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Beam target sub system. Huh?
thishorizon
Member Posts: 1,158
Who uses this at all?
I mean, besides the built in Sci ship stuffs.
What buffs it? Flow caps? Decompiler?
Would the best weapon be polaron or phaser for use of this skill... Say... On a tac cruiser?
Is targeting shields still just a futile effort?
Is BTSS3 still like a 20% chance to knock out that system?
Man. I'm out of town and can't play. But I couldn't help thinkin about this possibly under used power and what I could do with it.
Insights?
I mean, besides the built in Sci ship stuffs.
What buffs it? Flow caps? Decompiler?
Would the best weapon be polaron or phaser for use of this skill... Say... On a tac cruiser?
Is targeting shields still just a futile effort?
Is BTSS3 still like a 20% chance to knock out that system?
Man. I'm out of town and can't play. But I couldn't help thinkin about this possibly under used power and what I could do with it.
Insights?
Post edited by thishorizon on
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As for the offline duration, last I heard subD affected that. The difference between the versions I'm not so sure on, I know they drain more but no idea if the chance to take them offline goes up.
Also not sure if aux power affects it, probably does. Weird how it's a tactical skill, seems very sciencey to me.
Forgot to also mention, it can be very useful for helping to bring power levels down for a build up to a drain attack, which obviously means that part is resisted by insulators too. I believe there's a new doff that gives it an additional chance to take off another subsystem too. Not tested it though...probably should look into it as most carriers have target subsystems by default.
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.
Ya man. I'm wondering if at least target shields was used more maybe we could see some more shield facings drop. Maybe outs for torp guys.
Edit: it then again... Epts fixes that. Up every 30 secs. But still. The windows could still present themselves.
Decompiler buffs the duration. Just checked, and yeah flowcaps buffs the drain too.
Weapon procs do not the affect the ability afaik but could stack with it, assuming the proc happens at the same time.
Basically its a drain with a chance to disable. For shields its a shield drain (-362 from all), and a subsystem drain (-39 power), and a 20% chance to disable. If you get power low enough the disable happens anyway. Polaron and plasmonic and this stacked together, on somebody with low insulators, and the shields are going down. For somebody that does have insulators, you also get a 1:5 chance that shields will go down anyway.
I have the built-in shield subsystem slotted in the powertray for all my sci ships and I use it pretty often. Its nice when it works, no cost when it doesnt. For one build in particular I wanted to be able to spam it rapidly. It is kind of expensive for the return, but it pays off in some situations. Its nice to take a healer's shields offline.
Higher levels of the skill basically drain more, but do not affect the chance to take offline directly (more drain == better chance of power hitting the floor).
Now I wonder?
Is this one of the powers that when over stacking flow caps has no benefit.... Or....
And.... More beams more drain? I'm thinking no on this one.
And then the aux question still lingers. We know how hidden some of these things can be. Even if the tooltip says whatever.
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.
Oh there you go man. That's gotta be the weapon of choice.
But is it worth it to build around?
Does the buff carry from target to target?
I can't remember the cooldowns either. Dammit my left arm for a good laptop right now while out of town. I think you can run 2 copies and have a 15 sec gap maybe?
Having said that maybe it's less something to build around than something to either build on top of or as a compliment to something else. Can't remember if your panda, nova or I dunno but in a team if you're not wasting tactical slots on TT you can easily fit one or two copies on most non escorts.
If you were on a science ship you'd have many options and then you can either throw VM into the mix for disable fun (SubD having only 1 console that boosts it) and/or build upon the drain. Or if you want you could go for a more debuffer kind of thing with a carrier and pets, or a cruiser with aceton beam to reduce weapon damage and power, thus killing an alpha.
Many options if you pick it as a compliment, not sure about making a build solely on that one skill, but it certainly does compliment many skills.
Another thing I just thought of is I dunno if you can stack it on targets. By that I mean get a team all with BTSS1/2/3 or whatever and on the count of 3 all fire. If the drains stack...well that's a lot of drain if buffed. Course they probalncnibdindj kind did
Sorry. Too late sleepy.
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 yeah. Good thoughts. I'm thinking you would need different levels of target to stack. I remember that from testing seasons ago. But it's been like 2 years or something
R.I.P
Iirc it shares a cooldown w/BO and FaW. With the BO doff, I think you'd have a hard time giving up w/BO3 for TSSx for damage oriented builds.
For Sci oriented builds (specifically on non-sci ships) you could go for TSSx, w/Energy Siphon, Tyken's Rift, VM. It compliments things and TSSA has potential w/all the aux2damp, aux2batt builds around. I think this would be better and a Tac/Sci Hybrid Boff layout w/plas leech and the 360 Beam turret. I'd lean toward Tvaro, but Brel might be ok w/the the changes coming.
I think for Sci/Sci builds you'd be better off w/an Attack Pattern or TS or even BO w/Damage Doff. The ship's built in TSSX are good enough to cycle through imo.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
The best drain build I've ever seen was a Voth Palisade sporting Polaron beams, TR2, ES3, target subsystem, and aceton mode. He had me down in seconds, just in time for a decloaking alpha from another ship to take me out. I remember he was using Target Aux so I couldn't HE all the drains off. I had to GG and move on from that one. It was a well thought out build with a good player in it.
Target Shields was changed so it only drops one shield facing a while ago now and since it shares a CD with BO, I often have a hard time finding a place for it. Target Weapons doesn't seem to last long enough to be that useful.
I tend to like Target Engines and Target Aux the best.
I know HE clears other drains, but does it clear Target Subsystem too?
@bpharma
I was thinking about team stacking also. Sounds like it would work out. Even if everyone only took off only a few power points each, it would all add up fast. I'm also absolutely sure I would help to have a dedicated drain build on a team like that too.
As far as Target Subsystem goes, I preferred using at the time Shields and Engines and slotted them on the Kar'Fi. The Engines ability I saved for Escorts and Shields for anything that looked worthwhile.
I would imagine Aux would be a very tempting target on all these Warbirds when they show themselves. Kill Aux, no Cloaks until proper actions have been taken by the target, buying you and any pursuing teammates time with the target. Alot of Warbird builds that aren't the Science slanted ones leave Aux Power at very low levels by default, favoring the other Subsystems much more heavily.
Also, IIRC, when STO came out, all Target Subsystem abilities were found in the Science skills, no Tactical. When I came back after 2 years or something, I was surprised to see them in Tactical. Not sure why that came into being. Picking a part a target was supposed to be Science's thingie.
It's doubly-resisted.
First by Subsystem Repair, and second by the Inertial Dampeners skill.
And you only can spec into Sub-D so far. There's no sci consoles that boost it, and limited amounts you can get through other sources (deflector, elachi console, tier 5 Rom-rep power, maybe something else), so you can only get the disable to a certain point.
The drain of course is affected by Flow Caps and resisted accordingly by PI, so, just something to keep in mind.
Man if it could be tweaked a bit tho. I can't remember when target shields changed to only drop one facing.... That's a bit meh.
I do think there may be some outs tho for non Sci guys to get some uses out of it. I'll mess around when I get back in town.
Have fun kill bad guys.
Even if it doesn't drop shields, it can however significantly lower shields' damage resistance given that shield power level greatly impacts its resistance to damage. And if shield power < 25, shields do not regenerate. Getting this subsystem power to below 25 is not hard when you have a dedicated drain build, especially on Romulans. More details on drain buids, please consult this thread : here
If you want to experiment on the various beam target subsystem, I recommend getting a Sci ship - don't waste any tactical slots for these skills. These are supportive skills that are nice to have and should be used as complimentary skills to whatever build you want to focus on. While they have somewhat long CD, slot just one Energy Weapon officer that speed up the CD of subsystem targeting, and you will see them coming back up very quickly.
These debuffs cannot be clear by HE. They can however be cleared by a special Warp Core Engineer when hitting an EPtX. The disable aspect can be repaired by a specific EPtX (e.g. EPtE repairs disabled engines but not if it's the Aux system that is offline, need EPtA for that).
Drain powers should never used as stand alone power and to quote the Borg Queen : "Together, we could be so much more..."
Polaron proc is too erratic to be reliable in such a coordinated attack that requires precise timing. And your opponent would not know when the Polaron actually proc, if at all. Even if your Aux may be disabled, you should still have engines and/or evasive that could move you away from the Tykens and outside of the Aceton mode's range (5K only). I am training my Fed Sci in his Palisade using a combination of Maximum Drain (FC = 300 +/-) / Maximum Disable (Subspace Decompiler > 100) / Plasma build (2 X Plasma Energy Damage Spire Vulnerability Locator Console + 5 X Embassy FC consoles with Plasma Infusion). One thing I have not used however is Tyken's precisely because Cryptic promises to review this power but never did. HE still resists it, which makes it pointless or the ship can easily move away. It remains a skill that is excellent for PvE only. Nobody is going to catch these super speedy Klingons and Kromulans in Kerrat with Tyken's - many of them are spec to run like their life depends on it and Impulse Burst is just a cheap console box for the Klinks unlike for Feds where one needs to buy a zen ship from C-Store so many Klinks have them and use them a lot. While I am not that person you speak of, given this is 80% identical to my build, I have to say, you could have done more to save yourself. Based on my testing in Kerrat, a combination of drain and disable is far more problematic to the Klingons than drain alone especially if you are also equipped to do a lot of decloaking - the interdiction rate is virtually 100% when there are other Feds around to assist you with dps and finish them off. Even Scim have hard time running away.
one viable build i found was running target eingines2....on either a bug, eng kumari, or patrol escort layout thing.
tt1, apd1, crf2, apo3
tt1, bte2, crf2
epts1, rsp
epte1
he1, tss2
5 ap dhc, 1 ap turret, voth array (my kumari layout)
aux, eng batteries
2 purp dmg ctrl, 2 purp attk pattern, 1 clear on eptX doff
when 9 in flow caps bte2 is -47 to engine power.
this turned out real handy in lots of matches the past couple days. especially on the kumari...it has 5 front DHCs, spouting off bte2 with the voth 360 array. slowing down pretty much everyone i targeted to a halt, outside of the super speeders we know this of course.....but it really helped there too.
either way, with those targets slowed so much, def down....im pounding with those 5 dhc. and it saves me from running a tractor beam, which gives me that great aux battery he, tss combo for heals while im zipping away.
even a few times....i's see someone stuck in a grav well...or being tractored...and then hit apo and start to slip away....and bam...hit with the target engines....and then....they went no where... so its even great support for your sci guys to help them get the duration out of their holds/disables.
anywho....ggs all
have fun kill bad guys
several times over the past few days ive seen the debuff icon pop up on my target. im only using that voth array....so....im thinking yes....but im not sure about the innate sci ship ones. i definetly could see them slow down tho...pretty much everytime i used it.
i imagine they work the same....
I don't believe so. Like you, I didn't see anything in the tooltip, which generally means it's not applied. In any event, the disable duration is very short. With maximum subspace decompiler skill on a Joint Trill, my regular subsystem disable is roughly 13 seconds before the target's resist is factored. The Voth doff is supposed to give me an additional disable at merely 4.6 seconds, which when you factor the target's resist from points into subsystem repair, human boffs (if applicable) and inertial dampeners skills - that 4.6 seconds will feel like the blink of any eye. Therefore either way, this is not worth the trouble.
Ah, back in the old days BTSS 3 was very overpowered because we didnt have a lot of power and engi team couldnt clear it. The skill cost something near 20M or more
My BTE 1 innate from a Sci ship deals 50+ drain on the engines due to very high Flow Capacitor skills, even then I wouldn't say they slow down the target that much. Factoring in power insulation resist, this will drain approximately 25 in engine power so if your target has about 125 or so in Engine power, you will bring it down from 125 to 100 - not going to affect their defense at all.
I think you were just lucky that you either ran into opponents who don't know what they are doing or who don't spec into power insulation. Most Klingons are spec to run like Olympic Gold medal winning runners - short of disabling their engines completely, the impact from BTE is going to be minimal on its own.
ya, i can see that. damn if i cant find something else to run there tho. i'd run a mine and a pattern if i didnt need the turret for ping on target....because of my chase camera using ways.
I am going to do some updates in the Federation Shipyard for a couple of Drain and Pure Science builds today since I am getting a lot of PM and questions about them since the holiday season break. Maybe you can get some new ideas there. I have been testing this Drain/Disable/Placate/Snooper build in Kerrat on terrified Klingons, so far, the results are very promising. Yesterday, I even tested it with a very well respected Klingon - Valisery - who is normally a Super Bug ship captain. He showed up in a Jem Hadard Cruiser flanked by Elite Bug ship pets, a very tough opponent to say the least. At the end, he basically said: "I don't think I had all my subsytems on at any point in time." While yours is not a Sci ship, there are probably some pointers you can take from these Sci abilities and tests because BTX really is a Sci skill even though it's now classified as Tact skill. Disable and drain is very interesting combo but you need to do it right and to be sure, lots of practice and testing are needed. Eventually, I am sure you will find the right combo for you.