I am surprised at how similar it is to the Nicor, but personally I would rather have a 4th beam array than the rear cannon. Still it does give Nicor owners a little sticker shock.
Isn't it odd to release a veritable clone of a lockbox ship, right after that lockbox ship is released?
There's another ship where I've seen 5 tac consoles, a commander tac boff seating, a lt. universal commander one and 8 weapons : the scimitar
Well Cryptic is telling you something my friend. You are doing it wrong. Now get on board and ask them for a refit with a lt cmd eng... or at least 2 lt engi so you can a2b like everyone else. Beams man that is what Cryptic balances around.
Faw it a2b it, that is the way to go.
It might be a cheap easy way to do some damage and increase your DPS a little, but, in the long run, ESPECIALLY after the S9 Nukara T4 revamp, Aux2bat is DEFINITELY not the best thing to do and it's dumber than before.
Anytime you hit auxiliary to battery, you lose 3-4% bonus to all damage ( with a battery it goes up to 6% if I am not wrong), not to mention a little damage from tractor beam repulsors and a little healing, which always comes handy.
It's not the most efficient way in PvE ... don't know PvP but probably it isn't so there too.
My 3 main toons on the Scimitar, Nicor and Bortasqu' don't use it , although that means spending millions to buy purple energy weapons officer who reduce FAW at global cooldown ( except for the Scimitar ).
The highest DPSers in game were not using it already even before Season 9.
People seem to have a wrong imagination when it comes to a2b builts. They only make things easier for the player and that's about it. If Elysion, IC, HOBO (and not long ago the Pandas---Naz move your TRIBBLE back in here! :cool: ) meet in the Queues or do some Premades you won't find a single ship using Aux2bat in there in most cases (we had some JHEC runs using a2b, but we were not confident with it). Ever tried to keep up with a bug using a2damp when you sit on an a2bat built (using a2b and a2damp in combination might work, but is impossible on many ships since you need RSP....the new Patrol Escort has the perfect Layout for aux2damp/aux2bat chaining though)? Aux2bat is a big fail if it comes to premade matches and has more disadvantages than you can profit from it. 1 minute CD on RSP? Every ability on global CD? Who cares if 3 nukes and 3 scans are lined up just for you. You either rely on the healing speed of your scis or you pop....aux2bat makes no difference if the enemy caller makes you the target.
Apart from premade fights people might claim that in the single Queues it is useful....well i had a few 1 vs. 1 fights against people who relied on their short RSP gap....but at least my APA has 30 seconds uptime and there is at least a RSP gap of 30 seconds, and you only need 5 seconds to die anyway.
So in 95% of all possible cases, in my opinion Aux2Bat is a fail. Only exception might be some people on resilient FAW Cruiser in the single Queues who are hard to kill without a bit of teamwork.
To sum it up, i think a2b is by far overrated and apart from what your attitude on Premade matches might be, it's best proof that exactly in those Premade matches were only very ace things make the difference between victory and defeat nearly nobody uses a2bat. The only fact that remains is that it makes gameplay a whole lot easier for most people.
So in 95% of all possible cases, in my opinion Aux2Bat is a fail. Only exception might be some people on resilient FAW Cruiser in the single Queues who are hard to kill without a bit of teamwork.
I have brought my AtB FACR into the solo queue a couple of times, and was able to kill the entire other team while taking focus fire from them. Only ships that ever gave me any trouble were scimitards sneaking up and unleashing at point-blank range. I've seen others do the same. My experience they arent fail at all, the ones that lose often are pilot error or they got overwhelmed by a stronger team. Honestly its such a powerful build that I dont bring it out much, I feel bad for flying it.
I have brought my AtB FACR into the solo queue a couple of times, and was able to kill the entire other team while taking focus fire from them. Only ships that ever gave me any trouble were scimitards sneaking up and unleashing at point-blank range. I've seen others do the same. My experience they arent fail at all, the ones that lose often are pilot error or they got overwhelmed by a stronger team. Honestly its such a powerful build that I dont bring it out much, I feel bad for flying it.
^ Exactly you don't see Pandas running our a2b galors / shimitards because it does make us feel bad. lol (well that and a good number of the pandas are on hiatus. I doubt the guys playing right now would lower themselves to faw made status)
Seriously anyone that says FAW and or A2B is balanced hasn't seen what real players COULD do with them. He likely won't ever be back to show you... but watching MT vape entire teams in a shimitard was funny for a few min anyway.
I have brought my AtB FACR into the solo queue a couple of times, and was able to kill the entire other team while taking focus fire from them. Only ships that ever gave me any trouble were scimitards sneaking up and unleashing at point-blank range. I've seen others do the same. My experience they arent fail at all, the ones that lose often are pilot error or they got overwhelmed by a stronger team. Honestly its such a powerful build that I dont bring it out much, I feel bad for flying it.
With the introduction of seperated team- and solo-queues a divergence in meta-game is emerging.
Builds that are performing well in the solo-queues may perform very poorly in the team-queues and vice versa.
Fawmitards and other FAW cruisers may work in a pure pug environment. They do not work any longer against competent teams though.
Even 5-men FAW-cruiser/scimitar teams can be easily contained now. IC premades already made several 5-men scimitar teams warping out on them. Right now, FAW belongs to the solo queues where teamwork is limited.
pity they cant do this to a certain ship that's worst in game by a mile, and canon, and the real star of TNG
You know why the Galaxy, Defiant, and intrepid have to suck. You know why. We won't see good versions of the iconic ships until the very end of STO. If they released good competitive versions of the Iconic ships their ship sales would take too much of a hit, but towards the end of STO you can be sure they'll ring out really powerful and capable versions of them for a final cash grab.
Heh, proton weapon mounted aft without the set bonuses. In parses, the proton weapon mounted in this way apparently amounts to 1% of my DPS, nearly all of it scored against random targetable torpedoes. And this one has an even narrower arc...and probably doesn't fire at targets of opportunity.
I don't know about that. On the show, the Defiant is characterized as a tough little ship. In the game, it's a paper plane.
I agree with what you said about contributing to 1% of dps. but..We don't know anything yet about this weapon. It may have a 360% arc. or it may autotarget. We just don't know. Inosent untill proven guilty. If it indeed tho has a 45% arc and nothing else. That would suck.
... ship being viable in pvp THAT IS the balance we are looking for,
(Snips)
If by balance you mean everyone running the same build.. have fun. No this will not lead to people having feed back pulse on there escort... or any other such silly idea.
It will lead to everyone running a bunch of beams and a broken skill or two.
There is a difference between having choices and not. Setting every new ship up to be a a2b spamming beam boat does not = balance. What happens when things are majorly unbalanced... its not choice as you suggest. Its the opposite. I find it laughable that the last handful of ship have a ton of uni slots and still what do people load ? The obviously more powerful option right. In games worth playing... there is never perfect balance that is impossible... there is however balance on a per situation balance. Where say X build will be superior in this or that situation and Y build superior in another. In every game there is always one build that does best in most situations and good in the others and ends up being the FOTM style... the idea the developer should be shooting for though is for those builds to only be slighly more effective then the other min/maxed builds...
In that way people have choices. With all these engi heavy ships that are perfect for loading up a2b builds on... there is next to no real options. Really by moving ensign seatings to lt. cmd... they are in fact limiting the real options on those ships. On this new ship... would you really load a uni Lt. Cmd Sci ? lmao of course you wouldn't... and if you do you will be completely ineffective. Putting a tactical there. Sure why not... of course at that point its not much of an upgrade seating wise over the old version of the ship. The only option that is an honest upgrade in the current meta is Engi... and the only way that works is using the engi skills to reduce cool downs.
It doesn't make for very many options at all really... the only real build options people will have on that ship are these... 2 copies of A2B or A2B/A2D... RSP + EWP or RSP + DEM. It sounds exciting.
... cuz you know they'll add a hangar bay to it then to make it sell ...
I also fully expect the tailgun to become like the Automated Weapon Battery, firing on its own with a much better arc, but I'll take a launch bay because meh, why not, its STO.
Seriously anyone that says FAW and or A2B is balanced hasn't seen what real players COULD do with them. He likely won't ever be back to show you... but watching MT vape entire teams in a shimitard was funny for a few min anyway.
I've seen all of them and apart from the DPS 30k+ guys all of them did better without FAW and a2b. You ever saw MT or Joda on their bugs about 2-3 years ago? That was more impressive than a bit scimmi FAW. Vaping is a different story though.
Maybe i'm a bit off topic here because i refer mainly to premade fights or fights in the new premade Queue, but at least in those cases FAW and Aux2bat fails, at least against the teams i mentioned (and sadly those are the only real premade Teams left apart from some very decent OPVP teams we encountered in the last few days).
If someone kills an entire team in the single Queue (and i don't want to offend anyone here) this really has no meaning at all and has nothing to do with FAW or a2b either. I queue my eng and sci healer in the single Queue from time to time and to be honest, the majority of the people there neither is very skilled nor well equipped. Remember how often Edna mentions in OPVP that 4 out of 5 guys do not use TacTeam and run away from heals. That's why every "veteran" or "average" player or how ever you might call it is able to shine these days. The level in the single Queues is on a very low level...at least compared to a year ago => put one high-DPS FAW built in there and 5 regular player who don't work together on the other side and we have the outcome you mentioned. Of course there are thrilling matches happening in the single Queues, but we all know that's 1 match out of 3 or 4. Maybe i sound a bit arrogant here, but really i have never seen a time when there were more builts without TacTeam or at least shild redistribution. On the other hand, if i take into account all the great player who left this seems to be a logical consequence. But the above is just based on my own experience since they changed the queues.
I believe there is more build diversity with AtB than without.
- eg 1 vs 2 AtB setups
- Not needing lt comm tac, more actual usable skills (especially with the eng/sci team skills) - (and no, I'm still having to choose between tractor beam vs sci team, eng team vs rsp or dem w atb)
- more viable ships (remove atb and you suddenly make assault cruisers ****ing terrible again)
- you have reasonable reasons for not wanting to use atb as many have already mentioned with alternative CD doffs for almost every other important skill.
My problems with it lie mainly with accessibility - something that provides so much of an effect shouldn't be so expensive. Just makes a huge barrier to entry to a player who hasn't been playing longer than a week or so.
And lol-photonic-officer.
But compared things like battlecloaks which cause the = if you don't have a cloak your vape bait syndrome - AtB is relatively harmless balance wise.
I've seen all of them and apart from the DPS 30k+ guys all of them did better without FAW and a2b. You ever saw MT or yoda on their bugs about 2 years ago? That was more impressive than a bit scimmi FAW. Vaping is a different story though.
I would never presume to speak for anyone. However I think you can point at FAW and A2B as being 2 of the main reasons the majority of the Panda fleet is on hiatus. Its my reasoning... I might come back and do some more PvP if guys like naz and a few the others where around more, or at all. These days I do a bit of PvE in sto cause I still like trek... I do my PvPing over in Gw right now though. Been able to run with a few of the old TSI guys now and then, it's been nice to run into guys like Ayatani and Era again.
2 years ago yes the bug was the meta... and yes MT Yoda Thales myself and a few others we where all ripping people to pieces with our bugs. The difference was those ships dropped hard the min we didn't have our sci healers on our tails. Well ok not that hard... still its not like any of us ran 5 man bug premades. Even in the bug hay day teams ran 2 bugs, any more was a recipe for a loss.
My issue with the current meta is the nasty nature (not to mention its completely mindless) of the sustained faw pressure. It makes Vaping way to easy. Its not hard to watch a target / team burn all there heals trying to survive the faw dmg from the healing / science ships... and then vape them between tac teams. Anyway I think I'm way off topic now.
I believe there is more build diversity with AtB than without.
The main issue with tech doffs is they where created for a completely different skill.
There is no way heretic would have gave them +10% all cool downs if A2B worked then as it does now.
A2B was and always has been on the EPTx System cool down.
That is the way it existed when tech doffs where released.
Then a Dev who is not known for making many mistakes. (yes I am joking) Decided to move A2B to the A2D/A2S System cool down.
That change was BAD... he should have never made the change... or at the very least balanced the tech doffs at the same time.
On the old cool down it was very usable... and yes eve Tac cruisers worked with old A2B + Tech doffs. I know I ran one... Heck I even ran a A2B (old style) galor in some high end premade matches with critz. I don't recall dropping any of those matches either.
With all these new ships with new a2b friendly setups... its clear its what Cryptic is going for. So what ever ... we'll all run tech doffs and be happy I guess.
if that is what they REALLY want, make getting the tech doff easy so people like myself, who does not know what mission the even get them on, dont have to pay the ridiculous price slightly lower than our souls to get one, let alone three.
Or they could.....o i dont know, put A2B back on the CD it was on so this BS can end...
The new patrol escort will have a more eng heavy a2b layout with 2 Lt Cmdr eng, but less sci then the layouts the hunter escort or nicor can have. That third sci ability is nice especially when using it at global cooldown with a2b, so neither the nicor or hirogen escort are obsolete.
... cuz you know they'll add a hangar bay to it then to make it sell ...
I'm not planning on buying this, but if they put a hangar on it? I'd probably buy it. The Fleet Patrol is already my favorite Fed escort, it has a boff and console layout I like, it will basically require phasers (something I have).
Yeah. I'm already on the fence about it, but if they go full power-creep (you should NEVER go full power-creep) I'll probably get it.
You know why the Galaxy, Defiant, and intrepid have to suck. You know why. We won't see good versions of the iconic ships until the very end of STO. If they released good competitive versions of the Iconic ships their ship sales would take too much of a hit, but towards the end of STO you can be sure they'll ring out really powerful and capable versions of them for a final cash grab.
why? because if they were good it would be the last ship i flew/bought?
let me tell you about what im going to do with my patrol refit. im never going to use my fleet akira, fleet MVAM, fleet vet ship, steamrunner, maybe not even my hunter, ever again. not because the patrol escort is iconic, or i even like the way it looks, its because it makes all those other ships look like a joke. a decent galaxy would get me using it slightly more, but i can guaranty i'll still spend most my cruiser time in my avenger, because there's no way a slightly improved galaxy could ever compete with it. even the worst players opt for the best ships over thier 'favorites'. you hardly see any galaxy, defiant or intrepids anywhere.
The main issue with tech doffs is they where created for a completely different skill.
There is no way heretic would have gave them +10% all cool downs if A2B worked then as it does now.
A2B was and always has been on the EPTx System cool down.
That is the way it existed when tech doffs where released.
Then a Dev who is not known for making many mistakes. (yes I am joking) Decided to move A2B to the A2D/A2S System cool down.
That change was BAD... he should have never made the change... or at the very least balanced the tech doffs at the same time.
On the old cool down it was very usable... and yes eve Tac cruisers worked with old A2B + Tech doffs. I know I ran one... Heck I even ran a A2B (old style) galor in some high end premade matches with critz. I don't recall dropping any of those matches either.
With all these new ships with new a2b friendly setups... its clear its what Cryptic is going for. So what ever ... we'll all run tech doffs and be happy I guess.
Now that makes sense. I remember looking at DCE doffs before and wondering,....why should I use a 20% chance doff for 30% cd, when I can just use a tech doff for 100% chance for 10% cd and stack that. Not to mention it would reduce not just what DCE would reduce, but everything else too! Still, I ran a drake build out of preference for aux heals, but cutting team cd's has made me reconsider.
Edit: Too bad ENG heavy doesn't include the console slots. 5 Tac consoles and just two ENG? The Defiant Retrofit is more ENG heavy there xD
I might have been wrong. A2b will maximize this much better.
TRIBBLE.
yup. or you can think about it like an akira that trades its 3rd ENS tac for a LTC tac skill, if you want to avoid AtB. a sci LTC could be interesting, but without a battlecloak i don't think terribly viable. just a COM tac with no AtB build isn't enough for a dogfighting non cloaker
Now that makes sense. I remember looking at DCE doffs before and wondering,....why should I use a 20% chance doff for 30% cd, when I can just use a tech doff for 100% chance for 10% cd and stack that. Not to mention it would reduce not just what DCE would reduce, but everything else too! Still, I ran a drake build out of preference for aux heals, but cutting team cd's has made me reconsider.
Edit: Too bad ENG heavy doesn't include the console slots. 5 Tac consoles and just two ENG? The Defiant Retrofit is more ENG heavy there xD
Fleet variant has 3 eng Slots. Deliberately to get people to buy fleet version.
Let us wear Swimsuits on Foundry maps or bridges please! I would pay zen for that.
yup. or you can think about it like an akira that trades its 3rd ENS tac for a LTC tac skill, if you want to avoid AtB. a sci LTC could be interesting, but without a battlecloak i don't think terribly viable. just a COM tac with no AtB build isn't enough for a dogfighting non cloaker
yeah, drunk, its tru.
after just 1 match of testing, i can see now whats up.
damn the man.
ship tanks like a monster.
with sci team, eng team, and tac team and rsp and omega and lalalalala all at global...
fudge.
at least im back in a fedscort when i log in to pew.
have fun kill bad guys
edit: i may drop eng team and go eptw1 or epte1, and drop in a dem and doff for that 8 second no drain alpha punch overload and crf... dunno yet...maybe in a week or so after pushing the defenses.
Beyond bumping up the turn rate to 20, and/or swapping the ensign tac for an ensign engineering, I have no idea what they could or should to to improve it in light of the FPE.
Could make the Defiant the most broken escort in the game if they wanted pretty easily.
BOFF Seating: Cmd Tac | Ltc Tac | Lt Eng | Lt Uni | Ens Sci
Consoles: 3 Eng; 1 Sci; 6 Tac
Bump Shield Mod to .99
Hull: 33333
Bump turn to 19
Integrate the cloak
Laugh all the way home.
-Only Ens Sci? Yeah, that ship never had or used much Sci; it wasn't an explorer, it was a destroyer.
-Integrate cloak? Yeah, I don't ever recal Sisko saying "Warf; to the Defiant in 5 mins, and grab that disgruntled Romulan lady and her cloak on your way."
-And yeah, leave it a 5 BOFF ship.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot: Make the quad cannons equal to the fleet weapons. [ACC]x2 [DMG]x2 and get rid of the silly engine drain.
why? because if they were good it would be the last ship i flew/bought?
let me tell you about what im going to do with my patrol refit. im never going to use my fleet akira, fleet MVAM, fleet vet ship, steamrunner, maybe not even my hunter, ever again. not because the patrol escort is iconic, or i even like the way it looks, its because it makes all those other ships look like a joke. a decent galaxy would get me using it slightly more, but i can guaranty i'll still spend most my cruiser time in my avenger, because there's no way a slightly improved galaxy could ever compete with it. even the worst players opt for the best ships over thier 'favorites'. you hardly see any galaxy, defiant or intrepids anywhere.
But that's you and most pvpers, but what about the other 99.99% of the playerbase? STO players that are here because they're trek fans would much rather hang on using an iconic ship rather than a more powerful one, so long as its within reason. That's why the iconics have to be such utter jokes, so not even the hardcore trek fans will want to fly around in an iconic ship for long. Imagine if the masses of ultra casuals were NOT buying lockboxes or 9 ship packs because they wre content to fly the iconic ships?
Comments
There's another ship where I've seen 5 tac consoles, a commander tac boff seating, a lt. universal commander one and 8 weapons : the scimitar
It might be a cheap easy way to do some damage and increase your DPS a little, but, in the long run, ESPECIALLY after the S9 Nukara T4 revamp, Aux2bat is DEFINITELY not the best thing to do and it's dumber than before.
Anytime you hit auxiliary to battery, you lose 3-4% bonus to all damage ( with a battery it goes up to 6% if I am not wrong), not to mention a little damage from tractor beam repulsors and a little healing, which always comes handy.
It's not the most efficient way in PvE ... don't know PvP but probably it isn't so there too.
My 3 main toons on the Scimitar, Nicor and Bortasqu' don't use it , although that means spending millions to buy purple energy weapons officer who reduce FAW at global cooldown ( except for the Scimitar ).
The highest DPSers in game were not using it already even before Season 9.
People seem to have a wrong imagination when it comes to a2b builts. They only make things easier for the player and that's about it. If Elysion, IC, HOBO (and not long ago the Pandas---Naz move your TRIBBLE back in here! :cool: ) meet in the Queues or do some Premades you won't find a single ship using Aux2bat in there in most cases (we had some JHEC runs using a2b, but we were not confident with it). Ever tried to keep up with a bug using a2damp when you sit on an a2bat built (using a2b and a2damp in combination might work, but is impossible on many ships since you need RSP....the new Patrol Escort has the perfect Layout for aux2damp/aux2bat chaining though)? Aux2bat is a big fail if it comes to premade matches and has more disadvantages than you can profit from it. 1 minute CD on RSP? Every ability on global CD? Who cares if 3 nukes and 3 scans are lined up just for you. You either rely on the healing speed of your scis or you pop....aux2bat makes no difference if the enemy caller makes you the target.
Apart from premade fights people might claim that in the single Queues it is useful....well i had a few 1 vs. 1 fights against people who relied on their short RSP gap....but at least my APA has 30 seconds uptime and there is at least a RSP gap of 30 seconds, and you only need 5 seconds to die anyway.
So in 95% of all possible cases, in my opinion Aux2Bat is a fail. Only exception might be some people on resilient FAW Cruiser in the single Queues who are hard to kill without a bit of teamwork.
To sum it up, i think a2b is by far overrated and apart from what your attitude on Premade matches might be, it's best proof that exactly in those Premade matches were only very ace things make the difference between victory and defeat nearly nobody uses a2bat. The only fact that remains is that it makes gameplay a whole lot easier for most people.
^ Exactly you don't see Pandas running our a2b galors / shimitards because it does make us feel bad. lol (well that and a good number of the pandas are on hiatus. I doubt the guys playing right now would lower themselves to faw made status)
Seriously anyone that says FAW and or A2B is balanced hasn't seen what real players COULD do with them. He likely won't ever be back to show you... but watching MT vape entire teams in a shimitard was funny for a few min anyway.
With the introduction of seperated team- and solo-queues a divergence in meta-game is emerging.
Builds that are performing well in the solo-queues may perform very poorly in the team-queues and vice versa.
Fawmitards and other FAW cruisers may work in a pure pug environment. They do not work any longer against competent teams though.
Even 5-men FAW-cruiser/scimitar teams can be easily contained now. IC premades already made several 5-men scimitar teams warping out on them. Right now, FAW belongs to the solo queues where teamwork is limited.
You know why the Galaxy, Defiant, and intrepid have to suck. You know why. We won't see good versions of the iconic ships until the very end of STO. If they released good competitive versions of the Iconic ships their ship sales would take too much of a hit, but towards the end of STO you can be sure they'll ring out really powerful and capable versions of them for a final cash grab.
I agree with what you said about contributing to 1% of dps. but..We don't know anything yet about this weapon. It may have a 360% arc. or it may autotarget. We just don't know. Inosent untill proven guilty. If it indeed tho has a 45% arc and nothing else. That would suck.
If by balance you mean everyone running the same build.. have fun. No this will not lead to people having feed back pulse on there escort... or any other such silly idea.
It will lead to everyone running a bunch of beams and a broken skill or two.
There is a difference between having choices and not. Setting every new ship up to be a a2b spamming beam boat does not = balance. What happens when things are majorly unbalanced... its not choice as you suggest. Its the opposite. I find it laughable that the last handful of ship have a ton of uni slots and still what do people load ? The obviously more powerful option right. In games worth playing... there is never perfect balance that is impossible... there is however balance on a per situation balance. Where say X build will be superior in this or that situation and Y build superior in another. In every game there is always one build that does best in most situations and good in the others and ends up being the FOTM style... the idea the developer should be shooting for though is for those builds to only be slighly more effective then the other min/maxed builds...
In that way people have choices. With all these engi heavy ships that are perfect for loading up a2b builds on... there is next to no real options. Really by moving ensign seatings to lt. cmd... they are in fact limiting the real options on those ships. On this new ship... would you really load a uni Lt. Cmd Sci ? lmao of course you wouldn't... and if you do you will be completely ineffective. Putting a tactical there. Sure why not... of course at that point its not much of an upgrade seating wise over the old version of the ship. The only option that is an honest upgrade in the current meta is Engi... and the only way that works is using the engi skills to reduce cool downs.
It doesn't make for very many options at all really... the only real build options people will have on that ship are these... 2 copies of A2B or A2B/A2D... RSP + EWP or RSP + DEM. It sounds exciting.
I also fully expect the tailgun to become like the Automated Weapon Battery, firing on its own with a much better arc, but I'll take a launch bay because meh, why not, its STO.
I've seen all of them and apart from the DPS 30k+ guys all of them did better without FAW and a2b. You ever saw MT or Joda on their bugs about 2-3 years ago? That was more impressive than a bit scimmi FAW. Vaping is a different story though.
Maybe i'm a bit off topic here because i refer mainly to premade fights or fights in the new premade Queue, but at least in those cases FAW and Aux2bat fails, at least against the teams i mentioned (and sadly those are the only real premade Teams left apart from some very decent OPVP teams we encountered in the last few days).
If someone kills an entire team in the single Queue (and i don't want to offend anyone here) this really has no meaning at all and has nothing to do with FAW or a2b either. I queue my eng and sci healer in the single Queue from time to time and to be honest, the majority of the people there neither is very skilled nor well equipped. Remember how often Edna mentions in OPVP that 4 out of 5 guys do not use TacTeam and run away from heals. That's why every "veteran" or "average" player or how ever you might call it is able to shine these days. The level in the single Queues is on a very low level...at least compared to a year ago => put one high-DPS FAW built in there and 5 regular player who don't work together on the other side and we have the outcome you mentioned. Of course there are thrilling matches happening in the single Queues, but we all know that's 1 match out of 3 or 4. Maybe i sound a bit arrogant here, but really i have never seen a time when there were more builts without TacTeam or at least shild redistribution. On the other hand, if i take into account all the great player who left this seems to be a logical consequence. But the above is just based on my own experience since they changed the queues.
I believe there is more build diversity with AtB than without.
- eg 1 vs 2 AtB setups
- Not needing lt comm tac, more actual usable skills (especially with the eng/sci team skills) - (and no, I'm still having to choose between tractor beam vs sci team, eng team vs rsp or dem w atb)
- more viable ships (remove atb and you suddenly make assault cruisers ****ing terrible again)
- you have reasonable reasons for not wanting to use atb as many have already mentioned with alternative CD doffs for almost every other important skill.
My problems with it lie mainly with accessibility - something that provides so much of an effect shouldn't be so expensive. Just makes a huge barrier to entry to a player who hasn't been playing longer than a week or so.
And lol-photonic-officer.
But compared things like battlecloaks which cause the = if you don't have a cloak your vape bait syndrome - AtB is relatively harmless balance wise.
I would never presume to speak for anyone. However I think you can point at FAW and A2B as being 2 of the main reasons the majority of the Panda fleet is on hiatus. Its my reasoning... I might come back and do some more PvP if guys like naz and a few the others where around more, or at all. These days I do a bit of PvE in sto cause I still like trek... I do my PvPing over in Gw right now though. Been able to run with a few of the old TSI guys now and then, it's been nice to run into guys like Ayatani and Era again.
2 years ago yes the bug was the meta... and yes MT Yoda Thales myself and a few others we where all ripping people to pieces with our bugs. The difference was those ships dropped hard the min we didn't have our sci healers on our tails.
My issue with the current meta is the nasty nature (not to mention its completely mindless) of the sustained faw pressure. It makes Vaping way to easy. Its not hard to watch a target / team burn all there heals trying to survive the faw dmg from the healing / science ships... and then vape them between tac teams. Anyway I think I'm way off topic now.
The main issue with tech doffs is they where created for a completely different skill.
There is no way heretic would have gave them +10% all cool downs if A2B worked then as it does now.
A2B was and always has been on the EPTx System cool down.
That is the way it existed when tech doffs where released.
Then a Dev who is not known for making many mistakes. (yes I am joking) Decided to move A2B to the A2D/A2S System cool down.
That change was BAD... he should have never made the change... or at the very least balanced the tech doffs at the same time.
On the old cool down it was very usable... and yes eve Tac cruisers worked with old A2B + Tech doffs. I know I ran one... Heck I even ran a A2B (old style) galor in some high end premade matches with critz. I don't recall dropping any of those matches either.
With all these new ships with new a2b friendly setups... its clear its what Cryptic is going for. So what ever ... we'll all run tech doffs and be happy I guess.
Or they could.....o i dont know, put A2B back on the CD it was on so this BS can end...
I'll pick this ship up ASAP.
Not to a2b it.... But most likely warp core doffs and engie heavy whatevers.
Biggest reason tho is that the maelstrom is the smexiest ship ever.
I'm not planning on buying this, but if they put a hangar on it? I'd probably buy it. The Fleet Patrol is already my favorite Fed escort, it has a boff and console layout I like, it will basically require phasers (something I have).
Yeah. I'm already on the fence about it, but if they go full power-creep (you should NEVER go full power-creep) I'll probably get it.
KDF Tac: Bortasqu' Tactical
Fed Tac: Fleet Gal-X
Keep those big guns a-thunderin'
why? because if they were good it would be the last ship i flew/bought?
let me tell you about what im going to do with my patrol refit. im never going to use my fleet akira, fleet MVAM, fleet vet ship, steamrunner, maybe not even my hunter, ever again. not because the patrol escort is iconic, or i even like the way it looks, its because it makes all those other ships look like a joke. a decent galaxy would get me using it slightly more, but i can guaranty i'll still spend most my cruiser time in my avenger, because there's no way a slightly improved galaxy could ever compete with it. even the worst players opt for the best ships over thier 'favorites'. you hardly see any galaxy, defiant or intrepids anywhere.
Preach On, Brother Damian!
Now that makes sense. I remember looking at DCE doffs before and wondering,....why should I use a 20% chance doff for 30% cd, when I can just use a tech doff for 100% chance for 10% cd and stack that. Not to mention it would reduce not just what DCE would reduce, but everything else too! Still, I ran a drake build out of preference for aux heals, but cutting team cd's has made me reconsider.
Edit: Too bad ENG heavy doesn't include the console slots. 5 Tac consoles and just two ENG? The Defiant Retrofit is more ENG heavy there xD
**** grocer.
I might have been wrong. A2b will maximize this much better.
TRIBBLE.
yup. or you can think about it like an akira that trades its 3rd ENS tac for a LTC tac skill, if you want to avoid AtB. a sci LTC could be interesting, but without a battlecloak i don't think terribly viable. just a COM tac with no AtB build isn't enough for a dogfighting non cloaker
Fleet variant has 3 eng Slots. Deliberately to get people to buy fleet version.
yeah, drunk, its tru.
after just 1 match of testing, i can see now whats up.
damn the man.
ship tanks like a monster.
with sci team, eng team, and tac team and rsp and omega and lalalalala all at global...
fudge.
at least im back in a fedscort when i log in to pew.
have fun kill bad guys
edit: i may drop eng team and go eptw1 or epte1, and drop in a dem and doff for that 8 second no drain alpha punch overload and crf... dunno yet...maybe in a week or so after pushing the defenses.
Could make the Defiant the most broken escort in the game if they wanted pretty easily.
BOFF Seating: Cmd Tac | Ltc Tac | Lt Eng | Lt Uni | Ens Sci
Consoles: 3 Eng; 1 Sci; 6 Tac
Bump Shield Mod to .99
Hull: 33333
Bump turn to 19
Integrate the cloak
Laugh all the way home.
-Only Ens Sci? Yeah, that ship never had or used much Sci; it wasn't an explorer, it was a destroyer.
-Integrate cloak? Yeah, I don't ever recal Sisko saying "Warf; to the Defiant in 5 mins, and grab that disgruntled Romulan lady and her cloak on your way."
-And yeah, leave it a 5 BOFF ship.
Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot: Make the quad cannons equal to the fleet weapons. [ACC]x2 [DMG]x2 and get rid of the silly engine drain.
It still seems to work fine.
But that's you and most pvpers, but what about the other 99.99% of the playerbase? STO players that are here because they're trek fans would much rather hang on using an iconic ship rather than a more powerful one, so long as its within reason. That's why the iconics have to be such utter jokes, so not even the hardcore trek fans will want to fly around in an iconic ship for long. Imagine if the masses of ultra casuals were NOT buying lockboxes or 9 ship packs because they wre content to fly the iconic ships?