??? Jumping to conclusions there. I use blackball too, you know. I prefer to call it black poo.
previously you said:
You claimed to be having difficulty with these beams escorts but now the story goes that you kill them a lot (which is it?). I'm just saying, a properly timed nuke alpha strike will swiftly dispose of the beam escortrolls. Then, they shouldn't even be an issue. Best cure is prevention.
I am not changing my story, we do kill them but it is unnecessarily trollish and while it does take time if they are all running a lot, they don't contribute much to their teams damage do doesn't pose much of a challenge to us.
I think you were one of the ones putting beams on a Hunter escort right? I remember that one yesterday also, it was pretty evasive and annoying but doesn't hit very hard. If you switch to DHC you might not be able to zoom around and run so much since you have to keep targets in your forward arc but will actually be able to contribute decent damage to your team.
beam boat and beam scort are pretty much the same thing, just different approaches to dealing with damage midigation,
beam boat tries to tank it all out,
beam scorts tries to speed tank it all out, I would add to that in the era of vapers and mass amounts of lockdown sci, the beam scorts got a big leg up on dealing with those situations better then the beam boats
I have seen some great scorts out there that zip in and out of combat causing the other team to chaotically separate in a vain effort to try and kill them, not a bad team member to have really if you ask me, specially if at the end of the match you see they got 15 kills and did some of the top dps on the team, what more do you want really?
not to try and dash the original posters dreams, but if he is just running a stock tac/scort- I would say he is a bit dated when it comes to killing,
I dont see many use EPTW, they use EPTS and EPTE to zip around taking and therefore are hard to kill, but useless. I have never seen any that hasn't been a detriment to their team.
I have 9 level 50s and play all ships and classes, but never use beams on an escort and never will, I play my various tacs as vapers, beam cruisers, and of course DHC escorts, which does work great on HoBO teams.
Besides, where would something like this end? If we say that the game shouldn't allow beams on escorts because they are not optimal/are useless/letting the team down, well, just think about it - pure torp boats should not be allowed. Turrets cannot be mounted forward. Mixing weapons types is not allowed. Standard fighters are not allowed. No DHC on Jem Dreads or Bortasqu's. Engineers cannot fly escorts.
Honestly, this is a build choice. Some people don't play to be optimal - some play for fun. Not to mention beamscorts are nice for PvE too. It's the same as every other aspect of a build choice - it's up to the player.
You may argue that DHCs are better than beams. That may be true. However, this does not mean that Cryptic should block it entirely.
you do see tho, that the ONLY dif between a beam scort and a beam boat being just how they deal with damage mitigation tho right? one speed tanks, the other traditionally tanks
and with the ability to move about the field fast and "be" 3k at the "fight" opposed to doing some wide, slow turn at range 8k with the beam boat with only 1 arc firing does have its advantages for dishing out good beam damage
don't get me wrong, love your resume, got 12 characters myself, all classes, 8 are pvp rdy, and I LOVE all tac styles, scort/boat/torp/sci etc
I see all of those have excellent roles on pvp, and vs the right team- each one can be devastating, but-
to go into the argument of damage alone- use to contributing to kills in a 5v5 match, both fleet made, friend made, or even premade you gotta have noticed that the tac/scort (the job) is a little out classed by vapers
we all have been in matches with our tac scort cannon builds and try as we might, just cant make head way on the other team due to their cross healing, vapers on the other hand have the better chance of overriding that level of team heal-
so to say beam scorts are stupid and a waste of a slot on a team, I would say (if I was building a team) a tac cannon scort is a waste of a slot on a team, gimmi a good vaper pilot any day of the week, you will have a better chance against the other premade teams in the cues with the vaper
If we are talking pugs, well, pull out your engineer in his scort! LOL and go have some fun! any ship will work and win then, cause at the end of the day, its team work that really wins matches and nets dominating wins, not a pile of lone-gun scort pilots, patting themselves on the back for all the kills they soloed:)
No, that's not the only difference, cruisers are made for the job, have an extra weapon, and more eng to run a2b, dem, and don't need to speed tank so can safely run eptw instead of epte, that's why escorts aren't made for this. Beams are pressure, they need to be able to stay in combat, not zoom in and out.
I like most styles and most ships and all classes, but not beamscort.
As for DHC escorts, it is still working for us and we use bugs all the time in premades and win, it works better for us then when we use all tacs as vapers or FAW beam cruisers. Many times we do combination of vaper and bug with Mini vaping and Zelda and others in DHC bugs. All DHC stil works great, you just need good coordination and sci on the target. I would say we use vapers and DHC escorts about equally and both more then beam ships. I use beam cruisers for pugging and kerrat more then with premade.
There may be someone making it work, I haven't seen it though and the vast majority aren't.
On my Eng, I have been known to beamscort around Ker'rat a bit. Not with epte though, always epts and weapons, but I can keep beams overcapped all the time, and enjoy a very high crit rate. that said, I have pretty well switched everything back over to cannons and only my cruisers run beams at this point.
As fun as damage oriented beamscorting can be, the OMGWTFLOL crits from DHC's are just too good to ignore, even on my Eng.
My KDF tac on the other hand, its DHC's or some flavor of vapy kill-o-whacking or torp brel fun, beams stay on the mirror negh-var.
After reading through the thread I feel I must now formally apologize for getting us all into this mess. When I first started flying my FPE beam-scort ("Sonic Squirrel"), I did so in response to all of the vape attacks being visited upon my hapless FAHCR ("Mama Squirrel"). My goal was to translate my very effective cruiser build to a smaller, nimbler platform. And, for the most part, I succeeded - this despite the lack of viable A2B support on the original FPE.
But it wasn't until I moved my beams to the Hunter escort - and implemented my popular hybrid A2B/A2D build - that the damn broke. After successfully dueling a variety of veteran escort jockeys (and popping quite a few of them), the realization of what I had created began to set-in. And thus began the flood of copycat builds - first on the Hunter (Zero, I'm looking at you), and later on the Nicor (not my fault, honest).
Now, Ker'rat and the queues are awash in beam-scorts flitting to and fro while generating anemic damage (not everyone knows how to build and/or fly one correctly) and generally annoying the PvP elites. I might have called such a development "glorious" had I not, myself, abandoned the beam-scort play style altogether.
It's true. In a fitting bit of irony, this beam-scort pioneer has forsaken his original build in favor of a traditional cannons/turrets/dbb combo.
Why, you might ask? Because it's better. Not only am I more effective 1v1, I'm also more of an asset in a team setting since, unlike most beam-scorts, I can usually KILL something with direct fire!
So, there you have it. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for unleashing this misery upon the PvP community. :P
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
...but yeah, beamscorts have been around forever.
Yep and back then it was Right up on Z while cycling 3 target sub abilities back when running 2 Target 3s wasn't a bad idea.
As far as it being lame, I agree. It looks stupid. But on being "just trolling" and "ineffective" I'd disagree. There were some deadly beam bugs people were doing for lulz that did well. In my former life, my char ran all beam arrays with aux2bat dem build on his JHEC and could take out some ships 1v1 which was pretty funny now that I think of it. So maybe it is trolling. They can kill though. lol
Damn, I remember a LONG time ago, before LOR, someone in a JHEC doing exactly this in a PUG C&H. Using Spiral Wave Disruptors
That was quite painful for anyone trying to close in, while the JHEC had enough mobility to make a game of it and constantly present broadsides no matter what you were doing.
I was in a Gal-X (yes guys, go ahead and laugh) but at least the Gal-X could take it. Other Escorts couldn't.
Why could not escorts uses beam arrays? Because it does not fit a narrow point of view? Because they can be efficient designs?
I am running a beam escort (3 DBBs front, 2 BA aft) and I am quite happy with it. I get better results compared to a canon set-up because it just fits my style.
Not all escorts are small fast ships like the Defiant in DS9, the Prometheus in Voyager was equipped with beams and she was 4 times larger. Some might even say that the Prometheus was actually a combat cruiser.
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Bah! You know very well that I was just being sarcastic with my "apology," etc.
But seriously, sometimes it feels like I'm ahead of the curve with regard to build trends. For example, when I first started PvP'ing - circa July/August 2013 - there were few, if any, A2B cruisers trolling Ker'rat or the queues. In fact, I was roundly mocked and even criticized for using a big, slow cruiser. After all, I was a Tac officer, and Tac officers were supposed to fly escorts and leave the cruisers to the engineers as "healer boats."
Of course, the mockery turned to outright derision as I proceeded to mop the floor with a host of Ker'rat and queue regulars. Then the DPS guys went on their famous tear through the queues in late 2013 and suddenly the landscape was awash in A2B "abusers" running 7 beams + kcb and dem-faw spamming the competition into dust.
In other words, doing exactly what I had been doing since 3-4 months earlier.
Now, I'm seeing the same trend with beam-scorts: I find a way to make it work, have some success with it, and then others start PM'ing me for my build page so they can copy it.
Of course, I'm well aware that I originated neither build philosophy. Both the A2B beam-boat and the beam-scort have long histories from well before I joined STO in the F2P era. But I do think I've helped popularize (or revive from obscurity) certain build types that had fallen out of favor but which have now become quite potent thanks to changes to the meta-game and also the introduction of new ship models to support their play styles (Avenger, Hunter, new FPE, Nicor, et al).
It would make my month if they banned scimitars from using single beams, then stupid people would stop accusing me of FAWing. That being said if only certain ships can use dual cannons then it makes sense for there to be similar restrictions on beams. Have seen the amount of space they take up on a saucer section ( also how much space must the workings underneath take up?)
I'm not a big supporter of restricting item usage. I prefer seeing a multitude of different builds and not everyone being shoe-horned into running exactly the same. This also works the other way: why not unrestrict Dual Heavies? Although, I haven't really thought that one through, but on first glance, I don't see much of a problem with something like a Temp Sci running Dual Heavies. But please, if I'm missing something, enlighten me.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Devotion Paladin
Every Federation Starship in canon has beam arrays on it including the Defiant.
I'm guessing you use torpedoes on all of your builds as well bc they are so accurately represented in STO.
i love star trek.... laetly i hate sto .. sad but true. haven't played much. to much space majik.... waiting for SC.
and fyi, most of my ships\toons are cannon.
i have a toon named soto... he's a sci leath.... my klingon flies a BoP... my reman flies a scim.... with cannons! my romulan flies a warbird... ect... beams [faw] on an escort is not cannon and stupid. derp
Don't know why it says i'm an ARC user. i will never use that TRIBBLE Cryptic!
The person responsible for the design of that Negh'var, with it not being able to target ships closeby, or the guy responsible for calibrating the targeting computer should be shot for incompetence.
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Devotion Paladin
The person responsible for the design of that Negh'var, with it not being able to target ships closeby, or the guy responsible for calibrating the targeting computer should be shot for incompetence.
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
Wrong. Beams have firing arcs and ships don't have perfect defensive design. Bigger the ship, more weaknesses it has. fast small ships could and must exploit every blind spot there is if they can get close enough.
To have beams to cover every angle on such big ship you would need to make entire ship a giant weapon power distribution system which would not leave much place for anything else.
And unless a ship is a perfect sphere you would risk hitting your own ship with your own weapons.
Comments
I am not changing my story, we do kill them but it is unnecessarily trollish and while it does take time if they are all running a lot, they don't contribute much to their teams damage do doesn't pose much of a challenge to us.
I think you were one of the ones putting beams on a Hunter escort right? I remember that one yesterday also, it was pretty evasive and annoying but doesn't hit very hard. If you switch to DHC you might not be able to zoom around and run so much since you have to keep targets in your forward arc but will actually be able to contribute decent damage to your team.
I dont see many use EPTW, they use EPTS and EPTE to zip around taking and therefore are hard to kill, but useless. I have never seen any that hasn't been a detriment to their team.
I have 9 level 50s and play all ships and classes, but never use beams on an escort and never will, I play my various tacs as vapers, beam cruisers, and of course DHC escorts, which does work great on HoBO teams.
Besides, where would something like this end? If we say that the game shouldn't allow beams on escorts because they are not optimal/are useless/letting the team down, well, just think about it - pure torp boats should not be allowed. Turrets cannot be mounted forward. Mixing weapons types is not allowed. Standard fighters are not allowed. No DHC on Jem Dreads or Bortasqu's. Engineers cannot fly escorts.
Honestly, this is a build choice. Some people don't play to be optimal - some play for fun. Not to mention beamscorts are nice for PvE too. It's the same as every other aspect of a build choice - it's up to the player.
You may argue that DHCs are better than beams. That may be true. However, this does not mean that Cryptic should block it entirely.
No, that's not the only difference, cruisers are made for the job, have an extra weapon, and more eng to run a2b, dem, and don't need to speed tank so can safely run eptw instead of epte, that's why escorts aren't made for this. Beams are pressure, they need to be able to stay in combat, not zoom in and out.
I like most styles and most ships and all classes, but not beamscort.
As for DHC escorts, it is still working for us and we use bugs all the time in premades and win, it works better for us then when we use all tacs as vapers or FAW beam cruisers. Many times we do combination of vaper and bug with Mini vaping and Zelda and others in DHC bugs. All DHC stil works great, you just need good coordination and sci on the target. I would say we use vapers and DHC escorts about equally and both more then beam ships. I use beam cruisers for pugging and kerrat more then with premade.
There may be someone making it work, I haven't seen it though and the vast majority aren't.
Escorts should only be able to load DHC... DC and regular cannons should be locked because they are non optimal.
As fun as damage oriented beamscorting can be, the OMGWTFLOL crits from DHC's are just too good to ignore, even on my Eng.
My KDF tac on the other hand, its DHC's or some flavor of vapy kill-o-whacking or torp brel fun, beams stay on the mirror negh-var.
Derrick - Fed Eng
But it wasn't until I moved my beams to the Hunter escort - and implemented my popular hybrid A2B/A2D build - that the damn broke. After successfully dueling a variety of veteran escort jockeys (and popping quite a few of them), the realization of what I had created began to set-in. And thus began the flood of copycat builds - first on the Hunter (Zero, I'm looking at you), and later on the Nicor (not my fault, honest).
Now, Ker'rat and the queues are awash in beam-scorts flitting to and fro while generating anemic damage (not everyone knows how to build and/or fly one correctly) and generally annoying the PvP elites. I might have called such a development "glorious" had I not, myself, abandoned the beam-scort play style altogether.
It's true. In a fitting bit of irony, this beam-scort pioneer has forsaken his original build in favor of a traditional cannons/turrets/dbb combo.
Why, you might ask? Because it's better. Not only am I more effective 1v1, I'm also more of an asset in a team setting since, unlike most beam-scorts, I can usually KILL something with direct fire!
So, there you have it. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for unleashing this misery upon the PvP community. :P
RCK
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
...but yeah, beamscorts have been around forever.
Yep and back then it was Right up on Z while cycling 3 target sub abilities back when running 2 Target 3s wasn't a bad idea.
Damn, I remember a LONG time ago, before LOR, someone in a JHEC doing exactly this in a PUG C&H. Using Spiral Wave Disruptors
That was quite painful for anyone trying to close in, while the JHEC had enough mobility to make a game of it and constantly present broadsides no matter what you were doing.
I was in a Gal-X (yes guys, go ahead and laugh) but at least the Gal-X could take it. Other Escorts couldn't.
I am running a beam escort (3 DBBs front, 2 BA aft) and I am quite happy with it. I get better results compared to a canon set-up because it just fits my style.
Not all escorts are small fast ships like the Defiant in DS9, the Prometheus in Voyager was equipped with beams and she was 4 times larger. Some might even say that the Prometheus was actually a combat cruiser.
Bah! You know very well that I was just being sarcastic with my "apology," etc.
But seriously, sometimes it feels like I'm ahead of the curve with regard to build trends. For example, when I first started PvP'ing - circa July/August 2013 - there were few, if any, A2B cruisers trolling Ker'rat or the queues. In fact, I was roundly mocked and even criticized for using a big, slow cruiser. After all, I was a Tac officer, and Tac officers were supposed to fly escorts and leave the cruisers to the engineers as "healer boats."
Of course, the mockery turned to outright derision as I proceeded to mop the floor with a host of Ker'rat and queue regulars. Then the DPS guys went on their famous tear through the queues in late 2013 and suddenly the landscape was awash in A2B "abusers" running 7 beams + kcb and dem-faw spamming the competition into dust.
In other words, doing exactly what I had been doing since 3-4 months earlier.
Now, I'm seeing the same trend with beam-scorts: I find a way to make it work, have some success with it, and then others start PM'ing me for my build page so they can copy it.
Of course, I'm well aware that I originated neither build philosophy. Both the A2B beam-boat and the beam-scort have long histories from well before I joined STO in the F2P era. But I do think I've helped popularize (or revive from obscurity) certain build types that had fallen out of favor but which have now become quite potent thanks to changes to the meta-game and also the introduction of new ship models to support their play styles (Avenger, Hunter, new FPE, Nicor, et al).
Anyway, it's fun bucking the conventional wisdom.
RCK
run what you want but just know i and others who like star trek think yer an idiot ^^
that goes especially for you beam scimifawtards out there!~! \
cannons on a scim in cannon you fool!!!
j\k... not really . use cannons on an escort :P
i stand by my original ignorant statement! :P
but if you notice, there is a single beam on that escort and it's not Faw'ing everything in sight. j\s
i love star trek.... laetly i hate sto ..
and fyi, most of my ships\toons are cannon.
i have a toon named soto... he's a sci leath.... my klingon flies a BoP... my reman flies a scim.... with cannons! my romulan flies a warbird... ect... beams [faw] on an escort is not cannon and stupid. derp
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
To late for that.... the game is already horrid.... returning to a more cannon type sto would make it better in my opinion. :P
Wrong. Beams have firing arcs and ships don't have perfect defensive design. Bigger the ship, more weaknesses it has. fast small ships could and must exploit every blind spot there is if they can get close enough.
To have beams to cover every angle on such big ship you would need to make entire ship a giant weapon power distribution system which would not leave much place for anything else.
And unless a ship is a perfect sphere you would risk hitting your own ship with your own weapons.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
And yet moddable Star Trek games have a countless number of mods focused on making those games "more" canon.... why is that? :rolleyes:
But by all means, go ahead. Make it all totally random when a B'rel or JHAS or Defiant explodes. The shows sure did.