Torpedos aren't bad... and the neutronic is out to lunch frankly.
I love torps and my torp boats did just fine before the Neutronic silly torp.
The issue is min maxing... Torps are only ok if you build for them... and with the advantages Energy weapons have in every way there is very little reason other the boredom to bother.
Energy + Torp ships are almost always terrible... Full torp is good Full energy is good.
Cryptic needs to make Energy Suck vs hull... that is the nerf that really needs to happen.
As well as the neuto torp.
On my torp boat (varo or T6bird) I can run effective builds with any of the rep torps or the crafted torp (which is also somewhat silly)... and even going all Quantum/Photon for PvE or Phasic For PvE.
However if I load a Neutronic on that same build I can in PvP litterly just fly around and one shot entire groups. For PvE the only reason it doesn't seem as insane is because Cryptic has buffed NPCs by giving them stupid amounts of HP... which easily hides the fact that the torp is majorly Fd up balance wise.
It's just far simpler to go full energy. You don't have to worry about enemy shield states negating huge chunks of your damage. You can spam the attacks all day. You get to drop any Projectile related Skillboxes and strengthen Energy related ones as well as boost other Skillboxes to make your ship simply better.
I mentioned earlier in the thread I used to do Torp Boats. Back then, I did it for both PVE and PVP. But I just simply got tired of how much of a chore it was to make it even halfway decent in terms of damage. Compared to going all energy weapons and have absolutely ZERO worries about what's going on, unless you were a ****** Alpha Striking an Aceton Assimilator. Even FBP builds never concerned me when I did a Beamboat.
What I'm commenting on is that torps in this game are, in general, really bad shape... Except for the Neutronic Torps. Is it over the top? Okay, sure. But it's the only one that consistently performs out of all the torpedoes in the game.
Compared to Energy Weapons that have 100% effectiveness, area coverage, and work extremely well on practically everything, while torps in STO are hindered with some significant drawbacks.
Torpedoes were the preferred method of doing the most catastrophic damage in Star Trek TV shows and movies. Not so in STO. Just shoot all around with your beams and you'll do better.
Let me throw this out there: Outside of Neutronic Torps, how many many of the high performance DPS'ers rely on Torpedoes?
But just because, imho, there are other issues doesn't negate the issue here. I'm one of those guys that wants some consistency at play, some balance within the items, and then to tackle overall balance issues. If things are left out of whack, then sorting through and making other changes could have unintended consequences and make things even worse.
I still say that the FAW thing is a result of the content...the content is basically designed to favor FAW. Change the content, and FAW is no longer the thing.
FAW has stood out like a sore thumb, imho...because of what it does. It's a combination Beam Rapid Fire and Beam Scatter Volley sort of thing.
Before even looking at the damage boost that comes from FAW1/2/3, there is the 125% increase in damage if you're facing a single target and 250% increase if you're facing two targets. Then work in the boosts from the various ranks. Work in that arc clipping doesn't always take place, and what should be a 70 degree arc that limits it can end up being a larger arc.
My feelings on that don't change that I want that consistent boost of 170%/200%/230% for Torp Spread...my feelings on all sorts of things I think are broken doesn't change that, lol, I grumble about how much is broken - how many bugs - and all the rest...can't take two steps without feeling dirty about using something (personally).
But like I think I said (pipe burst where I'm at, so it's been hectic), for me it's about how shields don't work like we saw in the shows/movies.
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are full? Oh that tickles...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 40%? Oh snap...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 20%? We're all gonna die!!!!
We've got that trait that as hull health drops, the hull becomes less resistant to damage, yeah? IMHO, that shouldn't be a trait...that should be a standard mechanic. It's also a mechanic that should apply to shields, where as shields weaken they actually weaken - having not only less shield damage reduction but also less shield penetration resistance.
Still though, there are all the things that have been added for Torps that one can't overlook...
I'm rolling with Vaadwaur Polarons...
2.5% chance: Reduce enemy Shield Hardness by 10% vs. Energy Weapons, and by 50% vs. Kinetic for 10 sec.
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
Work in some Expose Weakness, Tachyon Charges, Violent Detonations, Achilles' Heel, Superfluous Emitters from Command...or...some Space Flanking, Destabilized Emitters, Shoddy Engineering, Unprotected Systems, Intelligence Fleet from Intel...or...get some folks working together, eh?
Omega Kinetic Shearing, Kinetic Precision, EWO BO Pen DOFFs off a low Weapon Power BO1 from an aft OD Array, and...
...and imho, in the end it doesn't matter because of the content. The content is mainly a monster farm, basically what could be called trash spawns which in other games would just get AoE'd down...kind of like what happens here, yeah?
A Command guy and an Intel guy working the aft of a Tac Cube will drop the shield facing and shred the Cube with kinetic damage. Against a bunch of spread out mobs...not so much.
There's no Plasma Doping with Torps...folks aren't getting 30-50k+ DPS from Doping with Torps...can't drop out 2-3 high powered DoTs on multiple targets because it's a single proc roll for the cycle and the increased probability of the consoles landing meaning all targets hit get hit by the dots and whammo...nope, don't have that with Torps. Thing is, should that be the case with Energy either?
If we got all the various things sorted out to be where they maybe should be, then wouldn't we be in a better position to take a look at balancing between things? How do we boost torps while allowing energy to do that...what happens if that doping gets fixed...we'd no longer be balanced, eh?
Know what torp I'm using? I'm using the Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile...even have a single VR PWO DOFF for it to try to take it from a 2.5s RoF to a 1.5s RoF. Why? Cause the Tachyon Charges that chews shields...doesn't care what kind of torp hits or how much it hits for. My little cotton ball of a torp can eat 7-10k+ shields from Tachyon Charges. With what they've talked about the possibility down the road of running a Primary as a Secondary...oh Hell yeah, I'll be all over that broken mess running Intel/Command so I've got Destabilized Emitters and Tachyon Charges...I'll get aft on something and that shield facing will be gone in a blink of an eye...at which point I'll wiggle my ship's butt a bit and unload the Vaadwaur Cluster against that exposed and debuffed hull. Plink, plink, whammo.
But it doesn't really matter, unfortunately...cause of the content, imho...
Though, it would still be cool if shields weakened as they weakened in the shows/movies (that they could add the trait for hull, suggests to me they could make it so)...
Ugh, I seriously rambled there...I doubt any of it made sense.
But just because, imho, there are other issues doesn't negate the issue here. I'm one of those guys that wants some consistency at play, some balance within the items, and then to tackle overall balance issues. If things are left out of whack, then sorting through and making other changes could have unintended consequences and make things even worse.
I still say that the FAW thing is a result of the content...the content is basically designed to favor FAW. Change the content, and FAW is no longer the thing.
FAW has stood out like a sore thumb, imho...because of what it does. It's a combination Beam Rapid Fire and Beam Scatter Volley sort of thing.
Before even looking at the damage boost that comes from FAW1/2/3, there is the 125% increase in damage if you're facing a single target and 250% increase if you're facing two targets. Then work in the boosts from the various ranks. Work in that arc clipping doesn't always take place, and what should be a 70 degree arc that limits it can end up being a larger arc.
My feelings on that don't change that I want that consistent boost of 170%/200%/230% for Torp Spread...my feelings on all sorts of things I think are broken doesn't change that, lol, I grumble about how much is broken - how many bugs - and all the rest...can't take two steps without feeling dirty about using something (personally).
But like I think I said (pipe burst where I'm at, so it's been hectic), for me it's about how shields don't work like we saw in the shows/movies.
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are full? Oh that tickles...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 40%? Oh snap...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 20%? We're all gonna die!!!!
We've got that trait that as hull health drops, the hull becomes less resistant to damage, yeah? IMHO, that shouldn't be a trait...that should be a standard mechanic. It's also a mechanic that should apply to shields, where as shields weaken they actually weaken - having not only less shield damage reduction but also less shield penetration resistance.
Still though, there are all the things that have been added for Torps that one can't overlook...
I'm rolling with Vaadwaur Polarons...
2.5% chance: Reduce enemy Shield Hardness by 10% vs. Energy Weapons, and by 50% vs. Kinetic for 10 sec.
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
Work in some Expose Weakness, Tachyon Charges, Violent Detonations, Achilles' Heel, Superfluous Emitters from Command...or...some Space Flanking, Destabilized Emitters, Shoddy Engineering, Unprotected Systems, Intelligence Fleet from Intel...or...get some folks working together, eh?
Omega Kinetic Shearing, Kinetic Precision, EWO BO Pen DOFFs off a low Weapon Power BO1 from an aft OD Array, and...
...and imho, in the end it doesn't matter because of the content. The content is mainly a monster farm, basically what could be called trash spawns which in other games would just get AoE'd down...kind of like what happens here, yeah?
A Command guy and an Intel guy working the aft of a Tac Cube will drop the shield facing and shred the Cube with kinetic damage. Against a bunch of spread out mobs...not so much.
There's no Plasma Doping with Torps...folks aren't getting 30-50k+ DPS from Doping with Torps...can't drop out 2-3 high powered DoTs on multiple targets because it's a single proc roll for the cycle and the increased probability of the consoles landing meaning all targets hit get hit by the dots and whammo...nope, don't have that with Torps. Thing is, should that be the case with Energy either?
If we got all the various things sorted out to be where they maybe should be, then wouldn't we be in a better position to take a look at balancing between things? How do we boost torps while allowing energy to do that...what happens if that doping gets fixed...we'd no longer be balanced, eh?
Know what torp I'm using? I'm using the Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile...even have a single VR PWO DOFF for it to try to take it from a 2.5s RoF to a 1.5s RoF. Why? Cause the Tachyon Charges that chews shields...doesn't care what kind of torp hits or how much it hits for. My little cotton ball of a torp can eat 7-10k+ shields from Tachyon Charges. With what they've talked about the possibility down the road of running a Primary as a Secondary...oh Hell yeah, I'll be all over that broken mess running Intel/Command so I've got Destabilized Emitters and Tachyon Charges...I'll get aft on something and that shield facing will be gone in a blink of an eye...at which point I'll wiggle my ship's butt a bit and unload the Vaadwaur Cluster against that exposed and debuffed hull. Plink, plink, whammo.
But it doesn't really matter, unfortunately...cause of the content, imho...
Though, it would still be cool if shields weakened as they weakened in the shows/movies (that they could add the trait for hull, suggests to me they could make it so)...
Ugh, I seriously rambled there...I doubt any of it made sense.
Not arguing with you here Virus, because your posts are quite intuitive but, BFAW1 reduces dmg and, not actually boosts it!
Not arguing with you here Virus, because your posts are quite intuitive but, BFAW1 reduces dmg and, not actually boosts it!
I thought that bug had already been reported and fixed. FAW ignoring the rarity and all that. Could have sworn they had looked at that recently.
Grab a Common Beam Array...the standard shot and FAW1 shots will be the same damage. Grab an Uncommon Beam Array...the standard shot will be higher than the FAW1 shot because the FAW1 shot's not reflecting the rarity of the weapon.
Sure enough, that's still there...hrmmm.
Pointing out FAW bugs in a Torp thread isn't very helpful. I won't tell if you won't.
edit: But yeah, like I said...you can't take two steps without tripping over some bug...meh.
Sooooooooo you have no clue as to who you're talking to...check the dps boards more.
So, you do realize that at least 90% of the players don't even know there is a DPS leaderboard, right? I also suspect a significant portion of the remaining 10% only know there is one because of comments like "You DO realize you are talking to the Top Rated DPS Player in the game, right?" Frankly, I come away from such exchanges thinking "Man, I'd be impressed if I gave a flying **ck..."
I wonder what % is like me: I know the Board exists, but don't intend to ever intentionally visit the site. Of course, if someone were to post a link and say "Hey, look! A video of Rick Astley singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up'!" but included a link to the Board, I might visit it accidentally, but yeah...
...I'd rather be Rickrolled.
"Logic is a little tweeting bird chirping in a meadow. Logic is a wreath of pretty flowers which smell BAD." - Spock
So, you do realize that at least 90% of the players don't even know there is a DPS leaderboard, right? I also suspect a significant portion of the remaining 10% only know there is one because of comments like "You DO realize you are talking to the Top Rated DPS Player in the game, right?" Frankly, I come away from such exchanges thinking "Man, I'd be impressed if I gave a flying **ck..."
I wonder what % is like me: I know the Board exists, but don't intend to ever intentionally visit the site. Of course, if someone were to post a link and say "Hey, look! A video of Rick Astley singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up'!" but included a link to the Board, I might visit it accidentally, but yeah...
I thought that bug had already been reported and fixed. FAW ignoring the rarity and all that. Could have sworn they had looked at that recently.
Grab a Common Beam Array...the standard shot and FAW1 shots will be the same damage. Grab an Uncommon Beam Array...the standard shot will be higher than the FAW1 shot because the FAW1 shot's not reflecting the rarity of the weapon.
Sure enough, that's still there...hrmmm.
Pointing out FAW bugs in a Torp thread isn't very helpful. I won't tell if you won't.
edit: But yeah, like I said...you can't take two steps without tripping over some bug...meh.
Forget STO Ryan. He may have managed that DPS in an Intrepid, but he uses a Tac character to do it. And has undoubtedly spent an obscene amount of money to acheive DPS god bragging rights.
OK, well, what about those that don't use Neutronic on torp builds and can still do good DPS?
My Vesta averages near 20K with a sub-optimal, pure torp build (wasted Lt Tac BOff due to CD overlap and mines aft). Doesn't need an obscene amount of money and it doesn't Neutronic. Hell, none of the gear is even upgraded - standard Mk XII Rep gear and Blue/Purple Mk XI/XII consoles.
You can still do plenty good damage without Neutronic.
it raised basedmg and multiplied torpedos instead of lowering basedmg and multiplying torp number. the latter is how spread is intended to work.
a single neutronic does 10k dmg, with spread 3 it should be 30% lower but 3x3 torpedos therefore.
nevertheless i want to say that a 50k torpedo hit can only kill you if you run naked. slotting no resists makes you killable with ease even with a spread1 photon spread ...
its like when in wow rookie newbies without equip complained, when they got kileld by full latest season geared people.
if a 50k hit kills you, you are doing sth wrong, cause you seem to have no resist at all and didnt use any skill to prevent the incoming dmg. (sif3/polhull1-3)
even my pve centric ships all have like around 50% passive resist, and i stil use active hardening skills.
the only real issue i see in the neutronic spread is:
the basedmg was SO high, you were capable of "breaking through" shields with torps only. (because the spread was bugged of course)
the first hit completely sucked up the shieldfacing by pure "force" (instead of energy damaging it down) - THAT way, you had no time to react at all. (with sif polhull whatever)
thats what went wrong. a typical "burst in pvp environment" problem.
There is a noticeable lack of fun in this thread. Lots of people obsessing over high-end numbers and dismissing anything that is not THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY POSSIBLE TO KILL NPCS.
To the point of slating / dismissing players who run builds that are thematic (this is a game based around a popular IP, y'know...). Does it really matter that it takes 15 minutes not 3 to complete an ISA run? Clearly it does to some people...
PVPers at least have a very good reason to argue in that being relentlessly vaped is not fun. Personally I'd love it if PVP and Trek theming were not mutually exclusive again, but there you go.
Meh. I'll stick with themed builds thank you, rather than assigning arbitrary significance to DPS numbers. Tried grinding out 2 spec points in Argala last night... and have a headache. Never again.
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
Wait, wait, wait... Hold on there a sec. Please explain the Pattern Recognition one again, you lost me there.
Forget STO Ryan. He may have managed that DPS in an Intrepid, but he uses a Tac character to do it. And has undoubtedly spent an obscene amount of money to acheive DPS god bragging rights.
My point is , in few easy words : the present broken Neutronic torp spread 3 is not a must have in PvE, unless you want to run a torp build while it's too OP in PvP : it goes through shields and insta-kill ships which haven't got 1000000 and something hull like the Borg.
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
But they said that Shield Hardness was not a boost to Shield Penetration Resistance. Shield Hardness is "meant" to be what I've usually called Shield Damage Reduction. So after they said that, I let it go and didn't think too much about it in the least.
Well then, er, before continuing - should probably go over the differences that exist there with bleedthrough - cause there are differences.
Things like Transphasics actually do an inline kind of debuff to the Penetration Resistance of the Shield. So the Penetration Resistance would only be 60% of its normal value. Thus, Standard Shields (non-Resilient) with their 90% Penetration Resistance only offer 54% Penetration Resistance vs. Transphasics...46% of the damage goes to Hull instead of 10%.
Things like Intense Focus and Intelligence Fleet on the other hand provide a simple increase to the Penetration (or a simple debuff to the Penetration Resistance if you prefer). Intel Fleet II for example provides +15% Shield Penetration, so against those Standard Shields there will be 25% Shield Penetration instead of 10%. A 4stack of Intense Focus would mean 16% instead of 10%...etc, etc, etc.
So then, back to the Attack Pattern Expertise. The temporary hit points from this are added as a secondary shield sort of thing. Where you'd normally see a shield line and a hull line, you'd see two shield lines and the hull line. Damage that would have gone to the hull instead goes to that second shield line.
Which is where the following issue was brought up in that thread I linked earlier...course, I had Resilient Shields, so it's a base 5% Shield Penetration.
Before Pattern Recognition stacks...5% of the base.
1stack...6.5%
2stack...8.0%
3stack...9.5%
4stack...11.0%
As Pattern Recognition stacked, those temporary HP were taking an increased amount of damage...
Going back to that earlier discussion with Cryptic on what they meant with Shield Hardness and if it were the opposite of Shield Penetration (as seen with Intense Focus), if Shield Hardness had actually worked that way then we'd have had the following.
Standard Shield 90% to Shield.
w/4stack 96% to Shield.
But it's not supposed to work that way according to Cryptic, it would just be +6% Shield Damage Reduction.
But there are the temporary hit points...which are "shield hit points pretending to be hull"...that are taking that additional 6% damage from a 4stack of Pattern Recognition.
Which means that with Pattern Recognition, the temporary hit points from any secondary shielding are consumed faster than they should be...because it's working like a Shield Penetration debuff on yourself with that secondary shielding - because don't forget, those temporary hit points have no resists.
Comments
It's just far simpler to go full energy. You don't have to worry about enemy shield states negating huge chunks of your damage. You can spam the attacks all day. You get to drop any Projectile related Skillboxes and strengthen Energy related ones as well as boost other Skillboxes to make your ship simply better.
I mentioned earlier in the thread I used to do Torp Boats. Back then, I did it for both PVE and PVP. But I just simply got tired of how much of a chore it was to make it even halfway decent in terms of damage. Compared to going all energy weapons and have absolutely ZERO worries about what's going on, unless you were a ****** Alpha Striking an Aceton Assimilator. Even FBP builds never concerned me when I did a Beamboat.
But just because, imho, there are other issues doesn't negate the issue here. I'm one of those guys that wants some consistency at play, some balance within the items, and then to tackle overall balance issues. If things are left out of whack, then sorting through and making other changes could have unintended consequences and make things even worse.
I still say that the FAW thing is a result of the content...the content is basically designed to favor FAW. Change the content, and FAW is no longer the thing.
FAW has stood out like a sore thumb, imho...because of what it does. It's a combination Beam Rapid Fire and Beam Scatter Volley sort of thing.
Before even looking at the damage boost that comes from FAW1/2/3, there is the 125% increase in damage if you're facing a single target and 250% increase if you're facing two targets. Then work in the boosts from the various ranks. Work in that arc clipping doesn't always take place, and what should be a 70 degree arc that limits it can end up being a larger arc.
My feelings on that don't change that I want that consistent boost of 170%/200%/230% for Torp Spread...my feelings on all sorts of things I think are broken doesn't change that, lol, I grumble about how much is broken - how many bugs - and all the rest...can't take two steps without feeling dirty about using something (personally).
But like I think I said (pipe burst where I'm at, so it's been hectic), for me it's about how shields don't work like we saw in the shows/movies.
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are full? Oh that tickles...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 40%? Oh snap...
Weapons hit the ship while the shields are at 20%? We're all gonna die!!!!
We've got that trait that as hull health drops, the hull becomes less resistant to damage, yeah? IMHO, that shouldn't be a trait...that should be a standard mechanic. It's also a mechanic that should apply to shields, where as shields weaken they actually weaken - having not only less shield damage reduction but also less shield penetration resistance.
Still though, there are all the things that have been added for Torps that one can't overlook...
I'm rolling with Vaadwaur Polarons...
2.5% chance: Reduce enemy Shield Hardness by 10% vs. Energy Weapons, and by 50% vs. Kinetic for 10 sec.
Have I actually looked to see what they do? Nope, lol...I hate the Shield Hardness term because it's confusing. I'm thrown off by the way Pattern Recognition interacts with Attack Pattern Expertise so the "temporary hull/secondary shield" actually takes increased damage as if the Shield Hardness from there is working as Penetration rather than Damage Reduction. In other areas, Shield Hardness actually works as Shield Damage Reduction. Shield Hardness is a lot easier to say than Shield Damage Reduction, yeah?
Work in some Expose Weakness, Tachyon Charges, Violent Detonations, Achilles' Heel, Superfluous Emitters from Command...or...some Space Flanking, Destabilized Emitters, Shoddy Engineering, Unprotected Systems, Intelligence Fleet from Intel...or...get some folks working together, eh?
Omega Kinetic Shearing, Kinetic Precision, EWO BO Pen DOFFs off a low Weapon Power BO1 from an aft OD Array, and...
...and imho, in the end it doesn't matter because of the content. The content is mainly a monster farm, basically what could be called trash spawns which in other games would just get AoE'd down...kind of like what happens here, yeah?
A Command guy and an Intel guy working the aft of a Tac Cube will drop the shield facing and shred the Cube with kinetic damage. Against a bunch of spread out mobs...not so much.
There's no Plasma Doping with Torps...folks aren't getting 30-50k+ DPS from Doping with Torps...can't drop out 2-3 high powered DoTs on multiple targets because it's a single proc roll for the cycle and the increased probability of the consoles landing meaning all targets hit get hit by the dots and whammo...nope, don't have that with Torps. Thing is, should that be the case with Energy either?
If we got all the various things sorted out to be where they maybe should be, then wouldn't we be in a better position to take a look at balancing between things? How do we boost torps while allowing energy to do that...what happens if that doping gets fixed...we'd no longer be balanced, eh?
Know what torp I'm using? I'm using the Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile...even have a single VR PWO DOFF for it to try to take it from a 2.5s RoF to a 1.5s RoF. Why? Cause the Tachyon Charges that chews shields...doesn't care what kind of torp hits or how much it hits for. My little cotton ball of a torp can eat 7-10k+ shields from Tachyon Charges. With what they've talked about the possibility down the road of running a Primary as a Secondary...oh Hell yeah, I'll be all over that broken mess running Intel/Command so I've got Destabilized Emitters and Tachyon Charges...I'll get aft on something and that shield facing will be gone in a blink of an eye...at which point I'll wiggle my ship's butt a bit and unload the Vaadwaur Cluster against that exposed and debuffed hull. Plink, plink, whammo.
But it doesn't really matter, unfortunately...cause of the content, imho...
Though, it would still be cool if shields weakened as they weakened in the shows/movies (that they could add the trait for hull, suggests to me they could make it so)...
Ugh, I seriously rambled there...I doubt any of it made sense.
Not arguing with you here Virus, because your posts are quite intuitive but, BFAW1 reduces dmg and, not actually boosts it!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
I thought that bug had already been reported and fixed. FAW ignoring the rarity and all that. Could have sworn they had looked at that recently.
Grab a Common Beam Array...the standard shot and FAW1 shots will be the same damage. Grab an Uncommon Beam Array...the standard shot will be higher than the FAW1 shot because the FAW1 shot's not reflecting the rarity of the weapon.
Sure enough, that's still there...hrmmm.
Pointing out FAW bugs in a Torp thread isn't very helpful. I won't tell if you won't.
edit: But yeah, like I said...you can't take two steps without tripping over some bug...meh.
So, you do realize that at least 90% of the players don't even know there is a DPS leaderboard, right? I also suspect a significant portion of the remaining 10% only know there is one because of comments like "You DO realize you are talking to the Top Rated DPS Player in the game, right?" Frankly, I come away from such exchanges thinking "Man, I'd be impressed if I gave a flying **ck..."
I wonder what % is like me: I know the Board exists, but don't intend to ever intentionally visit the site. Of course, if someone were to post a link and say "Hey, look! A video of Rick Astley singing 'Never Gonna Give You Up'!" but included a link to the Board, I might visit it accidentally, but yeah...
...I'd rather be Rickrolled.
Sometimes while reading the forums, I play this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzs55HYuIGY
Needs more rotating of welsh onions.
Also while reading the forums, I often play this.
And them some damn BIG bugs!
:eek:
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
OK, well, what about those that don't use Neutronic on torp builds and can still do good DPS?
My Vesta averages near 20K with a sub-optimal, pure torp build (wasted Lt Tac BOff due to CD overlap and mines aft). Doesn't need an obscene amount of money and it doesn't Neutronic. Hell, none of the gear is even upgraded - standard Mk XII Rep gear and Blue/Purple Mk XI/XII consoles.
You can still do plenty good damage without Neutronic.
it raised basedmg and multiplied torpedos instead of lowering basedmg and multiplying torp number. the latter is how spread is intended to work.
a single neutronic does 10k dmg, with spread 3 it should be 30% lower but 3x3 torpedos therefore.
nevertheless i want to say that a 50k torpedo hit can only kill you if you run naked. slotting no resists makes you killable with ease even with a spread1 photon spread ...
its like when in wow rookie newbies without equip complained, when they got kileld by full latest season geared people.
if a 50k hit kills you, you are doing sth wrong, cause you seem to have no resist at all and didnt use any skill to prevent the incoming dmg. (sif3/polhull1-3)
even my pve centric ships all have like around 50% passive resist, and i stil use active hardening skills.
the only real issue i see in the neutronic spread is:
the basedmg was SO high, you were capable of "breaking through" shields with torps only. (because the spread was bugged of course)
the first hit completely sucked up the shieldfacing by pure "force" (instead of energy damaging it down) - THAT way, you had no time to react at all. (with sif polhull whatever)
thats what went wrong. a typical "burst in pvp environment" problem.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StopHavingFunGuys
To the point of slating / dismissing players who run builds that are thematic (this is a game based around a popular IP, y'know...). Does it really matter that it takes 15 minutes not 3 to complete an ISA run? Clearly it does to some people...
PVPers at least have a very good reason to argue in that being relentlessly vaped is not fun. Personally I'd love it if PVP and Trek theming were not mutually exclusive again, but there you go.
Meh. I'll stick with themed builds thank you, rather than assigning arbitrary significance to DPS numbers. Tried grinding out 2 spec points in Argala last night... and have a headache. Never again.
Wait, wait, wait... Hold on there a sec. Please explain the Pattern Recognition one again, you lost me there.
wait ... wut???
Your title is misleading.
1) The torpedo itself was not nerfed
2) They fixed/adjusted the dmg of it's special abilities (TS, THY)
Heh, it was back in January and I had a cow/wtf moment...this thread: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1351041
Okay then, first some history. Back when Pattern Recognition and Intense Focus were dropped out...they looked like they were simple opposites.
Intense Focus: +Accuracy, +Shield Penetration
Pattern Recognition: +Defense, -Shield Penetration
But they said that Shield Hardness was not a boost to Shield Penetration Resistance. Shield Hardness is "meant" to be what I've usually called Shield Damage Reduction. So after they said that, I let it go and didn't think too much about it in the least.
Well then, er, before continuing - should probably go over the differences that exist there with bleedthrough - cause there are differences.
Things like Transphasics actually do an inline kind of debuff to the Penetration Resistance of the Shield. So the Penetration Resistance would only be 60% of its normal value. Thus, Standard Shields (non-Resilient) with their 90% Penetration Resistance only offer 54% Penetration Resistance vs. Transphasics...46% of the damage goes to Hull instead of 10%.
Things like Intense Focus and Intelligence Fleet on the other hand provide a simple increase to the Penetration (or a simple debuff to the Penetration Resistance if you prefer). Intel Fleet II for example provides +15% Shield Penetration, so against those Standard Shields there will be 25% Shield Penetration instead of 10%. A 4stack of Intense Focus would mean 16% instead of 10%...etc, etc, etc.
So then, back to the Attack Pattern Expertise. The temporary hit points from this are added as a secondary shield sort of thing. Where you'd normally see a shield line and a hull line, you'd see two shield lines and the hull line. Damage that would have gone to the hull instead goes to that second shield line.
Which is where the following issue was brought up in that thread I linked earlier...course, I had Resilient Shields, so it's a base 5% Shield Penetration.
As Pattern Recognition stacked, those temporary HP were taking an increased amount of damage...
Going back to that earlier discussion with Cryptic on what they meant with Shield Hardness and if it were the opposite of Shield Penetration (as seen with Intense Focus), if Shield Hardness had actually worked that way then we'd have had the following.
Standard Shield 90% to Shield.
w/4stack 96% to Shield.
But it's not supposed to work that way according to Cryptic, it would just be +6% Shield Damage Reduction.
But there are the temporary hit points...which are "shield hit points pretending to be hull"...that are taking that additional 6% damage from a 4stack of Pattern Recognition.
Which means that with Pattern Recognition, the temporary hit points from any secondary shielding are consumed faster than they should be...because it's working like a Shield Penetration debuff on yourself with that secondary shielding - because don't forget, those temporary hit points have no resists.
Does that kind of clear it up?