test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Options
Particle Gens & You - Survey
mdwgardiner1701
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I am interested in how the other players in this forum treat the use of particle gen based skills and damage from a pvp perspective.
1. Do you think tactical should be able to boost "all dmg" with APs?
2. Do you think FBP should return more dmg than was originally dealt?
3. Do you think TBR should be direct hull dmg?
4. Do you think PartGen dmg should equal weapon dmg; if so, under what circumstances?
Opinions please. I have my bias but I would like to see what others say.
If there are any other questions you wish to pose please do so.
1. Do you think tactical should be able to boost "all dmg" with APs?
2. Do you think FBP should return more dmg than was originally dealt?
3. Do you think TBR should be direct hull dmg?
4. Do you think PartGen dmg should equal weapon dmg; if so, under what circumstances?
Opinions please. I have my bias but I would like to see what others say.
If there are any other questions you wish to pose please do so.
Inner Circle / Special Circumstances
Gardiner, Suval, Thran
Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow
Decis, Vesok
Gardiner, Suval, Thran
Korvak, Raketh, Xedar, Zidow
Decis, Vesok
Post edited by mdwgardiner1701 on
0
Comments
1) Yes why not... its the Tac main captain skill.. It boosts dmg that is what it does. Doesn't matter what type of ship your running. Also keep in mind I wouldn't trade a sci sci for a tac sci anyway myself. Sci have traits that bring the exotic dmg up just under that of alpha, and its up 100% of the time. Alpha boosts all dmg... just like subnuke strips all buffs and not just sci, or sensor scan kills all resist and not just resist to exotic. There is no good parallel to engi cause engis are pointless. (Having said that Engi fleet is a 30s Counter to the stuff your not liking for the entire team)
2) Yes why not... is it logical... ya you know what it is. No reason a redirected pulse couldn't pick up energy along the way or have it added on the way out. Its also still a skill that mainly only kills pugs. I won't deny having died to FBP... but its not game breaking. You figure out who has it and you count there buffs... you also have communication so that when it is seen you let your teammates know X has 10s of FBP and switch targets or you call for a nuke. If they time it so they smack you down right as you alpha... well its your fail for not counting buffs... and you take a death and come back. If you die a second time to the same trick your just bad no offense.
3) Yes it has always been direct to hull and it always should be its kinetic dmg. Which means you have the following hard and soft counters to its effects. (I know op that you know this stuff but lets list it anyway)
- Aux to Damp - hard counter. 100% TBR will do nothing at all to you no push no dmg. This skill can be kept up 100% of the time if you dedicate to it.
- Aux to Sif - Soft counter. A good amount of hull resistance that is a very short cool down and can be used on teammates to help them survive Sci hax.
- Brace for Impact. Not up as often of course but everyone has this skill FOR free. It won't completely remove the dmg or reduce the repel it will however neuter the dmg you won't die unless your in a shuttle.
- Hazards Emitters... Soft counter it imparts a lot of kinetic resistance... and the hot will heal a good amount of the dmg... Using this skill at full aux will again pretty much protect you from all but the most coordinated TBR team attacks.
- Polarized Hull... As good as brace for impact. Again crank the aux and the TBR is neutered.
- Boosting your Defense... and not getting trapped. Evasive is never a bad idea when you need it. There are plenty of ways though to boost general Defense stat which will reduce the dmg you take in general which makes it easier to tank dmg.
- Generally Boosting your Kinetic resistance.
*Firstly there is the skill tree. I wouldn't ever suggest putting a lot of points into a T5 Kinetic resist... still 3 points it may not be crazy.
* Secondly Make sure you are running enough armour. If your resistance isn't over 40 you need more for PvP.
* Thirdly there are a few sets and items that can also be used to resist kinetic. the new sci crafted consoles with [resall] give you a space for another Armour console in a sci slot. Some shields like the Aegis give a small amount of kinetic resistance. Likely a few more items I'm not thinking about.
So ya I guess I'm saying TBR is just fine as it is... there are plenty of hard counters and more then enough soft counters. At the moment we just have to many players, working under the thinking of an old meta.
4) Yes of course Pgen dmg should be = to weapon dmg. Its 2 ways to create the same build. Its not like Pgen sci ships are running around with a ton Healing on them. They are much squishier then the old standard sci builds. They have far less team support in general. I don't think its any secret but if people don't understand it by now because they just haven't seen it enough... good teams that build around Pgen scis have to look else where for there healing. Running a Super min max Pgen sci on your team, you are using a DMG dealer slot. So why should they not be capable of being an actual dmg dealer. Right now the crazy score board numbers are 100% AOE numbers. Just like FAW was padded AOE numbers... very little of the TBR dmg is really killer dmg, it is simply heavy preasure dmg just like FAW was. The difference is TBR is easier to counter.
So there are my thoughts... I like the change, I don't like that it is hidden behind the Level 15 crafting peek. However really in 3-4 months anyone that wants it will have it with out spending any thing more then time and some super cheap white particles. (I have leveld a bunch of toons to 12 just by running the 20hr mission each day) I got 3 I think now to 15 by not running other schools after 5 or so and just crafting cheap consoles along with my 20hr. No D spending required. Just time and lots of clicking.
The mismanagement of Captain Abilities has been beaten to death. Many simple solutions have been proposed, but will never be implemented as it isn't seen as an issue.
Because really, be honest, how can you tune a science ability for damage equally across the classes? You can't, because alpha wrecks it. That isn't how it originally was designed, it is just one of the things that was broken post launch.
just my 2 cents...
Since everyone else so far seems to be giving answers in color in a quote.. why not?
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
Yes. For one, it being capped devalues sci skills, and for two opens a can of worms. If we cap sci skills then we should cap weapon damage. Should weapons be able to do more damage than they're rated for? Plasma conduits explode if you try and run more power through them than they're rated for, and I know all of you would be whining if we capped weapon damage.
Moreover, being able to return more damage than is dealt within a variance is a great way to encourage more intelligent play and discourage fire and forget play.
TBR should be equally hull damage and shield damage, or shield damage with 50% bleedthrough. We've seen from in canon that direct physical damage, and tractor beam damage is affected by shields, but also from a balancing perspective 100% shield pen is problematic, because it devalues shields and discourages build diversity.
Potentially yes. Obviously I don't believe it should be boosted by captain abilities like attack pattern, however if a user has heavily invested in a build via consoles, skills, powers, and other gear, then yes, by all means. It encourages build variety, and allows non-weapon focused ships to remain competitive. Perhaps of equal importants, particle generator damage makes the game more interesting and encourages more intelligent play and more diverse play. There are a lot of options to use with it, and a lot of different ways for players to counteract it. Gimping it would encourage the game to return to escorts/cruisers online and discourage people running other builds.
I think they should, yes but science power buffing should be configured in such a way that buffing by APA is minimised and methods available to sci and eng captains (skill table, aux power, etc) are maximised.
Yes, in much the same way you can add X power and Y power sources together to get Z power output why shouldn't we add X power source (weapon) use Y power (FBP booster stats) as a multiplier to get Z damage from the pulse sent back?
Sure it should, especially with all the various counters out there and that it's only effective within a given range.
Of course it should but as pointed out for point one, so long as the tactical power buffing is minimised in favour of skill points, consoles and aux power.
TBR Damage has 3 Counters:
Brace for Impact
Polarize Hull
Anything else that increases Kinetic Resist.
Just wanted to make sure that got stated and not forgotten.
Think about this:
American Football has been in open beta for 144 years. ~Kotaku
I don't think you know what dps means. Your entire thing is like "They shouldn't have any dps, but they should have all this dps".
1) No, science has enough damage which is inversely proportional to the amount of damage they receive.
2) No, not with the frequency that FBP can be up and running. At most, it should be "give as good as you get" approach. I cannot have 2 copies of APA , but with FBP, you can run 2 copies where it exceeds the damage that 1 copy of APA I can have... fair?
3) is TbR modulated to shield frequency and therefore can bypass shields? Don't think so. It should be damage or drain to shields first, then hull.
4) yes, with the frequency that part. gen. skills can be activated, it is like having alpha 150% of the time.
Welcome to STO science online
Cryptic just can't seem to get any of the 3 career paths balanced. First it is escorts online, then it is cruisers online, and now it is science online.
This game is nothing but a rollercoaster of today's cookie cutter career path build being the best and then tomorrow's cookie cutter career path build being the best.
Cryptic has made this game so unnecessarily complex, that even they can't figure it out. If they truly want to get rid of any type of "one-shots" then they need to put a max cap on damage.
Do I need to become a sci and be the most annoying person in game with TIF, all escape consoles, all immunity abilities, TBR, FBP and say that I'm a good pvper?
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
replies are above
You forgot that Aux to Damps completely negates TBR.
You're thinking sustained dps. dps is any damage per second occuring at all. If sci ships have 0 dps, they have 0 damage. Even a single spike damage over any length of time will result in dps, even if it's minor.
1. Yes they should.
2. Yes and no. Yes in that it is a good counter to some tactics, but no in just how insane it can also get.
3. Anymore, no. 50% bleed feels more reasonable. 100% through shields nowadays is pretty ridiculous with the damage it can do. But then again, TBR tends to be way worse for the reverse-pull DOFF and the CC that can do.
4. PrtG damage can never match weapon damage. The differences between the two are far too great. Should PrtG be worth using and such, absolutely.
Honestly the big flaw I see with PrtG builds right now isn't the raw damage you can do, it's the crits. The sheer amount of crit that can be built up makes it a bit too insane in my book. For something like a GW, not a huge issue. But on the other end, a TBR that is buffed and crits, doing several thousand damage per second through shields per second makes things over the top. A similar thing for FBP (and the billion FBP-esque abilities that we have now), it's one thing to equal or somewhat exceed the damage you are taking in returned damage, but suddenly get a crit and that number jumps up to 3 times the damage, if not more...it's too much.
Are there counters? Of course. But there are also always counters to the counters.
tac buffs buffing all damage is exactly what they should do. without that, there's no synergy with tacs and anything other then weapon damage
these days your average FBP deals 8, 10, 20 times the damage to your hull that your own bleed through deals to your target. its high time that 50% shield pen on FBP was removed, when ships can buff particles between 350 and 400.
of course, that it damages hull isn't the problem
cryptic should not have buffed the holy hell out of particle specing with the crafting update. particle ships were perfectly fine and balanced in season 8 and in no way needed a buff. now they are just an unstoppable force with no counter.
Poor soul didnt have time to log out.
1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
1. Yup. That's the point of the career path. People have been putting tacs in nebulas since the dawn of the game. Pretty sure all this was even popularized because of the pve implications originally, as tac nebulas used to be quite good in pve, back in the days where 10k dps was wow. If you remove tac buffing sci abilities, subnuke should only remove sci abilities. Neither really makes sense to do, especially when you stop thinking of the 3 classes of this game as a holy trinity. Sci master race. Always and forever.
2. Yes. If it does not, it is a useless skill unless your hull (assuming you're the fbp'er) vs the escorts hull is a greater difference than the dmg:returned dmg ratio. This would also open the avenue of 2 people shooting at 1 target with fbp, the fbper now needs an unrealistic amount of hull for fbp to do anything before they pop. More dmg returned than delt is what makes this ability make sense. PM's interaction with it may be a lil silly, but FBP is such a pug-oriented skill, I don't see it being the problem other seem to.
3. Yes. If it was not, numerous things would have to be added to the game to compensate. Afaik neither fleet shield proc's resistance to exotic (may be wrong here, I just rolled outta bed). "Exotic" dmg reduction would have to be added to shields or some funny results may occur. Tractor beams when used can cause hull stress (ie accidently rip a ship apart). TB/TBR being anything BUT straight to hull damage makes little sense cannon wise, but remember that cannon wise, ships have to be AT A STAND STILL to use tractor beams. Expecting cannon in STO is like watching Voyager without the realization that the show is much easier to stomach if you convince yourself Janeway is bipolar.
4. Yes. Currently, even as someone who has particle manipulator, the damage is not as godly broken as people think it is. People see the score board # at the end of the match that puts good tacs at say 500k where the PM Sci's have 1M+. Clearly this means Sci dmg is god. No, the scoreboard is hull dmg. You want to be cool on the scoreboard? Run a team of full transphasics. You will look like gods, or at least you will on the scoreboard. The only problem is the skill discrepancy needed atm. A good tacscort stands out in a crowd. People like Shak....I do not want them ever shooting at me. This doesn't happen much with Sci. PM Sci is PM Sci, all the difference is in play style, flight control and situational awareness. TBR is 100% a turn on and forget ability, if your absolute goal is TRIBBLE the scoreboard. Truth is, if you're not using it as a team, 1 person with tbr can down a bop or perhaps a shuttle. Big deal, looking at bops blows them up just as reliably and shuttles are only fun in ker'rat.
While I'm not gonna say the game is "perfectly balanced", because it will never be, I think people need to stop thinking of Tac = dmg, Sci = Magic/heals, Eng = Retired but used to heal great. Tac is capable of boosting ALL damage, sci is capable of buff stripping magic, eng is capable of being a good faw boat farmer. If tac doing sci dmg is bad, then please put something in the game preventing tac captains from cross healing. Ever. Only sendable ability from a tac captain should therefore be tac team, and you see the road this goes down and why its a terrible idea (although hey, bring back the engineers).
ATM being able to stack close to or above 400 in particle generators gives you 100% crit chance with exotic dmg... which is basic insanity on a stick. - and if you read the release notes, it is clearly not working as intended now.
Having it to actually give *up*to 25% critchance with 100 particle generators would still pack a big punch, but it would make it abit more balanced.
I agree that FBP should get benefits from particle generators, and aux power etc.. but i do not agree that APA and APO and tactical skills have anything to do with it...
I would love to see the star trek episode, where a captain yells: "Attack pattern Omega" during the heat of a battle, and some science bridge officer initiates a feedback pulse... And then be given an epic explanation of why using a certain stored attack pattern would actually in some magic way make the feedback pulse more powerfull..... that would be kinda silly...
I don't mind fighting against the particle generator build that are overflowing today, its kinda sorta challenging.. but when so many people are running the exact same build based on particle gen + the trait + TBR + FBP.... really? it gets really boring..
How exactly does it make sense that activating a "pattern" of attack would do anything for weapons either for that matter. Defense boost ok perhaps... speed boost perhaps.
The only way dmg increase would make sense is IF such a pattern was like putting the automated systems into a combat state where it would say redirect more warp power to weapon arrays... and *cough* perhaps deflectors. In which case sure activating that ship "mode" May in fact increase weapon dmg... and may as well increase any thing activated on the deflector.
Just a thought... in the end its a freaking game and it doesn't have to make logical sense... because really its based on a TV show which makes very little actual science sense to begin with for the most part.
eng skills are the only ones that try to back up their effect as the result of something real. changing frequencies to add shield pen, dumping power into subsystems, improving them in several ways, reenforcing structure and dampners to add defensive effects, etc.
tac its just weapons magically fire faster, lets your torp launcher go from fireing 1 torp to dumping 20, and for everything to deal more damage or be debuffed because you say so. even sci is less magic actually. i can sort of believe a deflector could conjure a gravity well, a virus beam could be fired at something, that a tachyon beam from the deflector could drain shields, that sensor scan would act like a debuff to your opponent with such a solid sensor lock it would give you.
on an unrelated note, i just thought of a doff i'd really love to have. one that modifies VM, so it disables all sub systems for the shortest period of time possible, and thats it. useful only to cancel any skills that depend on a subsystem being on line. a way to counter unshootable partial ships and cancel extend chains, all without needing a team of 4 scis like usual.
/treknerdon
It actually would do just this as all the attack patterns in cannon trek are either attack pattern xxxx or evasive pattern xxxx. They are preprogrammed into the computer of all ships and run a predetermined approach or escape to/from a target while rotating shield power to the exposed facing and weapons power to the facing weapons.
/treknerdoff
Lolcannon in sto.
Meh, this has never been the real problem behind any sci damage and it's far too late to go back on this now.
I think it should return (at most) the same raw damage delivered. FBP starts at a low return rate, and it scales up to a max of 100% raw damage return at a certain amount of particle gens.
There should be at least some reduction from having full shields. The amount of kills being earned these days on people that receive absolutely zero shield damage is crazy. If shields can stop torpedoes and energy weapons DESIGNED to attack shields, why are tractor beams so good at getting through? Wouldn't this tractor beam be weaponized so we can just ignore shields with every attack and never bother with anything else ever again?
This is a loaded question, as everyone here who has been in a match with someone using particle manipulator knows that the amount of damage they deal is FAR BEYOND weapons damage now. When a match ends, you can look at the scoreboard and tell instantly who is using particle manipulator, because if they are worth half their weight, their damage will be several times that of any escort. To those who say sci/tac/eng should all do equal damage, then please explain to me why we even have different classes anymore.
It isn't FAR beyond though... its equal to about what a high dmg faw boat is doing. A ton of mostly AOE dmg that is mostly healed through. Does it ignore shields... sure. Lets be honest though if Shield resist wasn't Power Creeped to the point where Shield Res Cap is the standard, because everyone gets to it or with 10% of it with out trying anymore... then There would be less people trying to weaponize direct to hull dmg. Lets be frank Overload Pen doffs TBR Kinetic bleed traits... the idea isn't to try and kill a shield with that much resist anymore.
I don't mean to go off here though and loose the point I was trying to make. My point is the TBR builds are high aoe preasure dmg. Sure it looks great on a score board... however it isn't killing anyonre any more then a bunch of faw is. Sure some people die to it after a well timed nuke... or not to put anyone down there a bit green. Is it really that hard to run A2D and be immune... at least unlike FAW there is a hard counter to TBR dmg.
As for classes and dmg and such... It should be more about BUILDS then class types. The best MMOs I have played do this by having very clear Skill trees. Where you have to choose with your X class of toon do you want to invest in the "tank" tree or the "dmg" tree or the "healing" tree... in most of those Daggers and Magiks types games there are many more then 3 classes and most of those classes have Specs that allow them to play many roles, with defining points of those roles being hidden far enough up the skill tree as to prevent super crazy hybrids. (the funnest of them though will have practical ways to finesse the spec a little).
STO started out with I believe some very old ideas of 3 classes, the trinity if you will.
What has been happening over 4 years though is we have been moving to more of a generic state where the build you choose for your ship is what defines your role. (that is how it should be).
What Cryptic needs to address now is the issue of the Engi class... which needs a complete overhaul as I see it. There is no real way for Engi to be really great at any role outside of healing. Granted Tacs don't make the greatest healers but they do a better job of that then an Engi does as a dmg dealer.
I think the question is do we want classes to be able to play almost any role in an effective way if they run a build dedicated to that play style. I say YES... that is how it should work. I admit we are not there right now... but the Pgen trait in fact does help that along.
I would love for every class to be viable in ANY ship playing any role they have dedicated there build to.
It is far to late now and Cryptic lacks the will... if I was the E. Producer of STO. I would completely overhaul all 3 classes.
I would remove every captain skill we have and I would create new ones. Ones that would boost skills in a way that any role you decided to play, there would be an angle where your Captain skills effected that game play.
For instance... What if;
Tactical
APA was replaced by Combat State Alpha. This State would be a preprogramed Tactiacal alart state programed by your Tactial captain into the ships computers. CSA would Boost DMG by X ( where X was effected by the number of Tactical Console boosts on your ship) the effect would be very close to the effect of APA on an escort now. However CSA would also boost hull healing based on your Spec Spend in SIF... it would boost Shield healing by the amount of spend you have in EM. This would allow a Tac to be a Main healer or dmg dealer. By changing the ship and console setup you instantly change how your Main buff effects your build.
Science
Subnuke would be a bit more tricky. I don't think many people really want to see a major nerf to it. However here is what I would try. (testing it could show it to be a bad idea)
What if it was also tied to your Skill tree spend on Science Abilities.
Say it stripped a max of 10 buffs.
- What if for every 75 Points in Pgen it stripped one less buff. (so a fully loaded DMG sci with 375 in Pgen could be halving the effective strip on there Subnuke). However what if in return for every 75 PGen points one Stack of a DMG increasing debuff was placed on the target. Say something like +5% dmg for 5s. So that same Sci with 375 Pgen could be placing a +25% dmg boost on anyone shooting at that target for the next 5s. (at the cost of the nuke not stripping anymore then 5)
- From there nuke could get complicated... so what though. A little bit of complication in a MMO is part of the fun. Because from there I would boost or detract from the effect of Nuke depending on what that ship was boosting sci stat wise. Decompiler (perhaps after 75 points it adds a 50% chance to disable a system for a short time Maxing where it would not be able to disable more then 3 none shield systems at once.. again by increasing decompiler you could remove one buff stripped per 75 spend)
- As far as making nuke a full strip perhaps it would be tied to something like Sensor skill. Where adding Sensors increases the number of buffs it could strip... Perhaps even adding a very short debuff that would prevent the after effect clear. (like say 0.5s per 75 points in sensors.) This could mean a super boosted Sensor spend nuke would lockout the sci team clear for 1-3s total.
As for a Sci boosting healing... I think in the case of Sci it would have to be done though something like sensor scan or damp field reworks. Perhaps Damp field could add a +incoming healing to friendly targets... or perhaps a sensor scan on a friendly could SUPER BOOST all incoming healing for its duration on the friendly. (again these could be tied directly to sci point spends... perhaps something like DAMP field could be dual purpose both Debuff to enemy and healing buff to friendlys with the numbers being effected by spend in X or Y spec.)
Engineering
EPS I would say is the main engi skill I would remove it as it exists as well... this is what I would do with it.
- EPS would not be castable
- Boost System power by 10 per system base.
- Add a power drain resistance. (I won't get into secondary captain skills in this post but nadion would be gone if it was up to me)
- For points spent in weapon dmg type (DMG consoles) Increase weapon power boost by X and also add a Dmg boost. (the idea being that a engi in say a 5 console escort would have EPS boosting dmg to around 80% of a tacs Combat State Alpha.. and having it around = out overall through the bonus wepaon power and drain resistance) This gives Engi a way to fly escorts and high tac power ships and be just as effective as tacs. (the MW and all the other secondarys I would rework as well so no one class had any inate advantage as healer or dmg dealer or cc chucker)
- For points spent in Healing Spec stuffz (EM / SIF ect) I would boost shield power and resistance by X... as well as increase outgoing heals by X
- For points spent in Science skills (Decompiler / flow / Pgen ect) Increase the power the aux system gains and increase exotic dmg by X depending on the skill points dedicated.
I'll stop there. I think I am a bit off topic. This wasn't a how to fix the game thread. Really though its to bad imo that the captain types where not more flavors of the same ideas in general then they are. As it is there is almost always a best choice class for a style of build.
This Pgen Change is one of the first times where I think its safe to say one of the "trinity" style classes is really challanged for king of the role. I still say tacs are far far far superior at getting the killen done. Sure you will see the Pandas flying Pgen teams... but that doesn't mean we fly 5 Pgen boats. we use 1-3, as presure dmg dealers. The killing is still being done in almost all cases by the Tac scorts.
My point is that according to the releasenotes one shouldn't get more than 25% crit chance with that trait. There's no denying that it today gives alot more, i've parsed to be close to 100% - so if you take the release notes into considderation, the trait is broken if you get more than 25%
It was tested believe it or not. It was decided that 25% didn't do what they wanted it to do. (make sci ships viable dmg dealers in PvE)... so it was changed.
As Bwemo has just stated as well... it does work exactly as the tool tip describes it working.
Its working as intended.
Its also the only DMG build you can HARD COUNTER 100% of the time.
People refusing to change with the game is the only issue here.
1. No. Tactical officers know about piloting and shooting, they dont know about particle magicks, because if they did I wouldnt need any science officers.
2. I think FBP is stupid on multiple levels. If I had my druthers, I'd replace it with some kind of energy conversion spell that reduced damage and buffed power levels, but required actual use to turn into damage, rather than a skill-less feedback.
3. If thats how science spell damage works, thats how it works. Either change it for all or leave TBR alone.
4. No. I dont think they are the same now either.
This is a very thin slice of the STO combat problem space.