My ideas....
Make PvE and PvP stats for some skills for example FaW high dmg score ,BO 100% crit,PSW low dmg in PvE, NPCs cant smash keyboard... BUFF/revamp this Mine attack patterns- mines still have small damage, only 2 patterns (make mine pattern like that imperial cruiser), and must be trained for ENSIGN ! Boarding Party - big crew needed when you want spam (with doffs ) Aceton Beam - long cool down Jam Sensors - long cool down Tachyon Beam - useless, fivefold buff please Mask Energy Signature - hm hm Tractor Beam - higher tiers should do more damage Charged Particle Burst - useless in PvE Scramble Sensors - should scramble tactical cube Photonic Shock Wave - low damage in PvE Viral Matrix - useless in PvE
NERF this Fire at Will - nerf or disable it for PvP....only one AoE heal (vesta console) Aux to Battery - .......... Spread - 100% acc
NEW
More Attack Patterns, or patterns for Science and Engineer boffs something like evasive , support, defense patterns
Cannon overload AoE heals - defense against FaW
I would like to see the revamp of the crew and space kinetic damage mechanics. Both were important and had noticeable effects when the game was launched, and we can still see them somewhat at lower levels.
The problem with crew is most obvious at higher levels. It does next to nothing in comparison to every other regen trait and ability. Yet, it is supposed to be a major differentiating factor that distinguishes cruisers from escorts and science ships. Have you ever looked at a piece of gear that had crew resist or crew regen and thought: "Yeah, that stat presents an interesting gear choice?" I know I haven't. There are numerous ways this could be improved, but I have three ideas that stand out to me.
Numbers Pass - this is the easiest solution. Keep everything that crew currently affects the same and adjust the numbers till they become large enough for players to pay attention to them.
The 3rd Resource - Make crew a resource akin to energy and singularity power. In this concept, total crew capacity and crew alive would become important factors in determining the strength of certain abilities. For example, the various Teams (Sci, Tac, Eng) would have their values directly affected by the number of crew alive on the ship they are deployed from. This could be either the percentage of crew, so as to make the ability balanced for all ship types, or it could be based on the actual number of crew, making the ability more useful for ships with a high capacity.
A New Weapon - The most outlandish idea, but the one I find most intriguing, would require a near total overhaul of the crew system.
In the excellent real time strategy game "Star Trek: Armada", ships had crew as one of their stats. When an enemy unit's shields dropped, you had the option of beaming your crew over to their ship in an effort to take over the vessel. The success rate of the boarding effort was determined by the faction you were playing (Klingons would kill enemy crew at a rate of 1.75:1, Borg at a rate of 2:1, Federation at a rate of 1:1, and Romulans at a rate of .75:1) and how many crew you had in relation to the enemy ship. When the enemy crew was wiped out, you would take control of the vessel.
With some modification, this system could be used in STO. First, acknowledging the balancing requirements of an MMO, any factional differences in boarding strength would need to be toned down significantly if not altogether removed. Second, player ships that have their crew entirely killed would only suffer the default defeat condition and respawn in a normal fashion. NPC ships would similarly explode as though destroyed by normal weapons fire. The "capture" mechanic simply would not work in the STO environment, again for balance reasons.
The boarding mechanic could best be compared to a damage over time ability. When a target's shield facing drops, you would have the option to beam over your crew at a set rate to combat the enemy's crew. When the shield facing is restored, the target moves out of range, or you stop beaming over troops, the soldiers you have on the enemy ship will continue to fight until they either destroy the ship or are killed off.
I'm going to use some numerical examples to help illustrate this.
A Odyssey Star Cruiser (2500 crew) is fighting a Bortas Battle Cruiser (3600 crew). The Bortas loses its shield facing for five seconds. The Odyssey beams over 10 crew per second for five seconds, so a total of 50 Starfleet Marines are now aboard the Bortas. Now let's assume that the standard rate of attrition is 1:1 for both attacker and defender, at a tick rate of 1 second per calculation. So after 50 seconds, all the Starfleet Marines have been killed and the crew of the Bortas has been reduced by 50.
Using this framework, numerous scenarios can be envisioned and modifiers can be thought of. Consider a new piece of gear that can be slotted on a ship: Boarding Party. A very rare M.A.C.O Commando boarding party can be bought from the fleet once tier five of the shipyard is complete. The M.A.C.O Commandos increases the strength of your boarding parties by 50% and increases the transfer rate by ten per second. Now lets revisit our combat scenario above.
The Odyssey drops the Bortass shields for five seconds. It is now beaming over 20 crew per second, so by the time the shields have gone back up there are now 100 commandos fighting on the Bortas. But these commandos are also fighting more fiercely than standard Starfleet security officers. At 50% increased damage, the ratio is now 1.5:1. So at a tick rate of one per second for 100 seconds, by the time all the M.A.C.O. Commandos have been killed, the Bortas has lost 150 crew. Continue this over the course of the fight, taking into account the damage done to crew from torpedoes, warp plasma and so forth, and the Odyssey might be able to defeat the Bortas simply by killing all of its crew.
As system such as this would be highly adaptable, as it is entirely based on numbers and calculations. Rates can be increased or decreased, ratios expanded, resistances added and so forth.
All this could turn crew into a far more interesting statistic, and perhaps give ships with large amounts of crew but limited firepower (look at you, Exploration Cruiser) a more engaging role in combat without resorting to the addition of more tactical consoles or weapons.
As to kinetic weapons, specifically torpedoes.
The original role of torpedoes was to exploit dropped shield facings, doing significantly more damage to hulls than to shields. At the beginning of STO, I had all sorts of fun trying to time my torpedoes to arrive just as the enemys shields dropped, or trying to fire them just as a bird-of-prey was cloaking. But as power levels have increased, energy weapons sheer effectiveness across the board has rendered torpedoes nearly obsolete in PvE. Take a look at all of the current highest PvE DPS builds. All use energy weapons, and the majority of those are beam arrays with Fire At Will.
This is the result of a number of issues with the current gear system. A large component is the way tactical consoles work. In every case, it is always more advantageous to stack damage of a single type, and this always ends up being energy weapons. Torpedoes do have a niche roll still with certain kinds of torpedo boat builds, and for spike damage in PvP; but it has always seemed strange to me that a weapon nearly as iconic as the phaser itself would be relegated to these kinds of roles.
I have no clever suggestions about how to fix this issue, but I suspect it is straightforward. Simple rebalance the numbers so that torpedoes are worth including again for all ship types. Perhaps an increase in their firing arc is needed, or energy weapon damage against hulls significantly reduced.
"Hakeev is too badly injured to speak. He struggles only for a moment before he is finally still...Hakeev's end comes without any desperate speech or furious diatribe. As his plans collapse around him, only silence follows him into oblivion." -The original ending to Cutting the Cord
In our preparation for Delta Rising, we've been taking a hard look at Space powers and abilities that are underperforming, as well as a select few that dominate the choices players make across the board. The purpose of this thread is for the community to come together and discuss what powers they feel meet either of these two categories, and to talk frankly about any problems with the current metagame of Star Trek Online.
I'm going to largely be lurking in this thread, but may chime in from time to time. Let's see if we can civilly and rationally discuss what we think are problems, and more importantly why we think those powers are problematic. I want to see what you all care about, and see what changes we can make to address things that you care about while making the game a better game, with a more interesting decision-tree structure that defines your "best action to take at any given time" during space combat.
Okay, here we go with my IMHO comments:
Traits:
Every trait needs to have Basic, "Normal", and Superior variants; Efficient, Leadership, Pirate, etc. do not have this, and could.
No trait should stack with duplicates of itself. Negate the benefits of multiple Leadership, Operative, Pirate... all of it. Instead, apply one stack of the highest quality boff trait + any captain traits. This would allow the Romulan faction to be more balanced relative to the other factions, without applying mechanics that single out any given faction... meaning that when you introduce the next shiny mini-faction they can have nice things without being similarly out of balance.
In keeping with the preceding suggestions, Efficient needs to be moreso, with enough of a boost to be noticeable compared to the other Space traits. At the moment the only Space traits less useful than Efficient are Ground traits. I understand the original reasoning behind making Efficient less effective as a boff trait, but the game has progressed (as far as subsystem power) such that reduced performance for the boff version unnecessary.
If a trait is available to a boff, make it available to our captains... such as Pacification, for example.
Crew:
Benefits are based on percentages, recovery is not; in other words, a larger crew does not actually possess a larger medical staff. Make both work on percentiles, or both work on set quantities for set benefits. Currently, it's better to have 25 crew than 1000... which counter-intuitive.
Powers:
Subsystem Targeting never made sense (to me) for a Science vessel; why are Tactical powers given free to a ship designed around Scientific endeavors? Not that it isn't nice to have them, but why not something more... science-y? Maybe a comparable set like Jam Sensors I, Polarize Hull I, Tachyon Beam I, Tractor Beam I?
Auxiliary Power to the Emergency Battery should work exactly as advertised; there is currently some odd behavior because it seems to calculate its power transfer based on Aux power at activation, leading to times with too little Aux power being transferred and too much Aux power remaining available. It would be nice if it either a) instantly transferred and recovered Aux power or b) applied as an actual power transfer while active; I'd suspect that the former would be easier to implement. Anyway, this would ensure that we didn't end up with too much Aux power or too little bonus power when using it, serving to better balance the doffs that make the power useful.
Non-Technician cooldown doffs need to be more reliable. The chance to apply a cooldown that other boffs provide is part of why Technicians (and by extension Aux2Batt) are so prevalent. If there were more alternatives like the Conn Officer, Maintenance Engineer, or Development Lab Scientist doffs for the Team powers (2 Purples reduce the associated power or powers to global), it would be more of an opportunity cost to be stuck using Technicians for your cooldown bonuses.
Tactical Team transfers shields far faster than the player's ability to distribute/transfer them manually, making it absolutely necessary for most builds. Swapping the shield transfer rates might be a good way to enforce a higher skill aspect in our gameplay, though with current spike damage, 5 fore DHC's w/Cannon: Rapid Fire, and Beam: Overload auto-crits... it seems wiser to simply allow manual transfers to apply as quickly as Tactical Team does.
Attack Pattern Alpha applies a 30 sec buff (to Dmg, CrtH, CrtD, and Turn), has a 90 sec cooldown, and is improved by a Lieutenant-level captain skill. Tactical Initiative allows you to maintain up to 5 players' Tactical boff abilities at global for 45 secs every 180 secs. Every Tactical captain ability is great to use against every enemy; it would be awfully nice the other specialties had comparable capabilities.
Subnucleonic Beam is awesome against other players and a few enemies (Donatra is a good example); the only real adjustment this needs is more NPCs/bosses that "fight smart", stacking buffs so that it's actually helpful to have this ability available in more battles.
Tachyon Beam could do with a reasonable buff, as could Tetryon weapons... my suggestion would be for them to apply a temporary halt to shield regeneration, making them more useful for opening a hole to fire torpedoes into.
Beam: Fire at Will has been mentioned as being due for a meta change, to me more AoE focused; if there are plans to address the ability's strengths, please look at its weaknesses as well. For example: the player cannot interrupt it by deselecting targets, cannot designate a primary target (or even area), and it has a longer duplicate cooldown than any other weapon-type power in the game. Simplest "fix" would be to remove the extra pulse per volley and allow it to hit up to 3 targets at a minor damage increase (yes, exactly like Cannon: Scatter Volley), while re-scaling the cannon powers to match the beam and torpedo ones as far as boff seating requirements; a damage decrease to the cannon powers would likely be necessary, but they would then be usable with higher tier attack patterns.
Emergency Power to Engines... yeah, I might be crazy, but damn it I liked the NPCs using the same version players have access to. It made some of the PvE's more challenging and interesting, and honestly... we need that. Just make them a tad smarter about re-engaging players (instead of running away and not coming back) so they don't scatter across half the map and we'd be fine. Maybe an adjustment so that NPC's don't lose aggro when they leave detection range or otherwise lose a target (cloaking or jamming), but rather suspend aggro unless another target supersedes it? Something along the lines of the Raptors in CSE, that come looking for you if your teammates aggro them and then get themselves killed, run away, etc...
Weapons:
Okay, so maybe it's crazy, but how about some [Arc] Single Cannons, and the ability to equip multiples? That'd make it possible to broadside with cannons, which would be neat. Maybe for a playable Nausicaan Ravager Dreadnought... since you know, Pirate + cannons + broadside... yeah.
Okay, so much wall-o-text that I'm just going to stop spitballing and let you guys sort out whats there; I don't know how helpful that all is, but you wanted commentary...
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Beam: Fire at Will has been mentioned as being due for a meta change, to me more AoE focused; if there are plans to address the ability's strengths, please look at its weaknesses as well. For example: the player cannot interrupt it by deselecting targets, cannot designate a primary target (or even area), and it has a longer duplicate cooldown than any other weapon-type power in the game. Simplest "fix" would be to remove the extra pulse per volley and allow it to hit up to 3 targets at a minor damage increase (yes, exactly like Cannon: Scatter Volley), while re-scaling the cannon powers to match the beam and torpedo ones as far as boff seating requirements; a damage decrease to the cannon powers would likely be necessary, but they would then be usable with higher tier attack patterns.
Beam: Fire at Will has the same cool down as the cannon skills. If you have two copies of it, the one activated will go on a 30 sec cool down, and the second skill will go on a 15 sec cool down. (If you are not getting those cool downs, then your skill is either not leveled up all the way, or it is bugged, and needs a ticket done for it). Also, the AOE for the FAW skill is it's biggest strength. It is the best tac skill for crowd control. Another strength of FAW is the fact that it increases your weapon's accuracy. If you fire your weapons normally at moving targets, you will miss more than if you used FAW.
CSV actually loses accuracy when it is used. Therefore, it is not as good when attacking single targets, like CRF.
Also, about being able to cancel it by targeting another enemy has to do with your weapons settings. If you have them set to auto fire, and also have your settings set to target the next enemy, it will keep firing. To keep it from auto firing, you can right click on the weapons in the "Ship Weapons" box on the screen. If they have a green boarder around them, then they are set to auto fire. To change the auto target, go into options, and click on the "Controls" tab. Then look for "Select attacker if attacked" and set it to off. This will help keep it from continually shooting enemies.
Another thing to keep in mind about FAW is that beams will finish a firing cycle, just like they will if you were firing them without any skills. Each firing cycle will fire 4 beams. If you switch targets in the middle of a firing cycle, they will not stop till their cycle is done.
If they were to restrict FAW to hitting fewer enemies, it will only make it more powerful. This can be seen by using DBB and having only a few enemies in front of you. It is killer. Either removing the rapid fire effect will really help it. They can keep the bonus accuracy to it, and it will still get more DPS than a cannon build.
And to tautou, Beam Overload needed some attention. Granted, for those that knew how to use it, it was a good skill before making it 100% crit. However, the problem now is that it is being nerfed due to PVP. One of the big problems with skills in the game is that when they are changed for PVP, it can mess them up for non-PVP content.
Before they reduced it another 13%, it was a good skill for non-PVP content. However, it is holding on by a little. Another Nerf like this, and it will be worse than before the 100% crit. I understand it was OP in PVP. Though, changes for skills in PVP need to not reflect on the same skills in non-PVP content.
It should be like the Raiders. They had a lower flanking damage in PVP than in other content. This was because it needed to be higher outside of PVP. However, when they Nerf the skills, it is usually across the board, and this either seriously hurts skills, or breaks them.
Also, if a few can find a way to make a skill OP, then it isn't always the skill, but look at what caused the OP problem. Some issues are skills (like FAW), and sometimes it can be gear, traits, etc. Finding the cause is the best solution to the problems. Because if very few know how to make it OP, and it is nerfed because it can be done, then it can kill the skill for those that don't know about it, or cannot use it for their builds.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
just looking through this thread is painful, I cant imagine reading it wont be either. I have a feeling we are all urinating into the wind !
yeah, i think many ppl missed the briefing. i cant really blame people though.
hopefully devs will do the right thing and pull out those really good, detailed posts and read them about 10 times each.
A boff or Tac captain ability called Phaser Spread as seen in Star Trek Nenesis. It does a zero elevation phaser fire that decloaks any nearby enemy vessels for 15 seconds.
hopefully devs will do the right thing and pull out those really good, detailed posts and read them about 10 times each.
I agree with this. If not, then we might get the wrong skills adjusted, and end up in a worse condition than we are in now.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Please return Beam Overload to where it was and use basic mechanics and common sense when you want to make something new. It is Sci-Fi game so it has to be based on it. Please don't make abilities which have no downs (watch current Beam Overload).
The Beam Overload change was necessary. Dual Beam Banks were worthless before the change. The general consensus was that any build that used DBBs was served better by cannons. Now that Beam Overload has a 100% crit chance, DBBs are actually kind of good on escorts.
The Beam Overload change was necessary. Dual Beam Banks were worthless before the change. The general consensus was that any build that used DBBs was served better by cannons. Now that Beam Overload has a 100% crit chance, DBBs are actually kind of good on escorts.
I used Beam Overload a lot before with my DBB/cannon builds. The only thing is that it required you to use consoles, and gear that gave you CrtH. The only difference now is that with the last Nerf to its base damage, it is weaker than it was before for those that had CrtH high on their ships.
Now, to get the same average damage from it, you need to focus on all CrtD. I actually went from 27-30k per shot down to 12-14k for the same skills, and weapons. If I switch all my gear and consoles I had out for the CrtD, then I can get back to where it was before.
If they Nerf it again, then it will become worthless. I hope that they add the 13% back to it, so it is more useful than it use to be. Otherwise, it was pointless to make the change to begin with.
Beam Overload is one of the skills that has been misunderstood how to properly use it in the past. Now that people are using it, they are not use to how good it can be. Therefore, they see, even in its recently nerfed state that it is OP. Honestly, in PVP, it was, and still is. The reason is that PVP, and the end game content are two different animals.
Things that are OP in PVP are not always OP in the end game content. When changes are made to skills, consoles, traits, and abilities, they need to do different changes. One for PVP, and the other for end game content. This has been done before with the Raiders. For PVP it was given a lower flanking damage than end game content. The same with BO. The recent Nerf hurt the end game content, but helped in PVP.
This is one of the problems with balance. It is almost impossible to balance the gameplay when you are looking at PVP for advice on fixing non-PVP gameplay.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Beam: Fire at Will has the same cool down as the cannon skills. If you have two copies of it, the one activated will go on a 30 sec cool down, and the second skill will go on a 15 sec cool down. (If you are not getting those cool downs, then your skill is either not leveled up all the way, or it is bugged, and needs a ticket done for it).
Nope. Fire at Will will put a second copy on a 20 second cooldown. It has 50% uptime. Has been this way for a long time. I just tested it even though I know it has worked this way for atleast a year and have not seen any patch note stating it was changed.
FAW is only OP if there are 3 or more ships useing it at once, then it becomes a force multiplier. otherwise it just scatters shots everywhere, throwing up big DPS numbers, most of which amount to nothing with just simple shield and hull regeneration tics. its still dumb that 1 of the 2 skills this trait will effect, is incompatible with it.
I'll probably increase the time at which you're allowed to refresh your stack up to 30 seconds from 20.
...from a discussion on why the new trait from the Beams crafting school would not work properly with B:FAW. The reason being... it has a 20 sec duplicate ability cooldown, which means that any stack you build within the 20 sec window will expire before you have a chance to activate the second copy of B:FAW and refreshing the buff timer. The 15 sec cooldown you are thinking of only applies to alternating other beam abilities with B:FAW, as the shared rather than duplicate cooldown.
Fire at will does have an autohit stage. When you activate Fire At Will, here's what happens to produce the desired end effect:
1.) You gain a "Mode" on your character that lasts for <duration>. While that mode is on your character, all Beam Array and Dual Beam Bank powers are redirected from their standard mode of fire into "Fire At Will" mode.
2.) You activate a Beam Array or DBB. It uses its Fire At Will power. This power emanates a cone in the direction of the weapon's firing arc, automatically hitting 2 targets within that cone. Any targets hit by this cone send a message back to your ship, telling it to shoot them.
3.) Your ship receives the message from all enemies struck in part 2. It then fires single shots at each and every one of them. This stage of the power rolls ToHit rolls based on your accuracy and your target's defense.
Stage 2 has to be autohit for the art to work. Stage 2 has to not be flagged as a "Directed Energy" power for power drain to not count doubly for this ability. Stage 3 has to be flagged as a "Directed Energy" power for procs to work and for power drain to work at all. The power has to be structured in this complex way for it to work the way it does - firing on random ships within the arc, updating which target it hits with each volley.
Yes, we're looking into it. Accuracy Overflow won't currently work for any power that "ignores accuracy" - powers that have any autohit stage.
Acc Overflow is a really arcane mechanic that doesn't message well at all. Fixing it will be a widespread change to the mechanic as a whole, not just a change to a flag on Fire at Will. It will take a little while, but it's in the pipeline to be adjusted to work.
...indicating that no, it does not hit more often. Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to. These also help shed light on why it was such a pain to get DEM fixed, and why FAW keeps having issues with criticals underperforming.
A lot of folks seem to have misconceptions as to exactly how B:FAW works, and why it has such great parsing results; it fires a series of 5 pulses at 2 targets per pulse (at least as far as the damaging shots with their to-hit roll). The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV. If the idea is to adjust the meta to make B:FAW more of an AoE and less effective against individual targets, the culprit to look at is that extra pulse. If you want it to lower damage for PvE parsing, the culprit is that it is an AoE without the "primary target + cone" restriction that C:SV has. All that said, it still has drawbacks... turning off auto-attack doesn't tell your crew to stop firing at will, by the way (I do have auto-attack disabled in exactly the manner you mentioned). That's why smart PvPers use Scramble Sensors, Feedback Pulse, etc. as a specific countermeasure to B:FAW... often on alternative boff setups so that they aren't tied into a counter-B:FAW build. As long as you are out of combat, you can swap boff seating, which is a good selling point for buying additional boff slots.
...and now I'm wandering away from clarifying how B:FAW works. Yeah, B:FAW does work nicely in PvE for parsing purposes, and PvP for suppression builds; it does, however, already have down sides compared to the other weapon abilities. Honestly, that's why people still use cannons... well, maybe not single cannons, other than the one oddball build (with C:RF, DEM, and doffed TBR) and maybe a few others. Cannons still have their place in the game, for better directed AoE and better sustained burst, while beams get wide-area AoE and single-target spike; aren't different abilities more interesting than say Beam: Scatter Volley and Beam: Rapid Fire?
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
Nope. Fire at Will will put a second copy on a 20 second cooldown. It has 50% uptime. Has been this way for a long time. I just tested it even though I know it has worked this way for atleast a year and have not seen any patch note stating it was changed.
That is a bit odd, because when I have the skill on two different BOFFs, and activate it on one, it will put the other on a 15sec cool down. However, when I put two copies on the same BOFF and activate the first one, it then goes on a 20sec cool down.
I have this same result when activating cannon skills. As long as it is on two separate BOFFs, the first one puts the second on a 15sec cool down. If two copies are on the same BOFF, it will go to a 20sec cool down. Maybe it is a bug that some players might have. I will put a ticket in tomorrow, so that they can look into it when they get a chance.
...indicating that no, it does not hit more often. Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to. These also help shed light on why it was such a pain to get DEM fixed, and why FAW keeps having issues with criticals underperforming.
A lot of folks seem to have misconceptions as to exactly how B:FAW works, and why it has such great parsing results; it fires a series of 5 pulses at 2 targets per pulse (at least as far as the damaging shots with their to-hit roll). The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV. If the idea is to adjust the meta to make B:FAW more of an AoE and less effective against individual targets, the culprit to look at is that extra pulse. If you want it to lower damage for PvE parsing, the culprit is that it is an AoE without the "primary target + cone" restriction that C:SV has. All that said, it still has drawbacks... turning off auto-attack doesn't tell your crew to stop firing at will, by the way (I do have auto-attack disabled in the exactly manner you mentioned). That's why smart PvPers use Scramble Sensors, Feedback Pulse, etc. as a specific countermeasure to B:FAW... often on alternative boff setups so that they aren't tied into a counter-B:FAW build. As long as you are out of combat, you can swap boff seating, which is a good selling point for buying additional boff slots.
...and now I'm wandering away from clarifying how B:FAW works. Yeah, B:FAW does work nicely in PvE for parsing purposes, and PvP for suppression builds; it does, however, already have down sides compared to the other weapon abilities. Honestly, that's why people still use cannons... well, maybe not single cannons, other than the one oddball build (with C:RF, DEM, and doffed TBR) and maybe a few others. Cannons still have their place in the game, for better directed AoE and better sustained burst, while beams get wide-area AoE and single-target spike; aren't different abilities more interesting than say Beam: Scatter Volley and Beam: Rapid Fire?
I have a few questions because of your explanation of what adjudicatorhawk said.
You mentioned in the first paragraph I quoted from you that "Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to."
If that is true, then it doesn't do damage. However, in the second paragraph you said, "The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV."
How can it do both, deal damage, and not deal damage at the same time?
Also, when I use BFAW, my beams come off cool down, and re-fire faster than if not using it. I have contacted a few friends, and they said that they have the same results. This gives the result of firing faster, therefore it does hit more often.
And with the beams firing after switching targets, this is a problem a friend had as well. However, they made the changes to both settings. Now, they can stop targeting an enemy, and FAW will stop firing. It does finish the firing cycle of the beams that were shooting, but it does stop. Mine are set up the same way.
I can activate BFAW, and start shooting an enemy. Then, if I don't target anything, it will stop firing after the firing cycle of the beams are done. This could be a bug, but it has been doing this for me for over a year. Depending on how many beams I have equipped on the ship, sometimes it takes longer for the beams to stop firing because some don't start firing at the same time.
Beams are great for the sustain damage, but they don't do spike damage. This is why they are not as good against the hull. This is why a lot of players use cannons. They will do spike damage, and are better against the hull than beams. For this reason, if the enemy cannot regenerate shields, then a cannon build can kill the enemy faster by itself. If they do regenerate shields, then the cannons cannot kill it as fast as a cannon, beam combination will.
I have tested multiple combinations, and it is always the same. Beams are just not as good against the hull as cannons, even when using BFAW vs CRF.
BFAW does have better accuracy, but CSV doesn't. If you test CSV against one enemy, then fire it without being buffed, the cannon will lose accuracy.
Also, I never meant to imply that BFAW was literally two skills in one. Though it fires as if it is. You hit multiple enemies, with better accuracy than if you fired the beams without it, and it also has a rapid fire effect. The accuracy is helpful. However, just stopping the "Extra pulse" from doing damage (which was said to do it, and not to do it), it might help a little.
Still, I do have to admit that there are people that don't know how to properly use BFAW as it is now. They can easily rack up DPS, but cannot always kill things as quick as others in the same build. Therefore, a lot of them actually don't help out as much in missions as someone that knows how to use it properly.
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I have a few friends that have shown me they can run max power in all 4 subsystems almost all the time. In fact, with the AMP singularity core, they can have higher DPS than A2B builds can, and have 125 or more in all subsystems. The key to their build is the singularity core's singularity charge. Does this mean that the singularity cores need to be nerfed now?
The subsystems are not the problem. Especially when there are other skills, DOFFs, batteries, and other things that will give the same result, or better.
Blaming it on the power in the subsystems opens up all skills, consumables, cores, anything that will allow for someone to have high power levels in more than three subsystems, and still be able to get auxiliary power building up at the same time to being nerfed. Where will it stop? Will the Plasmonic Leech need to be nerfed? It has helped a lot of players to keep high power in all 4 subsystems, and even has helped non-A2B builds to out DPS A2B.
So, what is the real problem with A2B? Is it that some assume it is causing others to get high DPS? It has been proven many times that the highest DPS builds are NOT running A2B. This means that it is not the power in the three subsystems that is making the difference. It will only help with survivability.
Also, I have heard of others mentioning the over capping of weapons power. What a lot of players that complain about it don't realize is that once you get so much power into the weapons subsystem, any more is wasted. The only thing that having more than 125 weapons power will do is help refill your weapons power faster after it is drained. However, when I use A2B, it doesn't fill any faster than it did before. The reason is because I have maxed the power in the subsystems tray, and have a space set, as well as anything else I can find to increase weapons power.
Therefore, when I use A2B, I am not increasing my weapons damage at all. That is why my ships that have the capability of running either A2B, or having two tactical stations that are Lt. Commander or higher will be able to do the same damage either way. The only difference is the survivability.
And giving ships with only a Lt. station the ability to use A2B will not make them "be in the dps arms race". If it did, then why would so many with the Galaxy dreadnought ship be asking for at least a Lt. Commander station? So by claiming that A2B will make a ship like that be in the DPS arms race is inaccurate, because it is far from it.
However, it is able to do more DPS than it probably should. Is that because of the A2B skill? No. That is because of the way Beam: Fire at Will works. It increases the accuracy of your beams (A2B doesn't do it), and it rapid fires at the same time (again, not because of A2B).
Now, if BFAW was nerfed, then it will help to stop a lot of the DPS. Think about it like this, if I had my Scimitar set up with an A2B build, and all beams, with BFAW, then I am doing the same DPS with a fully charged singularity core as I would if I had used my Lt. Commander universal station as a tactical. This shows that it isn't the A2B skill causing the problem.
You mentioned the power levels in engines, and shields. They will only help with survivability. Yet, the only times you really need this is when you are getting your butt stomped. Having it running almost all the time means very little, unless you are drawing agro. But, then again, if you are in a cruiser, or other ships that have no better than a Lt. station, then you already have better hull, and shields. So, you can just wait to pop a battery, or EPTS/EPTE, or evasive.
Therefore, A2B is not the problem, when the increased power to shields, and engines only helps when you agro the enemy. The over capping with weapons power can be done without even using batteries, or A2B.
Now, when you are playing in PVP, that is another story. And, as mentioned before, there are other ways to get higher DPS than A2B, and I have been told they cost a lot less to do.
Aux2batt is still a problem, despite your examples.
It isn't so much that it doesn't win the dps arms race, it is squarely that it is multiple advantages all wrapped in one tiny little packaged skill.
It is essentially, like having 3 batteries in one, than toss in a much better, and more reliable version Photonic Officer, all coming from 1 LT, or LTC skill!!!
No other skill, has that potential power wrapped up in, such a mid rank ability.
I mean look at the people who complain about APO, well it requires a LTC, or a CMD slot, and while yes it is a very powerful tac skill, it doesn't reduce all boff skills cd's.
As for the overcapping, unless people go the easy route with DEM + Marion TRIBBLE, the alternative is to stack tons of wp buffs, with the possibility of anything that can aid in energy mitigation, to overcap wp so much, that using 7-8 BA's doesn't drain you below 100, heck you can even mitigate well enough to the point, of never falling below 125.
I have a few questions because of your explanation of what adjudicatorhawk said.
You mentioned in the first paragraph I quoted from you that "Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to."
If that is true, then it doesn't do damage.
...part is referring to the behind the scenes operations that make B:FAW work and this...
However, in the second paragraph you said, "The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV."
...part is referring to the firing cycle responsible for much of the actual damage increase. I was referring to the extra shot per firing cycle as a "pulse" which may have thrown off what I was trying to say. B:FAW is a bit quirky if you're used to cannon skills, in that it splits the difference between increased rate of fire (+1 shot/"pulse" per firing cycle) and increased number of targets (up to 2 per shot/"pulse"). Maybe this version of the explanation will make more sense...
Standard beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 4
Maximum number of targets per shot: 1
*(all 4 shots in the firing cycle will target the same enemy)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their target: 4
B:FAW beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 5
Maximum number of targets per shot: 2
*(each shot in the firing cycle may target up to 2 enemies, decided randomly)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their targets: 10
*(assumes 2 or more possible targets for the full firing cycle)
...in showing what I meant. B:FAW adds an additional shot before the beam cycles its cooldown, while also allowing each shot to target up to two enemies. That's why it can still do more damage to a single target, since it is adding that extra shot to the firing cycle; however, if only one target is in range you only get 5 shots on that target rather than the full 10 shots worth of damage you could do to two or more enemies. B:FAW both increases rate of fire and adds more potential targets to each shot, though it does not increase the rate of fire as much as C:RF or increase the maximum number of targets for each shot as much as C:SV. Hopefully that makes more sense written out that way.
With each passing day I wonder if I stepped into an alternate reality. The Cubs win the world series. Donald Trump is President. Britain leaves the EU. STO gets a dedicated PvP season. Engineers are "out of control" in STO.
They overloaded their phaser cannon in "Enterprise" when they needed firepower during some alien encounter after their first encounter failed. They even tested it on a moon and blew out a big chunk.
I see, may not have done a good job explaining that this...
...part is referring to the behind the scenes operations that make B:FAW work and this...
...part is referring to the firing cycle responsible for much of the actual damage increase. I was referring to the extra shot per firing cycle as a "pulse" which may have thrown off what I was trying to say. B:FAW is a bit quirky if you're used to cannon skills, in that it splits the difference between increased rate of fire (+1 shot/"pulse" per firing cycle) and increased number of targets (up to 2 per shot/"pulse"). Maybe this version of the explanation will make more sense...
Standard beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 4
Maximum number of targets per shot: 1
*(all 4 shots in the firing cycle will target the same enemy)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their target: 4
B:FAW beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 5
Maximum number of targets per shot: 2
*(each shot in the firing cycle may target up to 2 enemies, decided randomly)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their targets: 10
*(assumes 2 or more possible targets for the full firing cycle)
...in showing what I meant. B:FAW adds an additional shot before the beam cycles its cooldown, while also allowing each shot to target up to two enemies. That's why it can still do more damage to a single target, since it is adding that extra shot to the firing cycle; however, if only one target is in range you only get 5 shots on that target rather than the full 10 shots worth of damage you could do to two or more enemies. B:FAW both increases rate of fire and adds more potential targets to each shot, though it does not increase the rate of fire as much as C:RF or increase the maximum number of targets for each shot as much as C:SV. Hopefully that makes more sense written out that way.
Thank you for explaining that. I am following you now. Must have been the way I was reading it before. I just wonder if removing that extra shot it fires on a single target will reduce it's damage enough to bring it down in power against the single target like they are wanting to do. Even though it doesn't have as high rate of fire that CSV has, beams are able to fire all at once, whereas cannons have a delay if you fire off more than two or three.
I am curious how that will work. Thank you again for the clarification.
I hope that whatever choices they make in changing any skills, it will not make skills useless for those that need them for their ships stations. I have seen where something was nerfed because certain builds were able to take full advantage of it, but certain ships that relied on it to make them more beneficial were hurt by it. I look forward to seeing what they do.
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I used Beam Overload a lot before with my DBB/cannon builds. The only thing is that it required you to use consoles, and gear that gave you CrtH. The only difference now is that with the last Nerf to its base damage, it is weaker than it was before for those that had CrtH high on their ships.
You mixed beams and cannons? You never mix beams and cannons.
You mixed beams and cannons? You never mix beams and cannons.
I don't know if you are serious, or using sarcasm. No offense, but it is hard to tell sometimes over the forums. So, I will be going with the assumption that it was seriousness.
There are advantages to running with one or more DBBs in a cannon build. One of the problems is the re-fire rate of cannons. They do have a high rate of rounds per min (RPM), but they take so long to cycle. Also, if you fire DBBs, and DHC, their cycles end at almost the exact same amount of time. But, beams have a slower RPM.
So, when you combine them, you get the benefits from both. With cannons, the enemy can start regenerating shields while the cannons are on cool down. But, the beams offer more sustained damage. So, when you have one DBB, you are using sustained damage to keep shields down, and this lets the cannons hit the hull more. More hits to the hull will mean faster kills.
If you have the ability to run two copies of tactical skills, then you use to be able to run BFAW, and either CSV, or CRF to do quick kills. However, using AOE skills on escorts (which are the ships used the most with cannon builds) is not the best thing to do, since they are not the best at tanking (though improvements to some traits, skills, and shared cool downs of skills has helped with this).
However, now that BO has been changed so that it has 100% crit, it has replaced BFAW on a lot of builds. Even with the recent Nerf to the base damage, it is still hanging in there as a useful skill. And, there are two different ways that it can be used effectively. One way is to use BO to drop shields, or take a huge chunk out of them. The other way is to let cannons drop shields, and the BO hut the hull.
So, as dontdrunkimshoot has said, it has been a part of a lot of cannon builds for a while. It is just that it has become much more useful recently. Not only will a DBB have the potential to add some DPS to a cannon build, but it will definitely help with quick kills.
Leader of Elite Guardian Academy.Would you like to learn how to run a fleet? Would you like to know how to do ship builds (true budget as well as high end)?The join the Academy today!
Ajudicatorhawk, please continue with the recent trend of improving underused powers rather than nerfing "good" powers.
For example, all this talk of nerfing B-FAW is making me nervous. I've been running this power since launch and used this power in all its various permutations. I remember when this power was only a AOE power where it used to hit only one random target within its arc. It was a pretty weak power used solely for AOE damage and it was rarely used. As a tactical cruiser pilot I used it anyways as I didn't have much choice since all beam powers at the time was pretty terrible. I used B-FAW as it gave me a slight dps increase against a single target but I couldn't hardly kill anything when multiple targets were in range as the damage was randomly split amongst multiple targets. The only other choices were beam overload and Beam target subsystems. Not much to write home about. Those were dark times of Tactical cruiser pilots.
When they boosted B-FAW to be more competitive, it made cruisers more competitive. Cruisers were starting to get a bit more competitive and some viable cruiser builds were appearing. However it was the advent of dual A2B that ushered in the renaissance of the tactical cruisers. Happy times for sure. The escorts finally had some competition in the dps department and finally put an end to the Escorts Online era....in pve.
Not too long ago in the Escorts Online era...people were always complaining about how overpowered dual heavy cannons were. I remember when Captain Geko joked about nerfing it, there were many crying and gnashing of teeth. Of course nothing happened. It wasn't nerfed and still remains as powerful as always. However, no one is complaining about it now, as the attention as shifted to the all powerful beams and the dreaded A2B builds.
Back in the "Escorts Online" days it was quite the opposite. There were lots of threads about how weak beam arrays and cruisers were and how overpowered escorts and their dual heavy cannons were. Amazing how in only a year or two can change the collective perception of the community. Things have flipped around. Yet nothing has really changed. Escorts and their cannons are as powerful as always. The difference is that finally there is another options besides dual heavy cannon escorts builds. We now have more options....why? Because the devs improved subpar powers and did not nerf already good ones. Why nerf good powers to mediocrity? Is it not better to improve mediocre powers to make them better so that all powers are overall better and useful.
So AdjucatorHawk, please continue the good work of making subpar powers better rather than nerfing good ones. That is all I ask. More good options we have the better. That is the philosophy I ask you to continue following as you work to improve this game.
Thank you for your hard work. I really do appreciate it.
The first thing that needs to happen is to get Khahn from JJ verse to design
The t6 cruisers. Apparently it takes a frozen genetically modified human to figure out that you can put more weapons on a big ship, and that flying fortresses don't have to be limited to the same number of weapons as a hangar pet.
Do what u got to do. Shoot a Dev up with steroids and human growth formula, lock him in a freezer until he can think of a way to make a cruiser suck less.
Why not let dreadnoughts be really scary and slot 8 forward and 8 aft weapons? Of course they can't fire more than 8 at any given time to fit the same balance as a broadaside, but this makes for a much more interesting meta game.
Shutting down weapons and activating a different one would be dependent on EPS skill, and it would function with sci or TAC but really shine with an eng captain.
An escort can't assume that attacking the aft of a cruiser will mean there are less weapons that can hit them. It could be all 8 if the cruiser has the time to route the power.
A cruiser that doesn't have to broadside to put 8 weapons on a target makes for more varieations in builds beside the cookie cutter beam boats.
For science..
A member of my fleet and I were discussing that the sensors of sci ships should allow better targeting from longer range. This would extend past 10k with a weapon power falloff for distance, but at 10k or less the power should be 100 percent for beams... Probably a bit lower for cannons.
The meta.
The science ships would keep their distance and snipe from range while providing other support,
The flying fortress of cruisers would rotate weapons and abilities as they try to push foward to bring their guns to bear on the support healers.
Escorts navigate between the two finding the right balance of offense out of range of support, or helping defend the group.
I'd like to see Photonic Officer get a revamp. It's supposed to be science's way of dealing with the lack of non-science seating on science ships, but we've now added so many other cooldown reduction options the 60 sec uptime but 2 minute cooldown is no longer consistent enough to be viable (not to mention it's still vulnerable to removal). Please lengthen to the duration to 90 secs. And also, since only the insane would waste a commander ability on PO rank 3 (or even PO2 for that matter...), we really need an ensign version that gives 16% reduction.
Tricobalt mines and torpedos were nerfed over a year ago, and nobody ever uses them now, maybe they should be un-nerfed, especially with the beam overload nerfs we need other sources of damage again.
Also fluidic phase decoupler is overpowered in pvp but not so useful in pve, it should be other way around.
Well there is so much to say a little hope of it making to Eaxpansion 2.
Let me first start by saying all powers need to work against all players and NPCs, with viable counters.
I am going to start with tactical abilities.
Tactical team. This power is a must have for most builds. Since it is redistributing shields I would not do much with this ability. It is fine how it is.
Dispersal patterns. I would move them all down a level. Make it were it is an ensign level ability. I would consider adding two mine per level of each skill.
Cannon rapid fire and scatter volley are just fine.
Beam overload. I like the new crit buff. It is making it viable in my opinion. Yes a reduction in reduction in damage has occurred to the extreme spikes, but I am seeing higher damage on average.
FAW. This is a little touchy. I don't like the twenty second cooldown between copies. It is not acting like the other tactical buff in the situation. I would make it to a 15 second global. I would consider reducing the damage buff that STOwiki says it gets. I have never seen it in the tooltip in STO. But if FAW 3 is getting a 40% increase in damage, I think it is to much.
Target subsystems. I would removed the the beam portion of the skill. There is no reason why you cannot target subsystems with cannons. Lower the cooldown to 30 seconds and a fifteen global. It has to share cooldowns with all other weapons buffs. The inate ability of science ships should get level two of these abilities and a minute cooldown with fifteen second global.
Level 1: should have a 20% chance to disable system for 3 seconds.
Level 2: 33% at 4 seconds
Level 3: 40% at 5 seconds, no skill should lower timer to reduce time, there should only be able to counter with the appropriate ability.
Torpedo spread works fine except I think it should miss. Under current way the skill works it alway hits. Since it is a AOE I think that TS should get a targeting boost, since all you have to do is get close.
High Yield. I think this needs to go to one torp, much like beam overload. Maybe not an auto crit, but all the damage at once that way you don't have to roll for a hit on each torp. If reduction in damage is necessary it can always be buffed. I also support a full increase in defense, speed, and hit points on targetable torps.
Torps weapons themselves need to be looked at for a buff.
Attack pattern beta. It is fine the way it is working. I would looking at the stacking of it against the a target. I would only allow two stacks of this ability. This is part of the problem of power creep.
Attack pattern delta. I would give it a defense bonus and threat gen built into this ability. If you are making your resistance harded you should want the aggro. I would also add a shield hardener as a doff. Lower the cooldown to thirty and a fifteen second global.
Attack pattern omega. Remove the defense and the turn from this skill. Keep the increased damage.
Add attack pattern gamma. This would get the defense bonuses from the old omega buff.
Fire on my mark. I would remove the effecting skill as sensors and move it to targeting. Leave it alone beside that.
Attack pattern alpha, leave it alone.
Tac fleet. I would look into reduce all fleet buffs down to three minutes.
Tactical int. I would make a team buff like it is on the ground. But only for tactical abilities.
Engineers abilities.
I think all of the emergency power abilities are fine except for one condition. EPtA should have a accuracy bonus. Here is my reasoning behind this. Sensor are supposed to run of aux power. So to counter the defense and movement bonus to EPtE I would have the counter of the defense in another ability. You will see more of this in my fix to A2B repair.
Aux to battery. I don't mind the current version of this ability. Once you add doff to it it become more tricky. I think there needs to be a draw back to running this. So my idea is to tie aux level to accuracy. Reduce the accuracy of every ship that does. to meet a minimal 50 power level in that paper level. No bonus to accuracy for anything above fifty. I would also consider doing the same thing with resistance levels.
Aux to dampeners. Give this ability threat gen and resistance and shield Harding buffs.
Boarding parties. Make them untargetable. Also give the power a 33% to strip a buff. This could be based off of rank. Don't mess with time of the buff cooldown just strip it. Doffs could give a second and a third chance for additional buff strip. Change the diable from a power level, to a bridge officer station. Change the counter to any team ability.
Aceton beam. Lower the cooldown and increase the damage. Give a chance to spread with near enemies with doffs.
Extends shields. This power needs to have its reach the whole ten km of combat area around the player casting.
Miracle worker. Make it wear you can cast it on players.
Rotate shields frequency. Add a threat gen, one minut up time for two minute cooldown. Makes this a viable tank skill.
TransferEPS. Is viable. But I would add all the buffes for EPtX skills to the benefactor. Some players don't know you can toss this skill. I alway through on a buffing tac in an escort.
Nadion Inversion. The problem with this skill is it only helps weapons drain. With Marion, two piece omega, and some warp and sing cores it has become useless. Specially with overcapping weapons power. I would change this ability to something special. Here is my idea.
+1000% threat gen
One second cooldown of abilities for every 10,000 damage taken.
Doubles current shield and hull resistance
Doubles all self healing, except miracle worker
Eng fleet. Three minute cooldown.
Science abilities.
This is touchy to me because I always loved to play the manipulator. Hence I think all powers should work against every target. If they need to have two stats one for PvP and one for PvE.
Mask energy signature. This ability needs have the damage minamals increased. With DPS throughout eh ruff how is a silence too. Supposed to hide a player against an emery. I can't remember if this ability is throwable but it needs to be. If your team tank is taking to much damage or any one is low on health you should be able to throw this and hide that target. Ability must work on all NPCs. Give them a counter if need be. Make this a dual throw. If thrown on a enemy it's allies can not see it. Sensors will show a fake explosion to hide the target to make it look like a death. Damage/time based off of aux and damage dealt.
Jam sensors. Removes all targetables from effected target. So if you throw this ability on a player or NPC they can not target friend or foe. Time based off aux.
Scrabble sensors. This needs to make foes target each other for the required time. Unless countered. This needs to effect all NPCs. If there is no other enemy to the effected to target the ability needs to act like jam sensors. Time based off aux.
All energy drain abilities need to have resistance cut in half or more.
Emergency syphon. Make the minimal power level it can drain to is 15 without a counter. But make it wear it is easier to get to this point by he caster. The problem is if you buff this you can drain to. Much power against NPCs and players. There needs to be a bottom base line you should be able to drain to. I think 15 is good. Time based off aux.
Tachyon beam. Make it 360 degrees and three beams at different targets. This ability can get to dangerous also. So I would let people spec into a dangerous level and see if shields heals need increased or timers for this ability increased. I would consider changing the ability to a damage instead of a drain. If ability goes to damage make it straight damage. If it stays a drain base it off of aux.
Charged particle burst. Make this effective. Cooldown is fine. I would extend the range of this power to full 10km. Make it a shield damage instead of a drain. Remove the ability to buff with consoles because of the range. Keep the decloak range smaller. I would base level three off of aux power if 10km at full aux and level 1 with 50 aux is 3km.
Photonic shock wave. This is a weird ability. It has a lot of functions and lots of skill points required to use it but little use because of how it can be resisted. The disable needs to be extended against NPCs and players. I would loose the disable if the ability would penetrate shields. Also the ability needs to go back to it's bugged form. Must be two years ago Cryptic found it was miss calculating damage. I would return this back to the old bugged damage. Also base it off of current aux power.
Gravity well needs have better pull. Damage is ok. As long as the pull is there to keep targets in here well. In order to counter the well I believe you should only use polarize hull, Aux to damp, or ApG (current form of the defense bonus from APA). Beside that the more eng power you sink into it and speed the more damage it will give. Timing would be everything. Pull needs to be increase by level and aux to include grav gen skill.
My whole idea is that a player with 300 point in grav gen, full aux, and GW3 it should grab everything with in 10km.
Tykens rift. Should follow the same rules as the energy syphon as a minimal. AoE need to be based on aux level, flow cap, level casted. Increase the AoE. If a players cat people should want to leave the area not stay and fight. HE needs to still be the counter.
Photonic officer. I have few ideas here. I would get gid off multiple level and make only one a lt commander level.
Type A: a five minute cooldown where you can cast this ability on any player or self. Removes all cooldowns on effectd player. Everything comes off cooldown.
Type B: a three minute cooldown where it effect the team and brings everything team wide to global.
Type C: only effect caster and has a two minute cooldown and places everything on global for one minute. This ability would not have a global, so any other copy would still have the original cooldown. No reason to run two.
Photonic fleet. Allow mutiple copies by one caster. Buff damage and hit points. Alive until defeated.
Sub nucleonics beam. This is going to cause some controversy. This is the only captains power the can be negated by a Boff ability. In priciple I disagree with this. In reality it is needed because thirty seconds is a long time. So first i say PvP wise either keep it the same because it has a counter of removed the counter and make it 15 seconds with the understanding it might change lower or back to it previous state. As far as NPCs go. SNB does to hardly work ever. This is a shame because it is a players captains power. I don't want it to kill stuff like GW or TR because they are their own eneity after being cast. But stuff like tractor beam or any other power should be affected. Right know a science player can be tractor beamed by any NPC and the effected stays after a subnuc. It needs to start working on NPCs.
threads slowed down a bit, i should talk about station powers, not just a npc rant i guess
MUST ADDRESS SKILLS, skills that are a parody of real skills, a joke played on those that don't know any better
aceton beam
why it sucks
- clearable by the most commonly carried power in both pve and pvp.
- at best all its good for in pvp is forcing a burn of an HE copy, it takes a LTC+ level skill to force an ENS level skill, who actually came out ahead in that trade?
- single target skill, limited usefulness in pve when npcs are weak and thrown at you by the hundreds and die in seconds each.
- high end npcs you might be inclined to use it on, like dreadnaughts, don't have dangerous energy weapons really, its their torps that are deadly, AB only effects energy damage.
- high opportunity cost to run vs EPtX3/ET3/DEM2,3/RSP2,3/ES2,3
how to fix
-make it an ENS level eng skill. then maybe trade it to science, in exchange for PH or TB.
-remove the DOT, and thus any excuse for HE to clear it. as for the damage debuff, there should be no clear. that is balanced, considering the opportunity cost of running it instead of EPtX3/ET3/DEM2,3/RSP2,3/ES2,3
-maybe make it like APD, so whoever shoots you experiences energy drain, etc. sorta makes you like a flying AA. would have to drop 'beam' from the name
boarding party
why it sucks
- same reason all 1 hitpoint targetables suck. not much else needs to be said
- how does it make sense that this is an eng skill?
- single target, thus sucks in pve
how to fix
- scrap it, and make it work exactly like it did in the starfleet command series. this is how boarding parties would actually be used in trek, your captain would be court marshaled for useing BP the way it is now.
activate skill, and over 30 seconds if any enemy shield facing goes down facing you, up to 7.5 range, you transport over a boarding party to reek havoc and kill crew.
-in pve, let there be a proc chance that you capture the enemy ship, and have it follow you around like a pet. if it procs, have a 10 second progress bar run above them with the text stating
FED: releasing anestazine gas on all decks OR beaming crew to the brig
KDF: taking no prisoners OR hunting down stragglers
ROM: releasing thaloron radiation on all decks OR capturing crew for interrogation
- ^ this could be a way to support a "nonlethal play style", RP in a more federation like way, then a kill em all way.
- turn the current BP code into some console power for the kazon lockbox later. for that heavy boarding party ram shuttle they have
photonic officer
why it sucks
- when it expires, any skill it effected has its cooldwon reverted to what it would have been had it not been effected by PO
how to fix
- the reason it sucks? fix that. if PO effects a cooldwon, that effect should not wear off before you can use it again. half the skills have cooldowns so long, PO wears off before they can benefit once.
- PO3 was only available on some old promotion from the first year thing i cant even remember. it should be dropping on very rare boffs at random
tachyon beam
why it sucks
- the skill power insulators exists.
- not balanced with it in mind that everyone puts at least 6 skill into PO, and has deflectors and other gear with plenty of PO buffing
how to fix
- double its shield damage per tic, and cut the duration of use in half without reducing the number of tics. yes, basically a quadrupedal effectiveness buff. make aux and flow cap buffing a very important part of maxing this
-debuff shield resistance wile active, disable any shield regeneration on target wile active
target subsystem
why it sucks
- nerfed to oblivion in the pre power insulator days, so its exponentially more nerfed now
- doesn't stack, wile doing this little
- tier5 skill on the skill tree buffs its disable duration, super high opportunity cost to spec into, no consoles that add skill ether
- actually shares cooldowns with other beam skill (LMFAO)
- cooldowns are hilariously long for what they do (nothing)
- another one of those single target skills thats not useful vs hundreds of npcs.
how to fix
- remove from the BO and FAW cooldwon system into its own thing
- balance with PI in mind
OR
-have them drain power, but instead of an offline, give it a 25% chance to proc
1 shield 'disable' disables regeneration tics for 10/20/30 seconds
2 weapons 'disable' double the power each weapon drains for 10/20/30 seconds
3 engine 'disable' cuts turn rate by 25%, and cuts inertia score in half so target slides more due to damaged station keeping and maneuvering thrusters, for 10/20/30 seconds
4 aux 'disables' cuts perception, stealth, power transfer rate, and all sci skill tree skills in half for 10/20/30 seconds
SKILLS THAT COULD PROBABLY USE WORK
EPtX skills
issue
-basically all there is at ENS for eng
-all share system cooldowns
-EPtX3 skills are high value, but ships with 3 ENS eng CANT run 2 copies/doffed for full up time, without leaving one of the 3 ENS eng blank, or alternating between a version 1 and 3.
how to address
-remove the system cooldown between the EPt skill. yes, that would mean you could run 2 copies of all 4, or run all 4 of them a bit easier with the right doffs. but ask yourself, what ship exactly even has room to run more then 2 different EPt skills? ONLY cruisers with a COM/LTC eng, the weakest ships in the game right, and i think you know that because no lockbox cruiser comes with a COM/LTC eng. this change would basically only effect them, every other ship runs into MASSIVE opportunity costs if they were to try fitting a 3rd EPtX skill
Directed energy modulation
issue
- its ok, only really synergies well with single cannons and FAW,just better then nothing on a tac cruiser.
- game is getting over saturated by shield penn, maybe this should be repurposed
how to address
- have it deal additional damage to shields, as the weapon frequencies are rapidly changing and harder to adapt too.
- additional damage to borg?
- +5/7.5/10% energy weapon damage boost for duration.
aux to damp
issue
- on a non AtB escort, as impotent to its build as APO or CRF. this creates the most dangerous and hard to engage escorts, especially in team play
- has no version 3 for some reason
how to address
- as mentioned, does not have enough variety at ENS, and this skill ends at version 2 at LTC. why not have it start at ENS, wile still ending at LTC, but this time it would be at version 3. solves the missing version 3, greatly improves options for overly heavy eng ships.
aux to batt
issue
- useless skill by itself. but who cares, thats irreverent due to a certain doff
- has no version 3 for some reason
- hated by those that don't know any better, have no actual frame of reference of the games actual balance and meta, or that like repeating things ignorant people say
- there is talk of nerfing tech doffs. know that this will be the worst balance decision any game dev has ever made. ruin the most ship, ruin entire play styles, put massive space between the best ships and the mediocre, only decent with AtB builds. things are balanced NOW, not without tech doffs.
how to address
- if the aux power was refunded instantly at AtB's expiration, cycling 2 copies with tech doffs would more consistently leave you with ~5 aux, right now you only have aux that low half the time. literally the only thing about it that probably needs nerfing.
- like my AtD suggestion, make version 1 available at ENS, so at LTC its version 3, instead of ending at version 2. honestly, this wouldn't change much ion the way AtB ships operate. no ship that didn't use tech doffs already, would suddenly find it worth slotting. and at worst ships would use AtB1 and EPtX2, but they already max out their powerlevels in 3 of 4 subsystems as it is. and again, those LTC eng cruisers would have more flexibility, theres a lot better selection at LT then ENS for eng powers.
charged particle burst
issue
- bad for the same reason tach beam is, but at least it can decloak things, which is all its good for right now
how to address
- again, double shield damage
- have it apply a DOT to shields after the inertial burst of damage
- create a lingering cloud were you use it, that will apply the DOT to any that pass through ti, and also decloak any who pass through it
feed back pulse
issue
-particle buffing sci ships has been all the rage for 2 years, and keeps getting better and better with the TBR pull doff, lockbox skills that are buffed by partial gens, the huge buff to SA, and these crafting consoles with truly insane particle buffing.
-just useing FAW in range of one of these max partical ships, even if only a hand full of shots hit them, can kill you. not just CRF focus fire into them, 15% of your faw shots can cause you to kill yourself now
- the sky high damage isn't even the main problem though, other then with faw you can just not shoot them. its the uptime you can have with 2 copies of FBP. they are built to tank and deal FBP damage, they cant be killed in the current window between FBP.
-the only way to counter these types of sci ships, is more sci ships (or at least a sci captain, that should be in a sci ship). SNB is the only way to deal with this, and you will need multiple. you cant kill these by shooting them, this is basically an exploit now.
-least skill/highest effectiveness ever, in the history of video games
how to address
- increase the cooldown on FBP, so its more similar to the cooldown length of RSP. this will make these ships go from untouchable, to technically defeatable.
- remove the 50% shield pen, that is LOL right now, totally inappropriate.
cannon scatter volley
issue
- good for melting massed weak npcs. but needs to be comboed with a GW to compete with faw in multi target damaging
- there's no cannon skill at ens, 3 ENS escorts are in a bad way because of this. not as bad as 3 ENS eng ships, but still bad
how to address
- move this skill down to start at ENS and end at LTC. quality of life on all 3 ENS tac ships will be vastly improved, and they would be less underpowered
torpedo high yield
issue
- for single target damage, torp spread is actually better then this is. and not just because it doesn't miss, it just plain deals more damage, and throws twice as many torps at the target, and several others as gravy. also applies more procs, more DOTs, and more sheering.
- seems its only purpose is to create 'heavy torps' these days, which suck, get shot down and can damage you. except the heavy unidine rep torp, that lacks those disadvantages, all other heavy torps should be adjusted to its likeness
how to address
considering how bad torps suck, and how much HY sucks, the huge damage nerf per torp at HY levels is inappropriate. each torp should AT LEAST deal full base damage.
-make a new skill called torp salvo that buffs torps the classic way HY does, and let HY be a skill that makes heavy versions of every torp. at the very least for god sake stop introducing new torps after torp that make heavy torps with HY.
-this torp salvo skill should be dealing full normal damage per torp, fire twice as many as HY does now at a single target, but have to deal with acc skill. then it could actually compeat with TS vs a single target
tactical team
issue
-guess what! there's not a damn thing wrong with this skill distributing shields! there needing to be some other skill that distributes shields, wile TT goes back to doing next to nothing, is just more echo chamber nonsense!
- the only problem this skill has, is that its clear duration or tac debuffs is 10 seconds long, wile ET and ST only have a clear window 5 seconds long
-since its a must have skill with the distribute, this makes tac debuffs near useless, in pvp at least. the up time to immunity to them is absurdly high
-version 2 and 3 are worthless, their other effect, boosting damage, is a pitiful boost to the tier 1 all damage skill tree skill.
how to address
- lower the clear duration to 5 seconds, like it used to be, and ALWAYS should have stayed
- rebalanced the auto distribute across the 3 versions to 8/9/10 seconds. its not much, but its some incentive to use a higher version. this complements my proposed lowering of CSV down well too. the distribute lasting exactly as long as all tac buffs, at version 1 of the skill, has always been BS.
- cause it to give a real damage buff, 5/10/15% all damage. this should be the only part that stays for 10 seconds.
Comments
Make PvE and PvP stats for some skills for example FaW high dmg score ,BO 100% crit,PSW low dmg in PvE, NPCs cant smash keyboard...
BUFF/revamp this
Mine attack patterns- mines still have small damage, only 2 patterns (make mine pattern like that imperial cruiser), and must be trained for ENSIGN !
Boarding Party - big crew needed when you want spam (with doffs )
Aceton Beam - long cool down
Jam Sensors - long cool down
Tachyon Beam - useless, fivefold buff please
Mask Energy Signature - hm hm
Tractor Beam - higher tiers should do more damage
Charged Particle Burst - useless in PvE
Scramble Sensors - should scramble tactical cube
Photonic Shock Wave - low damage in PvE
Viral Matrix - useless in PvE
NERF this
Fire at Will - nerf or disable it for PvP....only one AoE heal (vesta console)
Aux to Battery - ..........
Spread - 100% acc
NEW
More Attack Patterns, or patterns for Science and Engineer boffs something like evasive , support, defense patterns
Cannon overload
AoE heals - defense against FaW
Thanks for reading Hawk
The problem with crew is most obvious at higher levels. It does next to nothing in comparison to every other regen trait and ability. Yet, it is supposed to be a major differentiating factor that distinguishes cruisers from escorts and science ships. Have you ever looked at a piece of gear that had crew resist or crew regen and thought: "Yeah, that stat presents an interesting gear choice?" I know I haven't. There are numerous ways this could be improved, but I have three ideas that stand out to me.
Numbers Pass - this is the easiest solution. Keep everything that crew currently affects the same and adjust the numbers till they become large enough for players to pay attention to them.
The 3rd Resource - Make crew a resource akin to energy and singularity power. In this concept, total crew capacity and crew alive would become important factors in determining the strength of certain abilities. For example, the various Teams (Sci, Tac, Eng) would have their values directly affected by the number of crew alive on the ship they are deployed from. This could be either the percentage of crew, so as to make the ability balanced for all ship types, or it could be based on the actual number of crew, making the ability more useful for ships with a high capacity.
A New Weapon - The most outlandish idea, but the one I find most intriguing, would require a near total overhaul of the crew system.
In the excellent real time strategy game "Star Trek: Armada", ships had crew as one of their stats. When an enemy unit's shields dropped, you had the option of beaming your crew over to their ship in an effort to take over the vessel. The success rate of the boarding effort was determined by the faction you were playing (Klingons would kill enemy crew at a rate of 1.75:1, Borg at a rate of 2:1, Federation at a rate of 1:1, and Romulans at a rate of .75:1) and how many crew you had in relation to the enemy ship. When the enemy crew was wiped out, you would take control of the vessel.
With some modification, this system could be used in STO. First, acknowledging the balancing requirements of an MMO, any factional differences in boarding strength would need to be toned down significantly if not altogether removed. Second, player ships that have their crew entirely killed would only suffer the default defeat condition and respawn in a normal fashion. NPC ships would similarly explode as though destroyed by normal weapons fire. The "capture" mechanic simply would not work in the STO environment, again for balance reasons.
The boarding mechanic could best be compared to a damage over time ability. When a target's shield facing drops, you would have the option to beam over your crew at a set rate to combat the enemy's crew. When the shield facing is restored, the target moves out of range, or you stop beaming over troops, the soldiers you have on the enemy ship will continue to fight until they either destroy the ship or are killed off.
I'm going to use some numerical examples to help illustrate this.
A Odyssey Star Cruiser (2500 crew) is fighting a Bortas Battle Cruiser (3600 crew). The Bortas loses its shield facing for five seconds. The Odyssey beams over 10 crew per second for five seconds, so a total of 50 Starfleet Marines are now aboard the Bortas. Now let's assume that the standard rate of attrition is 1:1 for both attacker and defender, at a tick rate of 1 second per calculation. So after 50 seconds, all the Starfleet Marines have been killed and the crew of the Bortas has been reduced by 50.
Using this framework, numerous scenarios can be envisioned and modifiers can be thought of. Consider a new piece of gear that can be slotted on a ship: Boarding Party. A very rare M.A.C.O Commando boarding party can be bought from the fleet once tier five of the shipyard is complete. The M.A.C.O Commandos increases the strength of your boarding parties by 50% and increases the transfer rate by ten per second. Now lets revisit our combat scenario above.
The Odyssey drops the Bortass shields for five seconds. It is now beaming over 20 crew per second, so by the time the shields have gone back up there are now 100 commandos fighting on the Bortas. But these commandos are also fighting more fiercely than standard Starfleet security officers. At 50% increased damage, the ratio is now 1.5:1. So at a tick rate of one per second for 100 seconds, by the time all the M.A.C.O. Commandos have been killed, the Bortas has lost 150 crew. Continue this over the course of the fight, taking into account the damage done to crew from torpedoes, warp plasma and so forth, and the Odyssey might be able to defeat the Bortas simply by killing all of its crew.
As system such as this would be highly adaptable, as it is entirely based on numbers and calculations. Rates can be increased or decreased, ratios expanded, resistances added and so forth.
All this could turn crew into a far more interesting statistic, and perhaps give ships with large amounts of crew but limited firepower (look at you, Exploration Cruiser) a more engaging role in combat without resorting to the addition of more tactical consoles or weapons.
As to kinetic weapons, specifically torpedoes.
The original role of torpedoes was to exploit dropped shield facings, doing significantly more damage to hulls than to shields. At the beginning of STO, I had all sorts of fun trying to time my torpedoes to arrive just as the enemys shields dropped, or trying to fire them just as a bird-of-prey was cloaking. But as power levels have increased, energy weapons sheer effectiveness across the board has rendered torpedoes nearly obsolete in PvE. Take a look at all of the current highest PvE DPS builds. All use energy weapons, and the majority of those are beam arrays with Fire At Will.
This is the result of a number of issues with the current gear system. A large component is the way tactical consoles work. In every case, it is always more advantageous to stack damage of a single type, and this always ends up being energy weapons. Torpedoes do have a niche roll still with certain kinds of torpedo boat builds, and for spike damage in PvP; but it has always seemed strange to me that a weapon nearly as iconic as the phaser itself would be relegated to these kinds of roles.
I have no clever suggestions about how to fix this issue, but I suspect it is straightforward. Simple rebalance the numbers so that torpedoes are worth including again for all ship types. Perhaps an increase in their firing arc is needed, or energy weapon damage against hulls significantly reduced.
Okay, here we go with my IMHO comments:
Traits:
Crew:
Powers:
Weapons:
Okay, so much wall-o-text that I'm just going to stop spitballing and let you guys sort out whats there; I don't know how helpful that all is, but you wanted commentary...
Beam: Fire at Will has the same cool down as the cannon skills. If you have two copies of it, the one activated will go on a 30 sec cool down, and the second skill will go on a 15 sec cool down. (If you are not getting those cool downs, then your skill is either not leveled up all the way, or it is bugged, and needs a ticket done for it). Also, the AOE for the FAW skill is it's biggest strength. It is the best tac skill for crowd control. Another strength of FAW is the fact that it increases your weapon's accuracy. If you fire your weapons normally at moving targets, you will miss more than if you used FAW.
CSV actually loses accuracy when it is used. Therefore, it is not as good when attacking single targets, like CRF.
Also, about being able to cancel it by targeting another enemy has to do with your weapons settings. If you have them set to auto fire, and also have your settings set to target the next enemy, it will keep firing. To keep it from auto firing, you can right click on the weapons in the "Ship Weapons" box on the screen. If they have a green boarder around them, then they are set to auto fire. To change the auto target, go into options, and click on the "Controls" tab. Then look for "Select attacker if attacked" and set it to off. This will help keep it from continually shooting enemies.
Another thing to keep in mind about FAW is that beams will finish a firing cycle, just like they will if you were firing them without any skills. Each firing cycle will fire 4 beams. If you switch targets in the middle of a firing cycle, they will not stop till their cycle is done.
If they were to restrict FAW to hitting fewer enemies, it will only make it more powerful. This can be seen by using DBB and having only a few enemies in front of you. It is killer. Either removing the rapid fire effect will really help it. They can keep the bonus accuracy to it, and it will still get more DPS than a cannon build.
And to tautou, Beam Overload needed some attention. Granted, for those that knew how to use it, it was a good skill before making it 100% crit. However, the problem now is that it is being nerfed due to PVP. One of the big problems with skills in the game is that when they are changed for PVP, it can mess them up for non-PVP content.
Before they reduced it another 13%, it was a good skill for non-PVP content. However, it is holding on by a little. Another Nerf like this, and it will be worse than before the 100% crit. I understand it was OP in PVP. Though, changes for skills in PVP need to not reflect on the same skills in non-PVP content.
It should be like the Raiders. They had a lower flanking damage in PVP than in other content. This was because it needed to be higher outside of PVP. However, when they Nerf the skills, it is usually across the board, and this either seriously hurts skills, or breaks them.
Also, if a few can find a way to make a skill OP, then it isn't always the skill, but look at what caused the OP problem. Some issues are skills (like FAW), and sometimes it can be gear, traits, etc. Finding the cause is the best solution to the problems. Because if very few know how to make it OP, and it is nerfed because it can be done, then it can kill the skill for those that don't know about it, or cannot use it for their builds.
yeah, i think many ppl missed the briefing. i cant really blame people though.
hopefully devs will do the right thing and pull out those really good, detailed posts and read them about 10 times each.
free jkname
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I agree with this. If not, then we might get the wrong skills adjusted, and end up in a worse condition than we are in now.
The Beam Overload change was necessary. Dual Beam Banks were worthless before the change. The general consensus was that any build that used DBBs was served better by cannons. Now that Beam Overload has a 100% crit chance, DBBs are actually kind of good on escorts.
I used Beam Overload a lot before with my DBB/cannon builds. The only thing is that it required you to use consoles, and gear that gave you CrtH. The only difference now is that with the last Nerf to its base damage, it is weaker than it was before for those that had CrtH high on their ships.
Now, to get the same average damage from it, you need to focus on all CrtD. I actually went from 27-30k per shot down to 12-14k for the same skills, and weapons. If I switch all my gear and consoles I had out for the CrtD, then I can get back to where it was before.
If they Nerf it again, then it will become worthless. I hope that they add the 13% back to it, so it is more useful than it use to be. Otherwise, it was pointless to make the change to begin with.
Beam Overload is one of the skills that has been misunderstood how to properly use it in the past. Now that people are using it, they are not use to how good it can be. Therefore, they see, even in its recently nerfed state that it is OP. Honestly, in PVP, it was, and still is. The reason is that PVP, and the end game content are two different animals.
Things that are OP in PVP are not always OP in the end game content. When changes are made to skills, consoles, traits, and abilities, they need to do different changes. One for PVP, and the other for end game content. This has been done before with the Raiders. For PVP it was given a lower flanking damage than end game content. The same with BO. The recent Nerf hurt the end game content, but helped in PVP.
This is one of the problems with balance. It is almost impossible to balance the gameplay when you are looking at PVP for advice on fixing non-PVP gameplay.
Nope. Fire at Will will put a second copy on a 20 second cooldown. It has 50% uptime. Has been this way for a long time. I just tested it even though I know it has worked this way for atleast a year and have not seen any patch note stating it was changed.
Various posts on Beam: Fire at Will:
On cooldowns... ...from a discussion on why the new trait from the Beams crafting school would not work properly with B:FAW. The reason being... it has a 20 sec duplicate ability cooldown, which means that any stack you build within the 20 sec window will expire before you have a chance to activate the second copy of B:FAW and refreshing the buff timer. The 15 sec cooldown you are thinking of only applies to alternating other beam abilities with B:FAW, as the shared rather than duplicate cooldown.
On the underlying mechanics... ...indicating that no, it does not hit more often. Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to. These also help shed light on why it was such a pain to get DEM fixed, and why FAW keeps having issues with criticals underperforming.
A lot of folks seem to have misconceptions as to exactly how B:FAW works, and why it has such great parsing results; it fires a series of 5 pulses at 2 targets per pulse (at least as far as the damaging shots with their to-hit roll). The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV. If the idea is to adjust the meta to make B:FAW more of an AoE and less effective against individual targets, the culprit to look at is that extra pulse. If you want it to lower damage for PvE parsing, the culprit is that it is an AoE without the "primary target + cone" restriction that C:SV has. All that said, it still has drawbacks... turning off auto-attack doesn't tell your crew to stop firing at will, by the way (I do have auto-attack disabled in exactly the manner you mentioned). That's why smart PvPers use Scramble Sensors, Feedback Pulse, etc. as a specific countermeasure to B:FAW... often on alternative boff setups so that they aren't tied into a counter-B:FAW build. As long as you are out of combat, you can swap boff seating, which is a good selling point for buying additional boff slots.
...and now I'm wandering away from clarifying how B:FAW works. Yeah, B:FAW does work nicely in PvE for parsing purposes, and PvP for suppression builds; it does, however, already have down sides compared to the other weapon abilities. Honestly, that's why people still use cannons... well, maybe not single cannons, other than the one oddball build (with C:RF, DEM, and doffed TBR) and maybe a few others. Cannons still have their place in the game, for better directed AoE and better sustained burst, while beams get wide-area AoE and single-target spike; aren't different abilities more interesting than say Beam: Scatter Volley and Beam: Rapid Fire?
That is a bit odd, because when I have the skill on two different BOFFs, and activate it on one, it will put the other on a 15sec cool down. However, when I put two copies on the same BOFF and activate the first one, it then goes on a 20sec cool down.
I have this same result when activating cannon skills. As long as it is on two separate BOFFs, the first one puts the second on a 15sec cool down. If two copies are on the same BOFF, it will go to a 20sec cool down. Maybe it is a bug that some players might have. I will put a ticket in tomorrow, so that they can look into it when they get a chance.
I have a few questions because of your explanation of what adjudicatorhawk said.
You mentioned in the first paragraph I quoted from you that "Depending on how your parser works, you may be logging the initial auto-hit that doesn't actually do any damage, but rather is there to designate the targets that the to-hit rolls and animations are applied to."
If that is true, then it doesn't do damage. However, in the second paragraph you said, "The extra pulse is what gives the increased damage against a single target, at a higher rate than the damage boost of C:SV."
How can it do both, deal damage, and not deal damage at the same time?
Also, when I use BFAW, my beams come off cool down, and re-fire faster than if not using it. I have contacted a few friends, and they said that they have the same results. This gives the result of firing faster, therefore it does hit more often.
And with the beams firing after switching targets, this is a problem a friend had as well. However, they made the changes to both settings. Now, they can stop targeting an enemy, and FAW will stop firing. It does finish the firing cycle of the beams that were shooting, but it does stop. Mine are set up the same way.
I can activate BFAW, and start shooting an enemy. Then, if I don't target anything, it will stop firing after the firing cycle of the beams are done. This could be a bug, but it has been doing this for me for over a year. Depending on how many beams I have equipped on the ship, sometimes it takes longer for the beams to stop firing because some don't start firing at the same time.
Beams are great for the sustain damage, but they don't do spike damage. This is why they are not as good against the hull. This is why a lot of players use cannons. They will do spike damage, and are better against the hull than beams. For this reason, if the enemy cannot regenerate shields, then a cannon build can kill the enemy faster by itself. If they do regenerate shields, then the cannons cannot kill it as fast as a cannon, beam combination will.
I have tested multiple combinations, and it is always the same. Beams are just not as good against the hull as cannons, even when using BFAW vs CRF.
BFAW does have better accuracy, but CSV doesn't. If you test CSV against one enemy, then fire it without being buffed, the cannon will lose accuracy.
Also, I never meant to imply that BFAW was literally two skills in one. Though it fires as if it is. You hit multiple enemies, with better accuracy than if you fired the beams without it, and it also has a rapid fire effect. The accuracy is helpful. However, just stopping the "Extra pulse" from doing damage (which was said to do it, and not to do it), it might help a little.
Still, I do have to admit that there are people that don't know how to properly use BFAW as it is now. They can easily rack up DPS, but cannot always kill things as quick as others in the same build. Therefore, a lot of them actually don't help out as much in missions as someone that knows how to use it properly.
Aux2batt is still a problem, despite your examples.
It isn't so much that it doesn't win the dps arms race, it is squarely that it is multiple advantages all wrapped in one tiny little packaged skill.
It is essentially, like having 3 batteries in one, than toss in a much better, and more reliable version Photonic Officer, all coming from 1 LT, or LTC skill!!!
No other skill, has that potential power wrapped up in, such a mid rank ability.
I mean look at the people who complain about APO, well it requires a LTC, or a CMD slot, and while yes it is a very powerful tac skill, it doesn't reduce all boff skills cd's.
As for the overcapping, unless people go the easy route with DEM + Marion TRIBBLE, the alternative is to stack tons of wp buffs, with the possibility of anything that can aid in energy mitigation, to overcap wp so much, that using 7-8 BA's doesn't drain you below 100, heck you can even mitigate well enough to the point, of never falling below 125.
Aux2batt just feeds into the mess.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Standard beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 4
Maximum number of targets per shot: 1
*(all 4 shots in the firing cycle will target the same enemy)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their target: 4
B:FAW beam attack:
Shots per firing cycle: 5
Maximum number of targets per shot: 2
*(each shot in the firing cycle may target up to 2 enemies, decided randomly)
Maximum number of hits if all possible shots hit their targets: 10
*(assumes 2 or more possible targets for the full firing cycle)
...in showing what I meant. B:FAW adds an additional shot before the beam cycles its cooldown, while also allowing each shot to target up to two enemies. That's why it can still do more damage to a single target, since it is adding that extra shot to the firing cycle; however, if only one target is in range you only get 5 shots on that target rather than the full 10 shots worth of damage you could do to two or more enemies. B:FAW both increases rate of fire and adds more potential targets to each shot, though it does not increase the rate of fire as much as C:RF or increase the maximum number of targets for each shot as much as C:SV. Hopefully that makes more sense written out that way.
Thank you for explaining that. I am following you now. Must have been the way I was reading it before. I just wonder if removing that extra shot it fires on a single target will reduce it's damage enough to bring it down in power against the single target like they are wanting to do. Even though it doesn't have as high rate of fire that CSV has, beams are able to fire all at once, whereas cannons have a delay if you fire off more than two or three.
I am curious how that will work. Thank you again for the clarification.
I hope that whatever choices they make in changing any skills, it will not make skills useless for those that need them for their ships stations. I have seen where something was nerfed because certain builds were able to take full advantage of it, but certain ships that relied on it to make them more beneficial were hurt by it. I look forward to seeing what they do.
You mixed beams and cannons? You never mix beams and cannons.
3DHC + 1DBB is the most common escort build. lurk more
I don't know if you are serious, or using sarcasm. No offense, but it is hard to tell sometimes over the forums. So, I will be going with the assumption that it was seriousness.
There are advantages to running with one or more DBBs in a cannon build. One of the problems is the re-fire rate of cannons. They do have a high rate of rounds per min (RPM), but they take so long to cycle. Also, if you fire DBBs, and DHC, their cycles end at almost the exact same amount of time. But, beams have a slower RPM.
So, when you combine them, you get the benefits from both. With cannons, the enemy can start regenerating shields while the cannons are on cool down. But, the beams offer more sustained damage. So, when you have one DBB, you are using sustained damage to keep shields down, and this lets the cannons hit the hull more. More hits to the hull will mean faster kills.
If you have the ability to run two copies of tactical skills, then you use to be able to run BFAW, and either CSV, or CRF to do quick kills. However, using AOE skills on escorts (which are the ships used the most with cannon builds) is not the best thing to do, since they are not the best at tanking (though improvements to some traits, skills, and shared cool downs of skills has helped with this).
However, now that BO has been changed so that it has 100% crit, it has replaced BFAW on a lot of builds. Even with the recent Nerf to the base damage, it is still hanging in there as a useful skill. And, there are two different ways that it can be used effectively. One way is to use BO to drop shields, or take a huge chunk out of them. The other way is to let cannons drop shields, and the BO hut the hull.
So, as dontdrunkimshoot has said, it has been a part of a lot of cannon builds for a while. It is just that it has become much more useful recently. Not only will a DBB have the potential to add some DPS to a cannon build, but it will definitely help with quick kills.
For example, all this talk of nerfing B-FAW is making me nervous. I've been running this power since launch and used this power in all its various permutations. I remember when this power was only a AOE power where it used to hit only one random target within its arc. It was a pretty weak power used solely for AOE damage and it was rarely used. As a tactical cruiser pilot I used it anyways as I didn't have much choice since all beam powers at the time was pretty terrible. I used B-FAW as it gave me a slight dps increase against a single target but I couldn't hardly kill anything when multiple targets were in range as the damage was randomly split amongst multiple targets. The only other choices were beam overload and Beam target subsystems. Not much to write home about. Those were dark times of Tactical cruiser pilots.
When they boosted B-FAW to be more competitive, it made cruisers more competitive. Cruisers were starting to get a bit more competitive and some viable cruiser builds were appearing. However it was the advent of dual A2B that ushered in the renaissance of the tactical cruisers. Happy times for sure. The escorts finally had some competition in the dps department and finally put an end to the Escorts Online era....in pve.
Not too long ago in the Escorts Online era...people were always complaining about how overpowered dual heavy cannons were. I remember when Captain Geko joked about nerfing it, there were many crying and gnashing of teeth. Of course nothing happened. It wasn't nerfed and still remains as powerful as always. However, no one is complaining about it now, as the attention as shifted to the all powerful beams and the dreaded A2B builds.
Back in the "Escorts Online" days it was quite the opposite. There were lots of threads about how weak beam arrays and cruisers were and how overpowered escorts and their dual heavy cannons were. Amazing how in only a year or two can change the collective perception of the community. Things have flipped around. Yet nothing has really changed. Escorts and their cannons are as powerful as always. The difference is that finally there is another options besides dual heavy cannon escorts builds. We now have more options....why? Because the devs improved subpar powers and did not nerf already good ones. Why nerf good powers to mediocrity? Is it not better to improve mediocre powers to make them better so that all powers are overall better and useful.
So AdjucatorHawk, please continue the good work of making subpar powers better rather than nerfing good ones. That is all I ask. More good options we have the better. That is the philosophy I ask you to continue following as you work to improve this game.
Thank you for your hard work. I really do appreciate it.
The t6 cruisers. Apparently it takes a frozen genetically modified human to figure out that you can put more weapons on a big ship, and that flying fortresses don't have to be limited to the same number of weapons as a hangar pet.
Do what u got to do. Shoot a Dev up with steroids and human growth formula, lock him in a freezer until he can think of a way to make a cruiser suck less.
Why not let dreadnoughts be really scary and slot 8 forward and 8 aft weapons? Of course they can't fire more than 8 at any given time to fit the same balance as a broadaside, but this makes for a much more interesting meta game.
Shutting down weapons and activating a different one would be dependent on EPS skill, and it would function with sci or TAC but really shine with an eng captain.
An escort can't assume that attacking the aft of a cruiser will mean there are less weapons that can hit them. It could be all 8 if the cruiser has the time to route the power.
A cruiser that doesn't have to broadside to put 8 weapons on a target makes for more varieations in builds beside the cookie cutter beam boats.
For science..
A member of my fleet and I were discussing that the sensors of sci ships should allow better targeting from longer range. This would extend past 10k with a weapon power falloff for distance, but at 10k or less the power should be 100 percent for beams... Probably a bit lower for cannons.
The meta.
The science ships would keep their distance and snipe from range while providing other support,
The flying fortress of cruisers would rotate weapons and abilities as they try to push foward to bring their guns to bear on the support healers.
Escorts navigate between the two finding the right balance of offense out of range of support, or helping defend the group.
No wonder pickup groups have so much trouble clearing Elite STFs.
yeah, most of them are feds :cool:
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Also fluidic phase decoupler is overpowered in pvp but not so useful in pve, it should be other way around.
Let me first start by saying all powers need to work against all players and NPCs, with viable counters.
I am going to start with tactical abilities.
Tactical team. This power is a must have for most builds. Since it is redistributing shields I would not do much with this ability. It is fine how it is.
Dispersal patterns. I would move them all down a level. Make it were it is an ensign level ability. I would consider adding two mine per level of each skill.
Cannon rapid fire and scatter volley are just fine.
Beam overload. I like the new crit buff. It is making it viable in my opinion. Yes a reduction in reduction in damage has occurred to the extreme spikes, but I am seeing higher damage on average.
FAW. This is a little touchy. I don't like the twenty second cooldown between copies. It is not acting like the other tactical buff in the situation. I would make it to a 15 second global. I would consider reducing the damage buff that STOwiki says it gets. I have never seen it in the tooltip in STO. But if FAW 3 is getting a 40% increase in damage, I think it is to much.
Target subsystems. I would removed the the beam portion of the skill. There is no reason why you cannot target subsystems with cannons. Lower the cooldown to 30 seconds and a fifteen global. It has to share cooldowns with all other weapons buffs. The inate ability of science ships should get level two of these abilities and a minute cooldown with fifteen second global.
Level 1: should have a 20% chance to disable system for 3 seconds.
Level 2: 33% at 4 seconds
Level 3: 40% at 5 seconds, no skill should lower timer to reduce time, there should only be able to counter with the appropriate ability.
Torpedo spread works fine except I think it should miss. Under current way the skill works it alway hits. Since it is a AOE I think that TS should get a targeting boost, since all you have to do is get close.
High Yield. I think this needs to go to one torp, much like beam overload. Maybe not an auto crit, but all the damage at once that way you don't have to roll for a hit on each torp. If reduction in damage is necessary it can always be buffed. I also support a full increase in defense, speed, and hit points on targetable torps.
Torps weapons themselves need to be looked at for a buff.
Attack pattern beta. It is fine the way it is working. I would looking at the stacking of it against the a target. I would only allow two stacks of this ability. This is part of the problem of power creep.
Attack pattern delta. I would give it a defense bonus and threat gen built into this ability. If you are making your resistance harded you should want the aggro. I would also add a shield hardener as a doff. Lower the cooldown to thirty and a fifteen second global.
Attack pattern omega. Remove the defense and the turn from this skill. Keep the increased damage.
Add attack pattern gamma. This would get the defense bonuses from the old omega buff.
Fire on my mark. I would remove the effecting skill as sensors and move it to targeting. Leave it alone beside that.
Attack pattern alpha, leave it alone.
Tac fleet. I would look into reduce all fleet buffs down to three minutes.
Tactical int. I would make a team buff like it is on the ground. But only for tactical abilities.
Engineers abilities.
I think all of the emergency power abilities are fine except for one condition. EPtA should have a accuracy bonus. Here is my reasoning behind this. Sensor are supposed to run of aux power. So to counter the defense and movement bonus to EPtE I would have the counter of the defense in another ability. You will see more of this in my fix to A2B repair.
Aux to battery. I don't mind the current version of this ability. Once you add doff to it it become more tricky. I think there needs to be a draw back to running this. So my idea is to tie aux level to accuracy. Reduce the accuracy of every ship that does. to meet a minimal 50 power level in that paper level. No bonus to accuracy for anything above fifty. I would also consider doing the same thing with resistance levels.
Aux to dampeners. Give this ability threat gen and resistance and shield Harding buffs.
Boarding parties. Make them untargetable. Also give the power a 33% to strip a buff. This could be based off of rank. Don't mess with time of the buff cooldown just strip it. Doffs could give a second and a third chance for additional buff strip. Change the diable from a power level, to a bridge officer station. Change the counter to any team ability.
Aceton beam. Lower the cooldown and increase the damage. Give a chance to spread with near enemies with doffs.
Extends shields. This power needs to have its reach the whole ten km of combat area around the player casting.
Miracle worker. Make it wear you can cast it on players.
Rotate shields frequency. Add a threat gen, one minut up time for two minute cooldown. Makes this a viable tank skill.
TransferEPS. Is viable. But I would add all the buffes for EPtX skills to the benefactor. Some players don't know you can toss this skill. I alway through on a buffing tac in an escort.
Nadion Inversion. The problem with this skill is it only helps weapons drain. With Marion, two piece omega, and some warp and sing cores it has become useless. Specially with overcapping weapons power. I would change this ability to something special. Here is my idea.
+1000% threat gen
One second cooldown of abilities for every 10,000 damage taken.
Doubles current shield and hull resistance
Doubles all self healing, except miracle worker
Eng fleet. Three minute cooldown.
Science abilities.
This is touchy to me because I always loved to play the manipulator. Hence I think all powers should work against every target. If they need to have two stats one for PvP and one for PvE.
Mask energy signature. This ability needs have the damage minamals increased. With DPS throughout eh ruff how is a silence too. Supposed to hide a player against an emery. I can't remember if this ability is throwable but it needs to be. If your team tank is taking to much damage or any one is low on health you should be able to throw this and hide that target. Ability must work on all NPCs. Give them a counter if need be. Make this a dual throw. If thrown on a enemy it's allies can not see it. Sensors will show a fake explosion to hide the target to make it look like a death. Damage/time based off of aux and damage dealt.
Jam sensors. Removes all targetables from effected target. So if you throw this ability on a player or NPC they can not target friend or foe. Time based off aux.
Scrabble sensors. This needs to make foes target each other for the required time. Unless countered. This needs to effect all NPCs. If there is no other enemy to the effected to target the ability needs to act like jam sensors. Time based off aux.
All energy drain abilities need to have resistance cut in half or more.
Emergency syphon. Make the minimal power level it can drain to is 15 without a counter. But make it wear it is easier to get to this point by he caster. The problem is if you buff this you can drain to. Much power against NPCs and players. There needs to be a bottom base line you should be able to drain to. I think 15 is good. Time based off aux.
Tachyon beam. Make it 360 degrees and three beams at different targets. This ability can get to dangerous also. So I would let people spec into a dangerous level and see if shields heals need increased or timers for this ability increased. I would consider changing the ability to a damage instead of a drain. If ability goes to damage make it straight damage. If it stays a drain base it off of aux.
Charged particle burst. Make this effective. Cooldown is fine. I would extend the range of this power to full 10km. Make it a shield damage instead of a drain. Remove the ability to buff with consoles because of the range. Keep the decloak range smaller. I would base level three off of aux power if 10km at full aux and level 1 with 50 aux is 3km.
Photonic shock wave. This is a weird ability. It has a lot of functions and lots of skill points required to use it but little use because of how it can be resisted. The disable needs to be extended against NPCs and players. I would loose the disable if the ability would penetrate shields. Also the ability needs to go back to it's bugged form. Must be two years ago Cryptic found it was miss calculating damage. I would return this back to the old bugged damage. Also base it off of current aux power.
Gravity well needs have better pull. Damage is ok. As long as the pull is there to keep targets in here well. In order to counter the well I believe you should only use polarize hull, Aux to damp, or ApG (current form of the defense bonus from APA). Beside that the more eng power you sink into it and speed the more damage it will give. Timing would be everything. Pull needs to be increase by level and aux to include grav gen skill.
My whole idea is that a player with 300 point in grav gen, full aux, and GW3 it should grab everything with in 10km.
Tykens rift. Should follow the same rules as the energy syphon as a minimal. AoE need to be based on aux level, flow cap, level casted. Increase the AoE. If a players cat people should want to leave the area not stay and fight. HE needs to still be the counter.
Photonic officer. I have few ideas here. I would get gid off multiple level and make only one a lt commander level.
Type A: a five minute cooldown where you can cast this ability on any player or self. Removes all cooldowns on effectd player. Everything comes off cooldown.
Type B: a three minute cooldown where it effect the team and brings everything team wide to global.
Type C: only effect caster and has a two minute cooldown and places everything on global for one minute. This ability would not have a global, so any other copy would still have the original cooldown. No reason to run two.
Photonic fleet. Allow mutiple copies by one caster. Buff damage and hit points. Alive until defeated.
Sub nucleonics beam. This is going to cause some controversy. This is the only captains power the can be negated by a Boff ability. In priciple I disagree with this. In reality it is needed because thirty seconds is a long time. So first i say PvP wise either keep it the same because it has a counter of removed the counter and make it 15 seconds with the understanding it might change lower or back to it previous state. As far as NPCs go. SNB does to hardly work ever. This is a shame because it is a players captains power. I don't want it to kill stuff like GW or TR because they are their own eneity after being cast. But stuff like tractor beam or any other power should be affected. Right know a science player can be tractor beamed by any NPC and the effected stays after a subnuc. It needs to start working on NPCs.
Science fleet three minute cooldown.
i should have sited that as pvp related. for pve, rainbow builds are the most common :rolleyes:
MUST ADDRESS SKILLS, skills that are a parody of real skills, a joke played on those that don't know any better
aceton beam
why it sucks
- clearable by the most commonly carried power in both pve and pvp.
- at best all its good for in pvp is forcing a burn of an HE copy, it takes a LTC+ level skill to force an ENS level skill, who actually came out ahead in that trade?
- single target skill, limited usefulness in pve when npcs are weak and thrown at you by the hundreds and die in seconds each.
- high end npcs you might be inclined to use it on, like dreadnaughts, don't have dangerous energy weapons really, its their torps that are deadly, AB only effects energy damage.
- high opportunity cost to run vs EPtX3/ET3/DEM2,3/RSP2,3/ES2,3
how to fix
-make it an ENS level eng skill. then maybe trade it to science, in exchange for PH or TB.
-remove the DOT, and thus any excuse for HE to clear it. as for the damage debuff, there should be no clear. that is balanced, considering the opportunity cost of running it instead of EPtX3/ET3/DEM2,3/RSP2,3/ES2,3
-maybe make it like APD, so whoever shoots you experiences energy drain, etc. sorta makes you like a flying AA. would have to drop 'beam' from the name
boarding party
why it sucks
- same reason all 1 hitpoint targetables suck. not much else needs to be said
- how does it make sense that this is an eng skill?
- single target, thus sucks in pve
how to fix
- scrap it, and make it work exactly like it did in the starfleet command series. this is how boarding parties would actually be used in trek, your captain would be court marshaled for useing BP the way it is now.
activate skill, and over 30 seconds if any enemy shield facing goes down facing you, up to 7.5 range, you transport over a boarding party to reek havoc and kill crew.
-in pve, let there be a proc chance that you capture the enemy ship, and have it follow you around like a pet. if it procs, have a 10 second progress bar run above them with the text stating
FED: releasing anestazine gas on all decks OR beaming crew to the brig
KDF: taking no prisoners OR hunting down stragglers
ROM: releasing thaloron radiation on all decks OR capturing crew for interrogation
- ^ this could be a way to support a "nonlethal play style", RP in a more federation like way, then a kill em all way.
- turn the current BP code into some console power for the kazon lockbox later. for that heavy boarding party ram shuttle they have
photonic officer
why it sucks
- when it expires, any skill it effected has its cooldwon reverted to what it would have been had it not been effected by PO
how to fix
- the reason it sucks? fix that. if PO effects a cooldwon, that effect should not wear off before you can use it again. half the skills have cooldowns so long, PO wears off before they can benefit once.
- PO3 was only available on some old promotion from the first year thing i cant even remember. it should be dropping on very rare boffs at random
tachyon beam
why it sucks
- the skill power insulators exists.
- not balanced with it in mind that everyone puts at least 6 skill into PO, and has deflectors and other gear with plenty of PO buffing
how to fix
- double its shield damage per tic, and cut the duration of use in half without reducing the number of tics. yes, basically a quadrupedal effectiveness buff. make aux and flow cap buffing a very important part of maxing this
-debuff shield resistance wile active, disable any shield regeneration on target wile active
target subsystem
why it sucks
- nerfed to oblivion in the pre power insulator days, so its exponentially more nerfed now
- doesn't stack, wile doing this little
- tier5 skill on the skill tree buffs its disable duration, super high opportunity cost to spec into, no consoles that add skill ether
- actually shares cooldowns with other beam skill (LMFAO)
- cooldowns are hilariously long for what they do (nothing)
- another one of those single target skills thats not useful vs hundreds of npcs.
how to fix
- remove from the BO and FAW cooldwon system into its own thing
- balance with PI in mind
OR
-have them drain power, but instead of an offline, give it a 25% chance to proc
1 shield 'disable' disables regeneration tics for 10/20/30 seconds
2 weapons 'disable' double the power each weapon drains for 10/20/30 seconds
3 engine 'disable' cuts turn rate by 25%, and cuts inertia score in half so target slides more due to damaged station keeping and maneuvering thrusters, for 10/20/30 seconds
4 aux 'disables' cuts perception, stealth, power transfer rate, and all sci skill tree skills in half for 10/20/30 seconds
SKILLS THAT COULD PROBABLY USE WORK
EPtX skills
issue
-basically all there is at ENS for eng
-all share system cooldowns
-EPtX3 skills are high value, but ships with 3 ENS eng CANT run 2 copies/doffed for full up time, without leaving one of the 3 ENS eng blank, or alternating between a version 1 and 3.
how to address
-remove the system cooldown between the EPt skill. yes, that would mean you could run 2 copies of all 4, or run all 4 of them a bit easier with the right doffs. but ask yourself, what ship exactly even has room to run more then 2 different EPt skills? ONLY cruisers with a COM/LTC eng, the weakest ships in the game right, and i think you know that because no lockbox cruiser comes with a COM/LTC eng. this change would basically only effect them, every other ship runs into MASSIVE opportunity costs if they were to try fitting a 3rd EPtX skill
Directed energy modulation
issue
- its ok, only really synergies well with single cannons and FAW,just better then nothing on a tac cruiser.
- game is getting over saturated by shield penn, maybe this should be repurposed
how to address
- have it deal additional damage to shields, as the weapon frequencies are rapidly changing and harder to adapt too.
- additional damage to borg?
- +5/7.5/10% energy weapon damage boost for duration.
aux to damp
issue
- on a non AtB escort, as impotent to its build as APO or CRF. this creates the most dangerous and hard to engage escorts, especially in team play
- has no version 3 for some reason
how to address
- as mentioned, does not have enough variety at ENS, and this skill ends at version 2 at LTC. why not have it start at ENS, wile still ending at LTC, but this time it would be at version 3. solves the missing version 3, greatly improves options for overly heavy eng ships.
aux to batt
issue
- useless skill by itself. but who cares, thats irreverent due to a certain doff
- has no version 3 for some reason
- hated by those that don't know any better, have no actual frame of reference of the games actual balance and meta, or that like repeating things ignorant people say
- there is talk of nerfing tech doffs. know that this will be the worst balance decision any game dev has ever made. ruin the most ship, ruin entire play styles, put massive space between the best ships and the mediocre, only decent with AtB builds. things are balanced NOW, not without tech doffs.
how to address
- if the aux power was refunded instantly at AtB's expiration, cycling 2 copies with tech doffs would more consistently leave you with ~5 aux, right now you only have aux that low half the time. literally the only thing about it that probably needs nerfing.
- like my AtD suggestion, make version 1 available at ENS, so at LTC its version 3, instead of ending at version 2. honestly, this wouldn't change much ion the way AtB ships operate. no ship that didn't use tech doffs already, would suddenly find it worth slotting. and at worst ships would use AtB1 and EPtX2, but they already max out their powerlevels in 3 of 4 subsystems as it is. and again, those LTC eng cruisers would have more flexibility, theres a lot better selection at LT then ENS for eng powers.
charged particle burst
issue
- bad for the same reason tach beam is, but at least it can decloak things, which is all its good for right now
how to address
- again, double shield damage
- have it apply a DOT to shields after the inertial burst of damage
- create a lingering cloud were you use it, that will apply the DOT to any that pass through ti, and also decloak any who pass through it
feed back pulse
issue
-particle buffing sci ships has been all the rage for 2 years, and keeps getting better and better with the TBR pull doff, lockbox skills that are buffed by partial gens, the huge buff to SA, and these crafting consoles with truly insane particle buffing.
-just useing FAW in range of one of these max partical ships, even if only a hand full of shots hit them, can kill you. not just CRF focus fire into them, 15% of your faw shots can cause you to kill yourself now
- the sky high damage isn't even the main problem though, other then with faw you can just not shoot them. its the uptime you can have with 2 copies of FBP. they are built to tank and deal FBP damage, they cant be killed in the current window between FBP.
-the only way to counter these types of sci ships, is more sci ships (or at least a sci captain, that should be in a sci ship). SNB is the only way to deal with this, and you will need multiple. you cant kill these by shooting them, this is basically an exploit now.
-least skill/highest effectiveness ever, in the history of video games
how to address
- increase the cooldown on FBP, so its more similar to the cooldown length of RSP. this will make these ships go from untouchable, to technically defeatable.
- remove the 50% shield pen, that is LOL right now, totally inappropriate.
cannon scatter volley
issue
- good for melting massed weak npcs. but needs to be comboed with a GW to compete with faw in multi target damaging
- there's no cannon skill at ens, 3 ENS escorts are in a bad way because of this. not as bad as 3 ENS eng ships, but still bad
how to address
- move this skill down to start at ENS and end at LTC. quality of life on all 3 ENS tac ships will be vastly improved, and they would be less underpowered
torpedo high yield
issue
- for single target damage, torp spread is actually better then this is. and not just because it doesn't miss, it just plain deals more damage, and throws twice as many torps at the target, and several others as gravy. also applies more procs, more DOTs, and more sheering.
- seems its only purpose is to create 'heavy torps' these days, which suck, get shot down and can damage you. except the heavy unidine rep torp, that lacks those disadvantages, all other heavy torps should be adjusted to its likeness
how to address
considering how bad torps suck, and how much HY sucks, the huge damage nerf per torp at HY levels is inappropriate. each torp should AT LEAST deal full base damage.
-make a new skill called torp salvo that buffs torps the classic way HY does, and let HY be a skill that makes heavy versions of every torp. at the very least for god sake stop introducing new torps after torp that make heavy torps with HY.
-this torp salvo skill should be dealing full normal damage per torp, fire twice as many as HY does now at a single target, but have to deal with acc skill. then it could actually compeat with TS vs a single target
tactical team
issue
-guess what! there's not a damn thing wrong with this skill distributing shields! there needing to be some other skill that distributes shields, wile TT goes back to doing next to nothing, is just more echo chamber nonsense!
- the only problem this skill has, is that its clear duration or tac debuffs is 10 seconds long, wile ET and ST only have a clear window 5 seconds long
-since its a must have skill with the distribute, this makes tac debuffs near useless, in pvp at least. the up time to immunity to them is absurdly high
-version 2 and 3 are worthless, their other effect, boosting damage, is a pitiful boost to the tier 1 all damage skill tree skill.
how to address
- lower the clear duration to 5 seconds, like it used to be, and ALWAYS should have stayed
- rebalanced the auto distribute across the 3 versions to 8/9/10 seconds. its not much, but its some incentive to use a higher version. this complements my proposed lowering of CSV down well too. the distribute lasting exactly as long as all tac buffs, at version 1 of the skill, has always been BS.
- cause it to give a real damage buff, 5/10/15% all damage. this should be the only part that stays for 10 seconds.
The only thing I'd disagree with is Tactical Team. IMO, the shield distribution function should be moved to its own skill, possibly Engineering.
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