Yeah, I didn't see edalgo asking again until after I had saved the edit - had it open for editing while twiddling my thumbs and waiting on rifts to open...
Idk VD maybe you should role a Fed and see what it's like not to be able to Cloak at all just waiting for people to decloak on you. I know you said you don't have any Fed characters anymore.
I ran mainly Fed, then I ran 50/50, and then finally no Fed. I bounced back and forth between 3/1 Fed and 3/1 KDF until S7 when I went 2:2 and then added 4 more toons to go 4:4, KDF only breaking the 50:50 split when I added Willard with LoR. After PO158.5, I started deleting my Feds. I deleted my last two Feds at the end of 2013 when I deleted 8 of my toons to reroll 7 for 2014.
With the 8 guys I've got...
Romulan Enhanced Battle Cloak
No Cloak
No Cloak
Standard Cloak
No Cloak
Battle Cloak
Standard Cloak
Standard Cloak (soon to be No Cloak)
I learned the majority of what I know about Perception/Stealth from running a dedicated Fed Snooper and working through what Bort explained about it back in one of the March 2013 Tribble notes.
My "main 3" PvP toons were a Fed Chel Grett, KDF JHEC, and Willard the KRom in his Fleet T'varo. My runners up were my Fed Snooper and a KDF Sci, that I'd often glitch Fed to hunt KDF cloakers while in a Hegh'ta with 4x Sci BOFFs (Sci Captain w/ 4x Sci - heh, he's the toon I got the most complaints on...something about spamming Sci...lol).
Blipping about with Willard, it's still a case of being on the lookout for Feds - cause there's the Fed Roms, there are folks bouncing around in their Defiants, Avengers, and even that little resurgence of the Gal-X. Heck, Matt's been out there with his Gal-X all along...
There are folks that do fly about completely oblivious to what's going on - and - there's the folks that do a little this or that and Cloakers are no issue for them. There's the folks that work as a team to frag Cloakers and there's the folks that work as a team to be fragged by Cloakers. There's individuals with no issue...there's individuals with all sorts of issues.
I guess it's from preferring FvK, Ker'rat...so cloakers have always been a part of my PvP - so it's always been a case of building for it. So even when the Roms dropped, it wasn't the kind of shock that some folks that just did FvF may have run into with fighting Roms.
The annoying part wasn't the slightly better cloak they've got (+55 Stealth Value compared to non-Warbirds)...it was the escape mechanics/survivability and the better CrtH/CrtD. They're not really all that better Stealthers...just over 1km...but they're much better at killing with the decloak and much better at surviving/getting away after that attack. They're along the lines of Raptors/Escorts/Destroyers with a Battle Cloak...they're base hull/shield mod gives them survivability that a Raider can't touch...before you even get into Singularity Abilities and other toys. The +10% boost they gave Raiders still leaves them below the T'varo and that 0.88 Shield Mod vs. the 0.99 Shield Mod...meh. The BOFFs, well - c'mon - Cryptic has a sense of humor - otherwise why did they call the Rom Temp Sci the R'Mor? Cause they R'Mor better than the Wells or Korath...same stats, but way better BOFFs.
Meh, now I'm just rambling...lol...it's Mirror aversion. I've got to run it on 3 more toons and I don't wannnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaa....waaaaaaaaaaaaah....I dunwanna! :P
Like everything else, it's going to be luck of the draw whether somebody on the team has much anti-stealth going on and to the extent...while pugging, you run the risk that when you go for it, that the folks you end up with have no idea how to take advantage of it.
Heh, I still wish they had 10v10 queues - which allow for more specialized builds like the dedicated Snooper. Then again, I wish KDF had access to the TDF cause I'd drop that on my Varanus and turn him into a dedicated Snooper.
Will have to see what S9 holds, eh? Picture both sides having access to TDF and AA...and what that will mean for things.
Cruisers = no Cloak.
Escorts = no Cloak.
Destroyers = no Cloak.
Science Vessel = no Cloak.
Battle Cruiser = console Cloak.
Dreadnought Cruiser = console Cloak.
Defiant (Escort) = console Cloak.
Thanks for this. I was under the impression that kdf ships had consoles for their cloaks but I was confused. All of my characters are fed and I just added 2 romulans but they are fed as well, for the sake of staying in my fleet.
I still think cloak needs a rework pretty badly, or at least issue me a respec or something. I want it to be a viable tactic... if I'm cruising around oblivious or hunting a cruiser or something I want to be vulnerable as I should be. But when I'm flying out in the open, specifically looking for a cloaker that just killed my teammate and I know with 90% certainty exactly where he is, I should for sure be able to do something about it... but I can't unless I'm running a specialized sci/sci build. That's garbage.
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But when I'm flying out in the open, specifically looking for a cloaker that just killed my teammate and I know with 90% certainty exactly where he is, I should for sure be able to do something about it... but I can't unless I'm running a specialized sci/sci build. That's garbage.
As far as a science ship not being able to help there team when detecting cloakers... you guys are really really playing your scies wrong.
Stuff that will decloak someone you detect;
Gravity Well. (Don't even have to detect someone just gravity well one of there teammates... use an after shock doff. This one is great you hit an escort with omega up on purpose and for 30s he is dropping after shocks all over the field that will decloak his vape buddy if they get anywhere close to line up on a target)
Tractor beam... yes yes I know its hard to tractor people like it used to be... still only needs to grab for 1s to decloak someone.
Charged Particle burst... again lots of sci people think because they can't strip someone clean of shields this one isn't worth having... no one said you had to run CPB 3... a CPB will still decloak someone... detect them get with in 5k and hit this boom no cloak.
Viral Matrix... This is GOING to cycle an aux shut down. Even if they are speced really well and it only lasts 1-2s it still shuts down there cloak.
Shockwave... just like CPB detect them get with in 3k and shockwave them... disabled cloak.
Siphen... No it doesn't disable cloak on its own... but it can and does against romulans more often then you would expect as most roms are running pretty low aux power settings. (you can also run a doff that has a chance to disable a system... its pure luck but it can hit aux).
Tyknes Rift... no it doesn't decloak... unless you drop somone to zero aux which is really not that hard against many of the cloaked vape builds. Only needs to hit zero for a fraction of a second and they declaok... if you get lucky and they are running a spire warp/sing core they hit zero fast.
Target Sub System Aux... Every sci ship has this for free... save it for the cloaked ships... combo it with a siphen and you get a decloak pretty often... and every time you hit a cloaker with this you have a 30% chance to decloak them as well.
There are also some very useful weapons for science ships to decloak people
Tric mines... no they don't insta kill teams anymore but the disable sure does decloak nicely.
Grav Torp.... yes spread these all over the place. Spreads are insta hit... and if you can manage a spread 2 or 3... guess what they proc rifts close to every target they hit... these rifts WILL decloak people. (funny when you proc a few rifts on a spam cloak and what do you know you pull out a ganker you didn't even see)
Nukura Mines... also decloak
Then there are the click consoles.
The gas torpedo has a pretty high trade off as its pretty pointless vs non cloakers... I hear it works well though.
The shockwave torpedo console Nadion I think its called... rocks. Cool down is a bit long on it... but if you fire one at a cloaked ship it WILL be decloaked.
I don't know you throw all that possible stuff on a ship capable of seeing cloakers and its bad news for them. Create the Gravity well spam clouds. (use the improved deflector doffs to run both siphen and GW... and perhaps tykens all at globals). Throw in some spread Grav torps. Chances of cloaked gankers being able to sneak in are really really low unless you have team mates stupid enough to move out of your sphere.
Chances of cloaked gankers being able to sneak in are really really low unless you have team mates stupid enough to move out of your sphere.
That was always the problem...imho...early on - because that's precisely what they'd tend to do - they'd go off Kirking, leave you to get killed - leave themselves to get killed - and then blame everything but themselves.
The Gas torp is awful. If it was faster at activating and seeking out, it would be useful. Rom cloak needs to be in line with KDF cloaks, not ~12 seconds.
The Gas torp is awful. If it was faster at activating and seeking out, it would be useful. Rom cloak needs to be in line with KDF cloaks, not ~12 seconds.
The Gas torp is awful. If it was faster at activating and seeking out, it would be useful. Rom cloak needs to be in line with KDF cloaks, not ~12 seconds.
You have a point on the 12s... the cloak reduction should likely be limited to one boff and not stack like it does. Still I find most gankers drop before its an issue.... only a few of the more experienced players really mange to escape once getting decloaked by a good sci player... and even those guys its pretty easy to make them mostly a non factor. Forcing them to run off 30k even every second run really hampers what they bring to a team. imo anyway.
Mines have perfect stealth sight. If you run Hot Pursuit, you double mine target detection radius. If you run Photon Mines, you get mines that will start homing on targets from 4km away. If you run them with the Hot Pursuit trait, they'll start homing from 8 km away. I've had the Transphasic mines on my RSV give away cloaker positions by watching them suddenly start homing on what appears to be nothing.
How applicable this is to Arena play, IDK. You're gonna get less mileage out of it there due to the amount of trash and effects flying around, not to mention potential FAW umbrellas. It can be pretty useful in Ker'rat, though.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Lol npcs focusing on cloaked targets is a very useful "bug". All the more that it shows their distance in relation to the npcs.
I just need to estimate their location, get near, and hit charged particle burst to decloak them. It's harder to get experienced cloakers, since nowadays they run 30km out the moment a volley hits their shields.
Lol, I'm sure I'm not the only one using this trick. Eh, now that I think about it I guess I shouldn't use it, it's probably an exploit. Huh, I never thought of it as an exploit before... Huh..
It's been a complaint forever...don't know of any threads locked/deleted for mentioning it...unfortunately working as intended/not considered a bugsploit.
Oh man, that is my favorite Star Trek movie by a wide margin! But again, it forces me to *purchase* an item with real money for a slim chance to target cloakers where it costs nothing to the Rom as you just simply make that character.
I don't know you throw all that possible stuff on a ship capable of seeing cloakers and its bad news for them. Create the Gravity well spam clouds. (use the improved deflector doffs to run both siphen and GW... and perhaps tykens all at globals). Throw in some spread Grav torps. Chances of cloaked gankers being able to sneak in are really really low unless you have team mates stupid enough to move out of your sphere.
(shortened)
I think I covered most of these already in my initial post and noted why they are not viable. For example, gravity well is great if you can already target the cloaker, but who cares by then? If you can see them you cannot target to fire it, and you can't always depend on an enemy to have an uncloaked teammate nearby. That's the problem with most of these abilities... sure they decloak but you have to be able to target the ship in the first place. Charged particle burst seems like the logical choice to avoid this and I have tried that successfully before, but the range that it works is relatively useless as within 5km you are dead already or you could've just boosted out your stealth detection.
I tried various mines and tractor mines but again, I have to fly within 1-2km of their ship to drop them or they have to be totally stupid and fly right into the giant red blinking mines.
So far my recent experiences in pvp have had 3-4 romulan cloakers and maybe 1 regular ship. In pug ques, I'd guess 75% or higher are all using romulan cloaking ships... and that's just ridiculous. I'm glad to see that many feel the same way though, and hopefully that means a change is coming. I've been impressed with this game's developers for the timely release of new content and generally well controlled gameplay for a massive game so I look forward to some solution.
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I think I covered most of these already in my initial post and noted why they are not viable. For example, gravity well is great if you can already target the cloaker, but who cares by then? If you can see them you cannot target to fire it, and you can't always depend on an enemy to have an uncloaked teammate nearby. That's the problem with most of these abilities... sure they decloak but you have to be able to target the ship in the first place. Charged particle burst seems like the logical choice to avoid this and I have tried that successfully before, but the range that it works is relatively useless as within 5km you are dead already or you could've just boosted out your stealth detection.
I tried various mines and tractor mines but again, I have to fly within 1-2km of their ship to drop them or they have to be totally stupid and fly right into the giant red blinking mines.
So far my recent experiences in pvp have had 3-4 romulan cloakers and maybe 1 regular ship. In pug ques, I'd guess 75% or higher are all using romulan cloaking ships... and that's just ridiculous. I'm glad to see that many feel the same way though, and hopefully that means a change is coming. I've been impressed with this game's developers for the timely release of new content and generally well controlled gameplay for a massive game so I look forward to some solution.
1st there is no iwin button man. There is no magik this is my sci kill all cloakers in 10k field button. You do have to in fact USE your skills wisely, time them and place them where they are going to be effective. Why would we want anything else. What I am saying is 100% true though a good sci trumps a good gank cloak user 100% of the time. So the skills are more then powerful enough. They simply have a skill cap... (I don't mean that to sound offensive really I don't). Sci is not easy mode... and it takes practice to learn how to pull it off.
As far as gw yes... as I said use it on Non cloaked team mates and that keeps them from getting into range. If you are really getting ganked before that is an option then you are the one that is to far from the group. (most likely anyway)
Flying Sci is about CC... zone denial. Really don't bother trying to find cloakers... just do what you do as a sci and create a zone around your team that is unfriendly to cloak. Yes that means mines... Gravity well (I have even gravity welled photonic ships before just to keep a well up in the area)... Power drains like Tykens are nice because they synergize well with Deflector doffs. GW... 15s later Tykens...15s later GW... ect all match... Yes it will make cloak players lives hell. Then nuke at the right time... follow it with a scan... target engines and aux as you can. Its about making it a pain to be in range as a cloak ship. IF you want to be super annoying yes run Torpedo spread 2 and or 3... with Grav torps. The rifts will decloak people even if they are landing and procing rifts on pets... I find specing into Graviton really does help the rift on those torps.
I logged in tonight and took one of my sci ships out for a few rounds... as I suspected sci is just as viable as ever... and the cloak ships I fought never manged to get anywhere near anyone that stayed at least 10-12k from me. I think I lost one or two pugs because they seemed to get caught 20k away.
So my question is, what is the ideal anti-cloak escort? Detection is all good and well, but when your battle cloaking vapscort is on the run, or trying to duel you to space dust, a pilot needs not only to be able to decloak the target but effectively engage them, often 1 on 1 due to their willingness to isolate pursers. Often that means having bugship like turn and firepower (but not always).
KDF ships may be better suited for this task, Feds not so sure.
1st there is no iwin button man. There is no magik this is my sci kill all cloakers in 10k field button. You do have to in fact USE your skills wisely, time them and place them where they are going to be effective. Why would we want anything else. What I am saying is 100% true though a good sci trumps a good gank cloak user 100% of the time. So the skills are more then powerful enough. They simply have a skill cap... (I don't mean that to sound offensive really I don't). Sci is not easy mode... and it takes practice to learn how to pull it off.
I'm not asking for an "I win button" or anything of the sort. I'm asking to have a viable chance to defend myself from cloaked ships when I'm playing a ship or character that isn't a sci/sci build. I may still lose to them sometimes, but as it stands now a team without a sci/sci will lose 100% of the time (assuming all 10 players in the arena have identical skill levels). That's just ridiculous for people playing pugs.
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I'm not asking for an "I win button" or anything of the sort. I'm asking to have a viable chance to defend myself from cloaked ships when I'm playing a ship or character that isn't a sci/sci build. I may still lose to them sometimes, but as it stands now a team without a sci/sci will lose 100% of the time (assuming all 10 players in the arena have identical skill levels). That's just ridiculous for people playing pugs.
... that's a lot of 100% haha.
The Tyranny of Science rears its ugly head again.
Pointedly, it really is a team game with the powers built around having teammates make up for your weaknesses by being strong where you aren't and weak where you are. There's plenty of powers out there, many in the form of clickies, that distort the relative value of any given setup (why yes, I *am* glaring scornfully at all you pointy-eared darker and edgier space elves), but in the end it, it really as about the whole of your team being greater than the strength of its parts, and is why random-pick pug vs pug is going to be a mess without some sort of matching to balance teams based on player level (rep+gear), Class and Ship combo (with weighting on BOff powers vs BOff powers), and skill (all those awesome statistics Mancom's been working with for the Tyler Durden channel).
Until such time as the queues and matchmaking are revamped, pugging is forever and always going to be a crapshoot.
If you feel Keel'el's effect is well designed, please, for your own safety, be very careful around shallow pools of water.
Comments
Yeah, I didn't see edalgo asking again until after I had saved the edit - had it open for editing while twiddling my thumbs and waiting on rifts to open...
...you can see the timestamps.
I ran mainly Fed, then I ran 50/50, and then finally no Fed. I bounced back and forth between 3/1 Fed and 3/1 KDF until S7 when I went 2:2 and then added 4 more toons to go 4:4, KDF only breaking the 50:50 split when I added Willard with LoR. After PO158.5, I started deleting my Feds. I deleted my last two Feds at the end of 2013 when I deleted 8 of my toons to reroll 7 for 2014.
With the 8 guys I've got...
Romulan Enhanced Battle Cloak
No Cloak
No Cloak
Standard Cloak
No Cloak
Battle Cloak
Standard Cloak
Standard Cloak (soon to be No Cloak)
I learned the majority of what I know about Perception/Stealth from running a dedicated Fed Snooper and working through what Bort explained about it back in one of the March 2013 Tribble notes.
My "main 3" PvP toons were a Fed Chel Grett, KDF JHEC, and Willard the KRom in his Fleet T'varo. My runners up were my Fed Snooper and a KDF Sci, that I'd often glitch Fed to hunt KDF cloakers while in a Hegh'ta with 4x Sci BOFFs (Sci Captain w/ 4x Sci - heh, he's the toon I got the most complaints on...something about spamming Sci...lol).
Blipping about with Willard, it's still a case of being on the lookout for Feds - cause there's the Fed Roms, there are folks bouncing around in their Defiants, Avengers, and even that little resurgence of the Gal-X. Heck, Matt's been out there with his Gal-X all along...
There are folks that do fly about completely oblivious to what's going on - and - there's the folks that do a little this or that and Cloakers are no issue for them. There's the folks that work as a team to frag Cloakers and there's the folks that work as a team to be fragged by Cloakers. There's individuals with no issue...there's individuals with all sorts of issues.
I guess it's from preferring FvK, Ker'rat...so cloakers have always been a part of my PvP - so it's always been a case of building for it. So even when the Roms dropped, it wasn't the kind of shock that some folks that just did FvF may have run into with fighting Roms.
The annoying part wasn't the slightly better cloak they've got (+55 Stealth Value compared to non-Warbirds)...it was the escape mechanics/survivability and the better CrtH/CrtD. They're not really all that better Stealthers...just over 1km...but they're much better at killing with the decloak and much better at surviving/getting away after that attack. They're along the lines of Raptors/Escorts/Destroyers with a Battle Cloak...they're base hull/shield mod gives them survivability that a Raider can't touch...before you even get into Singularity Abilities and other toys. The +10% boost they gave Raiders still leaves them below the T'varo and that 0.88 Shield Mod vs. the 0.99 Shield Mod...meh. The BOFFs, well - c'mon - Cryptic has a sense of humor - otherwise why did they call the Rom Temp Sci the R'Mor? Cause they R'Mor better than the Wells or Korath...same stats, but way better BOFFs.
Meh, now I'm just rambling...lol...it's Mirror aversion. I've got to run it on 3 more toons and I don't wannnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaa....waaaaaaaaaaaaah....I dunwanna! :P
Heh, I still wish they had 10v10 queues - which allow for more specialized builds like the dedicated Snooper. Then again, I wish KDF had access to the TDF cause I'd drop that on my Varanus and turn him into a dedicated Snooper.
Will have to see what S9 holds, eh? Picture both sides having access to TDF and AA...and what that will mean for things.
Thanks for this. I was under the impression that kdf ships had consoles for their cloaks but I was confused. All of my characters are fed and I just added 2 romulans but they are fed as well, for the sake of staying in my fleet.
I still think cloak needs a rework pretty badly, or at least issue me a respec or something. I want it to be a viable tactic... if I'm cruising around oblivious or hunting a cruiser or something I want to be vulnerable as I should be. But when I'm flying out in the open, specifically looking for a cloaker that just killed my teammate and I know with 90% certainty exactly where he is, I should for sure be able to do something about it... but I can't unless I'm running a specialized sci/sci build. That's garbage.
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Well...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UpS4LHHn88
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Console_-_Universal_-_Ionized_Gas_Sensor
As far as a science ship not being able to help there team when detecting cloakers... you guys are really really playing your scies wrong.
Stuff that will decloak someone you detect;
Gravity Well. (Don't even have to detect someone just gravity well one of there teammates... use an after shock doff. This one is great you hit an escort with omega up on purpose and for 30s he is dropping after shocks all over the field that will decloak his vape buddy if they get anywhere close to line up on a target)
Tractor beam... yes yes I know its hard to tractor people like it used to be... still only needs to grab for 1s to decloak someone.
Charged Particle burst... again lots of sci people think because they can't strip someone clean of shields this one isn't worth having... no one said you had to run CPB 3... a CPB will still decloak someone... detect them get with in 5k and hit this boom no cloak.
Viral Matrix... This is GOING to cycle an aux shut down. Even if they are speced really well and it only lasts 1-2s it still shuts down there cloak.
Shockwave... just like CPB detect them get with in 3k and shockwave them... disabled cloak.
Siphen... No it doesn't disable cloak on its own... but it can and does against romulans more often then you would expect as most roms are running pretty low aux power settings. (you can also run a doff that has a chance to disable a system... its pure luck but it can hit aux).
Tyknes Rift... no it doesn't decloak... unless you drop somone to zero aux which is really not that hard against many of the cloaked vape builds. Only needs to hit zero for a fraction of a second and they declaok... if you get lucky and they are running a spire warp/sing core they hit zero fast.
Target Sub System Aux... Every sci ship has this for free... save it for the cloaked ships... combo it with a siphen and you get a decloak pretty often... and every time you hit a cloaker with this you have a 30% chance to decloak them as well.
There are also some very useful weapons for science ships to decloak people
Tric mines... no they don't insta kill teams anymore but the disable sure does decloak nicely.
Grav Torp.... yes spread these all over the place. Spreads are insta hit... and if you can manage a spread 2 or 3... guess what they proc rifts close to every target they hit... these rifts WILL decloak people. (funny when you proc a few rifts on a spam cloak and what do you know you pull out a ganker you didn't even see)
Nukura Mines... also decloak
Then there are the click consoles.
The gas torpedo has a pretty high trade off as its pretty pointless vs non cloakers... I hear it works well though.
The shockwave torpedo console Nadion I think its called... rocks. Cool down is a bit long on it... but if you fire one at a cloaked ship it WILL be decloaked.
I don't know you throw all that possible stuff on a ship capable of seeing cloakers and its bad news for them. Create the Gravity well spam clouds. (use the improved deflector doffs to run both siphen and GW... and perhaps tykens all at globals). Throw in some spread Grav torps. Chances of cloaked gankers being able to sneak in are really really low unless you have team mates stupid enough to move out of your sphere.
That was always the problem...imho...early on - because that's precisely what they'd tend to do - they'd go off Kirking, leave you to get killed - leave themselves to get killed - and then blame everything but themselves.
Heh, it's all they in STVI... ;P
You have a point on the 12s... the cloak reduction should likely be limited to one boff and not stack like it does. Still I find most gankers drop before its an issue.... only a few of the more experienced players really mange to escape once getting decloaked by a good sci player... and even those guys its pretty easy to make them mostly a non factor. Forcing them to run off 30k even every second run really hampers what they bring to a team. imo anyway.
That's kind of a key thing in it all, eh?
How applicable this is to Arena play, IDK. You're gonna get less mileage out of it there due to the amount of trash and effects flying around, not to mention potential FAW umbrellas. It can be pretty useful in Ker'rat, though.
It's been a complaint forever...don't know of any threads locked/deleted for mentioning it...unfortunately working as intended/not considered a bugsploit.
Oh man, that is my favorite Star Trek movie by a wide margin! But again, it forces me to *purchase* an item with real money for a slim chance to target cloakers where it costs nothing to the Rom as you just simply make that character.
I think I covered most of these already in my initial post and noted why they are not viable. For example, gravity well is great if you can already target the cloaker, but who cares by then? If you can see them you cannot target to fire it, and you can't always depend on an enemy to have an uncloaked teammate nearby. That's the problem with most of these abilities... sure they decloak but you have to be able to target the ship in the first place. Charged particle burst seems like the logical choice to avoid this and I have tried that successfully before, but the range that it works is relatively useless as within 5km you are dead already or you could've just boosted out your stealth detection.
I tried various mines and tractor mines but again, I have to fly within 1-2km of their ship to drop them or they have to be totally stupid and fly right into the giant red blinking mines.
So far my recent experiences in pvp have had 3-4 romulan cloakers and maybe 1 regular ship. In pug ques, I'd guess 75% or higher are all using romulan cloaking ships... and that's just ridiculous. I'm glad to see that many feel the same way though, and hopefully that means a change is coming. I've been impressed with this game's developers for the timely release of new content and generally well controlled gameplay for a massive game so I look forward to some solution.
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1st there is no iwin button man. There is no magik this is my sci kill all cloakers in 10k field button. You do have to in fact USE your skills wisely, time them and place them where they are going to be effective. Why would we want anything else.
As far as gw yes... as I said use it on Non cloaked team mates and that keeps them from getting into range. If you are really getting ganked before that is an option then you are the one that is to far from the group. (most likely anyway)
Flying Sci is about CC... zone denial. Really don't bother trying to find cloakers... just do what you do as a sci and create a zone around your team that is unfriendly to cloak. Yes that means mines... Gravity well (I have even gravity welled photonic ships before just to keep a well up in the area)... Power drains like Tykens are nice because they synergize well with Deflector doffs. GW... 15s later Tykens...15s later GW... ect all match... Yes it will make cloak players lives hell. Then nuke at the right time... follow it with a scan... target engines and aux as you can. Its about making it a pain to be in range as a cloak ship. IF you want to be super annoying yes run Torpedo spread 2 and or 3... with Grav torps. The rifts will decloak people even if they are landing and procing rifts on pets... I find specing into Graviton really does help the rift on those torps.
I logged in tonight and took one of my sci ships out for a few rounds... as I suspected sci is just as viable as ever... and the cloak ships I fought never manged to get anywhere near anyone that stayed at least 10-12k from me. I think I lost one or two pugs because they seemed to get caught 20k away.
KDF ships may be better suited for this task, Feds not so sure.
It's almost like submarine warfare.
I'm not asking for an "I win button" or anything of the sort. I'm asking to have a viable chance to defend myself from cloaked ships when I'm playing a ship or character that isn't a sci/sci build. I may still lose to them sometimes, but as it stands now a team without a sci/sci will lose 100% of the time (assuming all 10 players in the arena have identical skill levels). That's just ridiculous for people playing pugs.
... that's a lot of 100% haha.
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The Tyranny of Science rears its ugly head again.
Pointedly, it really is a team game with the powers built around having teammates make up for your weaknesses by being strong where you aren't and weak where you are. There's plenty of powers out there, many in the form of clickies, that distort the relative value of any given setup (why yes, I *am* glaring scornfully at all you pointy-eared darker and edgier space elves), but in the end it, it really as about the whole of your team being greater than the strength of its parts, and is why random-pick pug vs pug is going to be a mess without some sort of matching to balance teams based on player level (rep+gear), Class and Ship combo (with weighting on BOff powers vs BOff powers), and skill (all those awesome statistics Mancom's been working with for the Tyler Durden channel).
Until such time as the queues and matchmaking are revamped, pugging is forever and always going to be a crapshoot.
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