things bringing nothing of value to a team, the eng captain. thats just the way it is, dont take it personal.
However I never claimed the ships where in perfect balance before DOFFS... I am not even claiming doffs are overall bad... just that some are obviously 10x better then the rest and are there fore deserving of an adjustment.
Sill cruisers have gotten command auras... Escorts and Sci ships I think where pretty well balanced against each other. As I was saying if Cruisers still need buffs so be it ... but broken doffs that force cruisers into one build is no fix at all.
Engi Captains got some very good traits that have at least in part made them much more viable in general.
I ran one and I found it to be quite effective... I even flew it in high end matches more then once in fact. (not matches we lost either) It was in fact a high skill build... where as current a2b builds are LOW skill builds.
They dumbed it down... but left the Doffs as is which was a MAJOR mistake shortsighted... and frankly stupid. When they changed the global they should have at that time added an RNG element to the Tech doffs. Had they done that no one would be complaining... and I am going to bet most people would still be running a2b... but at least they wouldn't get a free pass on balance mechanics everyone else(other builds) has to deal with.
Really ask yourself should someone be able to have EPTW EPTS up 100% of the time... as well as dumping 40-50 power into those systems every 20s on top of that... its no wonder we have people running around with perma overcapped 200 weapon power. lol My cruiser can run 130 shields 125 engines and be super overcapped on wepaon power ALL the time... if I can do it so can everyone else... its broken no other way to put it.
Anyway we agree on many things Dont... I for one would like to see what would happen with no tech doffs... and command Auras only... because frankly i think they would be just fine. Really if not I would rather see them get further buffs.
However.... lets look at what makes a crusiers different then an escort.
1) DHC... ok any cruiser you would fly as a DPS cruisers can slot them.
2) Weapon slots... Cruisers still have one more... even if it is rear facing which for beams don't matter anyway.
3) Turn rate... Escorts still have the edge here... however not by much anymore... RCS just got a major buff... and We also got armour units that loose nothing but add RCS values... Win for the escort... but not by much. Escorts turn to hard for most people these days I would say they have maxed out... and a well built cruiser turns with 90% of them now. Aux to Damp doff helps there to if you can live with out A2B... which is sort of funny.
4) Hull points... win for the cruiser... but I will agree that it isn't a big deal.
5) shield points... mostly similer very slight edge for the cruisers... Some (galor) have franikly sci ship level shield mods as well.
6) device slots... not a major deal... but with battaries lasting 20s... and some of the Engi Trait buffs for them... it is worth nothing that Crusiers can slot the SubSpace Unit + 3 types of battaries.
7) Command Auras Vs +10% defense. I would give the win to cruisers here pretty handily... defense is nice don't get me wrong... but if all you care about is defense the free Shield Resistance is better the +10... and the Weapon Drain Aura is a HUGE buff. (I am sure it will shine when they get the FAW power fix right lol)
Crusiers are very useful in the current meta... as Healers as they always where..
Seriously though they are also very good pressure dmg dealers... because I think that is(should) be working ok... WITH OUT the A2B.
Faw needs a few more little tweeks... but really with out the stupid overcapping people are getting out of having EPTW + leech + a2b + omega Amp... they instead of dealing game breaking everyone must do it dmg... be providing I think pretty balanced pressure. Hard to prove with out removing A2B... or finding 2 good teams willing to try flying 2 teams with a couple curisers witih no A2B on them.
I don't think I agree anymore that Engi brings nothing ot the team... there just isn't much need for more then one... just like there isn't much need for more then one Spiking tac.
A proper engi is still the best way to defend a team against bleed attacks that are popular. Nothing says your dem ain't nutten then a high aux Sif 3 from a cruiser sporting a bunch of Sif Consoles. (which don't work with the current global of a2b funny enough... so I am saying that engi should NOT be using a2b)
You find another cruiser pilot, gimme a bell (forum name is my handle) sometime and I'll bring my A2D Excel along
1. FaWBalls are not new under the sun. There was a time they never missed and had much stronger phaser procs. The over capping has been around since then. So, yes it was worse then w/much less passive repairs/resist boosts/base HPs of ships. The problems started w/maco shields and then later Fleet shields. The Maco required DHCs to inflict pressure damage (neutering FaW builds) and Fleet shields neutered DHCs (not counting KDF Fleet weapon proc). This pushed spikes builds. Those were nerfed and the bleed through procs w/debuff procs brought FaW back. Aux2batt didn't.
2. Aux2batt started as a chance based doff w/a higher effectiveness when it proc'd. It was then made 100% effective. It then had it's shared cooldown w/eptx removed. The important note of this is epta removes the 5 power level hard cap. Allowing not only the power gain from epta, but all other others to be applied such as plas leech gains. Then a TRIBBLE ton of other abilities like HE and PH had their shared cooldowns removed.
3. This goes back to the point Thissler made earlier in this thread. Aux2batt boosts much more than FaWballs. Before fleet shields came out aux2batt CVS battle cruiser builds mopped the floor. Even before the RSP doff you could still have 2x effective RSP w/ETPS3 on a single aux2batt build. Yes, those were/are effective as well. Aux2batt will nearly double the effectiveness of the boffs of w/e FoTM build is at the time.
I've used single aux2batt builds on destroyers, battle cruisers, b'rel, and warbirds w/Sci and Tac Captains. It's false to say it boosts cruisers and it's false to say it's why cruisers are effective or not. It makes w/e FoTM that may benefit Cruisers and other ships better.
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