I personally can only see 1 area and Engi escort would be capable of passing and that is definitely not enough to convince me personally to test anything.
Again, context. It makes a huge difference if you're evaluating these things 1v1, 5v5, pug/premade, or against a stationary target that doesn't shoot back.
The only consistency in a PUG pvp is chaos, and "pick up" teams are the only viable option for me. Anything that requires me to depend on other players for something rather than do it for myself is irrelevant. No, I don't have APA, but I have two copies of APO and MW with a chance of rapid cooldown.
Again, context. It makes a huge difference if you're evaluating these things 1v1, 5v5, pug/premade, or against a stationary target that doesn't shoot back.
The only consistency in a PUG pvp is chaos, and "pick up" teams are the only viable option for me. Anything that requires me to depend on other players for something rather than do it for myself is irrelevant. No, I don't have APA, but I have two copies of APO and MW with a chance of rapid cooldown.
Go cloak + Tac. Full force + Disguise.
What more do you want?
Its perfectly possible to 15 - 0 your team in a pug. you doing all the killing.
Again, context. It makes a huge difference if you're evaluating these things 1v1, 5v5, pug/premade, or against a stationary target that doesn't shoot back.
The only consistency in a PUG pvp is chaos, and "pick up" teams are the only viable option for me. Anything that requires me to depend on other players for something rather than do it for myself is irrelevant. No, I don't have APA, but I have two copies of APO and MW with a chance of rapid cooldown.
With all the power creep going on, APO is no where near good enough to be used offensively. It is best used for it's defense / survivability / movement aspects. the damage boost is nice at best.
Then again, to counter your argument, APA stacked with APO is far superior. With Conn doffs you can have APO3 up almost as much as APO1 for far superior gains. So again, not really a valid argument for and Eng scort.
Even as a pug, you can survive quite well as a Tac if you know how.
With all the power creep going on, APO is no where near good enough to be used offensively. It is best used for it's defense / survivability / movement aspects. the damage boost is nice at best.
Then again, to counter your argument, APA stacked with APO is far superior. With Conn doffs you can have APO3 up almost as much as APO1 for far superior gains. So again, not really a valid argument for and Eng scort.
Even as a pug, you can survive quite well as a Tac if you know how.
APA is damage wise more then double as powerful as APO3, 25% versus 50% flat, and then including 5%CritH and 50% CritD boost.
GDF can be more powerful then APA even. And it can be used quite often these days, just put it under a movement key bind or spacebar and be asured it always goes off when its available lol.
Perhaps this argument is more interesting: You survive by killing your opponent faster then he can inflict damage.
Wait a second... don't you come from a school of forum pvp that relies on hiding until the other players quit the forums so that you can then declare victory? Or was that in-game pvp...
That was in game... but we only did that to cheaters. They also tended to perceive 5min as 30.
Haven't had a reason to respond to a Hilbert post in a long time feels good. lol
I think another problem with build diversity is the price. If you want to have a (new) competitive build, you need to get expensive doffs, gear, ships, reputation etc. It's not like it used to be when one simply levelled a character to 50, equipped white gear, trained some boff abilities and was ready to go. There are things I'd like to try, but I can't because I'm not going to spend hundreds of millions on builds that even on paper are a long shot. And if one is looking at team setups, this cost is amplified by a factor of five.
That is another great point. I have a few torp boat ideas I would love to try out... but I'm not going to sink 300k+ Dilithium and all the other resources it would need to test it out. I believe it would be fun... but at that cost your right crazy.
That is another great point. I have a few torp boat ideas I would love to try out... but I'm not going to sink 300k+ Dilithium and all the other resources it would need to test it out. I believe it would be fun... but at that cost your right crazy.
It would be nice if Cryptic made everything on Tribble free. They do for a limited time with the new stuff, but they take it down every seasonal update. I've never don't much space PvP because it is so resource intensive. Ground PvP has it's sinks, but it's not hard getting sets at 27k dilithium and 1500 Marks for a full set.
I've finally decided to just get a science officer for space while buying all reputation gear in order to start test bedding things to create builds. The biggest problem is many of the Reinforcement Duty officers are vital for good engineering builds, yet they are extremely expensive due to the limited supply. I could see a lot of PvPers preferring to simply pick a cheap build to fly.
It would be nice if Cryptic made everything on Tribble free.
It would be nice, unfortunately its very likely they count on a significant number of impulse purchases by players chasing the next new thing as part of their overall model.
Seems the major complaints boil down to lack of choices. Thre are too many skills/powers/abilities that are worthless. Versus nerfing the current powerful abilities why not bring up the one's that no one uses due to them being TRIBBLE. I think that every power/ability should be effective when used properly and backed by skill/gear/Boffs/Doffs.
Im not asking Cryptic to get rid of what they have. The outline is there. They just need to spend a season addressing all the gear and Doffs and power levels to bring everything into focus.
There should be Sci ships and captians that can drain a ship dry and leave him dead in the water but not be able to have high damage potential.
There should be Escorts that can smach and grab for massive damage but not be able to tank incoming fire from 4 ships at once.
Where most will not agree with me but I think Cruisers should be the most powerful ships in the game. They should have good shields (not as good as Sci) and massive hulls. It should take combined fire to bring down a cruiser. It should take a Sci ship to debuff them and then Escorts to break the defences. Beams and cannons should not do the damage to hull that they do. It should take several Torp hits to weaken a ships hull. Cruiser should be the back bone of teams. Wiht good team heals and self heals. They should have good pressue damage ability. Not have huge spikes that Escorts have. Beams should be good VS Shields and Torps vs Hull like it was suppose to be in the begining. All the lines have gotten blurred to where we have Escorts tanking, Cruisers doing massinve spike damage and being thin as paper and Sci left out in the wind. Cryptic is trying to make every toon in every ship a Kirk. Making it so every player can feel good about them selves. The PVE content has gotten to be too easy and the PVE content is broken by gimic consoles and toys ment for PVE
Cryptic needs to stop all the nerfs and just bring up the other powers to usefulness and Aux2batt/FAW/DEM will be just another option. Not the only option,
The issue I see with just buffing everything... is that as it is right now not having X or Y buff up is such bad mojo that any serious build HAS to have X or Y on it... and I think its even at a point where you have to run something to keep X and Y up at all times.
So buffing everything doesn't solve much I don't think... besides theres nothing left to buff... It pretty much all has been.
Bottom line there is just to much of everything.
As crazy as it sounds... Create a PvP where everyone uses the same White Level pvp gear... turn off doffs and remove the consoles/items from the game... and oddly there would in fact be MORE options for builds.
The issue I see with just buffing everything... is that as it is right now not having X or Y buff up is such bad mojo that any serious build HAS to have X or Y on it... and I think its even at a point where you have to run something to keep X and Y up at all times.
So buffing everything doesn't solve much I don't think... besides theres nothing left to buff... It pretty much all has been.
Bottom line there is just to much of everything.
As crazy as it sounds... Create a PvP where everyone uses the same White Level pvp gear... turn off doffs and remove the consoles/items from the game... and oddly there would in fact be MORE options for builds.
Here is a list of abilities that no one uses that if re-worked or buffed could open up lots of new builds:
Boarding Party , Auxiliary to Structural, Aceton Beam , Jam Sensors , Mask Energy Signature , Tachyon Beam (outside of CE), Photonic Officer , Photonic Shockwave , Viral Matrix (use to be a goto ability) Also a lot of the Mine patters and mines in general are not used my many. Except when Nukara mines were OP.
I'm sure some players use these but not in general in PVP. If all of these were brought up to usefulness that would open up so many other build possibilities. For example if Tachyon beam would disable to facing shield it hit for 3 seconds and Torps did the bare hull damage they should a player could hold his target, take out the facing shield and smash with torps for big numbers. But Tachyon beam is TRIBBLE and Torp damage is null now.
If Boarding party could not be countered by TT and if low crew count mattered and it was sure to disable a BOff station or system it would be a viable choice.
The list goes on so many consoles and weapons that are just junk. So many maps are vacent and unused too. Just imagine ground PVP on Risa with the Jet packs. Or slideing around on ice on Andoria? Or Shuttle/Fighter PVVP inside of the Vault. So many maps and systems just empty. I guess I'm just trrying to ask them to fix what they have. Use what they got and players will love it.
Here is a list of abilities that no one uses that if re-worked or buffed could open up lots of new builds:
Boarding Party , Auxiliary to Structural, Aceton Beam , Jam Sensors , Mask Energy Signature , Tachyon Beam (outside of CE), Photonic Officer , Photonic Shockwave , Viral Matrix (use to be a goto ability)
Aren't AtSIF and PSW core components of good teams? And aren't VM and PO(3) also found in several builds?
There are certainly abilities that are nigh useless these days, but your list includes abilites that are in widespread use or at least have their useful niches.
Aren't AtSIF and PSW core components of good teams? And aren't VM and PO(3) also found in several builds?
There are certainly abilities that are nigh useless these days, but your list includes abilites that are in widespread use or at least have their useful niches.
yes "useful niches". The OP is about the widespread use of cookie-cutter Aux2bat builds. The lack of choices. The game should have no useless abilities. Everything backed by the right gear and Doffs should be a viable skill. Yes there should be trade offs but the game has pushed players into a very limited number of choices.
Even as a pug, you can survive quite well as a Tac if you know how.
Maybe you can, but I'm through butchering up my builds to suit the "one size fits all" mentality. My engineer in a fleet defiant is what works for me. I may not get as many kills that way, but I also die less.
Another contributing factor is my refusal to grind up multiple toons through the reputation, buy more than one set of high-end fleet gear, etc. I'm willing to do that once, and it was with my engineer.
I like my engineer better, but I can't stand flying around in a space whale cruiser. Even Avengers turn too slow without burning up a bunch of console space on it. I don't want to be a lumbering broadside tank, and I don't want to be a Tac. Everyone can just stuff their rigid carreer roles.
Boarding Party , Auxiliary to Structural, Aceton Beam , Jam Sensors , Mask Energy Signature , Tachyon Beam (outside of CE), Photonic Officer , Photonic Shockwave , Viral Matrix (use to be a goto ability) Also a lot of the Mine patters and mines in general are not used my many. Except when Nukara mines were OP.
Well yes lets look at those skills and look at the real issues with using them... then you tell me what the best fix is.
Boarding Party... -In fact super effective... issue with it the shuttles die to any and all aoe... current meta... lots of GW and Faw... that is why Boarding party isn't used. And yes everyone having 2 copies of tac team all the time through doffs. Tac team is out there extremely thick thanks to doff creep.
Aux to Struc... in fact very good skill... main reason people don't use it more... shares a cool down with aux to bat. lmao
Aceton Beam... In fact very good skill... problem is... its cleared to easy. Because one Heal has been super buffed to clear darn close to everything. (hazards)
Jam Sensors... Don't know what you are talking about I use this lots in PvP... use to call it Romulan Cloak but I guess now we have Romulan cloaks. lol Again most people don't use it much because... well people that want to be douchy have this on a trait. lol
Mask Energy... works as well as needed. There is no reason to buff this one when 90% of the ships people use have cloaking devices.
Tachyon beam... in fact works pretty darn good. What is the real reason no one uses it... its simple Everyone has either 4x the shield regen they used to have... or they have multple on hit shield heals.
Photonic Officer... is in fact a good skill... that is competely overshadowed by doffs that reduce everything to global. lol of course when compared to that TRIBBLE its not so great. In order to be an option over Tech doffs... it would have to be up 100% of the time and reduce every skill on your bar to global.
Shockwave... Still the best way to remove extends and yes it is used in most high end premades. No need for a buff on this one.
Viral Matix.. a great skill... you can even add doffs to make it better. The main issues with it lately... other doffs that clear all debuffs every 15s is one. Really its just harder to disable people anymore in general.
Mines are in fact very good as well... hit harder then they used to have mes values... the issue... again 75% of the people running faw... and everyone else having a GW handy. Or they end up impacting on one of the bagillion pets / photonics / Nimbus ships floating around. (not to mention that the spam now spams aoe sci themselves)
So looking though the list is the best option to BUFF all of those things... and lets be honest we can talk to 5 other people and add 10 more skills and items to the list.
OR is the best option to fix a handful of broken things.
Here is the fix... (I would rather they just spin PvP off and remove all of the PvE TRIBBLE from the game but here fixes that could be done)
1) Change Hazards. Right now it clears plasma dots / eject warp plasma / Tykens debuffs / Aceton Debuffs / Energy Siphens. Change it so that it clears Science debuffs only... so it can clear Tykens and Siphen... but NOT plasma dots OR Eject Warp Plasma... or Aceton.
Move those clears to Engi Team. (yes that's right force people to consider using it... also buff the worst weapon proc in plasma... make engi debuffs work properly and against the classes of ships that would have to trade to counter with engi team)
2) Change tech doffs... everything at global is game breaking. Aux to bat used to be on the global witih EPTx... undo that change... put it back on that global. This would also allow people to run Aux to Sif more often... and kill the everything at global build. (While still making tech doffs extremely powerful... but making it a niche build instead of the defacto one)
3) You have a point about tachyon I don't think opening shield facing would go over well or be that effective really... However a Tachyon debuff could be added... Say 5s of Suspended shield regeneration and perhaps halve shield healing... a buff that would apply itself every second the beam had contact... so basicly it would last during the beam... and for 5s after the beam ends. That would counter the power creep there.
Heres an example of something that should work but does not: Fleet Patrol Escourt loaded up with 4 Photon mines in the back running Rule 62 console and 2 Mine tac consoles and Doffs that boost mine damage and running mine AP's. This ship sould spit out rapid fire photon mines like Goat pellets. Getting behind this guys should be a big mistake. But alas, Photon, quantum, plasma mines are junk. The mile layer build is a myth. The Space sets and uni and Tac console and attack patterns and Doffs that boost/reduce cooldowns for Mines dont stack right together or are broken. This build wont work but in theory it should. There are Doffs and consoles and sets and Uni consoles that should make a mine layer build viable. But reality is that it does not work.
I never said I don't PvP. I just don't interact with teammates more than necessary, because they are usually more aggravation than it's worth.
It works for me. I neither get the most kills/damage/healing nor the least, most of the time. The self-healing compromise is a necessity born of the fact that I can't depend on the team-heal crutch in PUG matches, and don't have time to organize a 5-person team in advance.
Said it before, and I'll say it again. You're not "removing opposing targets" if you're dead, and I don't have the team heal crutch to depend on. Unless you're always able to hide behind the skirts of a premade team, self-reliance is every bit as important as raw damage and kills.
Yeah, I've only been playing since it went live. What would I know. :rolleyes:
Maybe yours is, but mine is alive and kicking.
Can I have a pop at your eng Escort, I promise it will be educational for both of us
But seriously there lies the problem. Because you have taken the lone road of it's my myself and I, you Captain Kirk the game. You depend on noone other than youself.
There lies the big difference, I cycle my Tacteams not on myself but team mates in trouble, watch for buffs and call targets and switch if neccessary. People switch targets generally if it's futile, like triple Extend shields, TS3, AuxSif e.t.c. you aint going to pop them, an answer to a previous post you made in the STO discussion forum about ?%?&? switching targets every 10 secs instead of watching them explode.
I even give my heals out to team mates when needed and ask them nuke my targets either throuh keybinds or TS. If you depend on by chance ppl to nuke your targets or for targets to be down to half health to try and pop them you are mistaken for what Team play is.
It is never too late to ditch the Solo attitude and help with the team. Tell me what proportion of Eng Escorts have you seen in a Defiant?.
I do better in Pugs that communicate than ones that just random attack and Nuke targets.
You may survive more but then you don't kill the most being in an escort either which is the main aim of the escort, to kill more than any other ship type. You are basically dead weight for you team who provides neither enough kills nor healing.
More a self preservation build to which I have seen a fair few (E.g 23 sec RSP). I can't really say I blame you, you must have done this due to a bad experiance with pugs or Kerrat grinding you down. But suffice to say your team mates will suffer as a result of the way you set youself out and I hope you see it from this side of the fence.
However if you were in a Cruiser sending out heals and doing some damage you might be forgiven, but do you not yearn to be more than just some who does a bit of healing/DPS and Meh on the scoreboard
A measure of a good escort pilot is not the kills or DPS he does but analysing his own weakness and strengths and excelling, and of course not QQ on death
Now found frequenting MWO short term and then Star Citizen long term. Raged Quit PVP long ago
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
Can I have a pop at your eng Escort, I promise it will be educational for both of us
Let me guess, a Romulan in a FAW Scimitar. :rolleyes:
You depend on noone other than youself.
By necessity.
Tell me what proportion of Eng Escorts have you seen in a Defiant?
I don't pay attention to that.
You may survive more but then you don't kill the most being in an escort either which is the main aim of the escort, to kill more than any other ship type. You are basically dead weight for you team who provides neither enough kills nor healing.
If you insist on thinking like that, in Arena PvP, where kills are the only goal, everyone who doesn't rack up the body count is dead weight.
you must have done this due to a bad experiance with pugs or Kerrat grinding you down.
If you insist on thinking like that, in Arena PvP, where kills are the only goal, everyone who doesn't rack up the body count is dead weight.
Everybody in an escort that isn't racking up kills is yes dead weight.
Could you imagine a Rouge class in any other MMO saying... I don't have to kill anyone... I can just dodge all over the place here and never really die. They would be ridiculed for being dead weight. Not killing not healing or debuffing... just running around doing lots of nothing.
IMO Escort is exactly that ... an ESCORT class.
Which is why g0h4n4 is saying he in fact throws out his tac teams... and his meger heals. He is in fact "escorting" his team... shooting down targets and PROTECTING his team by doing that.
The main job of the escort class is to pound targets as they come in on the group. In general they are going to come in on the heavies... or shoot at the escort. Either way its the escorts job to peel them off.
A good tac escort... is going to be escorting there TEAM. Using a combo of fire power... debuff removal (tac team)... and even boosting defenses with things like Delta.
Running around not really doing enough dmg to draw fire.... (and worse being to tanky to warrant any attempted pushes), is completely contrary to the idea of Escorting a team.
Think of the escort as the world war fighter escort and you will get the idea of what you SHOULD be doing in one. Which is why most everyone is going to tell you engi-scort is the least optimal version of the escort... and with the current super buffed nature of everything its just not tenable to have one on a team and be successful.
Here is a list of abilities that no one uses that if re-worked or buffed could open up lots of new builds:
Boarding Party , Auxiliary to Structural, Aceton Beam , Jam Sensors , Mask Energy Signature , Tachyon Beam (outside of CE), Photonic Officer , Photonic Shockwave , Viral Matrix (use to be a goto ability) Also a lot of the Mine patters and mines in general are not used my many. Except when Nukara mines were OP.
I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you on the Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field comment. Last I checked, that ability was key to most healer builds in the game. I also use Auxiliary to SIF heavily on all of my science vessel builds due to how well it heals when at 130 auxiliary power.
Aceton Beam would be used if the cooldown were 30 seconds shorter, Jam Sensors is rarely used due to how pointless it is with players running around with the Tier IV New Romulus Placate proc. Mask Energy Signature should be usable in combat, we'd see a huge increase with that ability's usage overnight if only players could actually use it as a poor man's battle cloak. There would be no problem with in combat MES, it even shares a 20 second cooldown with battle cloak/standard cloak.
Tachyon Beam and Charged Particle Burst are useless right now due to high passive shield regeneration and excessive shield drain resistances. Photonic Officer...yeah...even the devs have said that this ability needs a revamp. Photonic Shockwave would be used again more frequently if it disabled longer than one second against players, or if the damage bypassed shields. Viral Matrix is also still used, but it's not all that useful without heavy duty officer investment.
Let me guess, a Romulan in a FAW Scimitar. :rolleyes:
By necessity.
I don't pay attention to that.
If you insist on thinking like that, in Arena PvP, where kills are the only goal, everyone who doesn't rack up the body count is dead weight.
Both. Consistently.
Are we not talking about Escorts here? If you were a Sci healer, Kills is not a must, high amount of quality heals is a must, if you don't heal as a Sci healer you are deadweight.
See the difference in classes?
For your information I am not a Faw boat, I am a T'varo that specialises in extreme Spike damage. So your wrong on that account.
I hope you understand what myself and others are saying. Your self preservation build is only good for kerrat but will be the end of your team.
In any case I still want to do a 1vs 1 against you just to see how Tanky you think you are
Now found frequenting MWO short term and then Star Citizen long term. Raged Quit PVP long ago
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
circular reasoning. sto calls destroyers & heavy cruisers 'escort' for lols
speed tanking risian makes a good healer
that'd be battleship, not escort.
making the idea you are referencing pointless. since doing no dps and being 'tanky' (lol) in this case evading fire makes you head weight by your own argument.
or... you know... think of ships... as ships?
simple fact of the matter is engie anything is going to be the least optimal, unless eps transfer is turned into eptX4, and even then the space eng is the weak link.
An Engie Healer is however viable, but engie ships are ok if you can build them right and they fit in the current meta game. Most Engie I See now a days are Faw boats and troll builds in Kerrat with FBP3 and 2
Now found frequenting MWO short term and then Star Citizen long term. Raged Quit PVP long ago
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
thats because you win by killing the competition. engies in kerrat are going to be troll builds with quasi zombie builds because thats about their only role against equal opponents.
to die slowly enough that it annoys the attacker.
This is the point, but to then introduce that into a team based match, that is a diasaster waiting to happen.
Tbh PVE and Kerrat can only teach you so much before Cryptics short coming are ever more evident, they are the ones to blame
Now found frequenting MWO short term and then Star Citizen long term. Raged Quit PVP long ago
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
Comments
Tac + SPike = Win
Tac + 4x DHC = fail
Sci + SnB = Support/win
Sci + SenScan = Support/win
Engi + Nadeon == Cheap Marion
Engi + EPS == No EptW
Again, context. It makes a huge difference if you're evaluating these things 1v1, 5v5, pug/premade, or against a stationary target that doesn't shoot back.
The only consistency in a PUG pvp is chaos, and "pick up" teams are the only viable option for me. Anything that requires me to depend on other players for something rather than do it for myself is irrelevant. No, I don't have APA, but I have two copies of APO and MW with a chance of rapid cooldown.
Go cloak + Tac. Full force + Disguise.
What more do you want?
Its perfectly possible to 15 - 0 your team in a pug. you doing all the killing.
Engi will just delay the inevitable. lol.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
I'll be sure to pass that along the next time my Fleet Defiant gives some Gank-of-Prey a taste of it's own medicine in Ker'rat. :rolleyes:
With all the power creep going on, APO is no where near good enough to be used offensively. It is best used for it's defense / survivability / movement aspects. the damage boost is nice at best.
Then again, to counter your argument, APA stacked with APO is far superior. With Conn doffs you can have APO3 up almost as much as APO1 for far superior gains. So again, not really a valid argument for and Eng scort.
Even as a pug, you can survive quite well as a Tac if you know how.
LOL kerrat. PEople fly there unbuffed and scratch their head once they got oneshotted.
lolol
Seriously, go talk against some decent players.
APA is damage wise more then double as powerful as APO3, 25% versus 50% flat, and then including 5%CritH and 50% CritD boost.
GDF can be more powerful then APA even. And it can be used quite often these days, just put it under a movement key bind or spacebar and be asured it always goes off when its available lol.
Perhaps this argument is more interesting: You survive by killing your opponent faster then he can inflict damage.
Your point is muted
That was in game... but we only did that to cheaters. They also tended to perceive 5min as 30.
Haven't had a reason to respond to a Hilbert post in a long time feels good. lol
That is another great point. I have a few torp boat ideas I would love to try out... but I'm not going to sink 300k+ Dilithium and all the other resources it would need to test it out. I believe it would be fun... but at that cost your right crazy.
It would be nice if Cryptic made everything on Tribble free. They do for a limited time with the new stuff, but they take it down every seasonal update. I've never don't much space PvP because it is so resource intensive. Ground PvP has it's sinks, but it's not hard getting sets at 27k dilithium and 1500 Marks for a full set.
I've finally decided to just get a science officer for space while buying all reputation gear in order to start test bedding things to create builds. The biggest problem is many of the Reinforcement Duty officers are vital for good engineering builds, yet they are extremely expensive due to the limited supply. I could see a lot of PvPers preferring to simply pick a cheap build to fly.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
It would be nice, unfortunately its very likely they count on a significant number of impulse purchases by players chasing the next new thing as part of their overall model.
Im not asking Cryptic to get rid of what they have. The outline is there. They just need to spend a season addressing all the gear and Doffs and power levels to bring everything into focus.
There should be Sci ships and captians that can drain a ship dry and leave him dead in the water but not be able to have high damage potential.
There should be Escorts that can smach and grab for massive damage but not be able to tank incoming fire from 4 ships at once.
Where most will not agree with me but I think Cruisers should be the most powerful ships in the game. They should have good shields (not as good as Sci) and massive hulls. It should take combined fire to bring down a cruiser. It should take a Sci ship to debuff them and then Escorts to break the defences. Beams and cannons should not do the damage to hull that they do. It should take several Torp hits to weaken a ships hull. Cruiser should be the back bone of teams. Wiht good team heals and self heals. They should have good pressue damage ability. Not have huge spikes that Escorts have. Beams should be good VS Shields and Torps vs Hull like it was suppose to be in the begining. All the lines have gotten blurred to where we have Escorts tanking, Cruisers doing massinve spike damage and being thin as paper and Sci left out in the wind. Cryptic is trying to make every toon in every ship a Kirk. Making it so every player can feel good about them selves. The PVE content has gotten to be too easy and the PVE content is broken by gimic consoles and toys ment for PVE
Cryptic needs to stop all the nerfs and just bring up the other powers to usefulness and Aux2batt/FAW/DEM will be just another option. Not the only option,
So buffing everything doesn't solve much I don't think... besides theres nothing left to buff... It pretty much all has been.
Bottom line there is just to much of everything.
As crazy as it sounds... Create a PvP where everyone uses the same White Level pvp gear... turn off doffs and remove the consoles/items from the game... and oddly there would in fact be MORE options for builds.
Here is a list of abilities that no one uses that if re-worked or buffed could open up lots of new builds:
Boarding Party , Auxiliary to Structural, Aceton Beam , Jam Sensors , Mask Energy Signature , Tachyon Beam (outside of CE), Photonic Officer , Photonic Shockwave , Viral Matrix (use to be a goto ability) Also a lot of the Mine patters and mines in general are not used my many. Except when Nukara mines were OP.
I'm sure some players use these but not in general in PVP. If all of these were brought up to usefulness that would open up so many other build possibilities. For example if Tachyon beam would disable to facing shield it hit for 3 seconds and Torps did the bare hull damage they should a player could hold his target, take out the facing shield and smash with torps for big numbers. But Tachyon beam is TRIBBLE and Torp damage is null now.
If Boarding party could not be countered by TT and if low crew count mattered and it was sure to disable a BOff station or system it would be a viable choice.
The list goes on so many consoles and weapons that are just junk. So many maps are vacent and unused too. Just imagine ground PVP on Risa with the Jet packs. Or slideing around on ice on Andoria? Or Shuttle/Fighter PVVP inside of the Vault. So many maps and systems just empty. I guess I'm just trrying to ask them to fix what they have. Use what they got and players will love it.
There are certainly abilities that are nigh useless these days, but your list includes abilites that are in widespread use or at least have their useful niches.
yes "useful niches". The OP is about the widespread use of cookie-cutter Aux2bat builds. The lack of choices. The game should have no useless abilities. Everything backed by the right gear and Doffs should be a viable skill. Yes there should be trade offs but the game has pushed players into a very limited number of choices.
Maybe you can, but I'm through butchering up my builds to suit the "one size fits all" mentality. My engineer in a fleet defiant is what works for me. I may not get as many kills that way, but I also die less.
Another contributing factor is my refusal to grind up multiple toons through the reputation, buy more than one set of high-end fleet gear, etc. I'm willing to do that once, and it was with my engineer.
I like my engineer better, but I can't stand flying around in a space whale cruiser. Even Avengers turn too slow without burning up a bunch of console space on it. I don't want to be a lumbering broadside tank, and I don't want to be a Tac. Everyone can just stuff their rigid carreer roles.
Well yes lets look at those skills and look at the real issues with using them... then you tell me what the best fix is.
Boarding Party... -In fact super effective... issue with it the shuttles die to any and all aoe... current meta... lots of GW and Faw... that is why Boarding party isn't used. And yes everyone having 2 copies of tac team all the time through doffs. Tac team is out there extremely thick thanks to doff creep.
Aux to Struc... in fact very good skill... main reason people don't use it more... shares a cool down with aux to bat. lmao
Aceton Beam... In fact very good skill... problem is... its cleared to easy. Because one Heal has been super buffed to clear darn close to everything. (hazards)
Jam Sensors... Don't know what you are talking about I use this lots in PvP... use to call it Romulan Cloak but I guess now we have Romulan cloaks. lol Again most people don't use it much because... well people that want to be douchy have this on a trait. lol
Mask Energy... works as well as needed. There is no reason to buff this one when 90% of the ships people use have cloaking devices.
Tachyon beam... in fact works pretty darn good. What is the real reason no one uses it... its simple Everyone has either 4x the shield regen they used to have... or they have multple on hit shield heals.
Photonic Officer... is in fact a good skill... that is competely overshadowed by doffs that reduce everything to global. lol of course when compared to that TRIBBLE its not so great. In order to be an option over Tech doffs... it would have to be up 100% of the time and reduce every skill on your bar to global.
Shockwave... Still the best way to remove extends and yes it is used in most high end premades. No need for a buff on this one.
Viral Matix.. a great skill... you can even add doffs to make it better. The main issues with it lately... other doffs that clear all debuffs every 15s is one. Really its just harder to disable people anymore in general.
Mines are in fact very good as well... hit harder then they used to have mes values... the issue... again 75% of the people running faw... and everyone else having a GW handy. Or they end up impacting on one of the bagillion pets / photonics / Nimbus ships floating around. (not to mention that the spam now spams aoe sci themselves)
So looking though the list is the best option to BUFF all of those things... and lets be honest we can talk to 5 other people and add 10 more skills and items to the list.
OR is the best option to fix a handful of broken things.
Here is the fix... (I would rather they just spin PvP off and remove all of the PvE TRIBBLE from the game but here fixes that could be done)
1) Change Hazards. Right now it clears plasma dots / eject warp plasma / Tykens debuffs / Aceton Debuffs / Energy Siphens. Change it so that it clears Science debuffs only... so it can clear Tykens and Siphen... but NOT plasma dots OR Eject Warp Plasma... or Aceton.
Move those clears to Engi Team. (yes that's right force people to consider using it... also buff the worst weapon proc in plasma... make engi debuffs work properly and against the classes of ships that would have to trade to counter with engi team)
2) Change tech doffs... everything at global is game breaking. Aux to bat used to be on the global witih EPTx... undo that change... put it back on that global. This would also allow people to run Aux to Sif more often... and kill the everything at global build. (While still making tech doffs extremely powerful... but making it a niche build instead of the defacto one)
3) You have a point about tachyon I don't think opening shield facing would go over well or be that effective really... However a Tachyon debuff could be added... Say 5s of Suspended shield regeneration and perhaps halve shield healing... a buff that would apply itself every second the beam had contact... so basicly it would last during the beam... and for 5s after the beam ends. That would counter the power creep there.
Anyway sorry for the wall of text.
Can I have a pop at your eng Escort, I promise it will be educational for both of us
But seriously there lies the problem. Because you have taken the lone road of it's my myself and I, you Captain Kirk the game. You depend on noone other than youself.
There lies the big difference, I cycle my Tacteams not on myself but team mates in trouble, watch for buffs and call targets and switch if neccessary. People switch targets generally if it's futile, like triple Extend shields, TS3, AuxSif e.t.c. you aint going to pop them, an answer to a previous post you made in the STO discussion forum about ?%?&? switching targets every 10 secs instead of watching them explode.
I even give my heals out to team mates when needed and ask them nuke my targets either throuh keybinds or TS. If you depend on by chance ppl to nuke your targets or for targets to be down to half health to try and pop them you are mistaken for what Team play is.
It is never too late to ditch the Solo attitude and help with the team. Tell me what proportion of Eng Escorts have you seen in a Defiant?.
I do better in Pugs that communicate than ones that just random attack and Nuke targets.
You may survive more but then you don't kill the most being in an escort either which is the main aim of the escort, to kill more than any other ship type. You are basically dead weight for you team who provides neither enough kills nor healing.
More a self preservation build to which I have seen a fair few (E.g 23 sec RSP). I can't really say I blame you, you must have done this due to a bad experiance with pugs or Kerrat grinding you down. But suffice to say your team mates will suffer as a result of the way you set youself out and I hope you see it from this side of the fence.
However if you were in a Cruiser sending out heals and doing some damage you might be forgiven, but do you not yearn to be more than just some who does a bit of healing/DPS and Meh on the scoreboard
A measure of a good escort pilot is not the kills or DPS he does but analysing his own weakness and strengths and excelling, and of course not QQ on death
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
Let me guess, a Romulan in a FAW Scimitar. :rolleyes:
By necessity.
I don't pay attention to that.
If you insist on thinking like that, in Arena PvP, where kills are the only goal, everyone who doesn't rack up the body count is dead weight.
Both. Consistently.
Everybody in an escort that isn't racking up kills is yes dead weight.
Could you imagine a Rouge class in any other MMO saying... I don't have to kill anyone... I can just dodge all over the place here and never really die. They would be ridiculed for being dead weight. Not killing not healing or debuffing... just running around doing lots of nothing.
IMO Escort is exactly that ... an ESCORT class.
Which is why g0h4n4 is saying he in fact throws out his tac teams... and his meger heals. He is in fact "escorting" his team... shooting down targets and PROTECTING his team by doing that.
The main job of the escort class is to pound targets as they come in on the group. In general they are going to come in on the heavies... or shoot at the escort. Either way its the escorts job to peel them off.
A good tac escort... is going to be escorting there TEAM. Using a combo of fire power... debuff removal (tac team)... and even boosting defenses with things like Delta.
Running around not really doing enough dmg to draw fire.... (and worse being to tanky to warrant any attempted pushes), is completely contrary to the idea of Escorting a team.
Think of the escort as the world war fighter escort and you will get the idea of what you SHOULD be doing in one. Which is why most everyone is going to tell you engi-scort is the least optimal version of the escort... and with the current super buffed nature of everything its just not tenable to have one on a team and be successful.
Aceton Beam would be used if the cooldown were 30 seconds shorter, Jam Sensors is rarely used due to how pointless it is with players running around with the Tier IV New Romulus Placate proc. Mask Energy Signature should be usable in combat, we'd see a huge increase with that ability's usage overnight if only players could actually use it as a poor man's battle cloak. There would be no problem with in combat MES, it even shares a 20 second cooldown with battle cloak/standard cloak.
Tachyon Beam and Charged Particle Burst are useless right now due to high passive shield regeneration and excessive shield drain resistances. Photonic Officer...yeah...even the devs have said that this ability needs a revamp. Photonic Shockwave would be used again more frequently if it disabled longer than one second against players, or if the damage bypassed shields. Viral Matrix is also still used, but it's not all that useful without heavy duty officer investment.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Are we not talking about Escorts here? If you were a Sci healer, Kills is not a must, high amount of quality heals is a must, if you don't heal as a Sci healer you are deadweight.
See the difference in classes?
For your information I am not a Faw boat, I am a T'varo that specialises in extreme Spike damage. So your wrong on that account.
I hope you understand what myself and others are saying. Your self preservation build is only good for kerrat but will be the end of your team.
In any case I still want to do a 1vs 1 against you just to see how Tanky you think you are
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
An Engie Healer is however viable, but engie ships are ok if you can build them right and they fit in the current meta game. Most Engie I See now a days are Faw boats and troll builds in Kerrat with FBP3 and 2
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
This is the point, but to then introduce that into a team based match, that is a diasaster waiting to happen.
Tbh PVE and Kerrat can only teach you so much before Cryptics short coming are ever more evident, they are the ones to blame
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)