Plasma in general is usually not ideal for PvP, because most players are either using 1) Elite Fleet Shields that has the [resB] modifier (IE boosted resistance to disruptor, antiproton, and plasma), or MACO shields, which have a 20% resistance to plasma, in addition to 10% resistance to ALL energy types, which comes out to 30% resistance to plasma.
Long story short, you'll have a hard time doing decent damage to most players shields if you use plasma, so it's probably best to just not.
Whatabout melting someone's hull out from under their shields?
They stack the same way as tac consoles. There's no special stacking penalty just for them. Boff plasma dmg buff is only ground, unfortunately.
I've been wondering why everyone and their mother is going for AP too. Turns out most people have no clue and just mindlessly follows the fotm, combined with the old idea of plasma being laughably bad, which used to be true for a long time.
As far as math, it's so obvious there's no reason to bother. Additional dps from a few plasma consoles will be far higher than the additional dps from higher crit severity of AP over plasma.
I'm not using AP because it is FOTM, I am, and always have used AP for one reason.
Plas has more bonuses from more places, but lots of shields have inherent plasma resist anyway that nullifies that. And there's so few ships that can really take advantage of all those sources. They'd be pretty sweet on an elachi escort, off the top of my head. There's also the added bonus of how those embassy consoles affect your proc likeliehood, and they possibility that they might force your enemy to expend a cleanse, or keep him from full impulsing away sooner and depriving you of a kill.
AP, on the other hand, is tried and true awesome and always will be. This game worships acc and crit overflow. There's at least one AP set bonus, you get a 360 beam array, and tac consoles from the spire will work with your Acc-hog fleet weapons you're aiming for and buff their proc at the same time.
Honorary mention to elite fleet disruptors. You can build a pretty wicked disruptor rainbow in the game right now, and even buff the disruptor/plasma hybrid weapons from the campaign's procs with the embassy consoles.
I would direct fed players to AP, kdf Should go disruptor. Either can run plas, but I would recommend it only if neither of the others appealed to you.
AP, on the other hand, is tried and true awesome and always will be. This game worships acc and crit overflow. There's at least one AP set bonus, you get a 360 beam array, and tac consoles from the spire will work with your Acc-hog fleet weapons you're aiming for and buff their proc at the same time.
Unless you're flying an Obelisk, the AP set bonus requires giving up [AMP] and using a crappy Warp Core though, doesn't it?
The [AMP] bonus isn't multiplicative, either, unfortunately - it appears to stack like a console bonus, although it seems to be a fixed percentage of a different base value. On my Tac captain's ship, a "+7%" [AMP] bonus translates to a 1.8% actual increase in weapon damage. The "+7.6%" set bonus from the zero-point console + hypertorp, for comparison, corresponds to a 1.5% increase in actual damage.
In combat, I would have 3 systems over 75 power instead of 2, and [AMP] should be +2.7% real damage, compared to about +2% real damage from the "+10%" AP set bonus (with AP weapons equipped, obviously). So it's pretty close to a wash, although the [AMP] warp core is also slightly better than Obelisk for other reasons too.
[AMP] also buffs non-energy damage, and the AP set bonus obviously doesn't.
So even with AP weapons, giving up [AMP] for the "+10%" AP set bonus looks like a bad idea.
Edit:
I did a test with the AP set bonus on a different character, and it appears the "+10%" AP set bonus actually *does* stack multiplicatively (unlike the corresponding "+7.6%" plasma set bonus), and the above analysis is wrong.
That seems like a bug - the "+7.6%" plasma bonus increases your damage output by 1-2%, while the "+10%" AP bonus increases it by ... 10%.
Unless you're flying an Obelisk, the AP set bonus requires giving up [AMP] and using a crappy Warp Core though, doesn't it?
The [AMP] bonus isn't multiplicative, either, unfortunately - it appears to stack like a console bonus, although it seems to be a fixed percentage of a different base value. On my Tac captain's ship, a "+7%" [AMP] bonus translates to a 1.8% actual increase in weapon damage. The "+7.6%" set bonus from the zero-point console + hypertorp, for comparison, corresponds to a 1.5% increase in actual damage.
In combat, I would have 3 systems over 75 power instead of 2, and [AMP] should be +2.7% real damage, compared to about +2% real damage from the "+10%" AP set bonus (with AP weapons equipped, obviously). So it's pretty close to a wash, although the [AMP] warp core is also slightly better than Obelisk for other reasons too.
[AMP] also buffs non-energy damage, and the AP set bonus obviously doesn't.
So even with AP weapons, giving up [AMP] for the "+10%" AP set bonus looks like a bad idea.
Edit:
I did a test with the AP set bonus on a different character, and it appears the "+10%" AP set bonus actually *does* stack multiplicatively (unlike the corresponding "+7.6%" plasma set bonus), and the above analysis is wrong.
That seems like a bug - the "+7.6%" plasma bonus increases your damage output by 1-2%, while the "+10%" AP bonus increases it by ... 10%.
I never said the set was good :P
We're talking about "washes" and weighing set damage without taking into account the unique proc-burst-damage padding your DPS, though. Kind of ironic in the larger scale.
Your point is technically valid though, and I do appreciate the supporting math, very interesting to know for future use. People who actually do the math for everyone else have a reserved parking spot in heaven.
I am glad to see the bonuses are working correctly though, that's reassuring.
I am glad to see the bonuses are working correctly though, that's reassuring.
Well, the point is, they aren't working correctly, if correctly means "consistently".
Console damage bonuses listed as "+X%" have always meant "+X% of base damage", which translates to much less than X% of actual damage.
To have one console, out of dozens, that works much differently, and is many times more effective than all other similar bonuses (and with no outward indication of that), is terrible design if intentional.
So why is everyone not in one of the ships I listed above with Romulan Plasma and 4 XII +%9.6 Embassy consoles?
I would still like to see the math on these to see how they stack. Now is there not some Romulan Boffs that boost Plasma damage in space also?. I would love to see just how far it can go.
Because its not the ships that make plasma better, its the gear, player skill, players spec, DOFFs, reputation bonuses and Boff skills that make a plasma or any build OP.
Feel free to scrutinize, i find it to be an effective Rom Plas build which cant be duplicated with APs simply because you cant use the +10% AP set bonus with it. Keeping in mind this is strictly a PVE build.
I did a test with the AP set bonus on a different character, and it appears the "+10%" AP set bonus actually *does* stack multiplicatively (unlike the corresponding "+7.6%" plasma set bonus), and the above analysis is wrong.
That seems like a bug - the "+7.6%" plasma bonus increases your damage output by 1-2%, while the "+10%" AP bonus increases it by ... 10%.
Yup, that's always been the case and confirmed the 2-piece 10% bonus is the FINAL damage modifier which is what makes it somewhat more appealing and I stress "somewhat". Ships that have absolutely no problems with power which is honestly all said and told the only other positive from a fleet core would benefit from the Obelisk set. If you need the power bonuses then by all means use fleet. The game is stupidly easy enough you really can not go wrong with either choice (for the record I use AP with Obelisk 2 piece on all of my primary ships because I like red).
Yup, that's always been the case and confirmed the 2-piece 10% bonus is the FINAL damage modifier which is what makes it somewhat more appealing and I stress "somewhat".
That's wrong. It's applied after weapon power, which makes it far more effective than tac consoles. But it's far from final. It's before tac consoles, before skills, etc.
In comparsion, [AMP] core that it replaces is applied at a higher point. They never pinned it down, but it's around 3% of true final dmg, instead of 3.3% displayed. This adds up to be higher than 2 piece's 10% bonus applied after weapon power bonus. This is why many ppl found their parsed dps decreased after switching to 2 piece.
The only true final dmg modifier in sto is Nausiccan trait's 1.5% per boff. It's applied to the final dmg, after power, after tac consoles, after player/boff skills (attack pattern, tac fleet, tac team, etc), all except other Nausiccan boffs.
Base weapon damage.
Skill tree modifiers (and bonuses to these via rep and gear selections)
Most synergy bonuses
Tactical consoles
AMP Mod
Weapons power
Pirate trait/AP Set bonus
Bridge officer/captain power boosts
The AMP mod is calculated at approximately 1.67% final increase per subsystem capped for a max of about 6.8%
Most synergy sets give an actual boost of about 1/5th of their listed value. e.g. plasma is about 1.5 percent, polaron mk xii is about 2.5 percent, etc.
This is in line with the weapons power calculation being done after these are added to base, whereas AP is a special case. Everything affecting it is calculated and then (and only then) is the 10 percent bonus applied.
You will see this phenomenon by swapping console sets for the plasma bonuses and dividing tooltip damage numbers. With plasma (using zero point and experimental beam array for example) you will only see your other arrays damage increase by about 1.5-1.6 percent. Compare to AP set bonus literally going from say 1000 damage to 1100 damage, or a full as advertised increase of 10% on each array.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
As you can see here with everything equipped, my turret does 624 damage. Lets remove the experimental beam array so we lose the plasma synergy bonus of 7.6 percent.
As you can see here, with everything equipped, my beam array does 1449.9 damage per shot. Lets remove the AP360 beam to see if we get a drop of 10 percent as we are expecting, or if its only 2 percent like the plasma set bonus does (10/5)
1325.4 hmmm this seems pretty close to 10. Lets calculate it.
1449.9/1325.4 = 1.093939. so 9.4 percent. That is a lot closer to 10 percent isnt it?
No other weapon type can equal that. Plasma and Polaron come close, with plasma having the ability to trade consoles in for science embassy consoles that CAN raise the raw damage at the expense of universal crit consoles or whatever else you may have in your science slots. Even still, each embassy plasma console comes out to about 1.2 percent actual increase in damage (including the proc which any damage type would benefit from if they used them) and is offset by the +20 crit D of AP which scales with crit hit rate.
The end result is this.
AP wins on all fed/kdf ships if they can find a way to equip the AP360 and Obelisk core into their build. Under no circumstances does an AMP core beat this set bonus, no matter how high your power levels. If your ship has a crit hit chance of more than 15 percent and you are not using Antiproton, you are losing DPS no matter what you do. Guaranteed.
AP and Plasma come out even on Warbirds, due to the crit chance of romulans balancing out the +20 critD of AP vs the raw 1.4 percent of the plasma synergy bonus. (that being said, use fleet plasma, not romulan plasma, or you will lose damage) [DMG]x2 is greater than 2.5 percent chance to proc -10 armor value (which is not 10 percent, mind, its calculated similarly to the diminishing return on a neutronium in your own defense build, in most cases its about 2 percent less armor rating)
Polaron is second place to both of the above. While its raw synergy beats both, the critD 20 and plasma dot both edge out polaron by about a half percent. (however, the higher the crit chance, the more AP dominates over polarons)
Everything else is weaker by a slight margin. (on the order of a half percentage or so for tetryon and disruptor, phaser actually being 2 percent weaker than anything else due to lack of a synergy set)
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Comments
Whatabout melting someone's hull out from under their shields?
I'm not using AP because it is FOTM, I am, and always have used AP for one reason.
I like my beams to be red.
Hazard Emitters.
Plas has more bonuses from more places, but lots of shields have inherent plasma resist anyway that nullifies that. And there's so few ships that can really take advantage of all those sources. They'd be pretty sweet on an elachi escort, off the top of my head. There's also the added bonus of how those embassy consoles affect your proc likeliehood, and they possibility that they might force your enemy to expend a cleanse, or keep him from full impulsing away sooner and depriving you of a kill.
AP, on the other hand, is tried and true awesome and always will be. This game worships acc and crit overflow. There's at least one AP set bonus, you get a 360 beam array, and tac consoles from the spire will work with your Acc-hog fleet weapons you're aiming for and buff their proc at the same time.
Honorary mention to elite fleet disruptors. You can build a pretty wicked disruptor rainbow in the game right now, and even buff the disruptor/plasma hybrid weapons from the campaign's procs with the embassy consoles.
I would direct fed players to AP, kdf Should go disruptor. Either can run plas, but I would recommend it only if neither of the others appealed to you.
Wait until the Elachi disruptor proc loses its lock-out. Then use them.
Unless you're flying an Obelisk, the AP set bonus requires giving up [AMP] and using a crappy Warp Core though, doesn't it?
The [AMP] bonus isn't multiplicative, either, unfortunately - it appears to stack like a console bonus, although it seems to be a fixed percentage of a different base value. On my Tac captain's ship, a "+7%" [AMP] bonus translates to a 1.8% actual increase in weapon damage. The "+7.6%" set bonus from the zero-point console + hypertorp, for comparison, corresponds to a 1.5% increase in actual damage.
In combat, I would have 3 systems over 75 power instead of 2, and [AMP] should be +2.7% real damage, compared to about +2% real damage from the "+10%" AP set bonus (with AP weapons equipped, obviously). So it's pretty close to a wash, although the [AMP] warp core is also slightly better than Obelisk for other reasons too.
[AMP] also buffs non-energy damage, and the AP set bonus obviously doesn't.
So even with AP weapons, giving up [AMP] for the "+10%" AP set bonus looks like a bad idea.
Edit:
I did a test with the AP set bonus on a different character, and it appears the "+10%" AP set bonus actually *does* stack multiplicatively (unlike the corresponding "+7.6%" plasma set bonus), and the above analysis is wrong.
That seems like a bug - the "+7.6%" plasma bonus increases your damage output by 1-2%, while the "+10%" AP bonus increases it by ... 10%.
I never said the set was good :P
We're talking about "washes" and weighing set damage without taking into account the unique proc-burst-damage padding your DPS, though. Kind of ironic in the larger scale.
Your point is technically valid though, and I do appreciate the supporting math, very interesting to know for future use. People who actually do the math for everyone else have a reserved parking spot in heaven.
I am glad to see the bonuses are working correctly though, that's reassuring.
Well, the point is, they aren't working correctly, if correctly means "consistently".
Console damage bonuses listed as "+X%" have always meant "+X% of base damage", which translates to much less than X% of actual damage.
To have one console, out of dozens, that works much differently, and is many times more effective than all other similar bonuses (and with no outward indication of that), is terrible design if intentional.
Because its not the ships that make plasma better, its the gear, player skill, players spec, DOFFs, reputation bonuses and Boff skills that make a plasma or any build OP.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=terinafae_0
Feel free to scrutinize, i find it to be an effective Rom Plas build which cant be duplicated with APs simply because you cant use the +10% AP set bonus with it. Keeping in mind this is strictly a PVE build.
Yup, that's always been the case and confirmed the 2-piece 10% bonus is the FINAL damage modifier which is what makes it somewhat more appealing and I stress "somewhat". Ships that have absolutely no problems with power which is honestly all said and told the only other positive from a fleet core would benefit from the Obelisk set. If you need the power bonuses then by all means use fleet. The game is stupidly easy enough you really can not go wrong with either choice (for the record I use AP with Obelisk 2 piece on all of my primary ships because I like red).
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=dardanosone_0
That's wrong. It's applied after weapon power, which makes it far more effective than tac consoles. But it's far from final. It's before tac consoles, before skills, etc.
In comparsion, [AMP] core that it replaces is applied at a higher point. They never pinned it down, but it's around 3% of true final dmg, instead of 3.3% displayed. This adds up to be higher than 2 piece's 10% bonus applied after weapon power bonus. This is why many ppl found their parsed dps decreased after switching to 2 piece.
The only true final dmg modifier in sto is Nausiccan trait's 1.5% per boff. It's applied to the final dmg, after power, after tac consoles, after player/boff skills (attack pattern, tac fleet, tac team, etc), all except other Nausiccan boffs.
Base weapon damage.
Skill tree modifiers (and bonuses to these via rep and gear selections)
Most synergy bonuses
Tactical consoles
AMP Mod
Weapons power
Pirate trait/AP Set bonus
Bridge officer/captain power boosts
The AMP mod is calculated at approximately 1.67% final increase per subsystem capped for a max of about 6.8%
Most synergy sets give an actual boost of about 1/5th of their listed value. e.g. plasma is about 1.5 percent, polaron mk xii is about 2.5 percent, etc.
This is in line with the weapons power calculation being done after these are added to base, whereas AP is a special case. Everything affecting it is calculated and then (and only then) is the 10 percent bonus applied.
You will see this phenomenon by swapping console sets for the plasma bonuses and dividing tooltip damage numbers. With plasma (using zero point and experimental beam array for example) you will only see your other arrays damage increase by about 1.5-1.6 percent. Compare to AP set bonus literally going from say 1000 damage to 1100 damage, or a full as advertised increase of 10% on each array.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
This is my sciscort. Plasma cannon build using the zero point and experimental array.
http://i.imgur.com/0rFq3mJ.jpg
As you can see here with everything equipped, my turret does 624 damage. Lets remove the experimental beam array so we lose the plasma synergy bonus of 7.6 percent.
http://i.imgur.com/h6AMWsz.jpg
What? As you can see the damage dropped to 615.1
624/615.1 = 1.01447 rounded. So we actually got about a 1.44% bonus to damage. 7.6/5 = about 1.4
So really the plasma synergy listed at 7.6% is really only a 1.4 or so percent actual increase in damage.
Lets look at the AP set bonus.
http://i.imgur.com/JFxHK2y.jpg
As you can see here, with everything equipped, my beam array does 1449.9 damage per shot. Lets remove the AP360 beam to see if we get a drop of 10 percent as we are expecting, or if its only 2 percent like the plasma set bonus does (10/5)
http://i.imgur.com/arOYGXF.jpg
1325.4 hmmm this seems pretty close to 10. Lets calculate it.
1449.9/1325.4 = 1.093939. so 9.4 percent. That is a lot closer to 10 percent isnt it?
No other weapon type can equal that. Plasma and Polaron come close, with plasma having the ability to trade consoles in for science embassy consoles that CAN raise the raw damage at the expense of universal crit consoles or whatever else you may have in your science slots. Even still, each embassy plasma console comes out to about 1.2 percent actual increase in damage (including the proc which any damage type would benefit from if they used them) and is offset by the +20 crit D of AP which scales with crit hit rate.
The end result is this.
AP wins on all fed/kdf ships if they can find a way to equip the AP360 and Obelisk core into their build. Under no circumstances does an AMP core beat this set bonus, no matter how high your power levels. If your ship has a crit hit chance of more than 15 percent and you are not using Antiproton, you are losing DPS no matter what you do. Guaranteed.
AP and Plasma come out even on Warbirds, due to the crit chance of romulans balancing out the +20 critD of AP vs the raw 1.4 percent of the plasma synergy bonus. (that being said, use fleet plasma, not romulan plasma, or you will lose damage) [DMG]x2 is greater than 2.5 percent chance to proc -10 armor value (which is not 10 percent, mind, its calculated similarly to the diminishing return on a neutronium in your own defense build, in most cases its about 2 percent less armor rating)
Polaron is second place to both of the above. While its raw synergy beats both, the critD 20 and plasma dot both edge out polaron by about a half percent. (however, the higher the crit chance, the more AP dominates over polarons)
Everything else is weaker by a slight margin. (on the order of a half percentage or so for tetryon and disruptor, phaser actually being 2 percent weaker than anything else due to lack of a synergy set)
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
Oh wait ...