Haves, have the best gear, ships, experience, friends and teams
Have nots, do not have any or few of
Sadly despite all of their BS talk about wanting to address this cryptic keeps piling up on what you need to be competitive. T6 ships will bring a while new level of haves and have nots into the equation.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]-32nd Vipers- PvP Team
Nothing is impossible to him who would try.... except getting cryptic to care about pvp.
So for a player that has played STO for a year, and is on the threshold of PvP, the best advice is to run a Tac in a bug ship I guess
Engineers need not apply. Cruisers need not apply. Sci is viable, but probably not the best for a player new to pvp.
You can't lean the strategy, the situational awareness, and the buff-debuff game unless you can survive to experience it. And to do this you need a little fast (expensive) ship, with expensive doffs, and probably a different set of gear from what you ran before.
Its learning a whole new game, and grinding and paying for new equipment. And then its only for certain ships and classes.
If you are expecting to run anything but a tac in a bug ship, you are going to be disappointed.
I guess I'm looking for a new game then, one with a bit more depth to PvP
I fly an engi, its not as bad as people say. Basically a tac and sci are better at spike. Engi does not have any kind of spike per se, but they do have higher baseline damage, and they have high subsystem power. The key to success is to tank the spike, then run them down and kill them when they are on CD (tac has no healing powers so he's screwed if you catch him). It does require special ships and builds to tank in an escort (eg 2xAtD) and to slot the necessary spike buffs (EPtW3 and/or DEM3) but its possible. The real problem is that some ships are effectively immune to this kind of counterplay because they are simply twice as good as anything else, and whatever you do to buff your ship they can use to buff their own even further.
Tac scort is actually the most expensive, since you are getting into high competition for builds that use things like multiple Zemok and the cleanse DOFF and so on.
I guess I'm looking for a new game then, one with a bit more depth to PvP
STO PVP has a lot of depth, its just the gear differential makes it hard for beginners to get into the end-game activity, and it constnatly pushes old-timers out of it. Cryptic broke their own game with the constant powercreep for cashgrabs. Greed over gameplay. That is why you should look elsewhere, but do not go somewhere with the same problem(s).
My point isn't that experienced players cant push into builds and setups that some would think are non-optimal and be successful with it. My point was that someone new to sto pvp doesn't have the experience of the meta game, and thus are forced into tac scort to learn it.
if all you want to do is spend 5 minutes slaping together a pvp build
I've spent a year in this game grinding up the PVE side, and now when you look into going to PvP the barrier to entry is still huge, and the choices of what is viable is very small.
Sure, I agree it takes more than 5 minutes, a lot more. ALOT.
and is it even worth it?
I wish I could find out, without having to make such a huge commitment. After a year of grinding up on the PvE side, and with new t6 grind coming, having such barriers to entry on the PvP side means that I'm probably not going to play it
and I like PvP. I've always PvP'ed in every game I've played in since UO in 97'
Huge barrier to entry, very restrictive in what you can play as... questionable whether I'd even like it if I did get into it, yeah definitely looking for a game I can PVE and PVP in....
My point isn't that experienced players cant push into builds and setups that some would think are non-optimal and be successful with it. My point was that someone new to sto pvp doesn't have the experience of the meta game, and thus are forced into tac scort to learn it.
I can't get into it to say for sure, but from the outside looking in, it looks rather shallow.
Vape. run. reset CDs.
I would say an effective tac actually requires a lot of skill to do properly. The bug centric era is passing and will probably die with T6 ships.
Ganking and healing are two other possible choices on what to do that can be a lot of fun. However if all you care for is big numbers and killing people kirking the tac is your best bet and STO pvp might not be for you.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]-32nd Vipers- PvP Team
Nothing is impossible to him who would try.... except getting cryptic to care about pvp.
This isn't really true. They simply play to the weaknesses of most peoples builds. Neither are cheating in anyway. The snooping... yes there is a stupid fed console that lets them see way more for to long... still the buff is easy to notice... and if you simply have to have a plan to be able to decloak and survive for 30s. If you can't do that you have a terrible build for that meta... and you have been hard countered in your week defense vape build.
the weakness your talking about, of any non sci/sci, is that they deal damage with energy weapons. like they have any other choice, or any other option. sure, you can add exotic damage to escorts and crusiers, its one of my favorite past times. it cant replace the energy weapons on non sci ship platforms though. thats why more sci is the only actual counter.
when snoopers are around, every time i declaok, attack and try to escape, i usually have to spend the next 2 minutes or longer playing the get CCed and decloked over and over again game. warbirds are not durable or fast ships. they may be able to deal huge damage and crits, but they only can be a factor in matches for a few seconds at a time. this relates to their power levels, this is a fact you can only work around, there's not a magic way to make your build that depends on your ability to battle cloak not 'terrible'. so, what your saying is flying a warbird is terrible for the meta, when snoopers are around exploiting warbirds until they are terrible. it would be the same thing if shield striping worked ungodly well, and sci ships could turn off every non cloaker's shields for minutes at a time. then you would tell me something absurd like relying on shields is terrible for the meta.
As for the pgen hax... there is NOTHING a sci with high crit dmg sci skills can throw at you that you can't 100% hard counter 100% of the time. The only time you won't be able to counter it is when you get nuked. Team work in such a case is the way to go. (is that not the way its always been though.... carry a sci team for pugging and communicate when your teamed) The only people that would have a hard time countering things like FBP / TBR / GW would be well.... ya A2B boats. FAWing witih FBP around is a bad idea.... A2Bing instead of A2Ding with TBR around is also a bad idea.
oh thats technically true, yes i can just not shoot them 100% of the time! they are so totally countered then! oh but its not just FBP you know, its TBR pull, EWP, GW, web mines, subspace console, ISO, proton, trans mines, and your good old nuke and scan, and the escorts on the team too. the problem with these max particle ships is that anything tactical cant even fight back, all you can do is try to escape their clutches, because the moment you open fire on them half your health is gone in a single firing cycle. this has nothing to do with weather you have AtB or not, or even if you have FAW or not. CRF at the wrong time is more dangerious then FAW, unless theres like 4 FBP ships in range of you. theres nothing any tactical ship can do against them, except wait for a sci to nuke them and then hope theres enough focus fire to kill them. but there wont be, because the vesta's will throw up its invinca shield, the palisade with through up its invinca-FBP shield, they will use that fluidic escape console, or rom rep cloak, or just get a heal or 2 thrown on them. all these ships have to build for it tanking and particle damage, both run on aux.there are a lot less factors these and most sci ship have to allocate for then energy damage tactical ships, thats always been their strength.
I know you will say 80% of the ships require in your opinion A2B to be viable. Well that is case in point why I stated IMO 80% of the ship choices you can make are plain bad for pvp. Having said that Any ship that can run A2B x 2... can also run A2B + A2D... and be 100% immune to TBR and GW... and if you run the right doffs have 3-7 Consoles of Hull resist up while only using 1-2 actual armour consoles. Sure your skills may be 85% of global instead of at global... but this is PvP where building for not PvE Dps races. 85% is very viable... and having 100% uptime on a2d and an overlap period where your resists are super boosted isn't so bad.
unless you have access to 3 AP doffs, ya, 80% of ships you use tactically do need AtB to be a competitive threat/not a feeder glass cannon.
AP doff+ AtD doff is much stronger then AtB escorts, but tech doffs you can farm, AP doffs you cant. id love to run some all cannon AtD builds on my escorts more, dueling against them in my AtB escorts is such a pain in the TRIBBLE when they have twice my mobility and on target uptime. i have better HPS, but then its like im a good for nothing eng/escort or something, not optimized just jack of too many trade. AtB escorts are great cruiser counters though.
AtB+AtD, for all the resist to pulls and additional armor, tends to give me inferior survivability every time, especially against relentless particle sci ships.. dampener specing is enough to guard against 85% of the GW out there, but the relatively poor uptime on team skills is the real killer. those resists cant top ET1 giveing my 8k more hull every 15 seconds, or the 2 or 3 sci ships working me over with scans and nukes. 2 AtB helps me counter nuke's cooldown debuff beter, and i got ST up more often.
escorts with heavy sci or eng, battle cruisers and tac cruisers have always been my favorite things to play. by total coincidence, AtB came along and made them all better. just wanted to get that out of the way, before i say all i pretty much do these days is run AtB builds, that is why i do. i've got a TON of experience with every combination of AtB and AtD, and i keep going back to 2 AtB builds on non battlecloakers. 1 or none on warbirds is right for them. cant use leach and AtB at the same time on a blattlecloaker...
Well sure the part gen damage can be countered, but my main problem is it takes the fun out of pvp. Its fun fighting balanced teams with most ships relying on their weapons to do damage, this spamfest isn't fun even though we do beat it most times now.
This coming from someone with "/logout" on keybind.
Sorry I didn't let you 14 versus 1 me. Maybe if you knew how to play STO I would stay around. Plus I never log out. Apparently you need to get your eyes checked. 'Change character' and 'log out' is not the same. Thank you.
The dress is gold and white. Over 70% people says so. When viewed from a certain screen angle it appears blue and black. The dress displayed on amazon is a blue and black dress, but it's not the same dress in the picture. If you're seeing blue & black you're slightly colored blind. A normal upright screen = white and gold.
lol. healers and sci ships rule every match they are in. pve is shallow, tactical only online, not pvp.
Am I the only one who feels that most DHC escorts, are slowly falling back in PvP? I mean look at current matches. It's Contortrix or bust. When is the last time you saw a different escort in the hands of a good player?
I'm slowly moving towards battle cruisers. I feel they are much more reliable in PvP nowadays. Especially the Avenger, with its forward weapon array of DHC and much more tanky, it just feels so right. Yeah there's the Tempest, but 16 turn isn't even that much anymore. Even the Excelsior makes a better pick for me.
Am I the only one who feels that most DHC escorts, are slowly falling back in PvP? I mean look at current matches. It's Contortrix or bust. When is the last time you saw a different escort in the hands of a good player?
I'm slowly moving towards battle cruisers. I feel they are much more reliable in PvP nowadays. Especially the Avenger, with its forward weapon array of DHC and much more tanky, it just feels so right. Yeah there's the Tempest, but 16 turn isn't even that much anymore. Even the Excelsior makes a better pick for me.
all DHC builds seemed to come back when they revamped reputation traits. also, if you have 5 fore weapons, 5 DHC always seems to be the best option, you just gut things. 4 can be handled much more easy, 5 is just magic, even on the avenger and mogh. still, that does not equal total domination, especially against other escorts it they are faster then you. a bug, especially backed up by a healer, will still dominate all the 'superior' escorts out there now, cause none can match its mobility potential. tempest is probably the tankiest escort, but ya its real difficult to duel something with the same hitpoint, a 20 base turn, 70 power slotted to aux and AtD. tac as a whole whether it be beams or cannons or AtB or whatever, is at its lowest value to a team in the games history. and as long as people still fly tactical ships anyway, the particle sci ships will thrive.
all DHC builds seemed to come back when they revamped reputation traits. also, if you have 5 fore weapons, 5 DHC always seems to be the best option, you just gut things. 4 can be handled much more easy, 5 is just magic, even on the avenger and mogh. still, that does not equal total domination, especially against other escorts it they are faster then you. a bug, especially backed up by a healer, will still dominate all the 'superior' escorts out there now, cause none can match its mobility potential. tempest is probably the tankiest escort, but ya its real difficult to duel something with the same hitpoint, a 20 base turn, 70 power slotted to aux and AtD. tac as a whole whether it be beams or cannons or AtB or whatever, is at its lowest value to a team in the games history. and as long as people still fly tactical ships anyway, the particle sci ships will thrive.
The idea of a pure single AtD build on Tempest with classic escort layout blasted through my mind as well, with somewhat high auxiliary power. That would be the only way to actually keep up with a bug's turn rate for example. Once you slot a neutronium and a RCS you soon realize there isn't room for anything else to help you turn if not dropping the essentials like Borg and Leech.
Sure you lose the mean engineering buffs from AtB, but while a Hunter/Contortrix will be waiting for their single BO/CRF/AP copy to cooldown, you're popping them at a faster rate. Additionally, knowing that once they do an attack run there's breathing room, you can adjust your buffs accordingly to mitigate the damage they deal.
Because feds only use FBP and other particle gen builds now to do damage.
..and the Klingons do nothing but console swap all evening.
You illustrate the point I was making earlier. PvE and PvP builds are 100% different builds. You can't take a PvE build into a PvP match and expect to do much. Taking Kerrat PvE-P builds into PvP matches isn't much better.
Well sure the part gen damage can be countered, but my main problem is it takes the fun out of pvp. Its fun fighting balanced teams with most ships relying on their weapons to do damage, this spamfest isn't fun even though we do beat it most times now.
People have said the same about pretty much everything that has ever been near the top of the meta pile.
People will complain about cloak... decloak dmg bonuses... Pen doffs... AP doffs.... A2B... Faw... VM overloads... Scrambles... Extend circles.... Mine spam teams... shield stripping sci teams. ect
We can go back 4 years and pick out every meta and find examples of people complaining this or that takes the fun out of the game.
Then someone will develop the next uber team meta... and then people will QQ that the old meta was so much more fun.
Now I won't deny I think the game was funner in past versions... I will have to admit though that some of it is just looking at past points with some Tinted shades. Things haven't really changes all that much, the meta evolves and is replaced over and over is all. When you are the one driving it things are great... when you are the one being smacked around by it its not so fun.
the weakness your talking about, of any non sci/sci, is that they deal damage with energy weapons. like they have any other choice, or any other option. sure, you can add exotic damage to escorts and crusiers, its one of my favorite past times. it cant replace the energy weapons on non sci ship platforms though. thats why more sci is the only actual counter.
This is true in many cases yes. However its not the only counter to sci sci. My torp boat says hello. FBP that's nice. Please waste your Lt cmd and Cmder slots on skills that have zero effect on me. As for escorts fighting sci ships... I drop them in my xindi all the time. (and no not just pug ones... good players in them) That is the role I play in our premade if you watched the last video we uploaded you will notice my wing scort doesn't shoot at the same targets as our main scort. My job is harrasment of the other teams sci ships. (Good teams like the hobos we fought won't always go down to harrasment... however I can keep them all flying around at 50% hull waiting for the moment to target swap and pop them, even in those matches now and then I catch one with no heals and between buffs and kill them.) The key for escorts fighting sci is to watch for buffs. Often I will be flying around them not even firing... just waiting for the right moment when I know there cool downs are where I want them. Cruisers may have it harder as they are mostly relying on pressure dmg. (I have always said when asked that I Think cruisers are healers first and formost anyway... I don't think single target killing has ever been there thing)
when snoopers are around, every time i declaok, attack and try to escape, i usually have to spend the next 2 minutes or longer playing the get CCed and decloked over and over again game. warbirds are not durable or fast ships.
It is true... if you fly a high risk ship like a Warbird built to gank people... you fly a high risk of being detected and dying. This isn't an issue imo. This is why most teams don't fly bops either. There high risk high reward. No one pops a fat boat faster then mini when things go perfectly... on the flip side no tac setup ship dies fater either when things go wrong. Warbirds are a step up up from that... more killing potential, and less squish as well. The fact that the current meta is rewarding solid non cloaking escorts again... isn't going to have me lamenting the old days. I like the way it is right now. Highest Spike is still a warbird... escort trades those niffty 24s +25% dmg buffs for a bit more defense and not having to rely on cloak mehcanics. It seems perfectly balanced to me... even with the crazy cloak detection console.
oh thats technically true, yes i can just not shoot them 100% of the time! they are so totally countered then! oh but its not just FBP you know, its TBR pull, EWP, GW, web mines, subspace console, ISO, proton, trans mines, and your good old nuke and scan, and the escorts on the team too. the problem with these max particle ships is that anything tactical cant even fight back, all you can do is try to escape their clutches, because the moment you open fire on them half your health is gone in a single firing cycle.
I think I already pretty much covered this. FBP isn't a 100% uptime skill. You have to watch it... and best case you have to keep track of when they have it off cool down. As I have said my role in our premade is no secret I am there to keep the other teams healers wasting heals on themselves. I do that by blasting them between there buffs as hard as I can. When there buffs pop up I switch to the next target. You would be amazed how many good teams you can dictate buffs to. A few times i have been laughing watching good teams rolling there buffs... leaving me clean targets all the time. Its leaves there entire team constantly healing and at some point things go wrong for them when that happens.
unless you have access to 3 AP doffs, ya, 80% of ships you use tactically do need AtB to be a competitive threat/not a feeder glass cannon.
Any escort or cruiser that can slot 2 x A2B... can slot A2B + A2D instead. Making them 100% immune out side of nukes to GW TBR Shock wave. They will also have omega up as often as running 2 AP doffs. (which is very viable in PvP).
AP doff+ AtD doff is much stronger then AtB escorts, but tech doffs you can farm, AP doffs you cant.
AP doffs have lost there shine I find honestly. I have a few toons with sets of them and honestly I'm not using any of them right now.
I know your a great A2B player dont... What I would do in your situation though would be to just keep a second boff ready to swap in with A2D on it. So you can quickly switch from a A2B x 2 to a A2B/A2D build on the fly. 80% of the time your not going to see really good dmg scis in a match... when you do though just swap over. Then your 100% immune... trading a bit of dmg for completely negating them isn't so bad.
Well sure the part gen damage can be countered, but my main problem is it takes the fun out of pvp. Its fun fighting balanced teams with most ships relying on their weapons to do damage, this spamfest isn't fun even though we do beat it most times now.
Cuz fighting teams that console swop and use power drain, and or spam vm, ss with the doff and tiff is so much fun :P
The easy answer to your question is that cryptic cannot program pvp worth a damn. Thankfully, they do not program any tactical simulators for the military, not that the U.S. gov't would allow a foreign company to program it's tactical simulations anyway (PWE)
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Shield Drain/Damage Resists are so high CPB and Tachyon Beam are useless for their main purpose.
With some exceptions. That being said, the damn aux2bat builds spamming ST/ET/TT plus all the other stuff engineers get does negate drain builds.
The FAW+DEM spamming is what forced people into FBP builds. Then escorts using EBP and BO started appearing, so science captains started hiking part gens high, buffing FBP, and stacking more fire reflection and direct hull damage to counter and overtake them.
The arms race carries on, and it all started with aux2bat and has now become a mess. Oh yeah, yesterday I saw a ship using boarding party again with the Kwim Lo doff in PvP which surprised me.
Comments
Sadly despite all of their BS talk about wanting to address this cryptic keeps piling up on what you need to be competitive. T6 ships will bring a while new level of haves and have nots into the equation.
Nothing is impossible to him who would try.... except getting cryptic to care about pvp.
Engineers need not apply. Cruisers need not apply. Sci is viable, but probably not the best for a player new to pvp.
You can't lean the strategy, the situational awareness, and the buff-debuff game unless you can survive to experience it. And to do this you need a little fast (expensive) ship, with expensive doffs, and probably a different set of gear from what you ran before.
Its learning a whole new game, and grinding and paying for new equipment. And then its only for certain ships and classes.
If you are expecting to run anything but a tac in a bug ship, you are going to be disappointed.
I guess I'm looking for a new game then, one with a bit more depth to PvP
Tac scort is actually the most expensive, since you are getting into high competition for builds that use things like multiple Zemok and the cleanse DOFF and so on.
STO PVP has a lot of depth, its just the gear differential makes it hard for beginners to get into the end-game activity, and it constnatly pushes old-timers out of it. Cryptic broke their own game with the constant powercreep for cashgrabs. Greed over gameplay. That is why you should look elsewhere, but do not go somewhere with the same problem(s).
(censored for bad language )
My point isn't that experienced players cant push into builds and setups that some would think are non-optimal and be successful with it. My point was that someone new to sto pvp doesn't have the experience of the meta game, and thus are forced into tac scort to learn it.
I can't get into it to say for sure, but from the outside looking in, it looks rather shallow.
Vape. run. reset CDs.
I've spent a year in this game grinding up the PVE side, and now when you look into going to PvP the barrier to entry is still huge, and the choices of what is viable is very small.
Sure, I agree it takes more than 5 minutes, a lot more. ALOT.
and is it even worth it?
I wish I could find out, without having to make such a huge commitment. After a year of grinding up on the PvE side, and with new t6 grind coming, having such barriers to entry on the PvP side means that I'm probably not going to play it
and I like PvP. I've always PvP'ed in every game I've played in since UO in 97'
Huge barrier to entry, very restrictive in what you can play as... questionable whether I'd even like it if I did get into it, yeah definitely looking for a game I can PVE and PVP in....
hrm... where did I put that Beta key....
I would say an effective tac actually requires a lot of skill to do properly. The bug centric era is passing and will probably die with T6 ships.
Ganking and healing are two other possible choices on what to do that can be a lot of fun. However if all you care for is big numbers and killing people kirking the tac is your best bet and STO pvp might not be for you.
Nothing is impossible to him who would try.... except getting cryptic to care about pvp.
This coming from someone with "/logout" on keybind.
the weakness your talking about, of any non sci/sci, is that they deal damage with energy weapons. like they have any other choice, or any other option. sure, you can add exotic damage to escorts and crusiers, its one of my favorite past times. it cant replace the energy weapons on non sci ship platforms though. thats why more sci is the only actual counter.
when snoopers are around, every time i declaok, attack and try to escape, i usually have to spend the next 2 minutes or longer playing the get CCed and decloked over and over again game. warbirds are not durable or fast ships. they may be able to deal huge damage and crits, but they only can be a factor in matches for a few seconds at a time. this relates to their power levels, this is a fact you can only work around, there's not a magic way to make your build that depends on your ability to battle cloak not 'terrible'. so, what your saying is flying a warbird is terrible for the meta, when snoopers are around exploiting warbirds until they are terrible. it would be the same thing if shield striping worked ungodly well, and sci ships could turn off every non cloaker's shields for minutes at a time. then you would tell me something absurd like relying on shields is terrible for the meta.
oh thats technically true, yes i can just not shoot them 100% of the time! they are so totally countered then! oh but its not just FBP you know, its TBR pull, EWP, GW, web mines, subspace console, ISO, proton, trans mines, and your good old nuke and scan, and the escorts on the team too. the problem with these max particle ships is that anything tactical cant even fight back, all you can do is try to escape their clutches, because the moment you open fire on them half your health is gone in a single firing cycle. this has nothing to do with weather you have AtB or not, or even if you have FAW or not. CRF at the wrong time is more dangerious then FAW, unless theres like 4 FBP ships in range of you. theres nothing any tactical ship can do against them, except wait for a sci to nuke them and then hope theres enough focus fire to kill them. but there wont be, because the vesta's will throw up its invinca shield, the palisade with through up its invinca-FBP shield, they will use that fluidic escape console, or rom rep cloak, or just get a heal or 2 thrown on them. all these ships have to build for it tanking and particle damage, both run on aux.there are a lot less factors these and most sci ship have to allocate for then energy damage tactical ships, thats always been their strength.
unless you have access to 3 AP doffs, ya, 80% of ships you use tactically do need AtB to be a competitive threat/not a feeder glass cannon.
AP doff+ AtD doff is much stronger then AtB escorts, but tech doffs you can farm, AP doffs you cant. id love to run some all cannon AtD builds on my escorts more, dueling against them in my AtB escorts is such a pain in the TRIBBLE when they have twice my mobility and on target uptime. i have better HPS, but then its like im a good for nothing eng/escort or something, not optimized just jack of too many trade. AtB escorts are great cruiser counters though.
AtB+AtD, for all the resist to pulls and additional armor, tends to give me inferior survivability every time, especially against relentless particle sci ships.. dampener specing is enough to guard against 85% of the GW out there, but the relatively poor uptime on team skills is the real killer. those resists cant top ET1 giveing my 8k more hull every 15 seconds, or the 2 or 3 sci ships working me over with scans and nukes. 2 AtB helps me counter nuke's cooldown debuff beter, and i got ST up more often.
escorts with heavy sci or eng, battle cruisers and tac cruisers have always been my favorite things to play. by total coincidence, AtB came along and made them all better. just wanted to get that out of the way, before i say all i pretty much do these days is run AtB builds, that is why i do. i've got a TON of experience with every combination of AtB and AtD, and i keep going back to 2 AtB builds on non battlecloakers. 1 or none on warbirds is right for them. cant use leach and AtB at the same time on a blattlecloaker...
Sorry I didn't let you 14 versus 1 me. Maybe if you knew how to play STO I would stay around. Plus I never log out. Apparently you need to get your eyes checked. 'Change character' and 'log out' is not the same. Thank you.
lol. healers and sci ships rule every match they are in. pve is shallow, tactical only online, not pvp.
if you do ether in a match it sure as hell is
Am I the only one who feels that most DHC escorts, are slowly falling back in PvP? I mean look at current matches. It's Contortrix or bust. When is the last time you saw a different escort in the hands of a good player?
I'm slowly moving towards battle cruisers. I feel they are much more reliable in PvP nowadays. Especially the Avenger, with its forward weapon array of DHC and much more tanky, it just feels so right. Yeah there's the Tempest, but 16 turn isn't even that much anymore. Even the Excelsior makes a better pick for me.
all DHC builds seemed to come back when they revamped reputation traits. also, if you have 5 fore weapons, 5 DHC always seems to be the best option, you just gut things. 4 can be handled much more easy, 5 is just magic, even on the avenger and mogh. still, that does not equal total domination, especially against other escorts it they are faster then you. a bug, especially backed up by a healer, will still dominate all the 'superior' escorts out there now, cause none can match its mobility potential. tempest is probably the tankiest escort, but ya its real difficult to duel something with the same hitpoint, a 20 base turn, 70 power slotted to aux and AtD. tac as a whole whether it be beams or cannons or AtB or whatever, is at its lowest value to a team in the games history. and as long as people still fly tactical ships anyway, the particle sci ships will thrive.
The idea of a pure single AtD build on Tempest with classic escort layout blasted through my mind as well, with somewhat high auxiliary power. That would be the only way to actually keep up with a bug's turn rate for example. Once you slot a neutronium and a RCS you soon realize there isn't room for anything else to help you turn if not dropping the essentials like Borg and Leech.
Sure you lose the mean engineering buffs from AtB, but while a Hunter/Contortrix will be waiting for their single BO/CRF/AP copy to cooldown, you're popping them at a faster rate. Additionally, knowing that once they do an attack run there's breathing room, you can adjust your buffs accordingly to mitigate the damage they deal.
..and the Klingons do nothing but console swap all evening.
You illustrate the point I was making earlier. PvE and PvP builds are 100% different builds. You can't take a PvE build into a PvP match and expect to do much. Taking Kerrat PvE-P builds into PvP matches isn't much better.
People have said the same about pretty much everything that has ever been near the top of the meta pile.
People will complain about cloak... decloak dmg bonuses... Pen doffs... AP doffs.... A2B... Faw... VM overloads... Scrambles... Extend circles.... Mine spam teams... shield stripping sci teams. ect
We can go back 4 years and pick out every meta and find examples of people complaining this or that takes the fun out of the game.
Then someone will develop the next uber team meta... and then people will QQ that the old meta was so much more fun.
Now I won't deny I think the game was funner in past versions... I will have to admit though that some of it is just looking at past points with some Tinted shades. Things haven't really changes all that much, the meta evolves and is replaced over and over is all. When you are the one driving it things are great... when you are the one being smacked around by it its not so fun.
It is true... if you fly a high risk ship like a Warbird built to gank people... you fly a high risk of being detected and dying. This isn't an issue imo. This is why most teams don't fly bops either. There high risk high reward. No one pops a fat boat faster then mini when things go perfectly... on the flip side no tac setup ship dies fater either when things go wrong. Warbirds are a step up up from that... more killing potential, and less squish as well. The fact that the current meta is rewarding solid non cloaking escorts again... isn't going to have me lamenting the old days. I like the way it is right now. Highest Spike is still a warbird... escort trades those niffty 24s +25% dmg buffs for a bit more defense and not having to rely on cloak mehcanics. It seems perfectly balanced to me... even with the crazy cloak detection console.
I think I already pretty much covered this. FBP isn't a 100% uptime skill. You have to watch it... and best case you have to keep track of when they have it off cool down. As I have said my role in our premade is no secret I am there to keep the other teams healers wasting heals on themselves. I do that by blasting them between there buffs as hard as I can. When there buffs pop up I switch to the next target. You would be amazed how many good teams you can dictate buffs to. A few times i have been laughing watching good teams rolling there buffs... leaving me clean targets all the time. Its leaves there entire team constantly healing and at some point things go wrong for them when that happens.
Any escort or cruiser that can slot 2 x A2B... can slot A2B + A2D instead. Making them 100% immune out side of nukes to GW TBR Shock wave. They will also have omega up as often as running 2 AP doffs. (which is very viable in PvP).
AP doffs have lost there shine I find honestly. I have a few toons with sets of them and honestly I'm not using any of them right now.
I know your a great A2B player dont... What I would do in your situation though would be to just keep a second boff ready to swap in with A2D on it. So you can quickly switch from a A2B x 2 to a A2B/A2D build on the fly. 80% of the time your not going to see really good dmg scis in a match... when you do though just swap over. Then your 100% immune... trading a bit of dmg for completely negating them isn't so bad.
Cuz fighting teams that console swop and use power drain, and or spam vm, ss with the doff and tiff is so much fun :P
You may prefer the odour of your Stilton to our Roquefort but in the end it's all stinky cheese.
The easy answer to your question is that cryptic cannot program pvp worth a damn. Thankfully, they do not program any tactical simulators for the military, not that the U.S. gov't would allow a foreign company to program it's tactical simulations anyway (PWE)
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
mmm gimmie moar forum h8 plz! I <3s it!
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
A guy with a lot of lockbox ships said he enjoys it
With some exceptions. That being said, the damn aux2bat builds spamming ST/ET/TT plus all the other stuff engineers get does negate drain builds.
The FAW+DEM spamming is what forced people into FBP builds. Then escorts using EBP and BO started appearing, so science captains started hiking part gens high, buffing FBP, and stacking more fire reflection and direct hull damage to counter and overtake them.
The arms race carries on, and it all started with aux2bat and has now become a mess. Oh yeah, yesterday I saw a ship using boarding party again with the Kwim Lo doff in PvP which surprised me.