[Acc] is, obviously, still not the grand PvE ideal, so it won't be massively OP, but it's sure as hell more of a contribution than the Big Fat Nothing that disabling random subsystems gets you in PvE.
While I would personally prefer an innate CrtH instead of an innate Acc, it is not for the preferring PvE over PvP.
Using Hellspawny's calculator, I checked to see how both bonuses would affect the numbers for Phasers.
The innate Accuracy would be a huge boost to Phasers, possibly to the point of them being overpowered; providing that the Devs fix whatever is wrong with Accuracy Overflow.
An innate CrtH would be a boost, but not overpowering.
But as you said, it would be a lot more beneficial than disabling random subsystems, and hoping that you get one that matters. "It's like trying to hit a bullet, with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse."
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
The innate Accuracy would be a huge boost to Phasers, possibly to the point of them being overpowered; providing that the Devs fix whatever is wrong with Accuracy Overflow.
Overflow produces less returns than simply a raw mod, however. But this part is quibble, really. Either option would be better than the present.
But as you said, it would be a lot more beneficial than disabling random subsystems, and hoping that you get one that matters. "It's like trying to hit a bullet, with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse."
Remove the current proc and replace it with a built-in accuracy buff, to signify that phasers are accurate and deadly. This won't dethrone Disruptor and Plasma (and certainly not antiproton), but it'll put phasers up there a bit further on the list, and that's all I really want.
Rework the current proc and make the subsystem decompiler skill affect how long a subsystem will be disabled. This, to me, seems less than ideal, since it is a PvP buff. Our enemies in PvE don't work with subsystems, so anything involving that is not as good as, say, a raw 20% crit severity increase.
From a PvP standpoint, I completely understand how potent a subsystem nullifying weapon is, and I feel that it is idiotic to have something attached to a weapon. Keep it to the Target: subsystem skills and leave it there. Drain pressure from Polaron and siphon abilities is less painful than a straight disable, so I say keep things drain only, unless a skill is used to activate the disable.
From a PvE standpoint, it is known that the things we fight are nothing but bags of hitpoints, so anything that can drain those hitpoints the fastest is superior. Additionally, the "5 seconds" is all but ignored by the foes you would want the proc to happen on, and the chances of sinking a torpedo into a cube before the shields go up is slim to none.
How do we (or perhaps I) get Cryptic's attention on this matter? Start a petition? Send some emails?
Drains are weak in a pvp perspective, because there are so many ways to achieve an extremely high PI skill.
Phasers benefitting from subspace decompiler makes perfect sense, since again there are so many ways to bring a subsystem back online quickly.
I mean as it stands right now phasers get to knock out 1 subsystem every 10-15secs., so let's say it hits weapons each, and every time.
1st proc weapons offline, easily countered with a battery.
2nd proc weapons offline, easily countered with engteam
3rd proc weapons offline, easily countered by emp2wep
4th proc weapons offline, easily countered by either subsystem repair skill, or any of the 3 listed above, heck there is even a piece of gear designed to hot start or prevent weapons offline from occurring.
So 5 max secs of phaser proc is weak, and in reality is closer to 1-3secs tops.
Add a new phaser with a meaningfull proc for PvE add another in the Fleet Elite line there just as bad as normal phasers are.....in the normal phaser color and real phaser sound...not green
Keep the current PvP phasers
There is like 2x or 3x as many disruptor type's over phaser types so a PvE oriented phaser should be a given
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Antiproton: +Critical Severity
---Fluidic Antiproton: 2.5% chance to repel and do Physical damage (100% shield penetration)
---Voth Antiproton: 25% chance on critical to reduce enemy's damage output
Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance
---Bio-Molecular Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & 2.5% chance to reduce flight speed/do Rad damage
---Elachi Crescent: 2.5% chance to ignore shields (100%) and damage resistance (50%)
---Elite Fleet Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to lower shield damage reduction
---Nanite Disruptors: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance and increase shield bleedthrough
---Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance (half normal debuff) & to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT
---Polarized Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to reduce subsystem power
---Spiral Wave Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to disable a random subsystem
Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem
---Bio-Molecular Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem & 2.5% chance to reduce flight speed/do Rad damage
---Elite Fleet Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem & shield regeneration
Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT
---Caustic Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT (double damage/half duration - same damage faster)
---Romulan Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT & to lower damage resistance
Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power
---Dominion Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & to reduce shields
---Phased Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & to disable a random subsystem
---Protonic Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & 25% chance on critical to do Proton damage
Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields
---Destabilizing Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields over time
---Piercing Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields & 2.5% chance for 50% of attack to ignore shields (can anybody confirm whether that's a boost to bleed or just half the damage completely ignores shields?)
---Polarized Tetryon: 10% chance to reduce shields
---Refracting Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields and do Tetryon damage to the nearest enemy target
In looking at changing the Phaser proc, you would not only be changing it for Phasers, Bio-Molecular Phasers, and Elite Fleet Phasers; but you would also be changing it for Spiral Wave Disruptors and Phased Polarons.
There's little doubt, well imho, that the Phaser proc is the swingiest proc out there where it can be super awesome or super garbage...and that it should be changed. I believe it should be completely changed - not improved as a disable proc - completely changed from a disable proc.
Something to consider with giving it an [Acc] boost is how much? The +10%? Then you've basically added the choice of +10% Accuracy, +2% Critical Hit, +20% Critical Severity, or +5% Damage Strength...you've gone the AP route.
Course, AP needs to be addressed anyway - since the +20% Critical Severity boost was added at a point where Critical Hit was low. Base CrtH is 2.5%...yeah, the +20% CrtD is built off a 2.5% proc. So with CrtH running 20-30%+ now...the AP boost is no longer balanced. Yeah, yeah - folks running AP are getting in the pickup with their torches and pitchforks as I type that...whatever.
More and more things point to there simply being a need for some sort of balance pass - the games changed quite a bit in the past year...it's not the game it was two years ago. Some things though...are relics of different age and need to be tweaked for today's game. Have to wonder if any of that is being taken into consideration for X2, S10, and beyond.
Oh well, one could hit up Memory Alpha to read about Phasers...and see that many of the procs they might have thought to give them have found their way to other weapons.
In the end, imo, it's just too damn swingy a proc (of a proc that shouldn't have existed in the first place)...and it should be replaced with something that's going to make sense for the game and make sense based on the IP.
That's fine, but Roach is part of that other 1% that spends a lot of time in PvP.
Quite a few of the veteran posters on here are PvP players. And a lot of what they post about has that in mind.
The game might be 99% PvE to you and me. But it's not to him and quite a few others. And so keeping PvP effectiveness in mind has some value in a discussion of procs.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say you should bump you stat from 1% to something more in-line with this topic.
Let's say PvP accounts for 2.5% of the stuff to do in this game.
2.5%
I like that number for this topic. For some strange reason.
It is a humorous change but inaccurate. Also take note that rather one plays a lot of PvP or not they still endured the grind to become effective as I stated. Furthermore, I think it is as clear as a perfect vacuum to anyone that the Devs are focused on PvE and PvE content NOT PvP. I tend to agree that the two honestly require full separation.
However, that is beside the point as even in PvP Phasers are joke to anyone who is even remotely, mildly, minimally prepared and in this case they need not even really be prepared for Phasers.
[Acc] is, obviously, still not the grand PvE ideal, so it won't be massively OP, but it's sure as hell more of a contribution than the Big Fat Nothing that disabling random subsystems gets you in PvE.
Indeed... Even in PvE it can help with smaller faster ships, especially when they use Evasive (some do) or Attack Pattern Omega/Alpha. It also at least contributes a bit to overflow which while it would be a small help would still help with a touch more crit chance and severity. So I would take it.
The best thing about the innate Accuracy boost though to me is that it means I can safely tack on one multiplier that is NOT [Acc] because the Phaser itself will cover that for me. Sure in PvP you may want to go crazy and stack it to the moon but in many other situations it could be nice to throw in more actual [CrtD] or [CrtH].
The biggest issue with phasers, is the lack of anything to aid the proc, while there are so many ways to counter the proc.
Phasers are by no means a top dog, nor even a middle class weapon proc.
Heck hybrid phased weapons put basic phasers to shame.
Indeed this hurts but also the hybrids besides the newest ones are not even hybrid Phasers they are other weapon classes which does not help. Why in the world would you give up an addition bonus for the Phaser proc though? That is insane. It is like "Hey I will give up more Accuracy, Damage, or Critical all the time for a worthless ability that will activate every now and then!"
Disables will NEVER be useful vs. NPCs unless the very notion of how an NPC operates is radically redesigned.
Actually they DO use their subsystems. Knock out their weapons and they stop shooting. Knock out their Aux and no more science abilities. Shields or Engines can be great on some enemies. If you knock out the Aux on those Transformers that heal the gates in Infected or Khitomer Vortex you can actually kill the gate while those things are still alive because they cannot heal it.
Yeah, man: You may not remember the history of why that was added, but let me remind you: Back then, phasers had no lockout, so people (and NPCs) would SPAM PHASERS, resulting in your ship being permanently disabled: All 4 systems permanently inoperable.
This is why phaser and polaroid both have special behaviors on repeated proc. It was especially bad with phasers, though, since you could summon pets that spammed phasers, too.
Oh back in the day when the Multivector pets were actually relevant... I miss that...
Also the Atrox with two bays of Peregrines used to Equal permanent shutdown lol. It was epic. Polaron can still be utterly wicked with the right setup but yeah these days it will not fully shut you down like it could in the old days.
Subspace Decompiler is an Admiral Level Skill, and none a TAC or ENG would put points into.
That is a massive assumption... You know what they say about what you do when you AssUMe.
Being a Tactical Captain or Engineer in no way means you cannot fly Science Ships or use abilities that may want Subspace Decompiler. So that argument is rather baseless. However, it would seem unfair to make Phasers have to use such a high level skill when Polarons get to use such a low level one and are a later-in-the-game weapon.
So far I am loving the innate Accuracy boost solution but I still have my idea as well. I would like the Phasers to work more like they do on the ground. Give them a proc for a 2 second full disable + lingering flight speed or at least turn rate debuff for a short time. Still have a lockout timer so that they cannot permastun/permaslow the enemy. This would have more advantage allowing you to put a sudden halt to various science abilities and such and playing havoc with your enemy's ability to plan successfully. Seems how Feds LOVE Cruisers and Science vessels this would help both of them quite nicely as well.
It is a humorous change but inaccurate. Also take note that rather one plays a lot of PvP or not they still endured the grind to become effective as I stated. Furthermore, I think it is as clear as a perfect vacuum to anyone that the Devs are focused on PvE and PvE content NOT PvP. I tend to agree that the two honestly require full separation.
However, that is beside the point as even in PvP Phasers are joke to anyone who is even remotely, mildly, minimally prepared and in this case they need not even really be prepared for Phasers.
Indeed... Even in PvE it can help with smaller faster ships, especially when they use Evasive (some do) or Attack Pattern Omega/Alpha. It also at least contributes a bit to overflow which while it would be a small help would still help with a touch more crit chance and severity. So I would take it.
The best thing about the innate Accuracy boost though to me is that it means I can safely tack on one multiplier that is NOT [Acc] because the Phaser itself will cover that for me. Sure in PvP you may want to go crazy and stack it to the moon but in many other situations it could be nice to throw in more actual [CrtD] or [CrtH].
Indeed this hurts but also the hybrids besides the newest ones are not even hybrid Phasers they are other weapon classes which does not help. Why in the world would you give up an addition bonus for the Phaser proc though? That is insane. It is like "Hey I will give up more Accuracy, Damage, or Critical all the time for a worthless ability that will activate every now and then!"
Actually they DO use their subsystems. Knock out their weapons and they stop shooting. Knock out their Aux and no more science abilities. Shields or Engines can be great on some enemies. If you knock out the Aux on those Transformers that heal the gates in Infected or Khitomer Vortex you can actually kill the gate while those things are still alive because they cannot heal it.
Oh back in the day when the Multivector pets were actually relevant... I miss that...
Also the Atrox with two bays of Peregrines used to Equal permanent shutdown lol. It was epic. Polaron can still be utterly wicked with the right setup but yeah these days it will not fully shut you down like it could in the old days.
Now now... Let us leave the ponies out of this. We have already beat the poor thing into the dirt. The salvation part is what we are up to now.
That is a massive assumption... You know what they say about what you do when you AssUMe.
Being a Tactical Captain or Engineer in no way means you cannot fly Science Ships or use abilities that may want Subspace Decompiler. So that argument is rather baseless. However, it would seem unfair to make Phasers have to use such a high level skill when Polarons get to use such a low level one and are a later-in-the-game weapon.
So far I am loving the innate Accuracy boost solution but I still have my idea as well. I would like the Phasers to work more like they do on the ground. Give them a proc for a 2 second full disable + lingering flight speed or at least turn rate debuff for a short time. Still have a lockout timer so that they cannot permastun/permaslow the enemy. This would have more advantage allowing you to put a sudden halt to various science abilities and such and playing havoc with your enemy's ability to plan successfully. Seems how Feds LOVE Cruisers and Science vessels this would help both of them quite nicely as well.
What the heck are you rambling on about, you can still get ACC CRTD CRTH DMG from any weapons, what I am referring to is to allow phaser procs to benefit from the subspace decompiler skill, since the proc is so easily negated, and a 10sec timed immunity is applied each time.
Could we find a solution that makes them worth wile in both PvE and PvP, a T5 Skill is maybe fine for you but there are other people and for them this would not help them at all.
Actually they DO use their subsystems. Knock out their weapons and they stop shooting. Knock out their Aux and no more science abilities. Shields or Engines can be great on some enemies.
But they don't actually CARE. These abilities are fluff on an NPC, they do not actually USE them. If you shut down an NPC's shield, you find they don't really use them: They survive by virtue of their millions of hitpoints, not their shield. If you stop their engine, you'll just find that their aimless wandering is briefly curtailed: They weren't actually GOING anywhere. There is no intelligent agenda you are interrupting by doing this. It has no meaningful effect. All you accomplish is briefly halting a form of undirected meaningless behavior, which has no real influence on the outcome. If anything, the results are often harmful, as anyone who has zapped a Scimitar in this way knows. In any case, since everything that NPCs do is wrong, there is no reason why you would want to randomly interrupt them: Never interrupt your enemy when it is making a mistake.
Could we find a solution that makes them worth wile in both PvE and PvP, a T5 Skill is maybe fine for you but there are other people and for them this would not help them at all.
Well the best I can say, is if you do not want to invest in improving that skill value, than you are still receiving the 5secs., so nothing changes there it is for those who want to improve the proc, than need spend points.
You know like how FC improves polaron/tetryon, and how PG improves radiation/plasma/etc.
What the heck are you rambling on about, you can still get ACC CRTD CRTH DMG from any weapons, what I am referring to is to allow phaser procs to benefit from the subspace decompiler skill, since the proc is so easily negated, and a 10sec timed immunity is applied each time.
Hybrid Phaser weapons, besides the latest bio ones, are things like Phased Tetryons and Phased Polarons. They are not even Phasers and you give up an additional modifier in order to get the Phaser Proc. That is what I am talking about. It is a HORRIBLE trade. Even another [Dmg] would be superior to a Phaser Proc.
But they don't actually CARE. These abilities are fluff on an NPC, they do not actually USE them. If you shut down an NPC's shield, you find they don't really use them: They survive by virtue of their millions of hitpoints, not their shield. If you stop their engine, you'll just find that their aimless wandering is briefly curtailed: They weren't actually GOING anywhere. There is no intelligent agenda you are interrupting by doing this. It has no meaningful effect. All you accomplish is briefly halting a form of undirected meaningless behavior, which has no real influence on the outcome. If anything, the results are often harmful, as anyone who has zapped a Scimitar in this way knows. In any case, since everything that NPCs do is wrong, there is no reason why you would want to randomly interrupt them: Never interrupt your enemy when it is making a mistake.
Getting their shields out of the way gives you access to pealing off more of t hose thousands of hull points. I agree that many enemies have absurd hull compared to us though in some cases it makes sense (Gates, Cubes etc...). It does not make sense if they are ships we could fly.
When you knock out their engines, especially on the faster ships, you drop their Defense Rating down to all but zip and heavily increase your number of hits and boost your crits and their damage. Nausicaan Escorts for instance can be hard to kill while they are at full speed but proc off their engine and they blow up like a fighter craft in a Gravity Well.
I fail to see the problem with knocking out a Scimitar. If you knock down its Aux while it is about to unleash its pulse it will fail to fire. That is great in Starbase Defense. (In other cases you should just get out of the way) Likewise knock out the Aux of something Tractoring you and BAM no more tractorbeam.
Don't get me wrong I fully agree that the AI is largely weak and the enemies are generally pretty stupid and do NOT use their abilities in any truly intelligent way but even still their abilities and subsystems still benefit them and taking away that benefit can be beneficial to you.
Hybrid Phaser weapons, besides the latest bio ones, are things like Phased Tetryons and Phased Polarons. They are not even Phasers and you give up an additional modifier in order to get the Phaser Proc. That is what I am talking about. It is a HORRIBLE trade. Even another [Dmg] would be superior to a Phaser Proc.
Getting their shields out of the way gives you access to pealing off more of t hose thousands of hull points. I agree that many enemies have absurd hull compared to us though in some cases it makes sense (Gates, Cubes etc...). It does not make sense if they are ships we could fly.
When you knock out their engines, especially on the faster ships, you drop their Defense Rating down to all but zip and heavily increase your number of hits and boost your crits and their damage. Nausicaan Escorts for instance can be hard to kill while they are at full speed but proc off their engine and they blow up like a fighter craft in a Gravity Well.
I fail to see the problem with knocking out a Scimitar. If you knock down its Aux while it is about to unleash its pulse it will fail to fire. That is great in Starbase Defense. (In other cases you should just get out of the way) Likewise knock out the Aux of something Tractoring you and BAM no more tractorbeam.
Don't get me wrong I fully agree that the AI is largely weak and the enemies are generally pretty stupid and do NOT use their abilities in any truly intelligent way but even still their abilities and subsystems still benefit them and taking away that benefit can be beneficial to you.
One stinking mod isn't going to kill you, it would barely even be game changing, and any phased weapon is still basically a variation of a phaser, just inflicting non phaser energy damage.
One stinking mod isn't going to kill you, it would barely even be game changing, and any phased weapon is still basically a variation of a phaser, just inflicting non phaser energy damage.
That last part is the important bit though... If you want the maximum power out of the Kumari's Wing Cannons, The Galaxy X Lance, the Vesta Deflector Beam, The Chimera Lotus, and the Point Defense Turret (I may be forgetting others) then you need to boost Phaser damage. This means you need to run Phasers as weapons. Thus the old "Phaser Hybrids" do not even help.
Moreover, you would be just plain silly to use the old "Phaser Hybrids" because the NORMAL flavors of those same type of Energy would be able to have another modifier instead of the tacked on Phaser Proc which means they would be superior by default.
Honestly the Phaser thing would not even be such an issue if there were not ships that all but HAD to use them. If that was not the case I would never touch phasers with a ten foot pole. It also hurts that all the Shuttles have to use them...
You do not have this problem with ships that REQUIRE Disruptors. Not only are Disruptors excellent weapons to begin with but there are MANY hybrids that are ALSO good. Nanite Disruptors are basically a weaker version of Elite Disruptors, Elachi Disruptors can be utterly wicked if you get a lucky crit with a BO, Polarized Disruptors are wonderful for ships using Power Drain mechanics, and ALL of them are "Disruptors". I know I am leaving some out but Disruptors just got a lot more love.
That last part is the important bit though... If you want the maximum power out of the Kumari's Wing Cannons, The Galaxy X Lance, the Vesta Deflector Beam, The Chimera Lotus, and the Point Defense Turret (I may be forgetting others) then you need to boost Phaser damage. This means you need to run Phasers as weapons. Thus the old "Phaser Hybrids" do not even help.
Moreover, you would be just plain silly to use the old "Phaser Hybrids" because the NORMAL flavors of those same type of Energy would be able to have another modifier instead of the tacked on Phaser Proc which means they would be superior by default.
Honestly the Phaser thing would not even be such an issue if there were not ships that all but HAD to use them. If that was not the case I would never touch phasers with a ten foot pole. It also hurts that all the Shuttles have to use them...
You do not have this problem with ships that REQUIRE Disruptors. Not only are Disruptors excellent weapons to begin with but there are MANY hybrids that are ALSO good. Nanite Disruptors are basically a weaker version of Elite Disruptors, Elachi Disruptors can be utterly wicked if you get a lucky crit with a BO, Polarized Disruptors are wonderful for ships using Power Drain mechanics, and ALL of them are "Disruptors". I know I am leaving some out but Disruptors just got a lot more love.
Addressing points in a semi-random order:
1. Phaser proc, as it stands now, would "be a problem" whether or not they were "required" for Fed "iconic weapon builds", I mean, look at Tetryon... Yet, those Iconic weapon builds are "necessary", so here we go...
2. I think part and parcel of the Phaser Proc Issue is the double-whammy we're getting. Phasers when I first joined were an OK PvP weapon - until the Armitage and pet-phaser-spam got so high that it was back to the "science glory days" where targets sat completely shut down till they went pop. While they functioned "well" in PvP, in PvE, the resists are frequently so high that the targets barely register a blip when the proc actually engages - weapons offline might negate a firing cycle before resists clear it, too many targets are already "stationary enough" to not see engines offline, shields pop up before the torp hits them, and only a handful of enemies use Aux-powers that would register the aux going down. And, theoretically, these PvE enemies are supposedly "gonna show the proc longer than a player would"... And PvE targets get the same immunity to being shut all the way down that players get...
3. To this point, Dev team seems to be working under the "well, enough Feddies are still using phasers, so they must be OK" concept. I know, I am (inadvertently) one because half of my Feddie Complement uses Phasers - Main has Aux Phasers on his Vesta, Engie has a full slate of them on a Galaxy-X (note, 2 ships that suffer from "iconic weapon syndrome"). Tac in Armitage uses (right now) tetryons with a touch of Omega Glider, and my once-main Sci uses polarons in a semi-drain build...
As a Sci player myself, I'm a bit miffed at the overall resist levels of NPCs, I avoid disable builds in PvE because a majority of the disables "comes across" as ineffective without being piled on due to NPC resists. Can we "test" a 25% or even 50% across-the-board reduction in all NPC resists for a while - to see if that's enough to let disabling systems (polaron, phaser, single tyken's rifts, etc.) show up a bit more, and if certain ones (subspace gunk console) start proving to be too powerful in this new world than they can be tapped with a nerf-bat...
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Funny how nearly every time I take out my Fleet Avenger loaded with Mk XI phasers from the exchange I get compliments on how much damage I do.
This because we are talking about the proc not the damage.
Damage wise a MK-XII Purple Phaser does the same amount of damage than a MK-XII Disrupter, Tetryon, Plasma if you would remove the proc they would be all the same except Antiprotons.
This because we are talking about the proc not the damage.
Damage wise a MK-XII Purple Phaser does the same amount of damage than a MK-XII Disrupter, Tetryon, Plasma if you would remove the proc they would be all the same except Antiprotons.
It would depend on the mods of those weapons and the build of the ship. I use a Critical build on my non rom fed engineer with CrtDx3 weapons and get better results than using APs, even with the Obelisk Set.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
That last part is the important bit though... If you want the maximum power out of the Kumari's Wing Cannons, The Galaxy X Lance, the Vesta Deflector Beam, The Chimera Lotus, and the Point Defense Turret (I may be forgetting others) then you need to boost Phaser damage. This means you need to run Phasers as weapons. Thus the old "Phaser Hybrids" do not even help.
Sounds like a personal issue, and a reason why I wouldn't use those ships, or ship abilities.
Moreover, you would be just plain silly to use the old "Phaser Hybrids" because the NORMAL flavors of those same type of Energy would be able to have another modifier instead of the tacked on Phaser Proc which means they would be superior by default.
Define old phaser hybrids, I use phased polaron as the foremost leading weapon for my drain build, why you ask well polaron drain topped with skill drains, and a possibility from 2 or more areas to shut down a system.
Honestly the Phaser thing would not even be such an issue if there were not ships that all but HAD to use them. If that was not the case I would never touch phasers with a ten foot pole. It also hurts that all the Shuttles have to use them...
You do not have this problem with ships that REQUIRE Disruptors. Not only are Disruptors excellent weapons to begin with but there are MANY hybrids that are ALSO good. Nanite Disruptors are basically a weaker version of Elite Disruptors, Elachi Disruptors can be utterly wicked if you get a lucky crit with a BO, Polarized Disruptors are wonderful for ships using Power Drain mechanics, and ALL of them are "Disruptors". I know I am leaving some out but Disruptors just got a lot more love.
Disruptors are mainly king, because!
1 far more choices of disruptor energy type.
2 outside of AP, and disruptor, any other energy types are useful, or are a niche or get me by energy type.
Considering that these are intended for fighting the Borg, they should be put into the Omega Rep system in place of all the other weird turds that currently drop from boxes. What is this XI garbage? I thought Reps were XII now.
Considering that these are intended for fighting the Borg, they should be put into the Omega Rep system in place of all the other weird turds that currently drop from boxes. What is this XI garbage? I thought Reps were XII now.
Yeah no kidding right, I mean I was like, what's up with the mkxi rare TRIBBLE from rep projects!
I wasn't playing in the days when there was no immunity or when, as I've read, the phaser proc was pretty good. I can only assume the immunity was put in place to nerf the effect because people were either compaining it was happening too much or it was making PVE too easy.
Now of course it's made the proc pointless.
1. get rid of the immunity, or add immunities for all other beam weapon procs
2. i'm fine with the proc as it is, if it actually worked. make the proc have a 2.5% chance to knock a subsystem offline for 5 seconds, like it says. I don't recall an NPC ever using egineering team so I have to assume they are using batteries. but how many shield batteries do they acutally have?
3. stack with subsystem targeting, i.e., if I use target shields then the phaser proc will correlate to a 2.5% chance to knock shields offline rathen than a random subsystem. so 20% chance of the subsystem targeting + 2.5% chance of the built in phaser proc
question: does the procs for beam weapons and cannons take place for each hit or within each cycle? That is, for beam arrays which have 4 hit cycles, does each of the 4 hits within a cycle carry a proc chance? Same with cannons, does each little *pew* carry a proc chance or is it the cycle as a whole?
The reason I ask is if the original proc for phasers as it was designed was too messy causing susbystems to go down all over the place (which I agree would be annoying) then maybe the proc was on each hit. Maybe applying the proc to a cycle would be better. So 1 hit out of 4 carries the proc chance.
I wasn't playing in the days when there was no immunity or when, as I've read, the phaser proc was pretty good. I can only assume the immunity was put in place to nerf the effect because people were either compaining it was happening too much or it was making PVE too easy.
Well, it wasn't really making PvE too easy. Rather, the opposite was occurring, that the deluge of Mirror Terran Phaser spam was making specific PvEs literally unplayable, as you were perma-disabled and could not actually do anything except passively observe.
And, of course, this was then exported to PvP, where PvPers would then form full teams that would spam phasers, summon photonic phaser spammers, and launch phaser-spamming pets to produce perma-lockdown.
question: does the procs for beam weapons and cannons take place for each hit or within each cycle?
Per cycle, it's not a per-bullet proc.
Ultimately, the phaser proc was never a well-designed proc. It's not a feature which enhances the weapon's notable characteristics, it's a feature which simply flipflops wildly between being useless and OP at random.
Funny how nearly every time I take out my Fleet Avenger loaded with Mk XI phasers from the exchange I get compliments on how much damage I do.
We aren't talking about damage, we are talking about the usefulness of the proc. If phasers did less damage, but actively did something useful to the enemy, then there would be fewer complaints. Kind of like how if Tetryon actually did a decent amount of shield damage, then people would use it.
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AP (cannons, turrets, omi-directional) (Voth/Undine/Event/Mission AP) although Undine AP has 100% shield cutters feature XI or XII whatever you can get but check the DPS though. Disruptors turret, and plasma torpedo (extra (damage 650 to 1K) Bio/Romulan version) level XII Rare to Very Rare. Again whatever you can get.
Maybe itwould be bettr to have a selection tab exclusively for Phasers similar to the science/ cruiser ability tabs allowing a specific subsystem targeted when firing...and if it's on a science ship.. you can also use the science ship disable subsystems ability stacked.. that might work wonders.
Comments
While I would personally prefer an innate CrtH instead of an innate Acc, it is not for the preferring PvE over PvP.
Using Hellspawny's calculator, I checked to see how both bonuses would affect the numbers for Phasers.
The innate Accuracy would be a huge boost to Phasers, possibly to the point of them being overpowered; providing that the Devs fix whatever is wrong with Accuracy Overflow.
An innate CrtH would be a boost, but not overpowering.
But as you said, it would be a lot more beneficial than disabling random subsystems, and hoping that you get one that matters. "It's like trying to hit a bullet, with a smaller bullet, whilst wearing a blindfold, riding a horse."
Horse? More like a pegasus. Or a pigasus.
Drains are weak in a pvp perspective, because there are so many ways to achieve an extremely high PI skill.
Phasers benefitting from subspace decompiler makes perfect sense, since again there are so many ways to bring a subsystem back online quickly.
I mean as it stands right now phasers get to knock out 1 subsystem every 10-15secs., so let's say it hits weapons each, and every time.
1st proc weapons offline, easily countered with a battery.
2nd proc weapons offline, easily countered with engteam
3rd proc weapons offline, easily countered by emp2wep
4th proc weapons offline, easily countered by either subsystem repair skill, or any of the 3 listed above, heck there is even a piece of gear designed to hot start or prevent weapons offline from occurring.
So 5 max secs of phaser proc is weak, and in reality is closer to 1-3secs tops.
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I do with my tac/drain build, heck I would go so far as to rely on phaser procs more, if they benefited from subdecompiler.
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That is good, let us ignore the other people than that are not using your type of build.
Keep the current PvP phasers
There is like 2x or 3x as many disruptor type's over phaser types so a PvE oriented phaser should be a given
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
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---Fluidic Antiproton: 2.5% chance to repel and do Physical damage (100% shield penetration)
---Voth Antiproton: 25% chance on critical to reduce enemy's damage output
Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance
---Bio-Molecular Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & 2.5% chance to reduce flight speed/do Rad damage
---Elachi Crescent: 2.5% chance to ignore shields (100%) and damage resistance (50%)
---Elite Fleet Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to lower shield damage reduction
---Nanite Disruptors: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance and increase shield bleedthrough
---Plasma-Disruptor Hybrid: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance (half normal debuff) & to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT
---Polarized Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to reduce subsystem power
---Spiral Wave Disruptor: 2.5% chance to lower damage resistance & to disable a random subsystem
Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem
---Bio-Molecular Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem & 2.5% chance to reduce flight speed/do Rad damage
---Elite Fleet Phaser: 2.5% chance to disable a random subsystem & shield regeneration
Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT
---Caustic Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT (double damage/half duration - same damage faster)
---Romulan Plasma: 2.5% chance to apply non-stacking Plasma DoT & to lower damage resistance
Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power
---Dominion Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & to reduce shields
---Phased Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & to disable a random subsystem
---Protonic Polaron: 2.5% chance to reduce subsystem power & 25% chance on critical to do Proton damage
Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields
---Destabilizing Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields over time
---Piercing Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields & 2.5% chance for 50% of attack to ignore shields (can anybody confirm whether that's a boost to bleed or just half the damage completely ignores shields?)
---Polarized Tetryon: 10% chance to reduce shields
---Refracting Tetryon: 2.5% chance to reduce shields and do Tetryon damage to the nearest enemy target
In looking at changing the Phaser proc, you would not only be changing it for Phasers, Bio-Molecular Phasers, and Elite Fleet Phasers; but you would also be changing it for Spiral Wave Disruptors and Phased Polarons.
There's little doubt, well imho, that the Phaser proc is the swingiest proc out there where it can be super awesome or super garbage...and that it should be changed. I believe it should be completely changed - not improved as a disable proc - completely changed from a disable proc.
Something to consider with giving it an [Acc] boost is how much? The +10%? Then you've basically added the choice of +10% Accuracy, +2% Critical Hit, +20% Critical Severity, or +5% Damage Strength...you've gone the AP route.
Course, AP needs to be addressed anyway - since the +20% Critical Severity boost was added at a point where Critical Hit was low. Base CrtH is 2.5%...yeah, the +20% CrtD is built off a 2.5% proc. So with CrtH running 20-30%+ now...the AP boost is no longer balanced. Yeah, yeah - folks running AP are getting in the pickup with their torches and pitchforks as I type that...whatever.
More and more things point to there simply being a need for some sort of balance pass - the games changed quite a bit in the past year...it's not the game it was two years ago. Some things though...are relics of different age and need to be tweaked for today's game. Have to wonder if any of that is being taken into consideration for X2, S10, and beyond.
Oh well, one could hit up Memory Alpha to read about Phasers...and see that many of the procs they might have thought to give them have found their way to other weapons.
In the end, imo, it's just too damn swingy a proc (of a proc that shouldn't have existed in the first place)...and it should be replaced with something that's going to make sense for the game and make sense based on the IP.
It is a humorous change but inaccurate. Also take note that rather one plays a lot of PvP or not they still endured the grind to become effective as I stated. Furthermore, I think it is as clear as a perfect vacuum to anyone that the Devs are focused on PvE and PvE content NOT PvP. I tend to agree that the two honestly require full separation.
However, that is beside the point as even in PvP Phasers are joke to anyone who is even remotely, mildly, minimally prepared and in this case they need not even really be prepared for Phasers.
Indeed... Even in PvE it can help with smaller faster ships, especially when they use Evasive (some do) or Attack Pattern Omega/Alpha. It also at least contributes a bit to overflow which while it would be a small help would still help with a touch more crit chance and severity. So I would take it.
The best thing about the innate Accuracy boost though to me is that it means I can safely tack on one multiplier that is NOT [Acc] because the Phaser itself will cover that for me. Sure in PvP you may want to go crazy and stack it to the moon but in many other situations it could be nice to throw in more actual [CrtD] or [CrtH].
Indeed this hurts but also the hybrids besides the newest ones are not even hybrid Phasers they are other weapon classes which does not help. Why in the world would you give up an addition bonus for the Phaser proc though? That is insane. It is like "Hey I will give up more Accuracy, Damage, or Critical all the time for a worthless ability that will activate every now and then!"
Actually they DO use their subsystems. Knock out their weapons and they stop shooting. Knock out their Aux and no more science abilities. Shields or Engines can be great on some enemies. If you knock out the Aux on those Transformers that heal the gates in Infected or Khitomer Vortex you can actually kill the gate while those things are still alive because they cannot heal it.
Oh back in the day when the Multivector pets were actually relevant... I miss that...
Also the Atrox with two bays of Peregrines used to Equal permanent shutdown lol. It was epic. Polaron can still be utterly wicked with the right setup but yeah these days it will not fully shut you down like it could in the old days.
Now now... Let us leave the ponies out of this. We have already beat the poor thing into the dirt. The salvation part is what we are up to now.
That is a massive assumption... You know what they say about what you do when you AssUMe.
Being a Tactical Captain or Engineer in no way means you cannot fly Science Ships or use abilities that may want Subspace Decompiler. So that argument is rather baseless. However, it would seem unfair to make Phasers have to use such a high level skill when Polarons get to use such a low level one and are a later-in-the-game weapon.
So far I am loving the innate Accuracy boost solution but I still have my idea as well. I would like the Phasers to work more like they do on the ground. Give them a proc for a 2 second full disable + lingering flight speed or at least turn rate debuff for a short time. Still have a lockout timer so that they cannot permastun/permaslow the enemy. This would have more advantage allowing you to put a sudden halt to various science abilities and such and playing havoc with your enemy's ability to plan successfully. Seems how Feds LOVE Cruisers and Science vessels this would help both of them quite nicely as well.
What the heck are you rambling on about, you can still get ACC CRTD CRTH DMG from any weapons, what I am referring to is to allow phaser procs to benefit from the subspace decompiler skill, since the proc is so easily negated, and a 10sec timed immunity is applied each time.
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Well the best I can say, is if you do not want to invest in improving that skill value, than you are still receiving the 5secs., so nothing changes there it is for those who want to improve the proc, than need spend points.
You know like how FC improves polaron/tetryon, and how PG improves radiation/plasma/etc.
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Hybrid Phaser weapons, besides the latest bio ones, are things like Phased Tetryons and Phased Polarons. They are not even Phasers and you give up an additional modifier in order to get the Phaser Proc. That is what I am talking about. It is a HORRIBLE trade. Even another [Dmg] would be superior to a Phaser Proc.
Getting their shields out of the way gives you access to pealing off more of t hose thousands of hull points. I agree that many enemies have absurd hull compared to us though in some cases it makes sense (Gates, Cubes etc...). It does not make sense if they are ships we could fly.
When you knock out their engines, especially on the faster ships, you drop their Defense Rating down to all but zip and heavily increase your number of hits and boost your crits and their damage. Nausicaan Escorts for instance can be hard to kill while they are at full speed but proc off their engine and they blow up like a fighter craft in a Gravity Well.
I fail to see the problem with knocking out a Scimitar. If you knock down its Aux while it is about to unleash its pulse it will fail to fire. That is great in Starbase Defense. (In other cases you should just get out of the way) Likewise knock out the Aux of something Tractoring you and BAM no more tractorbeam.
Don't get me wrong I fully agree that the AI is largely weak and the enemies are generally pretty stupid and do NOT use their abilities in any truly intelligent way but even still their abilities and subsystems still benefit them and taking away that benefit can be beneficial to you.
One stinking mod isn't going to kill you, it would barely even be game changing, and any phased weapon is still basically a variation of a phaser, just inflicting non phaser energy damage.
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That last part is the important bit though... If you want the maximum power out of the Kumari's Wing Cannons, The Galaxy X Lance, the Vesta Deflector Beam, The Chimera Lotus, and the Point Defense Turret (I may be forgetting others) then you need to boost Phaser damage. This means you need to run Phasers as weapons. Thus the old "Phaser Hybrids" do not even help.
Moreover, you would be just plain silly to use the old "Phaser Hybrids" because the NORMAL flavors of those same type of Energy would be able to have another modifier instead of the tacked on Phaser Proc which means they would be superior by default.
Honestly the Phaser thing would not even be such an issue if there were not ships that all but HAD to use them. If that was not the case I would never touch phasers with a ten foot pole. It also hurts that all the Shuttles have to use them...
You do not have this problem with ships that REQUIRE Disruptors. Not only are Disruptors excellent weapons to begin with but there are MANY hybrids that are ALSO good. Nanite Disruptors are basically a weaker version of Elite Disruptors, Elachi Disruptors can be utterly wicked if you get a lucky crit with a BO, Polarized Disruptors are wonderful for ships using Power Drain mechanics, and ALL of them are "Disruptors". I know I am leaving some out but Disruptors just got a lot more love.
Addressing points in a semi-random order:
1. Phaser proc, as it stands now, would "be a problem" whether or not they were "required" for Fed "iconic weapon builds", I mean, look at Tetryon...
2. I think part and parcel of the Phaser Proc Issue is the double-whammy we're getting. Phasers when I first joined were an OK PvP weapon - until the Armitage and pet-phaser-spam got so high that it was back to the "science glory days" where targets sat completely shut down till they went pop. While they functioned "well" in PvP, in PvE, the resists are frequently so high that the targets barely register a blip when the proc actually engages - weapons offline might negate a firing cycle before resists clear it, too many targets are already "stationary enough" to not see engines offline, shields pop up before the torp hits them, and only a handful of enemies use Aux-powers that would register the aux going down. And, theoretically, these PvE enemies are supposedly "gonna show the proc longer than a player would"... And PvE targets get the same immunity to being shut all the way down that players get...
3. To this point, Dev team seems to be working under the "well, enough Feddies are still using phasers, so they must be OK" concept. I know, I am (inadvertently) one because half of my Feddie Complement uses Phasers - Main has Aux Phasers on his Vesta, Engie has a full slate of them on a Galaxy-X (note, 2 ships that suffer from "iconic weapon syndrome"). Tac in Armitage uses (right now) tetryons with a touch of Omega Glider, and my once-main Sci uses polarons in a semi-drain build...
As a Sci player myself, I'm a bit miffed at the overall resist levels of NPCs, I avoid disable builds in PvE because a majority of the disables "comes across" as ineffective without being piled on due to NPC resists. Can we "test" a 25% or even 50% across-the-board reduction in all NPC resists for a while - to see if that's enough to let disabling systems (polaron, phaser, single tyken's rifts, etc.) show up a bit more, and if certain ones (subspace gunk console) start proving to be too powerful in this new world than they can be tapped with a nerf-bat...
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This because we are talking about the proc not the damage.
Damage wise a MK-XII Purple Phaser does the same amount of damage than a MK-XII Disrupter, Tetryon, Plasma if you would remove the proc they would be all the same except Antiprotons.
It would depend on the mods of those weapons and the build of the ship. I use a Critical build on my non rom fed engineer with CrtDx3 weapons and get better results than using APs, even with the Obelisk Set.
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Give them time, it will probably come to us.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Disruptors are mainly king, because!
1 far more choices of disruptor energy type.
2 outside of AP, and disruptor, any other energy types are useful, or are a niche or get me by energy type.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Yeah no kidding right, I mean I was like, what's up with the mkxi rare TRIBBLE from rep projects!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Now of course it's made the proc pointless.
1. get rid of the immunity, or add immunities for all other beam weapon procs
2. i'm fine with the proc as it is, if it actually worked. make the proc have a 2.5% chance to knock a subsystem offline for 5 seconds, like it says. I don't recall an NPC ever using egineering team so I have to assume they are using batteries. but how many shield batteries do they acutally have?
3. stack with subsystem targeting, i.e., if I use target shields then the phaser proc will correlate to a 2.5% chance to knock shields offline rathen than a random subsystem. so 20% chance of the subsystem targeting + 2.5% chance of the built in phaser proc
question: does the procs for beam weapons and cannons take place for each hit or within each cycle? That is, for beam arrays which have 4 hit cycles, does each of the 4 hits within a cycle carry a proc chance? Same with cannons, does each little *pew* carry a proc chance or is it the cycle as a whole?
The reason I ask is if the original proc for phasers as it was designed was too messy causing susbystems to go down all over the place (which I agree would be annoying) then maybe the proc was on each hit. Maybe applying the proc to a cycle would be better. So 1 hit out of 4 carries the proc chance.
And, of course, this was then exported to PvP, where PvPers would then form full teams that would spam phasers, summon photonic phaser spammers, and launch phaser-spamming pets to produce perma-lockdown.
This has mostly happened with most weapons: Polaroid no longer produces a stacking drain, you can't get multiple disruptor procs on a target, etc.
Per cycle, it's not a per-bullet proc.
Ultimately, the phaser proc was never a well-designed proc. It's not a feature which enhances the weapon's notable characteristics, it's a feature which simply flipflops wildly between being useless and OP at random.
We aren't talking about damage, we are talking about the usefulness of the proc. If phasers did less damage, but actively did something useful to the enemy, then there would be fewer complaints. Kind of like how if Tetryon actually did a decent amount of shield damage, then people would use it.
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