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Attack Pattern: Beta 3 vs. Cannon: Rapid Fire 3

furiontassadarfuriontassadar Member Posts: 475 Arc User
edited December 2014 in The Academy
A little while back, whilst I was browsing the forums, I saw a post where someone was saying that it was important to get Attack Pattern: Beta in as a high a rank as you could manage in order to boost your dps. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I've found myself mulling it over now that I'm at a stage where I am seeking to optimize my dps.

Currently, my Commander Tactical BO slot is being filled by Cannon: Rapid Fire 3, which not only increases the firing rate of my cannons, of course, but also increase their base damage by about 50%. Meanwhile, Attack Pattern: Beta 3 would reduce my target's damage resistance by about -33%.

Just going by the base numbers, it would seem like C:RF 3 is numerically superior, but perhaps I'm missing something. Would it be better to have Attack Pattern: Beta 3 instead? Should I just stick with what I've got? Are they roughly equivalent?
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Post edited by furiontassadar on
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  • eurialoeurialo Member Posts: 667 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Do not look to raw numbers only. Crf upgrades your attack only, apb debuff your target so everyone is firing to your target will have its damage increased by your debuffing ability.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

    Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
  • welcome2earfwelcome2earf Member Posts: 1,746 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    A little while back, whilst I was browsing the forums, I saw a post where someone was saying that it was important to get Attack Pattern: Beta in as a high a rank as you could manage in order to boost your dps. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I've found myself mulling it over now that I'm at a stage where I am seeking to optimize my dps.

    Currently, my Commander Tactical BO slot is being filled by Cannon: Rapid Fire 3, which not only increases the firing rate of my cannons, of course, but also increase their base damage by about 50%. Meanwhile, Attack Pattern: Beta 3 would reduce my target's damage resistance by about -33%.

    Just going by the base numbers, it would seem like C:RF 3 is numerically superior, but perhaps I'm missing something. Would it be better to have Attack Pattern: Beta 3 instead? Should I just stick with what I've got? Are they roughly equivalent?

    Such a great question. I'm sure some people will mention that at least AP:B is a team multiplier, so it's great for PvE.
    T93uSC8.jpg
  • norobladnoroblad Member Posts: 2,624 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    rapid 3 and beta 2 is probably a better combination for solo or uncoordinated (Pug) groups. Beta 3 and rapid 2 is probably better for a decent team that actually focus fires your target.

    In 99% of pugs, 99% of the time, people are running around like mad and shooting random things. Beta debuffs the user's current target. With 5 people shooting 5 targets, it is not helping the team. If the team is spamming FAW in a GW, it is only helping to kill ONE of the enemy at any given time.

    In most scenarios, because of this lack of coordination and focused fire, beta 2 CRF 3 is better.

    In the borg gate scenarios or other missions where you DO have a single target that everyone will hit because its the ONLY target, Beta 3 and CRF 2 will provide more team damage. This is rare, but when you need to burn one tough target fast (timers in advanced mode..) it is the way to go if you are a team player and are doing the specific STFs that have 1) a timer and 2) a single tough target at various stages in the mission.
  • gwassalorgwassalor Member Posts: 164
    edited December 2014
    Most PUGs, people are shooting the same thing. Most PUGs played, judging from numbers in queue window, are Infected, Vortex and Crystalline Entity. In all three cases the group shoots the same thing, or where it matters anyway.

    Infected: everyone is shooting the transformers, gate, tac cube
    Vortex: everyone is shooting the transformers, gate, cubes
    Crystalline: everyone is shooting the entity

    Of course, there's more or less assorted cannon fodder that you kill in those missions as well, but where it matters, for the big targets, everyone is shooting them at the same time, or half of the team in case of Vortex, so APB does make big difference in how quickly pug finishes these missions.

    Best combined with FAW or TS to spam the APB on multiple targets, when there are multiple targets around. That helps those situation with swarm of smaller enemies where each from the team chooses his own target.

    I used to fly APB2 CRF3 for fairly long time and later I switched to CRF2 APB3 and I stayed with it. I never logged the damage so it's purely subjective, but I just prefer APB3 better. Now I fly APB3 and BO3 and FAW3 on my beam-scort so that I can spam the APB around with FAW if I want and I can use BO for single target. On intel escort I have APO1 and SS2, but that's different story, because imho there's much bigger difference between SS1 and SS2 then there's between CRF2 and CRF3, plus I will replace SS2 with SS3 once I unlock it. And I need APO to counter holds. But for regular escorts, if the question is APB2 CRF3 or CRF2 APB3, then imho the latter is the better.

    Edit:grammar
    Edit 2: it's kinda obvious but good idea is to have more tactical boffs trained for different scenarios and switch them before mission. The boff slot unlock, if needed, is well worth this flexibility
  • furiontassadarfuriontassadar Member Posts: 475 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Thanks for the feedback guys.
    eurialo wrote: »
    Do not look to raw numbers only. Crf upgrades your attack only, apb debuff your target so everyone is firing to your target will have its damage increased by your debuffing ability.

    This was what I was missing. I forgot about the fact that other teammates can take advantage of the debuff as well.

    Now I'm curious, though...if multiple players are running AP:B, do all the debuff effects stack? Or does the player with the highest rank in AP:B override everyone else's debuffs?
    gwassalor wrote: »
    it's kinda obvious but good idea is to have more tactical boffs trained for different scenarios and switch them before mission. The boff slot unlock, if needed, is well worth this flexibility

    Yeah, I was already considering this. I noticed that it was much more critical in the more difficult STFs to focus down single targets. Currently, I run a mix of both single target abilities (Cannon: Rapid Fire and Torpedo: High Yield) as well as aoe abilities (Cannon: Scatter Volley and Torpedo Spread), which are nice when soloing, but with the hike in enemy health that comes with the higher difficulties, even with something like killing the probes in Khitomer Vortex, it seems far more efficient to single target them down quick, rather then just throwing aoe at them.

    So I was already going to try change things so I had a couple of BOffs that were exclusively single target (for STFs) and a couple that had more aoe (for grinding Argala and such), and then just mix and match those depending on what other scenarios call for. After reading people's feedback, I may want to go even further (so long as I'm already buying up and customizing BOffs), and have one of my single target BOffs with APB2/CRF3 and another with APB 3, as well.
    "There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
  • gwassalorgwassalor Member Posts: 164
    edited December 2014
    Now I'm curious, though...if multiple players are running AP:B, do all the debuff effects stack? Or does the player with the highest rank in AP:B override everyone else's debuffs?

    This is a good question. I'm not sure. The indicators on the target definitely show stacks, you can often see the APB1 with the small digit in lower right corner of the icon, showing how much stacks of the APB1 the target has. If it takes the stacks into account, that I don't know. I believe there used the be time sometime back when only different levels stacked together and that was one of the reasons I went to APB3, as almost no one used it. It had something to do with playable Recluse frigates spamming APB like crazy.

    If someone know the truth about ABP stacking, please share it with us, thx.
  • norobladnoroblad Member Posts: 2,624 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I am not 100% sure on beta stacking. I am 90% sure that it does stack --- it sure seems to stack when you have 5 copies running on a recluse. But its hard to tell ... the little icons in-game are only really useful if you record a freaking video and play it back in slow motion to study what happened. They change too fast for me to understand in combat.

    well, that is easy enough. More officers is not always the only solution!

    You *should* be able to, with 3 tac officers, swap them around in a way that provides all the necessary skills for a ST and AOE setup swap.

    For example...
    officer 1, TT1, scatter 1, beta2, rapid 3
    officer 2, TT1, rapid 1, scatter 2, beta 3
    officer 3, TT1, beta1, rapid2, scatter 3

    assuming a tac boat, with a cmdr tac, ltcmdr tac, and ens tac, a fairly standard configuration?

    solo/aoe setup:
    cmdr is # 3
    ltcmdr is #2
    ens is #1

    single target setup
    cmdr is #1
    ltcmdr is #3
    ens is #2

    just random skills for the example, 3 copies of TT1 is kind of silly but there isnt much there if you have no beams and no torps. The point is you don't need more officers every time, in many cases you can just carefully rearrange them. This is extra important for roms where each officer is worth millions.
  • nicha0nicha0 Member Posts: 1,456 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    There used to be a mechanic where there was a debuff cap, so too many multiple APBs couldn't stack, the way things melt now I'm pretty sure that cap got lost, so there is no downside to using it.. plus it essentially boosts DPS for the whole team, giving everyone in the game a cmd tac ability.
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  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    A little while back, whilst I was browsing the forums, I saw a post where someone was saying that it was important to get Attack Pattern: Beta in as a high a rank as you could manage in order to boost your dps. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I've found myself mulling it over now that I'm at a stage where I am seeking to optimize my dps.

    Currently, my Commander Tactical BO slot is being filled by Cannon: Rapid Fire 3, which not only increases the firing rate of my cannons, of course, but also increase their base damage by about 50%. Meanwhile, Attack Pattern: Beta 3 would reduce my target's damage resistance by about -33%.

    Just going by the base numbers, it would seem like C:RF 3 is numerically superior, but perhaps I'm missing something. Would it be better to have Attack Pattern: Beta 3 instead? Should I just stick with what I've got? Are they roughly equivalent?

    Not being a smarty pants, but please tell me where you got that number.

    Moving on. The Beta ability decreases your targets resistance rating. Captain skills will have an effect on this. The difference between Beta 1 and Beta 3 with my Captain is 20% rating. For now I'll go with the difference between 2 and 3 as being reasonably close to 10% rating. Each 10% change in rating will yield...an unknown change in actual damage resistance. It's non linear as I'm sure you all know. There's a formula somewhere look it up!

    If your target was around 40% resistance, each 10% change in rating would cost it about 5% resistance. Beta will quickly stack to 5 stacks, and as the duration expires you will see the debuff stack tick down till it finally drops off. So there is a very brief ramp up, and a five second decline.

    Resistance is a straight reduction to damage. The difference for my ship between the ranks is 25% at the full stack. I'm just going to assume the full values are something, just keep them 25% apart.

    CRF gives a base damage boost of 30/40/50. Or so.

    So if we are looking at a base damage of 100 and a target with a damage resistance of 50%:

    CRF3/Beta2 100 base damage * 150% CRF = 150 Damage
    Damage Resistance 50% - Beta2 25% = 25%;
    150 Damage * 75% = 112.5 final damage.

    CRF2/Beta3 100 base damage * 140% CRF = 140 Damage
    Damage Resistance 50% -Beta3 50% = Null Value:eek:
    140 Damage at no Resistance = 140 Final damage.

    Even Beta1, fully stacked, is like removing 5 fleet neutroniums from your target. Like. Not excactly. And it depends upon your skill points. Of course tactical clears it, but Borg don't use that yet.
  • furiontassadarfuriontassadar Member Posts: 475 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »
    Not being a smarty pants, but please tell me where you got that number.

    It says right over there in that wiki, if you're so smart!


    As for the rest of your post...I'm afraid my eyes start to cross when people start throwing math, formula, and too many numbers at me.

    That said, there is something that I managed to pick out of all that number jumbling that I wanted to ask about: Do enemy NPCs have damage resistance? Is it a base resistance? If so, how much is it? Does it increase with an increase in difficulty? Is that part of the reason why NPCs in Advance and Elite are such damage sponges?

    And if they don't have damage resistance, or if we reduce their resistance to zero through abilities and such, are we essentially giving them negative resistance? Is that primarily how things like AP:B boost our damage? Is it kind of low how, if our Accuracy is significantly higher than a target's Defense, it gets converted to CtrH and CtrD? Kind of similar to my question about if the AP:B debuff stack, is there cap to how much negative resistance we can apply to a target, then?

    Not sure if anyone knows the exact answer to any of that (people seemed unsure about the whole debuff stacking thing), but I'm still try to wrap my head around how exactly AP:Bs resistance debuffing works. It is starting to sound like stripping a target's damage resistance is better than just boosting one's base damage though, especially in STFs.

    That said, ultimately, I'm not exactly a numbers or theorycrafting kind of guy...as is likely evident by now. :P I'm a "go out and see what works" kind of guy, even when I read what seems like sound advice on forums or guides. What I really need to do is give AP:B 3 a try for myself, in both patrols and STFs, and see how it feels and performs compared to when I was using C:RF 3.
    "There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
  • mandoknight89mandoknight89 Member Posts: 1,687 Arc User
    edited December 2014

    No, that's -33.2 damage resistance, not -33.2% damage resistance. Which means that if it's applying at the same level of the resistance equation as Neutronium is, it's like taking off one and a half Mk XII Neutronium consoles.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    It says right over there in that wiki, if you're so smart!


    Okay thanks. The wiki is wrong then. EDIT: WIKI should say 'resistance rating'

    As for the rest of your post...I'm afraid my eyes start to cross when people start throwing math, formula, and too many numbers at me.

    Gotcha.

    That said, there is something that I managed to pick out of all that number jumbling that I wanted to ask about: Do enemy NPCs have damage resistance? Is it a base resistance? If so, how much is it? Does it increase with an increase in difficulty? Is that part of the reason why NPCs in Advance and Elite are such damage sponges?

    Enemies do, I'm sure. Exactly what that is (or damn close) a combat log parser will tell you. Or just read the log. (tedious)

    And if they don't have damage resistance, or if we reduce their resistance to zero through abilities and such, are we essentially giving them negative resistance? Is that primarily how things like AP:B boost our damage?

    Yes.

    Is it kind of low how, if our Accuracy is significantly higher than a target's Defense, it gets converted to CtrH and CtrD? Kind of similar to my question about if the AP:B debuff stack, is there cap to how much negative resistance we can apply to a target, then?

    I have never checked to see if two players can stack APB. Next time you're in a run, if you see two APB icons on the target, the answer is yes. There is no stat conversion with APB. But I would guess that if you could push resistance into negative numbers you'd be blowing up an STF in minutes. Acc only needs to be one point higher than Def to convert. Of course that won't get you much, but just noting that it is immediate.

    Not sure if anyone knows the exact answer to any of that (people seemed unsure about the whole debuff stacking thing), but I'm still try to wrap my head around how exactly AP:Bs resistance debuffing works. It is starting to sound like stripping a target's damage resistance is better than just boosting one's base damage though, especially in STFs.

    Yyou can do both. And that's a common theme in STO. You combine Def and Res for the bestest longest most efficient survival. You combine Acc, Dmg, blah blah and -Res - Def for the bestest damage done.

    That said, ultimately, I'm not exactly a numbers or theorycrafting kind of guy...as is likely evident by now. :P I'm a "go out and see what works" kind of guy, even when I read what seems like sound advice on forums or guides. What I really need to do is give AP:B 3 a try for myself, in both patrols and STFs, and see how it feels and performs compared to when I was using C:RF 3.


    Here's how resistance works. If your resistance is 50%, half of the incoming damage just doesn't happen.

    You are hit with 1000 damage. You take 500. 500 is resisted.

    I DEBUFF your resistance by 25%. Now I shoot you again.

    You are hit with 1000 damage. You take 750. 250 is resisted.

    This time I BOOST my damage by 25%.

    You are hit with 1250 damage. You take 625. 625 is resisted.

    Seems odd doesn't it. Just look at what is really happening. Boosting damage by 25% gives the expected 25% increase.

    But debuffing by 25% gave a 50% increase. That's because what REALLY happened was I cut your damage resistance by half, or 50%. So by understanding how the values relate to each other the output makes sense.

    EDIT: One thing we've known forever is that the BORG don't have any defense to speak of. Once you realize that you simply can't miss it becomes plain that things like beta and fire on my mark will have huge returns. And now Ionic Turbulence. And other goodies coming our way. This is why things like ISA are the dps vunderland, and not something with Undine mucking about all over the map.
  • rodentmasterrodentmaster Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Thissler, it seems that with many of the FAW boats, the preferred option is FAW3 and APB1. How does this play into it? Would it be better to run FAW2 and APB2? Or is FAW3 just that much superior to FAW2 that it exceeds the benefits of moving from APB1 to APB2?


    EDIT: P.S. Thanks! I always enjoy when somebody in the know breaks down things like this. Knowing the mechanics is super useful but hard to figure out sometimes.
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Thissler, it seems that with many of the FAW boats, the preferred option is FAW3 and APB1. How does this play into it? Would it be better to run FAW2 and APB2? Or is FAW3 just that much superior to FAW2 that it exceeds the benefits of moving from APB1 to APB2?


    EDIT: P.S. Thanks! I always enjoy when somebody in the know breaks down things like this. Knowing the mechanics is super useful but hard to figure out sometimes.

    In a pug, BFAW2, APB2. In a premade, APB1, BFAW3.

    This is because APB stacks with a cap - in a pug, you will be unlikely to see a full APB stack, meaning your APB2 counts for more. In a premade, especially if one or more Recluses are present, (the pets run BFAW1, and so a full stack can be done from one Recluse's APB3) your APB is merely filling a gap that isn't really required, so BFAW3 works better.
  • tigerariestigeraries Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »
    Here's how resistance works. If your resistance is 50%, half of the incoming damage just doesn't happen.

    You are hit with 1000 damage. You take 500. 500 is resisted.

    I DEBUFF your resistance by 25%. Now I shoot you again.

    You are hit with 1000 damage. You take 750. 250 is resisted.

    This time I BOOST my damage by 25%.

    You are hit with 1250 damage. You take 625. 625 is resisted.

    Seems odd doesn't it. Just look at what is really happening. Boosting damage by 25% gives the expected 25% increase.

    But debuffing by 25% gave a 50% increase. That's because what REALLY happened was I cut your damage resistance by half, or 50%. So by understanding how the values relate to each other the output makes sense.

    EDIT: One thing we've known forever is that the BORG don't have any defense to speak of. Once you realize that you simply can't miss it becomes plain that things like beta and fire on my mark will have huge returns. And now Ionic Turbulence. And other goodies coming our way. This is why things like ISA are the dps vunderland, and not something with Undine mucking about all over the map.

    Are your numbers right cause if so then the mechanic is wrong...

    if my resist is 50% and you debuff me by 25%... that would mean my resist is now 37.5%

    if instead the game just subtracts 25% from my resist... then that is a bug and should be fixed.
  • rodentmasterrodentmaster Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Tiger, I don't think it works that way. Resist is a percentage of the total damage. Your reduction of resistance isn't a percentage of a percentage. It's just a straight reduction in resistance.

    Honestly, though, it's one of the more simplistic equations Cryptic coded in, it that *is* truly the case. They have a flair for the nonsensical. Due to funky math, the JH space set bonus of ~13% increased polaron damage comes out to ~2% in practicality.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    tigeraries wrote: »
    Are your numbers right cause if so then the mechanic is wrong...

    if my resist is 50% and you debuff me by 25%... that would mean my resist is now 37.5%

    if instead the game just subtracts 25% from my resist... then that is a bug and should be fixed.

    The confusion is that I didn't show all the steps, I just went through the process once at the beginning.

    To summarize, each ship has a resistance rating. Abilities and skills and consoles can add and subtract to the rating. To get a percentage of damage resistance that number is fed into a pretty simple formula.

    You can read about it here.

    Resistance Rating (the number you see say, on a console) is referred to as magnitude in that article.

    So what really happened was I reduced your Resistance Magnitude, lowering your Damage Resistance.

    As an aside, many terms in the gaming world don't translate well, mostly because all the formulas aren't fully disclosed. Sometimes, not in this case, but sometimes you will see a game dev/tooltip stating that 'something reduces something else by X %' and it is simply additive. I've always seen those cases to be where the units are the same. 5% reduction? Just take 5 away from whatever percent you had to start with, and you don't get to see any type of internal formula. It's all black box.

    In this case you do get to see all the different units, and the formula. I was intentionally playing fast and loose there at the end to highlight how it can be difficult to bring perspective to the problem.

    And you're right to point that out as I didn't need to. It is plenty confusing enough.

    And CBRJWRR, what is the cap on stacks mean exactly, and what is the lower limit to the debuff? Has it ever been confirmed to be zero? Tell us more!
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »
    And CBRJWRR, what is the cap on stacks mean exactly, and what is the lower limit to the debuff? Has it ever been confirmed to be zero? Tell us more!

    The amount of APBs you can put on a target before the game ignores any additional APBs - accepted wisdom puts it at 5 APBs applied.

    It could also be a specific amount of APB debuff magnitude, but the game does not display if that is the case.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    cbrjwrr wrote: »
    The amount of APBs you can put on a target before the game ignores any additional APBs - accepted wisdom puts it at 5 APBs applied.

    It could also be a specific amount of APB debuff magnitude, but the game does not display if that is the case.

    Okay. Let me back up. The part that I know is that APB from one source will stack up to five.

    The part that I don't know, and would be worth knowing is:

    Can I have APB from two sources? So can I see APB from me and my pal, both counting up to the max five and then counting back down and dropping off?

    Or does only the higher rank APB apply? Or just one if they are of equal rank? I dunno but listening to Riveria you would think you could have multiple sources of APB on one target.

    As an aside there was an interesting post about that particular mechanic as APB will max out super quickly with a cannon build under CRF, but always takes five seconds to fully drop off.

    And finally, is there a negative resist? Can we bring a target below zero and actually bring our damage up beyond our actual output?

    I know. I'm lazy and don't want to test things today. So just tell meh!
  • rodentmasterrodentmaster Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I seem to recall a major pet nerf a while back where pets were applying APB on top of the mothership and other players. This was removed so that only one stack can ever be applied, if I recall correctly.

    Your question about how it decides what to stack is a good one, though. I would speculate the most recently applied are the stacks. So if you have APB1 and APB2, they would constantly be fluctuating the actual resistance debuff as they kept over-writing each other. They only last for 5 seconds, so I think that's the only way to compute it during gameplay. Assuming the stack size is 5, as listed in the previous reply, that would mean the most recent 5 incoming hits to a target are being used to determine total debuff.

    Just my thought (guess) on the matter.
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »
    Okay. Let me back up. The part that I know is that APB from one source will stack up to five.

    The part that I don't know, and would be worth knowing is:

    Can I have APB from two sources? So can I see APB from me and my pal, both counting up to the max five and then counting back down and dropping off?

    Or does only the higher rank APB apply? Or just one if they are of equal rank? I dunno but listening to Riveria you would think you could have multiple sources of APB on one target.

    As an aside there was an interesting post about that particular mechanic as APB will max out super quickly with a cannon build under CRF, but always takes five seconds to fully drop off.

    And finally, is there a negative resist? Can we bring a target below zero and actually bring our damage up beyond our actual output?

    I know. I'm lazy and don't want to test things today. So just tell meh!

    One APB effect per person, up to max of five.




    All apply up to five APBs - what happens on APB 6 I am not certain, but I believe it is ignored. (the reason I don't know for sure comes down to the context of PvE APB use, if you are either in a Recluse, and thus you can use your pets to max APB3 debuffs so anyone else using APB is just filling a gap at most, or you are in a situation where you just aren't going to see beyond 5 APB users at once, so I haven't bothered actually researching as it seemed unnecessary given these gameplay induced constraints.)




    The way APB works is you* use APB, and it grants a debuff on next weapon strike, this debuff lasts 5 seconds, after that you need to apply it again - your weapons will naturally do this for the duration of your* APB, including if the target is smart enough to clear it, reference APB use on Tac Team utilizing targets.

    Essentially, you can only use your personal APB debuff once at any given point, but you can apply your APB debuff as often as the target is not afflicted by your APB debuff - this is why Recluse + pets APB3 works, as each pet's APB3 is counted separately, despite it being the APB3 of the Recluse itself.

    To put into context of said CRF example, your* APB debuff is applied once by your* initial weapon sweep, lasts 5 seconds, and then subsidiary CRF bursts will apply it again - your* continued CRF doesn't stack more and more APB debuffs. ***




    You can, but perhaps not by as much as you expect - For example, using all debuffs available to a 5 man ISA team comprised of a 2 Recluse/3 Scim set up (current ISA DPS record), make an approx. 57k** pre-debuff damage Scim into a 107k DPS end result Scim.

    As to how much the APB itself counts in that 50k DPS gain, I don't know - my educated guess however, I would place at between 15 and 30k DPS.

    Also, on whether a debuff cap, and/or diminishing returns on stacked debuffs, actually exist, I don't know - in the light of the above DPS record, I would say at least one, probably both, exist given all these debuffs only acting to give an extra 88% of pre-debuff DPS.




    While not actually inquired about, nearly all of this also covers Attack Pattern Delta's debuff component, once adjusted for that abilities method of action - as to how Ionic Turbulence's debuff works I haven't had a chance to play with, but i would guess it would be similar.


    * using this word in a most generous and inclusive sense.

    ** Source - a post by Ezriryan somewhere on one of the "Wizards of STO present:" threads, my memory fails me on which one though.

    *** Unless your opponent is a Tac Team user, and TT uptime coexists with APB uptime. This is not a typical event in PvP as no one uses APB in PvP for precisely this reason, and is so rare as to be near negligible in PvE.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    I'm not being clear on what I do and don't know.

    How APB works, applies, stacks, refreshes, and finally drops off is easy peasy.

    As a point of interest, continued fire on a target with five stacks of APB effectively serves to refresh the stack this is why when the buff duration on your ship wears off you can watch for the next five seconds as the debuff on your target counts down and finally drops off.

    Anyway one questioned you cleared up was that each damage owner (or buff owner as you see fit) can have one instance of APB.

    I'm betting Recluse Pets own their own APB as well. Has the recent scaling adjustment to pet's inheritance touched any attack pattern skills trained by the captain? Interesting question.

    Yes if NPC's had about 50% damage resistance, fully debuffing them with APB would absolutely turn a 50K ship into a 100k ship. I'm going to guess that their resistance is somewhere above 40 but below 60. That is a reasonable assumption based on your DPS figures.

    There's no diminishing returns on stacked debuffs. In fact they accelerate. So far in STO all the formulas that diminish in one direction, accelerate in the other. What a relief.

    My actual question that we still don't know, but based on the DPS gains you gave I'm going with 'no', is can we bring resistance under zero and actually increase damage beyond actual output?

    100 damage meets 50% resistance = 50 damage done
    .
    100 damage meets 00% resistance = 100 damage done.

    100 damage meets -25% resistance = 125 damage done.

    Can we do that? I'm pretty sure we can get to zero. Can we get to negative numbers that actually boost damage done beyond actual output? Honestly I was going to say 'Yes we can'. But it seems like from the numbers your giving for DPS that the answer is 'No'.

    Of course that could be wrong. If NPC's resistance in ISA was only 25% to start, and your figures are correct, then negative resistances could actually be a factor.

    I guess I need someone to shoot at meh. No one EVER wants to do that.

    As far as the bit about 'only acting to give an extra 88% of pre-debuff DPS." well that's interesting. A target would have to have 88% resistance and then you'd have to bring it down to zero for that to happen. And there's a hard cap in the game at 75%. So that can't be happening.

    But we COULD be seeing a 40% resistance being taken down to -40%.

    Anyways I'm off to go get blown up and see what's what. Read a combat log to unwind or something.
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    Recluse pets definitely own their own APB as far as this is concerned, but you have to keep in mind APB is not the only debuff in use, just the main one. (I forgot to mention bias towards 30k for APB contribution in prior post, should have done so.)

    Now, my most up to date DPS record parse is for an ISE (I haven't got round to inquiring about the 107k one yet, I really must do so...) but in that, Cubes are debuffed to between -100% and minus 120%, and the Gateway to minus 143% (averaged across the 4/5 energy weapon type used + Kinetic) for hull resistance.

    Now, I only include that to be a rough note as ISA is logically speaking almost certainly different, but it is enough to give an indication that yes, you can definitely debuff below zero. As to what their base resistance is I do not know - almost every Infected Space that has ever been run will have had a debuff used at some point, so I doubt we can just look up pre-existing parses happy as Larry and reverse engineer it.



    It is going to devolve to plain shooting stuff now...
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    cbrjwrr wrote: »
    , but you have to keep in mind APB is not the only debuff in use, just the main one. (I forgot to mention bias towards 30k for APB contribution in prior post, should have done so.)
    It is going to devolve to plain shooting stuff now...

    Well I think since there's no heavy lifting going on with Acc as the NPC's don't move much I think Ill credit APB with the largest contribution as well.

    I was having a hell of a time getting my test subject to keep the range constant, but It certainly does appear that negative resistance absolutely adds to output.

    Or else why track it? There would be no reason too, and the DPS parser does so I think we don't need to look any closer. Or maybe we should.

    Here's the bit. As the resistance goes negative you would expect that once again you would start to experience diminishing returns. In other words the graph that you see in the link I provided to the wiki, or on the PDF from the podcast, if completed it would show a "U" lying on one side. Zero being the point at which the equation diminishes in each direction.

    [ I guess I could have been more clear in that it was idea of IF resistance could be forced into negative numbers or not, not WHAT would happen if you did it. Sorry for the confusion. Moving on.]

    Sort of. But that's not really how it works what happens is the magnitudes are diminished by the first equation and then the simple equation uses that figure.

    In any case that is what you would suspect happens. Now my own ship in a crappy sample of only one combat shows its expected upper practical limit of 60 or so. And it shows about the same as the negative limit.

    So sure it would be nice to look at a bit closer.

    Ionci, FOMM, are similar. Just without the stacking and falloff. They affect the magnitude. Or rating. It has been magnitude in the old podcasts, and rating in some of the new stuff. Just so we know it doesn't mean percent.

    TY for your time!
  • furiontassadarfuriontassadar Member Posts: 475 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »
    TY for your time!

    Speaking of thanks, I wanted to thank peeps again for attempting to answer my questions...even if I didn't always understand the answers. :D Though it is comforting to see I'm not the only one who's still learning stuff about how the game works. ^_^

    That said, I did have another question...or more of a request, really. I don't suppose anyone has a Fed-Rom with a free BO slot that would be willing to help me give one of my BOs Attack Pattern: Beta 3? I will ask around in game if necessary, but usually I just get silence in New Romulus Command and spam and/or trolling on ESD.
    "There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    thissler wrote: »

    TY for your time!

    It is a quite fascinating subject, isn't it?
  • gwassalorgwassalor Member Posts: 164
    edited December 2014
    I don't suppose anyone has a Fed-Rom with a free BO slot that would be willing to help me give one of my BOs Attack Pattern: Beta 3? I will ask around in game if necessary, but usually I just get silence in New Romulus Command and spam and/or trolling on ESD.

    Sadly I have only Rom Fed Eng. Anyway, you know you need Rom captain only to train Rom Boffs, right? As a Fed Rom captain you can use Fed Humans Boffs and those can be trained by any Fed captain...
  • cbrjwrrcbrjwrr Member Posts: 2,782 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    gwassalor wrote: »
    Sadly I have only Rom Fed Eng. Anyway, you know you need Rom captain only to train Rom Boffs, right? As a Fed Rom captain you can use Fed Humans Boffs and those can be trained by any Fed captain...

    Only works if the Romulan needing training has a Fed/KDF boff of that career already commissioned.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited December 2014
    cbrjwrr wrote: »
    It is a quite fascinating subject, isn't it?

    Yes. Now about the parser. I'm getting 100% readings on some resistance values and that shouldn't be the case per Rivera. According to him, at the time, only the ablative console could return a value over 75%

    This is the part that's iffy as now I'd actually need to massage the diminished magnitudes formula and see if it behaves correctly with large negative values.

    I hate math.
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