Well I'm just gonna start off by saying that I fly the Fleet D'deridex. It is an absolute fantastic ship, unfortunately its a glass cannon though, it tends to die a lot. I load it up with a lot of the heals and the consoles to try and make it survive a little better.
So when I warp into an elite queue, the first thing that I do is really just take a step away from the keyboard and talk to my bridge officers on what the plan of action is for this mission. Normally is a nice useful fellow named Toran Khev. Throughout my journey as a Romulan Officer, he as been a valuable insight into what I should and should not do. Basically whatever he says goes.
Then Toran Khev, or another one of my useful bridge officers will tell me what they recommend I do, and then I take another minute or two and deliberate on their advice and whether or not their background is really suited to what the mission will entail and whether or not I should listen to them. Sometimes I find that the bridge officer who responds to me doesn't really have the best grasp on the situation at hand, so at that point I flash back to my orb experience with Captain Sisko, and ask myself, what would Sisko do? Pretty much at this point, I just leave it up to the Prophets to guide me to victory.
So after I have established a plan of action and have received the Prophets blessing, I direct my helmsman to lay in a course for the enemy, and inform him to use some various attack patterns. So now we're on our way to engage the Borg, I get on the ship's intercom and inform my crew that the situation is grave, this is the same exact species that the Federation had such a hard time with at wolf 359, so they need to know that its gettin real.
After informing my crew of the dangers that we will be facing and motivating them to do their duty, we begin to combat the Borg. Thankfully I have some nice polaron beams installed on my ship that I obtained on a diplomatic mission to the Dominion. My trusty tactical officer, Toran Khev begins to fire at will, since I trust his judgment on what to shoot at. Thanks to a nifty little combo between my bridge officers and my duty officers I am able to use a fancy ability called Auxillary to Battery. This allows Toran Khev to fire more often. This Auxillary to Battery thing is much more than a bridge officer ability, its more of a lifestyle choice.
All of a sudden my ship is in a tractor beam and cannot move, luckily my weapons are still firing and thanks to a semi useful valdore console, I am gaining a little bit of shields back every once in awhile. Unfortunately this console is not enough to keep my ship and its brave valiant crew alive, so we succumb to the borg and are forced to respawn.
So little by little myself and the brave fleet that I am apart of in this queue to stop the Borg with begin to whittle down the giant monstrosity that is the Borg vessels. By the time its all said and done, we have all respawned several times. We're gonna need a bigger fleet.
Now a big tactical cube warps in, this thing is massive and carries a lot of firepower. It somehow manages to drain my shields even though there isn't a debuff icon present while my shields are failing, the ability needs nerfed and the icon needs fixed btw, and I die again since my valdore console simply isn't doing a good enough job of healing me. So my brave team is out there fighting the Tactical Cube probably worried for their crews well being since they just saw how quickly my vessel was defeated.
A minute later I finally get back into the game and I fly towards the tactical cube and fire everything. Mines, cannons, torpedos and beams. Everything must go. About after fighting just the Tactical cube for 5-7 minutes it eventually is defeated, but we paid a heavy price.
Also how are we supposed to be reaching these 15 minute optional timers? This hardly seems long enough for such a intensely challenging Borg invasion. Doesn't hardly seem fair that the best of the best might make it, but the average player fails it every time. Just give everyone the marks off the bat and I think it would make it more enjoyable.
Anyways, thats my Elite Stf experience, it is rather time consuming and difficult.
This guy is the perfect example of your average STO player and the reason you cannot nerf the valdore console.
One thing you can note very often, that percentage chances and statistics are often not intuitively well understand. A 2.5 % proc sounds rare, but if you have, say 25 proc events per 8 seconds, that would actually amount to about a ~47 % chance to trigger it in those 8 seconds on average, and a 72 % chance after 16 seconds
mancom's statistics basically show us what the proc chance will amount to overall, taking into account how often people actually fire.
It seems to be more that someone set a nice trap so that the thread could be derailed and it worked reasonably well. It's a good tactic to derail a thread and bury the actual arguments.
In short, personal attacks should simply be reported and ignored, focus on the actual arguments about the items in question. Unless you think that won't "win" you the topic.
Indeed. Of course, it may not be what is mechanically the best option for cryptic, depending on how easy or difficult it is to implement such a cap.
As you all continue to overlook the fact that those statistics are worthless, misleading and uninformative - seems like all you guys want to do is take some misguided conclusion from an incorrect interpretation of the data to spearhead some selfish narrow-minded PVP centric nerf everything campaign. And when someone calls you out for it, you call them derailers - well YES I am trying to derail this nonsense.
Then might I suggest you get some RELIABLE data before spouting nonsense on the forums which could lead to a nerf that would have substantial and far reaching consenquences on gameplay for MANY people?!?!?!
As far as I understood it, this is how it works for all shield heals. All other shield heals will have the same tendency to "overheal". So it is basically just background noise.
as you can see, power to shields directly affects both regeneration AND innate resistances. in short, romulan shield are both, less resistant and regenerates slower than FED and KDF shields.
THIS IS FACT. without the VC romulan ships will have set power levels to shields the same as fed/kdf does. why is THAT a problem? look at that powerlevels page again. in order to dump more power to shields, romulan ship will have to lose one of three things or a combination of the three. those three things are, less DPS through less power to weapons,(there goes overcapping) or less engine power which means less speed and maybe less defense. Less defense mean the romulan ship will be hit more and take more DMG, or lastly, less aux power which means less effectiveness of a whole long list of powers AND reduce cloak effectiveness, AND less perception. the roumlan must choose on one of these or a small amount of ALL of these just to match shield power. OR they can reduce power to shield, have ok amounts of power in the other systems, and use the VC to cover the difference in shields. the VC isnt OP, it is NEEDED and without it romulan ships are just weaker. why do you thin SOO many romulans are in lockbox ships? the reduced power levels are a BIG DEAL.
This is an interesting point, but:
- A single console from a Zen-requiring ship should not balance a whole faction.
- You have yet to establish that the valdore console's healing actually counters only these drawbacks.
Efficiency skills will raise your power levels the lower your current power setting is - that means Romulan ships will be able to get more power out of these skills than non-Romulan ships. Not enough to catch up it all, but you can catch some of it. (I think you can get between 4-10 points compensated)
40 points of less shield power than a Fed ship would mean you'd miss about 160 % of shield regeneration and 11.2 % shield damage reduction.
Does the valdore really provide only the equivalent of +160 % shield regeneration and 12 % damage reduction? (+160 % shield regeneration on a Mark XI Regeneration shield would normally amount to about 434.2 shield points per 6 seconds.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
As far as I understood it, this is how it works for all shield heals. All other shield heals will have the same tendency to "overheal". So it is basically just background noise.
er no... other shield heals tend to be triggered when you NEED the heal, valdore heals whether you want it or not - that produces much more overheal
er no... other shield heals tend to be triggered when you NEED the heal, valdore heals whether you want it or not - that produces much more overheal
Do they? EptS is pretty much a power that having on all the time is a good idea since the shield resists it grants is so great. Science Team gets often triggered in response to debuffs that it can clear, regardless of your shield state.
And the Valdore Console will usually get triggered when you are in a firefight and likely exposed to counter-fire.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
So say's the PvP hero..............Bring the biggest crutch you have you probably need it
I dont mind pointing out OP conso;es gear ect...................Its what i do inbetween Estf's for fun
Have fun in the PvP Ques we will get along just fine in PvE without you
My Scimitar as my Excelsior, Mobius, Tempest, Avenger ecc. kills in PvP, probably you're the one who needs a crutch after yet another warp core breach.
Like if someone cares of doing ESTFs all along here. You've came in the wrong neighborhood kid. We play something more challenging that popping cubes and feeling so pro for it.
Well I'm just gonna start off by saying that I fly the Fleet D'deridex. It is an absolute fantastic ship, unfortunately its a glass cannon though, it tends to die a lot. I load it up with a lot of the heals and the consoles to try and make it survive a little better.
So when I warp into an elite queue, the first thing that I do is really just take a step away from the keyboard and talk to my bridge officers on what the plan of action is for this mission. Normally is a nice useful fellow named Toran Khev. Throughout my journey as a Romulan Officer, he as been a valuable insight into what I should and should not do. Basically whatever he says goes.
Then Toran Khev, or another one of my useful bridge officers will tell me what they recommend I do, and then I take another minute or two and deliberate on their advice and whether or not their background is really suited to what the mission will entail and whether or not I should listen to them. Sometimes I find that the bridge officer who responds to me doesn't really have the best grasp on the situation at hand, so at that point I flash back to my orb experience with Captain Sisko, and ask myself, what would Sisko do? Pretty much at this point, I just leave it up to the Prophets to guide me to victory.
So after I have established a plan of action and have received the Prophets blessing, I direct my helmsman to lay in a course for the enemy, and inform him to use some various attack patterns. So now we're on our way to engage the Borg, I get on the ship's intercom and inform my crew that the situation is grave, this is the same exact species that the Federation had such a hard time with at wolf 359, so they need to know that its gettin real.
After informing my crew of the dangers that we will be facing and motivating them to do their duty, we begin to combat the Borg. Thankfully I have some nice polaron beams installed on my ship that I obtained on a diplomatic mission to the Dominion. My trusty tactical officer, Toran Khev begins to fire at will, since I trust his judgment on what to shoot at. Thanks to a nifty little combo between my bridge officers and my duty officers I am able to use a fancy ability called Auxillary to Battery. This allows Toran Khev to fire more often. This Auxillary to Battery thing is much more than a bridge officer ability, its more of a lifestyle choice.
All of a sudden my ship is in a tractor beam and cannot move, luckily my weapons are still firing and thanks to a semi useful valdore console, I am gaining a little bit of shields back every once in awhile. Unfortunately this console is not enough to keep my ship and its brave valiant crew alive, so we succumb to the borg and are forced to respawn.
So little by little myself and the brave fleet that I am apart of in this queue to stop the Borg with begin to whittle down the giant monstrosity that is the Borg vessels. By the time its all said and done, we have all respawned several times. We're gonna need a bigger fleet.
Now a big tactical cube warps in, this thing is massive and carries a lot of firepower. It somehow manages to drain my shields even though there isn't a debuff icon present while my shields are failing, the ability needs nerfed and the icon needs fixed btw, and I die again since my valdore console simply isn't doing a good enough job of healing me. So my brave team is out there fighting the Tactical Cube probably worried for their crews well being since they just saw how quickly my vessel was defeated.
A minute later I finally get back into the game and I fly towards the tactical cube and fire everything. Mines, cannons, torpedos and beams. Everything must go. About after fighting just the Tactical cube for 5-7 minutes it eventually is defeated, but we paid a heavy price.
Also how are we supposed to be reaching these 15 minute optional timers? This hardly seems long enough for such a intensely challenging Borg invasion. Doesn't hardly seem fair that the best of the best might make it, but the average player fails it every time. Just give everyone the marks off the bat and I think it would make it more enjoyable.
Anyways, thats my Elite Stf experience, it is rather time consuming and difficult.
If your can't hold your ground against a computer-driven ship I don't want to imagine your PvP knowledge of this game, even less debating on Valdore console. And if your DPS sucks and tanking sucks as well what's the whole point of using it? Only heavy hitting tacs can run it. As far as I read, your performance was less than average. A group of PvPers can clear an elite in minutes, tell them how "hard" it is. You'll get the same answer from each one.
An example: that average EPtS freqvency use... Its ridicoulous, the majority of players base have 2 copies and are running EPtS constantly.
The 80s between EPtS activations seems counterintuitive at first, but it becomes clearer when you think about it:
Not everyone who uses it has two copies, many have only one copy though possibly with cooldown reducing doffs that are chance-based and can fail. Activations are only recorded when it actually heals something, so everytime one activates EPtS at perfect shields it is not counted (this can happen either because one was not taking damage for a while or because other shield heals already filled the shields). There are players who use it situationally and not whenever it is available.
Do they? EptS is pretty much a power that having on all the time is a good idea since the shield resists it grants is so great. Science Team gets often triggered in response to debuffs that it can clear, regardless of your shield state.
And the Valdore Console will usually get triggered when you are in a firefight and likely exposed to counter-fire.
EPTS has a 30s cycle and science is not triggered as much - both do have overheal to some extent but no where near like valdore, and it's not even certain valdore only records heals when shields are less than 100% - that too is an assumption.
The 80s between EPtS activations seems counterintuitive at first, but it becomes clearer when you think about it:
Not everyone who uses it has two copies, many have only one copy though possibly with cooldown reducing doffs that are chance-based and can fail. Activations are only recorded when it actually heals something, so everytime one activates EPtS at perfect shields it is not counted (this can happen either because one was not taking damage for a while or because other shield heals already filled the shields). There are players who use it situationally and not whenever it is available.
If you have two copies ,it becomes almost a must to rotate them regularly, and that means you will often trigger them when the heal is not needed yet. It's even more so if you use two different EptX powers (plus potentially DOFFs) - it really sucks to have just triggered EPtA to boost your science skill only to realize your EptS is needed but you need to wait for the system cooldown to run out. Of course, people (well, me) aren't perfect and TRIBBLE this up, too.
(What's also interestnig to consider is the opportunity cost involved here - having two EptX powers could theoretically mean activating it every 30 seconds, yes, sure - but it also means not having two engineering powers for something else. That's 2 powers, while the valdore console only costs you one single console slot, so either a passive buff or a single other power.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
2. no one has addressed the power issue. all you guys have done is push it aside and ignore it and this simply will not due. The fact is, without the valdore console(VC), you have an entire faction worth of ships which are at 160 power while everyone else is at 200. youre side has said the counter for this is the battle cloak, and sing powers. Now, i consider myself a student of war and as such i look at these aspects with a tactical mind. YOU MUST consider a total picture when looking at nerfing/buffing. not CANNOT only look at one thing in question but that one thing affects and is affected by everything else.This is why i bring up many things when considering a console and whether it truely is broken. a "total picture" must be seen. Considering being SUPER OP in PVE is irrealivant because of the ease of PVE and let fact that pve isnt here complaining......the context i will be discussing in PVP only. Let examine each of these to see their true tactical worth:
A couple of things here...
Regarding the base40 vs. base50. Given the way various "efficiency" skills and the like work, it's going to be the rare person that's actually seeing that overall loss of 40 power. Admittedly, it shouldn't simply be written off because even a Rom can 125+ across the board - what certain players can do, those edge cases...don't set the standard. However, what each player is actually seeing is going to be based on their particular build and what they're doing. I see it on Willard, but I don't feel it on Willard because of the way I fly him. Some folks will both see and feel it while others will not.
Havelock's Power Calculator can be extremely helpful for folks wanting to see the actual difference running a Singularity Core vs. Warp Core will have on their power levels.
It's not only a PvP complaint...er...there are complaints about it in PvE taking place in this thread as well.
Battle cloak, or BC for the sake of this debate is a cool ability. It allows one to control his participation in the battle with an amount of risk. the risks are, lost of shields and a brief openness allowong an enemy to kill you IF they are fast enough. Granted their ARE some rewards to this such as the bonus dmg upon exiting cloak but make no mistake. BC is intended to give the play control over when and how he fights. This has much more power tin this regard than normal cloak which only allows one to decide when and IF he fights. BC, in addition to what normal cloak allows, gives one the power to exit battle at will. Essentially makes the player able to retreat with little drawback. One thing to note however, other than this and the 40% bonus damage, there is NO way to use BC to kill, only to set up attacks and exit battle. that is all. The +40% only lasts for 5-10 seconds if that, more with the scimitar which i will get to in a moment. the abuse bonus encourages a play style which rewards cloaking and decloaking repeatedly. THIS means a ship is and never should be if the fight for long. and the ships are designed that way in game. ALL romulans ships are less sturdy than FED/KDF ships. the reason for THAT is the -40 power which i will get to. BC by itself cant kill, it is a "set up" and "retreating" tool. thats all. A powerful one yes, but a NON-killing tool. YES it does make killing or "Vaping" possible, but like many things, no own its own.
A few things here...
Ambush is not +40% damage. That's a typo in the tooltip. It was bug reported during the S9 testing on Tribble, but it still made its way to Holodeck. The basic Ambush bonus is +15%. It's a bonus boost rather than a strength boost, so it works like EPtW/APO/APA instead of like a Tac Console or a skill boost. A Subterfuge BOFF will increase that damage bonus to +25%. KDF Raiders have an Improved Ambush, +25% to begin with - and - I'm still asking around, looking for an answer of whether an Embassy BOFF with Sub stacks with that to take it to +35%. Cause yeah, if it does, add in Raider Flanking - grab a Fleet HoH'SuS and have some fun, right? :P
Ambush duration can be increased by either having a Reman Captain with Infiltrator or a Reman BOFF with Infiltrator/Superior Infiltrator. Willard, a Reman, has an Ambush duration of 13-14 seconds.
As for the Romulan ships being less sturdy than KDF/Fed ships - I'm flabbergasted anybody would say that. Take a look at a Fleet T'varo and a Fleet B'rel - the two ships with EBC. How on Earth is the T'varo less sturdy than the B'rel? Take a look at a Fleet Ha'feh...yes, those would be the stats of a Fleet Advanced Escort - only the Fleet Ha'feh has a Battle Cloak and the FAE does not. It was one of the major sour points during the LoR beta. Compare the Romulan Warbirds to the KDF Raptors/Battle Cruisers...then look at the KDF boats having a Standard Cloak while the Warbirds have a Battle Cloak.
Where the KDF Raiders eat it in a certain area for their Battle Cloaks, Warbirds "are supposedly" balanced not only for the Battle Cloaks but also the Singularity Abilities...by having base40 Subsystem Power (which again, rarely actually exists as a player eating a loss of 40 overall power).
First up we have Overcharge. this is a poor power. it reduces DPS....Yes reduces DPS. your crits are reduced(unsure on this one) and power is set and maintained at 100, not 125. this means you cannot overcap weapons and the weapon do less power than they should be. now you ARE firing faster, but at a reduce power amount so you break even in that regard however, if you would of simply hit CRF instead, you would have done more DPS and that is why you rarely see it used. It is why you wont kill anyone with it, it is impractical and thus, NOT very useful.... Virtually useless i truth.
Thats one down.
The 100 Weapon Power thing is definitely a /facepalm sort of thing - not sure why they don't have it just fire at whatever your current Weapon Power level is if it is below 100. Why do I say if it is below 100..because if it is below 100, it gets bumped up to 100. Who would be below 100 that's not running projectiles? Don't ask me...I'm just saying that just like it bumps down it bumps up. But yeah, the dropping to 100 thing is kind of meh.
Jump is one of my favorites it allows one to jump 5k ahead of their position while creating a hazard. Said hazard does do damage BUT it isnt any thing that will kill another player. Its pull effect in easily escaped as well. the good thing it does do is decrease Acc but even this only aids the romulan in escape by reducing the chance of being hit. And this is a good thing too because ANY SP causes the cloak to go on a 5 second CD. for those 5 seconds, anything can happen and if you jumped, you were in trouble when you jumped meaning, youre in trouble for another 5 seconds at least. there it also the issue ofr jump telling your Opponent your intentions. you jumped, youre next move is to cloak. GW and TB should be THEIR next move to prevent your escape. Honestly it is easier to simply cloak first, THEN jump to dump you sing power levels which REDUCE your cloak and stealth. Contrary to popular believe it does break lock. ships may disappear and when the reappear, youre still locked on them....at least my ships are when i am fighting romulans. what could be the cause of that is adapted maco shielding procing. So it doesnt break lock... and if escape is why your doing it, and jump tells your Opponent theres a chance youre about the cloak and a five second window where they can prevent it, and because of ALL THAT you cloak first.......how does jump REALLY help you? It doesnt.
thats two down.
Kind of have to disagree massively on your thoughts regarding Singularity Jump and its use(s).
But first a question/curious observation I've had in regard to the target breaking aspect. It does break lock for me. It's easy enough to reacquire the lock, but the lock does get broken. However, it's not a placate type of lock breaking. So for instance, somebody can maintain a TB on a person that jumped - just like they can maintain TB on Target#1 while switching to Target#2 to shoot or do whatever. So are you sure that it is not a case that it is breaking the lock for you and that you are simply relocking that target because it's so easy to do when they appear rather than it not breaking the lock?
As for Singularity Jump, yep - can definitely be used as an escape or part of an overall escape strategy; but I think you're downplaying some of the rest of what it does.
No, it's damage is not going to kill another player...well, maybe if they were in an EV suit, eh? Lol, but no - seriously - it does do damage...and...that means it's a means to deal with targetable projectiles. Got somebody that's spamming the area with targetable projectiles - drop a Singularity. They're gone. The damage is also going to vary depending on how you're built.
While on average the negative repel (sorry, had to say it - I don't know why Cryptic didn't just label it as pull instead of being technical with the -repel angle) won't be enough to affect a player much or they can easily escape it, this is going to depend on how you're built. It can trap/snag certain ships when they don't have a buff available and can be used to clump pets. It's also something that can be used in conjunction with a Grav Well for some additional clumping action.
The Accuracy Debuff not only helps the Romulan escape potentially escape by avoiding some weapon proc that could result in a bad day, but it quite literally is an Accuracy Debuff - it's going to increase the probability that people do not hit you or friendly targets. It's a potential means of reducing enemy damage to your team. The more they miss, the less damage they do, the less your team needs to heal, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, I run a [Jump] core for the bonus to the Accuracy Debuff.
The timing angle, that's an interesting one. Because yes, using a Singularity Ability triggers a 5s CD on the cloak - but so too does triggering cloak cause a 5s CD on being able to use a Singularity Ability. Given that the cloak doesn't actually kick in for 3s, you're going to be leaving yourself exposed for 3s at a closer range and without the Accuracy Debuff - thus you're subject to that much more damage while you're shields are down. You're also potentially still going to be in range of things of CPB...where if you'd jumped first, you're more likely to have been able to get out of range of that.
Something else to consider when using Singularity Jump is the use of QSM (Quantum Singularity Manipulation). Not only is this going to boost all your Sci skills by 100 (thus increase the pull/damage of the Singularity), but it is going to provide stealth/cloak coverage during the 4-5s gap between the Singularity Jump and hitting your Battle Cloak.
This one is another of my favorites the little toy creates copies of your ship. NON-combat copies which confuse torps and pets. while hell for carriers using the romulan plasme torp, they should be in pvp ANYWAY and i have to wonder why youre needing this against such a set up...unless youre troll and if so, for the laughs please continue...moving on, the shadows confuse pets and destructible torps. It also bossts your stealth in a brief cloak-like effect. but there are some things to note. while suddenly there are at most five copies of your ship for a total of six, you toon name is STILL above the real you screaming, "THE REAL ONE IS HERE!!!! THE REAL ONE IS HERE!!!!" because of this, the escape value is somewhat reduced and if its the torps your trying to get waya from, why not just use shockwave? in the end this is the best ability for escaping and even then its not THAT great. it still causes the 5 second cloak CD. the pluses are that for a spilt second, in all the chaos, you might cuase your opponent to lock on to one of the copies giving you the time needed to escape. You hit WS spam copies, and i second later the power cloaks you. the 5 second CD elapses and you hit the real cloak maintaining your disappearing act. But you STILL cant kill another player with it so how it this OP?
First kinda, KINDA useful one.
The Confuse for torps comes about if you're running a [Shad] core.
As for the cloak when dropping Shadows...hrmmm, I'm usually cloaked when I drop them. There's the 5s cloak that occurs after ~20s - once the Shadows expire, but I've never seen a buff appear nor anything change about the ship otherwise when the Shadows are first dropped. Yeah, just tested it - didn't change the appearance of the ship in any way - no buff appeared (well, not until the Shadows expired for the 5s cloak). For the life of me, I can't remember too many folks using it to have noticed whether they disappeared briefly or not...will have to hunt somebody down to see if they'll drop Shadows for me on that one.
For the most part though, personally I only use it for two reasons:
1) To Troll. C'mon, it's epic. It's amazing how many folks will completely unload into a Shadow - burning all their buffs, tossing all their debuffs - on a Shadow. I suppose that could be used strategically to get folks to burn buffs/debuffs - but c'mon, it's trolltastic!
2) To burn Singularity Charge. I don't want to eat the Stealth Debuff that comes from building Singularity Charge. -400 at 5 pips/100 charge is pretty steep. 50 = 1km, so that's an 8km debuff...
this is another OK one. you get an shield heal, an effect like a secondary hull worth of HP, and a sheild heal over time. At first glance this sound awesome, in practice....not so much. if you are in trouble, and you would be to be hitting this power, you should know a few things. You arent cloaking for 5 seconds and i hope you can survive that long, the plus hull points can be cleared and eroded by a decent volley, the shield will barely be noticed and the shield heal over time will be noticed even less so. i honestly didnt know the shields were even buffed and ive been using my rom for a year now. will it save you? in pve maybe but we arent talking pve. i dont see any borg here complaining that the VC is broke so PVP it is. In PVP this will not save you. it will only prolong your life for a second or two. this means you have a bit more time to watch your ship die. this is the order of events: youre dying, you hit QA, your hull buffs, your bonus hull disappears under fire, you die. STILL. it will NEVER kill another player. it barely has an effect on you, much less them. in pvp, this is useless.
thats One KINDA useful power and three useless ones......
While this is the second to last Singularity Ability I would consider using (Overcharge being the first), it's uh - Miracle Worker with the shield heal split between the heal and a heal over time. It can buy folks the time they need for something else (either from themselves or another) just like MW. Personally, I don't use it on Willard because if I'm ever in the position of needing something like that...I'm already dead...the game just hasn't processed those results yet...lol.
Shockwave is ok, it will kill destructible torps, which if your shields are up, wont hurt you, and it MIGHT kill hanger pets. if they are a few of the stronger ones will laugh at you. (looking at you romulan drones...) this power ignores sheilds which is AWESOME but the damage it does is SOOOO poor, most player ships wont even budge percentage wise....if they do, you might get 1-2% damage out of it, which is healed buy innate hull healing......this, while an offensinve power WILL never kill a pve target that your weapons didnt ready weaken and couldnt finish off faster, not to mention an actual player who wont even notice the effects of it beyond, "OHHH the colors!"
thats one, ONE kinda useful power and four useless ones.
This would be the third least Singularity Ability that I use (yeah, I basically Jump a bunch and troll with Shadows). Even in saying that though, like anything - you'll get out of the Plasma Shockwave what you put into it. Without any investment, yeah - it's not going to do much. As part of a comprehensive build that involves related effects - you're going to get more out of it. I'm not built to take advantage of it, so I almost never use it - even then, it's usually because I'm asleep and activate it accidentally. But still, why would one expect a return on something without an investment...?
THAT is a fair trade for -40 power SERIOUSLY?! Now i know what weve been told but honestly, those powers are a joke. A JOKE. they are in no way OP, or even all that useful to be honest. So please, lets not bring up SP again.
Are you actually losing 40 power though? I mean, honestly - it's the extremely rare build where somebody's running with Balanced settings without spending any skill points or equipping any gear.
So...would you rather have that 40 power back (as well as give up the Singularity Abilities) and have your Shield Modifier drop?
Is that right on the Daeinos? If so, they're getting screwed compared to the others, eh? But yeah, anyway - would you rather have your Shield Mod dropped? Thus lowering your shield cap and shield regen? Basically eating an 11% or higher drop to both?
Simple. That -40 power. As you can see those powers above are pretty useless. and the only thing worth mentioning is BC. but that -40 MUST STILL BE ADDRESSED. and its effects on the ships must be addresses as well.
But it's not actually -40 if you've done anything with a skill build, geared the ship in any fashion, and are not running at balanced power settings. There's no hit to the shield mod like there is for KDF boats. And the value of the Singularity Abilities is going to be debatable...since it's highly subjective.
Someone said the -40 isnt really spread out over the 4 systems. you simply start with 160 power instead of 200. That is true but what this means is there is less power to go around.
But when you actually take a look at the amount lost, it's not going to be 40. Seriously, grab Havelock's Power Calculator - fill it out based on your toon - then bump it from base40 to base50 to see how much actual power is lost on the build.
let consider my current Advance Romulan Dyson. At idle my power levels are Weapons 116/100, shields 44/20, engines 53/25 aux 66/15. as you can see and would imagine, as a science ship i have gear to boost aux. but to put that in perspective lets look at my Fed's Fleet Avenger. Weapons are 123/100, shields are 57/35, engines 82/50 and aux is 40/15. now these are my normal power levels. OF COURSE if i am going defensive these level chance a lot. but on the norm, this is where they are set. now, i know the shield are what we are discussing because THAT is what the VC affect so lets give the avenger thr SAME power as to shields as the dyson. Shield power on the Avenger goes to 45/20 but engine power is NUTS. 94/65. As you can see, the fed ship has far more speed more matter what set up like this. this means more defense and more mobility. But the avenger IS a crusier so maybe engine power and speed isnt you thing. lets match engine power with he dyson. engines now at 60/25...still more than the dyson...but that aux power is now nuts. heals are suddenly way more powerful. (aux power is 69/55) i cant even bring aux power down without other stuff going up and weapon are maxed out.
The Avenger receives a boost of +10 Weapon & +10 Engine Power. The Rom ADSD receives a boost of +15 Auxiliary Power. What skills does each character have?
How are the two ships geared otherwise? Anything providing +Power on one but not the other? What about the Cores? Taking into account the Warp Cores +7.5% of X to Y? Taking into account the bonus to power a Singularity Core can gain from Singularity Charge?
What about the Captains themselves? Is your Fed an Alien with Efficient Captain? Does one have Warp Theorist but not the other?
Is one running Efficient BOFFs but not the other?
To make the comparison, you really need to limit all the other potential factors that could result in the differences you are seeing...
Now, what does that all mean? engines and shields, now matter what i do WILL ALWAYS be higher than on a romulan ship. there is no way around this. Now we all knew this already, that whole 160 power vs 200 power. but as you can see those SP are a joke and the only thing worth -40 is the BC. This power issue means that two systems will ALWAYS be lower (at idle) than fed/kdf ships. but since we are talking shields and we have established the the Shield power is either ALWAYS goingto be lower than fed/KDF ships OR the raise Shield power something else will be lacking lets see if we can find what power or the lack there of, does to ones shields.
But that's not true. You can cap out on a Warbird just like you can on a non-Warbird. Easier to do on the non-Warbird? Sure, but it doesn't have the BC (or is not eating the shield mod negative bonus) nor the Singularity Abilities.
I seriously believe you need to take a look at the awesome work that Havelock has done on Subsystem Power.
It's not a case of saying that there is no difference - but it's usually nowhere near as bad as people attempt to make it out to be.
as you can see, power to shields directly affects both regeneration AND innate resistances. in short, romulan shield are both, less resistant and regenerates slower than FED and KDF shields.
without the VC romulan ships will have set power levels to shields the same as fed/kdf does. why is THAT a problem? look at that powerlevels page again. in order to dump more power to shields, romulan ship will have to lose one of three things or a combination of the three. those three things are, less DPS through less power to weapons,(there goes overcapping) or less engine power which means less speed and maybe less defense. Less defense mean the romulan ship will be hit more and take more DMG, or lastly, less aux power which means less effectiveness of a whole long list of powers AND reduce cloak effectiveness, AND less perception. the roumlan must choose on one of these or a small amount of ALL of these just to match shield power. OR they can reduce power to shield, have ok amounts of power in the other systems, and use the VC to cover the difference in shields. the VC isnt OP, it is NEEDED and without it romulan ships are just weaker. why do you thin SOO many romulans are in lockbox ships? the reduced power levels are a BIG DEAL.
This makes no sense. It's suggesting that Cryptic attempted to balance the Battle Cloak and Singularity Abilities by reducing the base power levels and then turned around to sell a $10 fix for it...
It further doesn't make sense, because you're basically arguing that Warbirds are that much more OP because of being able to buy that $10 fix...
Now, if you can disprove ANY of the above WITH HARD FACTS AND NOT YOUR OPINION then i would reconsider my viewpoint however, no one has even come close to doing that.
Romulan power levels are the reason for the VC AND OTHER CONSOLES. No, you cant just say, "Singularity power and the cloak are the trade off," and if you do you fail to realiize it is a very poor trade off and the devs thought so too otherwise they would of even made the VC and other consoles to rectify the problems of lower power.
Were you there during the LoR beta? Were you there for the discussions with archoncryptic from salamiinferno's thread on the matter? I'm guessing no...I could be wrong...but I'm guessing no. Cause if you had...well, I can't see that you would have posted any of this.
the only, THE ONLY romulan thing the is broken in pve is the scimitar and while yes i have one, I HATE IT SOOOO MUCH and never really use it. in fact i myself am deciding on a lockbox ship which will not cost my soul to get for my romulan. i will probley end up in one of the Talshiar ships. I just have to come up with a good reason stroy-wise for him to have it considering he HATES the talshiar....
You are kidding right??? Every player and their grandma are using Leach.
Not kidding in the least. It is an exaggeration to say that everybody is using it or even that everybody needs it. It is simply not the case.
It is one thing to say it is damn helpful on certain builds - even to say it is overly helpful on certain builds. It is another to say that about every build. It is simply not the case.
I really think that more reliable data is needed before coming to a conclusion, due to the overhealing issue. My chain of thought goes like this:
Many, if not all, warbirds are based around alpha strikes. Hence, the largest damage figures will be during these strikes. Valdore console heals will hence be largest during this time. These initial strikes are when shields are still close to full capacity. Therefore, the biggest heals are most likely overheals that are "ineffective". This would create a pretty big skew in the data.
The console does also needs fixing so that it procs only off weapons fire, as opposed to DoTs, etc. This also distorts the data, making it proc more often than intended.
As far as I understood it, this is how it works for all shield heals. All other shield heals will have the same tendency to "overheal". So it is basically just background noise.
This is an interesting point, but:
- A single console from a Zen-requiring ship should not balance a whole faction.
- You have yet to establish that the valdore console's healing actually counters only these drawbacks.
Efficiency skills will raise your power levels the lower your current power setting is - that means Romulan ships will be able to get more power out of these skills than non-Romulan ships. Not enough to catch up it all, but you can catch some of it. (I think you can get between 4-10 points compensated)
40 points of less shield power than a Fed ship would mean you'd miss about 160 % of shield regeneration and 11.2 % shield damage reduction.
Does the valdore really provide only the equivalent of +160 % shield regeneration and 12 % damage reduction? (+160 % shield regeneration on a Mark XI Regeneration shield would normally amount to about 434.2 shield points per 6 seconds.)
i admit it covers more drawbacks than just shield, but then it HAS TO. In addition to less shield regen and resists, romulans ships cannot heal themselves as well due to less aux power. They are also slower on averger due to less engine power. ALL this means that romulan ships take more daage thanks to a potentially less defense, less shield resists AND less shield regan. to top it off, they heal that damage slower thanks to less aux power....
^would you say that is accurate? It is ALL THAT that the VC helps to mitigate.
Regarding the base40 vs. base50. Given the way various "efficiency" skills and the like work, it's going to be the rare person that's actually seeing that overall loss of 40 power. Admittedly, it shouldn't simply be written off because even a Rom can 125+ across the board - what certain players can do, those edge cases...don't set the standard. However, what each player is actually seeing is going to be based on their particular build and what they're doing. I see it on Willard, but I don't feel it on Willard because of the way I fly him. Some folks will both see and feel it while others will not.
Havelock's Power Calculator can be extremely helpful for folks wanting to see the actual difference running a Singularity Core vs. Warp Core will have on their power levels.
It's not only a PvP complaint...er...there are complaints about it in PvE taking place in this thread as well.
You are correct here but you are comparing play style in regard to less power while i am simply speaking on there being less power and the effects it has on a ship. Now sure you are also right when you say it is possible to get 125 power in all systems. my rom in his dyson has done it himself. that isnt the point. the point is that no matter what you do on a romulan ship to get power, if the same is done on a warpcore equiped ship the results are far more effective.
A few things here...
Ambush is not +40% damage. That's a typo in the tooltip. It was bug reported during the S9 testing on Tribble, but it still made its way to Holodeck. The basic Ambush bonus is +15%. It's a bonus boost rather than a strength boost, so it works like EPtW/APO/APA instead of like a Tac Console or a skill boost. A Subterfuge BOFF will increase that damage bonus to +25%. KDF Raiders have an Improved Ambush, +25% to begin with - and - I'm still asking around, looking for an answer of whether an Embassy BOFF with Sub stacks with that to take it to +35%. Cause yeah, if it does, add in Raider Flanking - grab a Fleet HoH'SuS and have some fun, right? :P
for the love of god dont give me ideas....lol
about the tooltip typo i didnt know that. but there being LESS of a bonus helps my side of the debate dont you think?
Ambush duration can be increased by either having a Reman Captain with Infiltrator or a Reman BOFF with Infiltrator/Superior Infiltrator. Willard, a Reman, has an Ambush duration of 13-14 seconds.
As for the Romulan ships being less sturdy than KDF/Fed ships - I'm flabbergasted anybody would say that. Take a look at a Fleet T'varo and a Fleet B'rel - the two ships with EBC. How on Earth is the T'varo less sturdy than the B'rel? Take a look at a Fleet Ha'feh...yes, those would be the stats of a Fleet Advanced Escort - only the Fleet Ha'feh has a Battle Cloak and the FAE does not. It was one of the major sour points during the LoR beta. Compare the Romulan Warbirds to the KDF Raptors/Battle Cruisers...then look at the KDF boats having a Standard Cloak while the Warbirds have a Battle Cloak.
Where the KDF Raiders eat it in a certain area for their Battle Cloaks, Warbirds "are supposedly" balanced not only for the Battle Cloaks but also the Singularity Abilities...by having base40 Subsystem Power (which again, rarely actually exists as a player eating a loss of 40 overall power).
Players rarely lose -40 due to biulds. now i understand i opened to door on looking at the entire picture so i cant very well dance around you point here, which is a good point. But i can hold onto the fact that what is done on a warbird for power, when done on a warpcore equiped ship, results in more power LONGER usually. there fed/kdf ship who can max out ALL power in ALL systems at 100% of the time. i have yet to see a warbird do that and while i wont say it cant be done, it is FAR more rare and far harder to do....if it can do done. THIS means there are near unkillable fed ships out there and its not really easy and/or possible to do the same in a warbird....even WITH the VC. But since you brought up PVE, i just did hull tanked undine assault in an avenger.....there were time my shields would be gone and i would shrug and think, my hull regan is OP so i dont need to heal sheilds. granted, id pop a hull heal here and there.
The 100 Weapon Power thing is definitely a /facepalm sort of thing - not sure why they don't have it just fire at whatever your current Weapon Power level is if it is below 100. Why do I say if it is below 100..because if it is below 100, it gets bumped up to 100. Who would be below 100 that's not running projectiles? Don't ask me...I'm just saying that just like it bumps down it bumps up. But yeah, the dropping to 100 thing is kind of meh.
Kind of have to disagree massively on your thoughts regarding Singularity Jump and its use(s).
But first a question/curious observation I've had in regard to the target breaking aspect. It does break lock for me. It's easy enough to reacquire the lock, but the lock does get broken. However, it's not a placate type of lock breaking. So for instance, somebody can maintain a TB on a person that jumped - just like they can maintain TB on Target#1 while switching to Target#2 to shoot or do whatever. So are you sure that it is not a case that it is breaking the lock for you and that you are simply relocking that target because it's so easy to do when they appear rather than it not breaking the lock?
i am sure. what i have noticed is that a target jumps, they disappear(when lock is gone) once they reappear, with no input from myself, i am still locked on target. Now, i notice this mostly when i am on my romulan, is a dyson, a science ship which honestly might be why. in truth it doesnt occur on my fed as much and not at all on my kdf.
As for Singularity Jump, yep - can definitely be used as an escape or part of an overall escape strategy; but I think you're downplaying some of the rest of what it does.
No, it's damage is not going to kill another player...well, maybe if they were in an EV suit, eh? Lol, but no - seriously - it does do damage...and...that means it's a means to deal with targetable projectiles. Got somebody that's spamming the area with targetable projectiles - drop a Singularity. They're gone. The damage is also going to vary depending on how you're built.
While on average the negative repel (sorry, had to say it - I don't know why Cryptic didn't just label it as pull instead of being technical with the -repel angle) won't be enough to affect a player much or they can easily escape it, this is going to depend on how you're built. It can trap/snag certain ships when they don't have a buff available and can be used to clump pets. It's also something that can be used in conjunction with a Grav Well for some additional clumping action.
The Accuracy Debuff not only helps the Romulan escape potentially escape by avoiding some weapon proc that could result in a bad day, but it quite literally is an Accuracy Debuff - it's going to increase the probability that people do not hit you or friendly targets. It's a potential means of reducing enemy damage to your team. The more they miss, the less damage they do, the less your team needs to heal, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, I run a [Jump] core for the bonus to the Accuracy Debuff.
The timing angle, that's an interesting one. Because yes, using a Singularity Ability triggers a 5s CD on the cloak - but so too does triggering cloak cause a 5s CD on being able to use a Singularity Ability. Given that the cloak doesn't actually kick in for 3s, you're going to be leaving yourself exposed for 3s at a closer range and without the Accuracy Debuff - thus you're subject to that much more damage while you're shields are down. You're also potentially still going to be in range of things of CPB...where if you'd jumped first, you're more likely to have been able to get out of range of that.
i think this is more a prefrence thing.....lol prehaps we should test the pro/cons of each method.
Something else to consider when using Singularity Jump is the use of QSM (Quantum Singularity Manipulation). Not only is this going to boost all your Sci skills by 100 (thus increase the pull/damage of the Singularity), but it is going to provide stealth/cloak coverage during the 4-5s gap between the Singularity Jump and hitting your Battle Cloak.
will have to try this out.
The Confuse for torps comes about if you're running a [Shad] core.
As for the cloak when dropping Shadows...hrmmm, I'm usually cloaked when I drop them. There's the 5s cloak that occurs after ~20s - once the Shadows expire, but I've never seen a buff appear nor anything change about the ship otherwise when the Shadows are first dropped. Yeah, just tested it - didn't change the appearance of the ship in any way - no buff appeared (well, not until the Shadows expired for the 5s cloak). For the life of me, I can't remember too many folks using it to have noticed whether they disappeared briefly or not...will have to hunt somebody down to see if they'll drop Shadows for me on that one.
There have been times i set this off before cloaking and i have noticed that when the CD finishes for the BC, i am already cloaked.....and then im like, "LOLWUT?!" then i hit cloak, and the cloaking anamation occurs which cloaks an already cloaked ship......"LOLWUT." in the end, i began watching it and sure enough the stealth buff is applies as a brief cloak, which expires. if you use BC while this is active, you still cloak, and it still expires but it like one cloak ends and since the other cloak is on, you just stay invisible. it might be a bug i admit, but its my way to get around the 5sec CD.....
For the most part though, personally I only use it for two reasons:
1) To Troll. C'mon, it's epic. It's amazing how many folks will completely unload into a Shadow - burning all their buffs, tossing all their debuffs - on a Shadow. I suppose that could be used strategically to get folks to burn buffs/debuffs - but c'mon, it's trolltastic!
i said it above....dont give me ideas...LOL, although ive set it off when i only have one charge for the hope that this is what they do and it does work from time to time......silly noobs...lol
2) To burn Singularity Charge. I don't want to eat the Stealth Debuff that comes from building Singularity Charge. -400 at 5 pips/100 charge is pretty steep. 50 = 1km, so that's an 8km debuff...
this is what i do most of the time.
While this is the second to last Singularity Ability I would consider using (Overcharge being the first), it's uh - Miracle Worker with the shield heal split between the heal and a heal over time. It can buy folks the time they need for something else (either from themselves or another) just like MW. Personally, I don't use it on Willard because if I'm ever in the position of needing something like that...I'm already dead...the game just hasn't processed those results yet...lol.
...which is why its useless my friend...lol
This would be the third least Singularity Ability that I use (yeah, I basically Jump a bunch and troll with Shadows). Even in saying that though, like anything - you'll get out of the Plasma Shockwave what you put into it. Without any investment, yeah - it's not going to do much. As part of a comprehensive build that involves related effects - you're going to get more out of it. I'm not built to take advantage of it, so I almost never use it - even then, it's usually because I'm asleep and activate it accidentally. But still, why would one expect a return on something without an investment...?
Are you actually losing 40 power though? I mean, honestly - it's the extremely rare build where somebody's running with Balanced settings without spending any skill points or equipping any gear.
So...would you rather have that 40 power back (as well as give up the Singularity Abilities) and have your Shield Modifier drop?
Is that right on the Daeinos? If so, they're getting screwed compared to the others, eh? But yeah, anyway - would you rather have your Shield Mod dropped? Thus lowering your shield cap and shield regen? Basically eating an 11% or higher drop to both?
Nah...I'm oft easily distracted by such side discussions to the dismay of folks that create threads.
But it's not actually -40 if you've done anything with a skill build, geared the ship in any fashion, and are not running at balanced power settings. There's no hit to the shield mod like there is for KDF boats. And the value of the Singularity Abilities is going to be debatable...since it's highly subjective.
But what is done on a warbird for power is ALWAYS more effective when done on a warpcore ship. sure when skills and gear, and set up and play style you get negate nearly, if not all of that -40. now do that on a warpcore ship and you have more power than you know what to do with. I know you know that...ive SEEN you in kerrat sir....zipping about this way and that....
But when you actually take a look at the amount lost, it's not going to be 40. Seriously, grab Havelock's Power Calculator - fill it out based on your toon - then bump it from base40 to base50 to see how much actual power is lost on the build.
The Avenger receives a boost of +10 Weapon & +10 Engine Power. The Rom ADSD receives a boost of +15 Auxiliary Power. What skills does each character have?
both are tac toon. the rom in the dyson has skills to optimize the sci powers he uses while the fed is strickly set up to DPS and TANK.
both have 6 points in all this except for the fed and aux power. he has no points there.
How are the two ships geared otherwise? Anything providing +Power on one but not the other? What about the Cores? Taking into account the Warp Cores +7.5% of X to Y? Taking into account the bonus to power a Singularity Core can gain from Singularity Charge?
the avenger uses the obi core and the dyson uses a Singcore which gives bonuses to engines and aux.
What about the Captains themselves? Is your Fed an Alien with Efficient Captain? Does one have Warp Theorist but not the other?
fed is human, rom is well....romulan. both use thoerist.
Is one running Efficient BOFFs but not the other?
neither has them.
To make the comparison, you really need to limit all the other potential factors that could result in the differences you are seeing...
while i understand limiting factors, i comepared those ships because they are set up to have the power needed to be good at what they do...even if my piloting sucks....lol. but the fact remains, the total power reserves on the dyson are far lower however i WILL say this, once leech is going and the sing charges are up with me draining something, that lose of power is GONE. i am maxing everything and that lasts as long as i am draining. BUT. if this was done on a fed ship..........Tomarrow i might get the vestas just to have a true comparison.
But that's not true. You can cap out on a Warbird just like you can on a non-Warbird. Easier to do on the non-Warbird? Sure, but it doesn't have the BC (or is not eating the shield mod negative bonus) nor the Singularity Abilities.
I seriously believe you need to take a look at the awesome work that Havelock has done on Subsystem Power.
It's not a case of saying that there is no difference - but it's usually nowhere near as bad as people attempt to make it out to be.
im not saying it is "OMGZ super bad" but it IS present and thus has an effect. "other people" seem to want to ignore it entirely and i am glad to have a competent debate from the other side. this is how i learn....well...one of the ways.
Potentially, but not necessarily...
ture but can we agree that at the very well, this is true at the start of battle?
But it's not.
how so?
This makes no sense. It's suggesting that Cryptic attempted to balance the Battle Cloak and Singularity Abilities by reducing the base power levels and then turned around to sell a $10 fix for it...
It further doesn't make sense, because you're basically arguing that Warbirds are that much more OP because of being able to buy that $10 fix...
are you saying the dev wouldnt design the game and its components with making money in mind....that they would create money grabs? Do i REALLY need to go down the list? off the top of my head:
New escort TRIBBLE people who ALREADY paid for the fleet version.
The dyson's complete gear set being locked behind both a grind and a cstore ship....
the GalX. people wanted the GAL fixed, instead they left it alone, gave the galx a hanger and said, "here ya go!"
the avenger and its ability to cloak.....which isnt included.
thats just off the top of my head....
The Valdore console is not a Romulan ship. It's not standard equipment. It's not required equipment. Hell, it's useless equipment for certain builds.
i agree, my vapers dont even use it or the leech.
Well, there's a bunch of TLDR up there.
Were you there during the LoR beta? Were you there for the discussions with archoncryptic from salamiinferno's thread on the matter? I'm guessing no...I could be wrong...but I'm guessing no. Cause if you had...well, I can't see that you would have posted any of this.
i was not there but i submit that considering the changes in the VC made between now and then, some points made might be moot. i will however read up on your provided link below.
it is. i figured everyone else is throwing one out.....lol. joking aside, i have seen EVERYSHIP is game be killed in pvp. and a bunch of set ups to got with it. it is slowly becoming my belief that there are SOO many broken level things int he game that when you get to the pvp level of things, it all balances out. the imbalance only occurs when pve set ups are compared to pvp set ups and pve players are compared to pvp players. ive only been playing for a yaer or so and i have come a long way and have a long way to go before i am at yours and others like mini's level BUT.YES yours and mini's level. youre good. i dont care what you say. youre good. period. youre not going to trick me into thinking youre not. i can here it now....., "come chris im at cracked...1v1 me...i suck.....ill probley lose....." then silly me, "UMMM...ok," someone in the baackground goes, "its a trap." AND THEYRE RIGHT!!!!! LOL its ALWAYS a trap. did you see episode 3? Anikin and obiwan KNEW it was a trap and they went ANYWAY and while they lived, they crashed a starship, wrecking a starport and raining debris over god knows how much city.....granted there was a war happening in the sky and debris was falling everywhere but still.....it WAS a trap. but i digress from my tear....lol. i have seen ships called GARBAGE totally own a battle field. (kell's bortasqu) i have seen ships do things i never seen coming, (trying to vape scora's FBP ship on the first try....) and have seen more dmg done in one shot than i EVER thought possible....(mini's 200k crit.....) when you get to that level, and can survive 100K hits....and shrug them off...(my avenger can from time to time.), what ISNT broken to so degree. Half the people complaining HAS NO IDEA what happens in kerrat and would blown away to see some of it. i have brought friends to kerrat only to hear them rage at some risan corvette speed tanking.....or have them be the victim of HOBO gangbanging. this game has two worlds. PVP and PVE and when they met, people rage and cry and scream nerf. it isnt as bad as people think and neither is the VC.
you guys want it nerfed fine. and once it is, a new FOTM will come out and you can all rage until THAT is nerfed, and the the NEXT FOTM will come out and youll all rage against that...repeat repeat.
when will it end? when ANYONE can face roll anything with a mouse TRIBBLE? when five year olds can spacebar their way to OP-ness? when vets can put in the time they have put in only to have a month old toon clean their chronometers?
really guys? i hate to play the DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM card but seriously guys... if super easy is what you want stay doing stfs like gorn minefield. and pvp with people you know. i dont think its right to complain about a game because you cant enjoy it the way YOU want and you rage about how you cant play it the way YOU like, only to have it changed, ruining it for those that DID like it the way it was. why cant we all just play the game for what it is? (not you personally virus)
whats funny is the fed complaining about this and they get got what is quickly being considered the most powerful escort in game. it oneshotted the bortaqu at the end of gorn minefield!!!!!!!!!! oneshotted! even i am thinking about getting it i i only fly ships that cloak and i think its ugly....for those that really know me you know THATS saying something.
I really think that more reliable data is needed before coming to a conclusion, due to the overhealing issue. My chain of thought goes like this:
Many, if not all, warbirds are based around alpha strikes. Hence, the largest damage figures will be during these strikes. Valdore console heals will hence be largest during this time. These initial strikes are when shields are still close to full capacity. Therefore, the biggest heals are most likely overheals that are "ineffective". This would create a pretty big skew in the data.
The console does also needs fixing so that it procs only off weapons fire, as opposed to DoTs, etc. This also distorts the data, making it proc more often than intended.
this is a big point, the biggest heals arent even needed and when the heals ARE needed youre usually trying to exit combat through cloak and thus are even getting heals at all.....
This thread turn out to be another "nerf defensive stuff so we can kill faster other players but dont touch offensive stuff (ofc so we can kill faster...)". Its hypocrisy at its best. Everybody its mad about powercreep, but got forbid to do anything about it...
You are kidding right??? Every player and their grandma are using Leach. Its not 60-80m for nothing... If Cryptic would do some data mining would see that its the most used console in the game. Thats an imbalanced item, not the valdore console.
And as other ppl said, all this presented data about the valdore console, from a minority of playerbase, its contains far too many variables to be taken into consideration... It spreads missleading informations based on a small player base... An example: that average EPtS freqvency use... Its ridicoulous, the majority of players base have 2 copies and are running EPtS constantly. Also alot of, if not most of the players from this colected data are far better equiped and skilled then the average player. In some way I would dare to call them exploiters, as in bypassing or bending game mechanics and loopholes. The point is the data it favors a minority of players and cant be applied or used as an argument for the majority of playerbase to nerf an item. Nerf the players from reaching soo much DPS, wich has gotten out of hand, not an item that only reflects that...
But I am sure Cryptic can look at the full picture, colecting data mining from all players, and can judge better on this.
Try to use Leech on AtB cloaking Scimitar and tell me if it's worth running.
this is a big point, the biggest heals arent even needed and when the heals ARE needed youre usually trying to exit combat through cloak and thus are even getting heals at all.....
You make it sound as if the healing is actually useless.
It's not like the statistics are the only data we have on the console. We also have reports of people performing vastly better with the console than without. What do you think would be the reason for that, if not the console's healing?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Saying that...well...hrmm...let me restate my point of view, eh?
1) Fix the reported bugs. Obviously these will be throwing off any data collected. However, the data collected is supporting evidence of their potentially being the reported bugs, no?
2) Address how overhealing is recorded/reported. It's always been a trip, imho. Have you ever compared a screenshot of the scoreboard to a parse of the match? I had an Eng in a Chel Grett running EPtS1, AtS1, HE2, and TSS3 (yeah, this was last year) that would run 800k-1.5m in healing on the scoreboard - nowhere near that in the actual parse. Willard, tossing out DOFF'd ET1, HE2, AtS1, ST2, and ST1...spamming heals on folks...won't come anywhere near that. It's just a trip to look at the numbers on that scoreboard sometimes.
3) And then it gets into that pesky question I have about how they tuned it last year...
When they tuned it, did they future-proof it? It's based off of damage...and damage scales a lot differently than a heal does. How much more damage can a single shot do today compared to a year ago? How much healing does a single heal do today compared to a year ago? It creates the scenario, depending on how they have that set up, that even if the console is not actually problematic now - that it could easily become so down the line. I'd prefer knowing that it's not going to be a problem down the road...eh?
Even with that (or this, if it is an issue now for a small percentage of those using it); it's still something that Cryptic could address by instituting one of their limits/caps on it. For the vast majority of players, they would likely see no difference - cause it would still be doing what it is for them. Those edge cases - where it's potentially working better than Cryptic intended (and it would be up to Cryptic to decide that point)...well, yeah - they might end up eating a "nerf" from it being tweaked. Heck, Cryptic's info could have been skewed because of the high end and the low end may even need a buff...
It just makes me think of what happened with the Rep System. They wanted to make the change with the Nukara Rep...they didn't. By the time they got around to making the change...boom. IMHO, there's a similar issue with the Valdore Console. It was tuned based on damage in June 2013. Look at damage today, eh? Imagine damage by the end of the year? Imagine damage by next May/June...etc, etc, etc...it's a problem waiting to happen.
You make it sound as if the healing is actually useless.
It's not like the statistics are the only data we have on the console. We also have reports of people performing vastly better with the console than without. What do you think would be the reason for that, if not the console's healing?
in no way am i saying it is useless, what i am saying is, its heals are always useful. are there times what they are? Of course. But they are, IMO, needed.
Saying that...well...hrmm...let me restate my point of view, eh?
1) Fix the reported bugs. Obviously these will be throwing off any data collected. However, the data collected is supporting evidence of their potentially being the reported bugs, no?
I think this over healing this SHOULD be addressed FIRST. lets correct that THEN see just how much useful heals are being done. that way we can see whether or not it is broken. maybe changing the "always on: part to, "passive, proc chance at zero when sheild cap is at or above 85%" that way everytime it procs, there is room for a heal.
BUT, but heal amount shouldnt be touched until above changes are made.
2) Address how overhealing is recorded/reported. It's always been a trip, imho. Have you ever compared a screenshot of the scoreboard to a parse of the match? I had an Eng in a Chel Grett running EPtS1, AtS1, HE2, and TSS3 (yeah, this was last year) that would run 800k-1.5m in healing on the scoreboard - nowhere near that in the actual parse. Willard, tossing out DOFF'd ET1, HE2, AtS1, ST2, and ST1...spamming heals on folks...won't come anywhere near that. It's just a trip to look at the numbers on that scoreboard sometimes.
those bloody scoreboards.....i had a GW spaming sci ship once get 11 kills. and a torp boat get well over a million Damage but not kill at all.....WTH.
3) And then it gets into that pesky question I have about how they tuned it last year...
When they tuned it, did they future-proof it? It's based off of damage...and damage scales a lot differently than a heal does. How much more damage can a single shot do today compared to a year ago? How much healing does a single heal do today compared to a year ago? It creates the scenario, depending on how they have that set up, that even if the console is not actually problematic now - that it could easily become so down the line. I'd prefer knowing that it's not going to be a problem down the road...eh?
Even with that (or this, if it is an issue now for a small percentage of those using it); it's still something that Cryptic could address by instituting one of their limits/caps on it. For the vast majority of players, they would likely see no difference - cause it would still be doing what it is for them. Those edge cases - where it's potentially working better than Cryptic intended (and it would be up to Cryptic to decide that point)...well, yeah - they might end up eating a "nerf" from it being tweaked. Heck, Cryptic's info could have been skewed because of the high end and the low end may even need a buff...
It just makes me think of what happened with the Rep System. They wanted to make the change with the Nukara Rep...they didn't. By the time they got around to making the change...boom. IMHO, there's a similar issue with the Valdore Console. It was tuned based on damage in June 2013. Look at damage today, eh? Imagine damage by the end of the year? Imagine damage by next May/June...etc, etc, etc...it's a problem waiting to happen.
honestly, i will conceed that it do not believe it was "future proofed" but as someone brought up, as more DPS is done to our ships, so too wouldnt we need more healing to not die?
@hilbert: There shall be more charts about this. How about tracking the length of individual post in this thread discussing the issue at hand. Seriously mercy on my scroll wheel.
On a more serious note: There are so many pieces to the puzzle that is romulan faction. Based on my own playstyle, across multiple toons, this freaking consoles is certainly among them.
Try to use Leech on AtB cloaking Scimitar and tell me if it's worth running.
And your point is?? Just cuz its not worth putting on an allready OP ship (and build for that matter) doesnt matter its not over-used. Dunno about you, but in preatty much all team content, I see 3 out of 4 other team mates with it allmost everytime. And yes, even AtB like Avengers and such.
Still its hypocritical to cry about a 2,5% base chance console that its suposely heals more then a boff skill, when Leach gives u more power then any other item or boff skills. Like even +36 (thats +144 power) on some recluse with stacked embassy flow cap consoles. Even EPtX will grand u only +25 power, and thats only to 1 single power subsystem. Even if it were 2,5% chance based like the valdore, and it would be still OP. But its allways on.
And the same argument, if its worth sloting it or not can be apllied with valdore too, since its useless on torpedo bombers anyway...
But in the end its pointless to argue with the nerfers. Even if a cap on the heal would be put, like 50-75% of the equiped shield or a fix amount, then they would cry about how often it will proc...
The problem is with damage scaling vs defense. This is across the board a issue pvp and pve.
It seems to be that the only times I ever have died are these surprise mega crits. I have never just been widdled down to death.
Now add a console that shield heals with a percentage of that insane high dps.. The Valdore may be the first balanced defensive console vs DPS in the game.
Now making it 1 faction only creates a issue in its own right.. but is nerfing Valdore the right move? Or looking at the DPS vs Healing vs Tanking in the game. Be it PVE or PVP.
If they really want to help fix a lot of issues its massively change the scaling on DPS. To nerf the Vapor KDF / Romulan builds, or the 1 shot gimmick builds to promote more diversity in weapon use. Like nerfing Beam and Cannon hull damage to promote need to use Torps + Beams in a mix to achieve best results. Energy for shield cracking and Torps for hull breaking.
This also needs to tie into NPC's.. no more one shot wonder kills. Challenge to a game should not be... oooh when will I get one shot next.
The problem isn't the Valdore console.. it just magnifies the problem of DPS vs healing/tanking. To fix it though STO would need such a massive over haul of the currant systems that I do not know if we would ever see it.
And your point is?? Just cuz its not worth putting on an allready OP ship (and build for that matter) doesnt matter its not over-used. Dunno about you, but in preatty much all team content, I see 3 out of 4 other team mates with it allmost everytime. And yes, even AtB like Avengers and such.
Still its hypocritical to cry about a 2,5% base chance console that its suposely heals more then a boff skill, when Leach gives u more power then any other item or boff skills. Like even +36 (thats +144 power) on some recluse with stacked embassy flow cap consoles. Even EPtX will grand u only +25 power, and thats only to 1 single power subsystem. Even if it were 2,5% chance based like the valdore, and it would be still OP. But its allways on.
And the same argument, if its worth sloting it or not can be apllied with valdore too, since its useless on torpedo bombers anyway...
But in the end its pointless to argue with the nerfers. Even if a cap on the heal would be put, like 50-75% of the equiped shield or a fix amount, then they would cry about how often it will proc...
You see? You can't answer that question, and brought on the fact Scimitar is OP and TRIBBLE.
I got through an ambush in Ker'rat today with Excelsior against two KDF (one of them as vaper). One of them was destroyed and other ran away. Guess what, I was asked how I had shields so insanely resilient and all of this without running Valdore. Where's your god now?
But in the end its pointless to argue with the nerfers. Even if a cap on the heal would be put, like 50-75% of the equiped shield or a fix amount, then they would cry about how often it will proc...
Stereotyping is a bad thing, mmmmmkay. Some folks simply want balance - they don't have any ulterior motives or some heinous desire to see everything nerfed into oblivion.
And again, why is it that people always point to the other guy as the one crying - when somebody can come from the outside, see that the first person has done a relatively objective post and the second person is having a tantrum...yet it's usually the second person that's saying the first was the one crying? It's kind of mind boggling...
And again, why is it that people always point to the other guy as the one crying - when somebody can come from the outside, see that the first person has done a relatively objective post and the second person is having a tantrum...yet it's usually the second person that's saying the first was the one crying? It's kind of mind boggling...
What you are observing here in this thread... there is an expression in german that has no direct translation into english.
"merkbefreit"
A person that displays scrapes and bits of conscious awareness, but not enough awareness to meet fundamental logic and reason requirements. Mentally deflated.
An example:
An entire forest dies due to environmental pollution. A "merkbefreit" person proposes to hang up signs "forest dieback fobidden" to solve the problem.
Meh, it's tough translate.
Another example:
Hilbert, one of few people left in the game who knows what he's talking about, the guy who created the hilbert guide, programmed the hilbert leaderboard, who has been part of one of the best pvp fleets ever, the guy who has access to the biggest collection of combatlogs outside of Cryptic headquarters, with the means and brains to interpret such data,
gets called a noob in this thread. By a noob who doesn't know jack about this game.
It's hysterical.
But reading such threads also kills my brain cells. I feel dummer now just by reading some comments here.
Edit:
Found a clip that adequately describes 50% of all threads in this forum.
It's incredibly hard for everyone of us, but if you realize that people are just throwing accusations around instead of bringing arguments, it's important to just move on. There is no way you can "win" here. You won't convince the other guy, he doesn't want to be convinced. State your case as best as you, with as many facts and logical arguments you can bring into it. You're not trying to sway the opposition, you're trying to sway neutral parties. (And failing that, you're trying to refine your own methodology and reasoning.)
Mustrum "One day, I'll be able to do this, too" Ridcully
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It's incredibly hard for everyone of us, but if you realize that people are just throwing accusations around instead of bringing arguments, it's important to just move on. There is no way you can "win" here. You won't convince the other guy, he doesn't want to be convinced. State your case as best as you, with as many facts and logical arguments you can bring into it. You're not trying to sway the opposition, you're trying to sway neutral parties. (And failing that, you're trying to refine your own methodology and reasoning.)
Mustrum "One day, I'll be able to do this, too" Ridcully
A nerf isn't going to happen just because a handful of whiners made noise. They should learn how little their opinion is worth. The valedore console already got a massive nerf once, which was needed at the time, and now it's perfect.:D
It's incredibly hard for everyone of us, but if you realize that people are just throwing accusations around instead of bringing arguments, it's important to just move on. There is no way you can "win" here. You won't convince the other guy, he doesn't want to be convinced. State your case as best as you, with as many facts and logical arguments you can bring into it. You're not trying to sway the opposition, you're trying to sway neutral parties. (And failing that, you're trying to refine your own methodology and reasoning.)
Mustrum "One day, I'll be able to do this, too" Ridcully
You are pretty much describing why I don't bother with the forums too much. Outside of some forum pvp that can be entertaining for a while, usually there is just too much fail, fail, and bigger fail. Especially outside the PvP sub-section.
Although Hilbert is right regarding the console, I don't really have a problem with the console, for pragmatic reasons:
1. I couldn't care less how people play their PvE content. It doesn't faze me.
2. In PvP, there is NO valdore-console-using fleet, NO active group out there, that could beat our premades. Premades that can beat us don't use the console to begin with; and the bad ones are so bad that the console doesn't influence the outcome at all.
But, I am getting a little tired of the endless crying about how things need to be nerfed:
1. Nerf Borg 2-set
2. Nerf Aux to Batt
3. Nerf FAW
4. Nerf Plasmonic Leech
6. Nerf Phasers
7. Nerf Beam Overload
8. Nerf Double Tap
9. Now, Nerf Valdore
Seriously, how about learning to overcome these abilities and change your ship/build/powers to do so, instead of having cryptic nerf the ability so your ship/build is no longer obsolete. Look, we hate Feedback Pulse--with our dps, its like instant death to us. But, the first thing that came to my mind was how to avoid it or beat it--my instinct was not to go run to the forums and get Cryptic to nerf it.
Anyway, here is the video of the 5v7 match from earlier. We only had 2 faw scimi's, 1 cannon scimi, 1 wells, and a palisade (or a bastion, I get those 2 mixed up):
I think we won it 30-6. So maybe it's not quite FAW/Valdores/Scimis that are the problem--it might just be the pilots. And we didn't have much issue busting through their Scimi's with their Valdores.
Lastly, nerfing the Valore is nothing but silliness, all you will do is hurt most of the player base, and the console will become unusable--thus Cryptic will not make anymore sales of that ship. Capping it is silly too--again, it will hurt sales.
MY GOD!! man you want BOPs nerfed the weakest ship in the game. STO Blasphemy !!!!!!!
By weakest I mean hull and shields not fire power but, they are by no means OP in firepower either. If your getting owned by a BOP its under 1 of 2 facts. 1. You suck . 2 The BOP player is very good. Not just anybody can jump into a BOP and start kicking TRIBBLE. It takes skill. Something you either have or don't. If anything BOPs need another buff. Hull should at least be 33k and shields should be 1. Hell man they just got a 4/2 weapons layout. Picking on a Poor little BOP. You should feel ashamed.
MY GOD!! man you want BOPs nerfed the weakest ship in the game. STO Blasphemy !!!!!!!
By weakest I mean hull and shields not fire power but, they are by no means OP in firepower either. If your getting owned by a BOP its under 1 of 2 facts. 1. You suck . 2 The BOP player is very good. Not just anybody can jump into a BOP and start kicking TRIBBLE. It takes skill. Something you either have or don't. If anything BOPs need another buff. Hull should at least be 33k and shields should be 1. Hell man they just got a 4/2 weapons layout. Picking on a Poor little BOP. You should feel ashamed.
Stereotyping is a bad thing, mmmmmkay. Some folks simply want balance - they don't have any ulterior motives or some heinous desire to see everything nerfed into oblivion.
And again, why is it that people always point to the other guy as the one crying - when somebody can come from the outside, see that the first person has done a relatively objective post and the second person is having a tantrum...yet it's usually the second person that's saying the first was the one crying? It's kind of mind boggling...
And why do you think you are the only want that wants balance? Me and preatty much everybody wants that too. But thats the problem. Everyone has a diferent vision of balance. And the PvP side is usually something thats in the line of "fighting with one arm tied if its posible" mentality... Meaning it will get nerfed to useless in the end. And this is not stereotyping, its judging from past nerfs that have been happened in the game on various special items/skills...
And you say you are worried about tunning the console for future powercreep/dmg increase. Yet nothing about other stuff like lets say elite fleet disruptors, wich benefit from the powercreep too. And where is this balance concern about the elite fleet phaser healing proc?? Ohh wait, its fix dmg and soo tiny, so its useless so why should it be balanced, right???
Again, here is what it all about. Its just a matter of opinion. You and the ones that call for nerf wants faster fights and more vape in the game.Thats your fun and its ok... But not everybody finds this fun. Other ppl might find fun longer fights without a 2-3 secs vapes...
You see? You can't answer that question, and brought on the fact Scimitar is OP and TRIBBLE.
I got through an ambush in Ker'rat today with Excelsior against two KDF (one of them as vaper). One of them was destroyed and other ran away. Guess what, I was asked how I had shields so insanely resilient and all of this without running Valdore. Where's your god now?
I am sry but what god you are talking about... You bring an example out of nowhere that doesnt had anything to do with this... What those bops had equiped?? But it doesnt matter anyway. I bet you had elite fleet ress shields, right? Another imbalanced OP item...
Comments
This guy is the perfect example of your average STO player and the reason you cannot nerf the valdore console.
As you all continue to overlook the fact that those statistics are worthless, misleading and uninformative - seems like all you guys want to do is take some misguided conclusion from an incorrect interpretation of the data to spearhead some selfish narrow-minded PVP centric nerf everything campaign. And when someone calls you out for it, you call them derailers - well YES I am trying to derail this nonsense.
As far as I understood it, this is how it works for all shield heals. All other shield heals will have the same tendency to "overheal". So it is basically just background noise.
This is an interesting point, but:
- A single console from a Zen-requiring ship should not balance a whole faction.
- You have yet to establish that the valdore console's healing actually counters only these drawbacks.
Efficiency skills will raise your power levels the lower your current power setting is - that means Romulan ships will be able to get more power out of these skills than non-Romulan ships. Not enough to catch up it all, but you can catch some of it. (I think you can get between 4-10 points compensated)
40 points of less shield power than a Fed ship would mean you'd miss about 160 % of shield regeneration and 11.2 % shield damage reduction.
Does the valdore really provide only the equivalent of +160 % shield regeneration and 12 % damage reduction? (+160 % shield regeneration on a Mark XI Regeneration shield would normally amount to about 434.2 shield points per 6 seconds.)
er no... other shield heals tend to be triggered when you NEED the heal, valdore heals whether you want it or not - that produces much more overheal
And the Valdore Console will usually get triggered when you are in a firefight and likely exposed to counter-fire.
My Scimitar as my Excelsior, Mobius, Tempest, Avenger ecc. kills in PvP, probably you're the one who needs a crutch after yet another warp core breach.
Like if someone cares of doing ESTFs all along here. You've came in the wrong neighborhood kid. We play something more challenging that popping cubes and feeling so pro for it.
If your can't hold your ground against a computer-driven ship I don't want to imagine your PvP knowledge of this game, even less debating on Valdore console. And if your DPS sucks and tanking sucks as well what's the whole point of using it? Only heavy hitting tacs can run it. As far as I read, your performance was less than average. A group of PvPers can clear an elite in minutes, tell them how "hard" it is. You'll get the same answer from each one.
Not everyone who uses it has two copies, many have only one copy though possibly with cooldown reducing doffs that are chance-based and can fail. Activations are only recorded when it actually heals something, so everytime one activates EPtS at perfect shields it is not counted (this can happen either because one was not taking damage for a while or because other shield heals already filled the shields). There are players who use it situationally and not whenever it is available.
EPTS has a 30s cycle and science is not triggered as much - both do have overheal to some extent but no where near like valdore, and it's not even certain valdore only records heals when shields are less than 100% - that too is an assumption.
(What's also interestnig to consider is the opportunity cost involved here - having two EptX powers could theoretically mean activating it every 30 seconds, yes, sure - but it also means not having two engineering powers for something else. That's 2 powers, while the valdore console only costs you one single console slot, so either a passive buff or a single other power.)
A couple of things here...
Regarding the base40 vs. base50. Given the way various "efficiency" skills and the like work, it's going to be the rare person that's actually seeing that overall loss of 40 power. Admittedly, it shouldn't simply be written off because even a Rom can 125+ across the board - what certain players can do, those edge cases...don't set the standard. However, what each player is actually seeing is going to be based on their particular build and what they're doing. I see it on Willard, but I don't feel it on Willard because of the way I fly him. Some folks will both see and feel it while others will not.
Havelock's Power Calculator can be extremely helpful for folks wanting to see the actual difference running a Singularity Core vs. Warp Core will have on their power levels.
It's not only a PvP complaint...er...there are complaints about it in PvE taking place in this thread as well.
A few things here...
Ambush is not +40% damage. That's a typo in the tooltip. It was bug reported during the S9 testing on Tribble, but it still made its way to Holodeck. The basic Ambush bonus is +15%. It's a bonus boost rather than a strength boost, so it works like EPtW/APO/APA instead of like a Tac Console or a skill boost. A Subterfuge BOFF will increase that damage bonus to +25%. KDF Raiders have an Improved Ambush, +25% to begin with - and - I'm still asking around, looking for an answer of whether an Embassy BOFF with Sub stacks with that to take it to +35%. Cause yeah, if it does, add in Raider Flanking - grab a Fleet HoH'SuS and have some fun, right? :P
Ambush duration can be increased by either having a Reman Captain with Infiltrator or a Reman BOFF with Infiltrator/Superior Infiltrator. Willard, a Reman, has an Ambush duration of 13-14 seconds.
As for the Romulan ships being less sturdy than KDF/Fed ships - I'm flabbergasted anybody would say that. Take a look at a Fleet T'varo and a Fleet B'rel - the two ships with EBC. How on Earth is the T'varo less sturdy than the B'rel? Take a look at a Fleet Ha'feh...yes, those would be the stats of a Fleet Advanced Escort - only the Fleet Ha'feh has a Battle Cloak and the FAE does not. It was one of the major sour points during the LoR beta. Compare the Romulan Warbirds to the KDF Raptors/Battle Cruisers...then look at the KDF boats having a Standard Cloak while the Warbirds have a Battle Cloak.
Where the KDF Raiders eat it in a certain area for their Battle Cloaks, Warbirds "are supposedly" balanced not only for the Battle Cloaks but also the Singularity Abilities...by having base40 Subsystem Power (which again, rarely actually exists as a player eating a loss of 40 overall power).
The 100 Weapon Power thing is definitely a /facepalm sort of thing - not sure why they don't have it just fire at whatever your current Weapon Power level is if it is below 100. Why do I say if it is below 100..because if it is below 100, it gets bumped up to 100. Who would be below 100 that's not running projectiles? Don't ask me...I'm just saying that just like it bumps down it bumps up. But yeah, the dropping to 100 thing is kind of meh.
Kind of have to disagree massively on your thoughts regarding Singularity Jump and its use(s).
But first a question/curious observation I've had in regard to the target breaking aspect. It does break lock for me. It's easy enough to reacquire the lock, but the lock does get broken. However, it's not a placate type of lock breaking. So for instance, somebody can maintain a TB on a person that jumped - just like they can maintain TB on Target#1 while switching to Target#2 to shoot or do whatever. So are you sure that it is not a case that it is breaking the lock for you and that you are simply relocking that target because it's so easy to do when they appear rather than it not breaking the lock?
As for Singularity Jump, yep - can definitely be used as an escape or part of an overall escape strategy; but I think you're downplaying some of the rest of what it does.
No, it's damage is not going to kill another player...well, maybe if they were in an EV suit, eh? Lol, but no - seriously - it does do damage...and...that means it's a means to deal with targetable projectiles. Got somebody that's spamming the area with targetable projectiles - drop a Singularity. They're gone. The damage is also going to vary depending on how you're built.
While on average the negative repel (sorry, had to say it - I don't know why Cryptic didn't just label it as pull instead of being technical with the -repel angle) won't be enough to affect a player much or they can easily escape it, this is going to depend on how you're built. It can trap/snag certain ships when they don't have a buff available and can be used to clump pets. It's also something that can be used in conjunction with a Grav Well for some additional clumping action.
The Accuracy Debuff not only helps the Romulan escape potentially escape by avoiding some weapon proc that could result in a bad day, but it quite literally is an Accuracy Debuff - it's going to increase the probability that people do not hit you or friendly targets. It's a potential means of reducing enemy damage to your team. The more they miss, the less damage they do, the less your team needs to heal, etc, etc, etc. Yeah, I run a [Jump] core for the bonus to the Accuracy Debuff.
The timing angle, that's an interesting one. Because yes, using a Singularity Ability triggers a 5s CD on the cloak - but so too does triggering cloak cause a 5s CD on being able to use a Singularity Ability. Given that the cloak doesn't actually kick in for 3s, you're going to be leaving yourself exposed for 3s at a closer range and without the Accuracy Debuff - thus you're subject to that much more damage while you're shields are down. You're also potentially still going to be in range of things of CPB...where if you'd jumped first, you're more likely to have been able to get out of range of that.
Something else to consider when using Singularity Jump is the use of QSM (Quantum Singularity Manipulation). Not only is this going to boost all your Sci skills by 100 (thus increase the pull/damage of the Singularity), but it is going to provide stealth/cloak coverage during the 4-5s gap between the Singularity Jump and hitting your Battle Cloak.
The Confuse for torps comes about if you're running a [Shad] core.
As for the cloak when dropping Shadows...hrmmm, I'm usually cloaked when I drop them. There's the 5s cloak that occurs after ~20s - once the Shadows expire, but I've never seen a buff appear nor anything change about the ship otherwise when the Shadows are first dropped. Yeah, just tested it - didn't change the appearance of the ship in any way - no buff appeared (well, not until the Shadows expired for the 5s cloak). For the life of me, I can't remember too many folks using it to have noticed whether they disappeared briefly or not...will have to hunt somebody down to see if they'll drop Shadows for me on that one.
For the most part though, personally I only use it for two reasons:
1) To Troll. C'mon, it's epic. It's amazing how many folks will completely unload into a Shadow - burning all their buffs, tossing all their debuffs - on a Shadow. I suppose that could be used strategically to get folks to burn buffs/debuffs - but c'mon, it's trolltastic!
2) To burn Singularity Charge. I don't want to eat the Stealth Debuff that comes from building Singularity Charge. -400 at 5 pips/100 charge is pretty steep. 50 = 1km, so that's an 8km debuff...
While this is the second to last Singularity Ability I would consider using (Overcharge being the first), it's uh - Miracle Worker with the shield heal split between the heal and a heal over time. It can buy folks the time they need for something else (either from themselves or another) just like MW. Personally, I don't use it on Willard because if I'm ever in the position of needing something like that...I'm already dead...the game just hasn't processed those results yet...lol.
This would be the third least Singularity Ability that I use (yeah, I basically Jump a bunch and troll with Shadows). Even in saying that though, like anything - you'll get out of the Plasma Shockwave what you put into it. Without any investment, yeah - it's not going to do much. As part of a comprehensive build that involves related effects - you're going to get more out of it. I'm not built to take advantage of it, so I almost never use it - even then, it's usually because I'm asleep and activate it accidentally. But still, why would one expect a return on something without an investment...?
Are you actually losing 40 power though? I mean, honestly - it's the extremely rare build where somebody's running with Balanced settings without spending any skill points or equipping any gear.
So...would you rather have that 40 power back (as well as give up the Singularity Abilities) and have your Shield Modifier drop?
KDF Battle Cloaks
Fleet B'rel: 0.88
Fleet Norgh: 0.88
Fleet HoH'SuS: 0.88
Fleet Peghqu': 0.92
Romulan Battle Cloaks
Fleet T'varo: 0.99
Fleet Dhelan: 1.045
Fleet Mogai: 1.1
Fleet Ar'Kif: 0.99
Fleet Ha'feh: 0.99
Fleet D'deridex: 1.1
Fleet Ha'apax: 1.15
Fleet Ha'nom: 1.43
Fleet Daeinos: 0.92
Romulan Advanced Science Destroyer: 1.375
Is that right on the Daeinos? If so, they're getting screwed compared to the others, eh? But yeah, anyway - would you rather have your Shield Mod dropped? Thus lowering your shield cap and shield regen? Basically eating an 11% or higher drop to both?
Nah...I'm oft easily distracted by such side discussions to the dismay of folks that create threads.
But it's not actually -40 if you've done anything with a skill build, geared the ship in any fashion, and are not running at balanced power settings. There's no hit to the shield mod like there is for KDF boats. And the value of the Singularity Abilities is going to be debatable...since it's highly subjective.
But when you actually take a look at the amount lost, it's not going to be 40. Seriously, grab Havelock's Power Calculator - fill it out based on your toon - then bump it from base40 to base50 to see how much actual power is lost on the build.
The Avenger receives a boost of +10 Weapon & +10 Engine Power. The Rom ADSD receives a boost of +15 Auxiliary Power. What skills does each character have?
Starship Warp Core Efficiency
Starship Warp Core Potential
Starship Engine Performance
Starship Shield Performance
Starship Auxiliary Performance
Starship Weapon Performance
How are the two ships geared otherwise? Anything providing +Power on one but not the other? What about the Cores? Taking into account the Warp Cores +7.5% of X to Y? Taking into account the bonus to power a Singularity Core can gain from Singularity Charge?
What about the Captains themselves? Is your Fed an Alien with Efficient Captain? Does one have Warp Theorist but not the other?
Is one running Efficient BOFFs but not the other?
To make the comparison, you really need to limit all the other potential factors that could result in the differences you are seeing...
But that's not true. You can cap out on a Warbird just like you can on a non-Warbird. Easier to do on the non-Warbird? Sure, but it doesn't have the BC (or is not eating the shield mod negative bonus) nor the Singularity Abilities.
I seriously believe you need to take a look at the awesome work that Havelock has done on Subsystem Power.
It's not a case of saying that there is no difference - but it's usually nowhere near as bad as people attempt to make it out to be.
Potentially, but not necessarily...
But it's not.
This makes no sense. It's suggesting that Cryptic attempted to balance the Battle Cloak and Singularity Abilities by reducing the base power levels and then turned around to sell a $10 fix for it...
It further doesn't make sense, because you're basically arguing that Warbirds are that much more OP because of being able to buy that $10 fix...
The Valdore console is not a Romulan ship. It's not standard equipment. It's not required equipment. Hell, it's useless equipment for certain builds.
Well, there's a bunch of TLDR up there.
Were you there during the LoR beta? Were you there for the discussions with archoncryptic from salamiinferno's thread on the matter? I'm guessing no...I could be wrong...but I'm guessing no. Cause if you had...well, I can't see that you would have posted any of this.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=624851
That's coming off pretty emotional...
That looks like an opinion...
Not kidding in the least. It is an exaggeration to say that everybody is using it or even that everybody needs it. It is simply not the case.
It is one thing to say it is damn helpful on certain builds - even to say it is overly helpful on certain builds. It is another to say that about every build. It is simply not the case.
Many, if not all, warbirds are based around alpha strikes. Hence, the largest damage figures will be during these strikes. Valdore console heals will hence be largest during this time. These initial strikes are when shields are still close to full capacity. Therefore, the biggest heals are most likely overheals that are "ineffective". This would create a pretty big skew in the data.
The console does also needs fixing so that it procs only off weapons fire, as opposed to DoTs, etc. This also distorts the data, making it proc more often than intended.
i admit it covers more drawbacks than just shield, but then it HAS TO. In addition to less shield regen and resists, romulans ships cannot heal themselves as well due to less aux power. They are also slower on averger due to less engine power. ALL this means that romulan ships take more daage thanks to a potentially less defense, less shield resists AND less shield regan. to top it off, they heal that damage slower thanks to less aux power....
^would you say that is accurate? It is ALL THAT that the VC helps to mitigate.
see red....
this is a big point, the biggest heals arent even needed and when the heals ARE needed youre usually trying to exit combat through cloak and thus are even getting heals at all.....
Try to use Leech on AtB cloaking Scimitar and tell me if it's worth running.
It's not like the statistics are the only data we have on the console. We also have reports of people performing vastly better with the console than without. What do you think would be the reason for that, if not the console's healing?
Saying that...well...hrmm...let me restate my point of view, eh?
1) Fix the reported bugs. Obviously these will be throwing off any data collected. However, the data collected is supporting evidence of their potentially being the reported bugs, no?
2) Address how overhealing is recorded/reported. It's always been a trip, imho. Have you ever compared a screenshot of the scoreboard to a parse of the match? I had an Eng in a Chel Grett running EPtS1, AtS1, HE2, and TSS3 (yeah, this was last year) that would run 800k-1.5m in healing on the scoreboard - nowhere near that in the actual parse. Willard, tossing out DOFF'd ET1, HE2, AtS1, ST2, and ST1...spamming heals on folks...won't come anywhere near that. It's just a trip to look at the numbers on that scoreboard sometimes.
3) And then it gets into that pesky question I have about how they tuned it last year...
When they tuned it, did they future-proof it? It's based off of damage...and damage scales a lot differently than a heal does. How much more damage can a single shot do today compared to a year ago? How much healing does a single heal do today compared to a year ago? It creates the scenario, depending on how they have that set up, that even if the console is not actually problematic now - that it could easily become so down the line. I'd prefer knowing that it's not going to be a problem down the road...eh?
Even with that (or this, if it is an issue now for a small percentage of those using it); it's still something that Cryptic could address by instituting one of their limits/caps on it. For the vast majority of players, they would likely see no difference - cause it would still be doing what it is for them. Those edge cases - where it's potentially working better than Cryptic intended (and it would be up to Cryptic to decide that point)...well, yeah - they might end up eating a "nerf" from it being tweaked. Heck, Cryptic's info could have been skewed because of the high end and the low end may even need a buff...
It just makes me think of what happened with the Rep System. They wanted to make the change with the Nukara Rep...they didn't. By the time they got around to making the change...boom. IMHO, there's a similar issue with the Valdore Console. It was tuned based on damage in June 2013. Look at damage today, eh? Imagine damage by the end of the year? Imagine damage by next May/June...etc, etc, etc...it's a problem waiting to happen.
in no way am i saying it is useless, what i am saying is, its heals are always useful. are there times what they are? Of course. But they are, IMO, needed.
@hilbert: There shall be more charts about this. How about tracking the length of individual post in this thread discussing the issue at hand. Seriously mercy on my scroll wheel.
On a more serious note: There are so many pieces to the puzzle that is romulan faction. Based on my own playstyle, across multiple toons, this freaking consoles is certainly among them.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
And your point is?? Just cuz its not worth putting on an allready OP ship (and build for that matter) doesnt matter its not over-used. Dunno about you, but in preatty much all team content, I see 3 out of 4 other team mates with it allmost everytime. And yes, even AtB like Avengers and such.
Still its hypocritical to cry about a 2,5% base chance console that its suposely heals more then a boff skill, when Leach gives u more power then any other item or boff skills. Like even +36 (thats +144 power) on some recluse with stacked embassy flow cap consoles. Even EPtX will grand u only +25 power, and thats only to 1 single power subsystem. Even if it were 2,5% chance based like the valdore, and it would be still OP. But its allways on.
And the same argument, if its worth sloting it or not can be apllied with valdore too, since its useless on torpedo bombers anyway...
But in the end its pointless to argue with the nerfers.
It seems to be that the only times I ever have died are these surprise mega crits. I have never just been widdled down to death.
Now add a console that shield heals with a percentage of that insane high dps.. The Valdore may be the first balanced defensive console vs DPS in the game.
Now making it 1 faction only creates a issue in its own right.. but is nerfing Valdore the right move? Or looking at the DPS vs Healing vs Tanking in the game. Be it PVE or PVP.
If they really want to help fix a lot of issues its massively change the scaling on DPS. To nerf the Vapor KDF / Romulan builds, or the 1 shot gimmick builds to promote more diversity in weapon use. Like nerfing Beam and Cannon hull damage to promote need to use Torps + Beams in a mix to achieve best results. Energy for shield cracking and Torps for hull breaking.
This also needs to tie into NPC's.. no more one shot wonder kills. Challenge to a game should not be... oooh when will I get one shot next.
The problem isn't the Valdore console.. it just magnifies the problem of DPS vs healing/tanking. To fix it though STO would need such a massive over haul of the currant systems that I do not know if we would ever see it.
You see? You can't answer that question, and brought on the fact Scimitar is OP and TRIBBLE.
I got through an ambush in Ker'rat today with Excelsior against two KDF (one of them as vaper). One of them was destroyed and other ran away. Guess what, I was asked how I had shields so insanely resilient and all of this without running Valdore. Where's your god now?
Stereotyping is a bad thing, mmmmmkay. Some folks simply want balance - they don't have any ulterior motives or some heinous desire to see everything nerfed into oblivion.
And again, why is it that people always point to the other guy as the one crying - when somebody can come from the outside, see that the first person has done a relatively objective post and the second person is having a tantrum...yet it's usually the second person that's saying the first was the one crying? It's kind of mind boggling...
What you are observing here in this thread... there is an expression in german that has no direct translation into english.
"merkbefreit"
A person that displays scrapes and bits of conscious awareness, but not enough awareness to meet fundamental logic and reason requirements. Mentally deflated.
An example:
An entire forest dies due to environmental pollution. A "merkbefreit" person proposes to hang up signs "forest dieback fobidden" to solve the problem.
Meh, it's tough translate.
Another example:
Hilbert, one of few people left in the game who knows what he's talking about, the guy who created the hilbert guide, programmed the hilbert leaderboard, who has been part of one of the best pvp fleets ever, the guy who has access to the biggest collection of combatlogs outside of Cryptic headquarters, with the means and brains to interpret such data,
gets called a noob in this thread. By a noob who doesn't know jack about this game.
It's hysterical.
But reading such threads also kills my brain cells. I feel dummer now just by reading some comments here.
Edit:
Found a clip that adequately describes 50% of all threads in this forum.
Mustrum "One day, I'll be able to do this, too" Ridcully
A nerf isn't going to happen just because a handful of whiners made noise. They should learn how little their opinion is worth. The valedore console already got a massive nerf once, which was needed at the time, and now it's perfect.:D
You are pretty much describing why I don't bother with the forums too much. Outside of some forum pvp that can be entertaining for a while, usually there is just too much fail, fail, and bigger fail. Especially outside the PvP sub-section.
Although Hilbert is right regarding the console, I don't really have a problem with the console, for pragmatic reasons:
1. I couldn't care less how people play their PvE content. It doesn't faze me.
2. In PvP, there is NO valdore-console-using fleet, NO active group out there, that could beat our premades. Premades that can beat us don't use the console to begin with; and the bad ones are so bad that the console doesn't influence the outcome at all.
---
Short-sighted? Probably yes.
MY GOD!! man you want BOPs nerfed the weakest ship in the game. STO Blasphemy !!!!!!!
By weakest I mean hull and shields not fire power but, they are by no means OP in firepower either. If your getting owned by a BOP its under 1 of 2 facts. 1. You suck . 2 The BOP player is very good. Not just anybody can jump into a BOP and start kicking TRIBBLE. It takes skill. Something you either have or don't. If anything BOPs need another buff. Hull should at least be 33k and shields should be 1. Hell man they just got a 4/2 weapons layout. Picking on a Poor little BOP. You should feel ashamed.
Wow, you fail to comprehend sarcasm.:D
And why do you think you are the only want that wants balance? Me and preatty much everybody wants that too. But thats the problem. Everyone has a diferent vision of balance. And the PvP side is usually something thats in the line of "fighting with one arm tied if its posible" mentality... Meaning it will get nerfed to useless in the end. And this is not stereotyping, its judging from past nerfs that have been happened in the game on various special items/skills...
And you say you are worried about tunning the console for future powercreep/dmg increase. Yet nothing about other stuff like lets say elite fleet disruptors, wich benefit from the powercreep too. And where is this balance concern about the elite fleet phaser healing proc?? Ohh wait, its fix dmg and soo tiny, so its useless so why should it be balanced, right???
Again, here is what it all about. Its just a matter of opinion. You and the ones that call for nerf wants faster fights and more vape in the game.Thats your fun and its ok... But not everybody finds this fun. Other ppl might find fun longer fights without a 2-3 secs vapes...
I am sry but what god you are talking about... You bring an example out of nowhere that doesnt had anything to do with this... What those bops had equiped?? But it doesnt matter anyway. I bet you had elite fleet ress shields, right? Another imbalanced OP item...