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Tachyon Beam - Updated Values
borticuscryptic
Member Posts: 2,478 Cryptic Developer
Patch notes aren't meant to relay the entire picture. They're just too succinct a format to work for that.
So, to hopefully ally a few fears I already see floating about, I'll share a few example figures of the changes being applied to Tachyon Beam in tomorrow's patch:
- Base magnitudes increased dramatically
- Benefit that can be gained from Auxiliary Power and Flow Capacitors reduced.
Examples:
* 0 Flow Capacitor Skill and 15 Aux Power = ~194% increase to Drain amount (close to triple the current value)
* 100 Skill + 100 Aux Power = ~75% increase to Drain amount
* 300 skill + 135 Aux Power = ~39% increase to Drain amount
So, as you can see, even at extremely-high end, the ability will be receiving an improvement.
I hope that helps. If it's still unclear, please ask any additional questions here and I'll attempt to answer them.
So, to hopefully ally a few fears I already see floating about, I'll share a few example figures of the changes being applied to Tachyon Beam in tomorrow's patch:
- Base magnitudes increased dramatically
- Benefit that can be gained from Auxiliary Power and Flow Capacitors reduced.
Examples:
* 0 Flow Capacitor Skill and 15 Aux Power = ~194% increase to Drain amount (close to triple the current value)
* 100 Skill + 100 Aux Power = ~75% increase to Drain amount
* 300 skill + 135 Aux Power = ~39% increase to Drain amount
So, as you can see, even at extremely-high end, the ability will be receiving an improvement.
I hope that helps. If it's still unclear, please ask any additional questions here and I'll attempt to answer them.
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Post edited by borticuscryptic on
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ARE YOU CRAZY!?!?!?
TIS A NERF IN DISKUISE!
In all reality, I welcome this change. Does this only affect players? Can it affect pets like the Breen Plesh Brek Raider pet?
For now, this change affects only actual Tachyon Beam abilities. But that applies if they are used by Players or NPCs.
Some NPCs have their own, unique variants of existing abilities. If the Breen Raiders fall under the latter category, they will remain unaltered.
And, generally speaking, this change was meant to improve player effectiveness with this ability, and not pets.
Cryptic - Lead Systems Designer
"Play smart!"
Also, thanks for this change
Just asking to see where the trendline kind of flatlines.
What is the improvement at 600 flow caps and 135 Aux?
Well if they tie a sub par science skill to every new ship trait... perhaps in a year they will have all gotten a once over sales buff. lol
If they do a worthwhile trait for Tyekns Rift , Gravity Well, or Energy Siphon, I'll buy said ship in a heartbeat. Tachyon Beam is nice, but I mostly just use it to cool down those abilities using doffs.
Much easier to blast shields away with FAW ALL THE THINGS or just bypass them with Exotic damage.
No point in Tachyon Beam that pure weapons fire can't do better.
Well I would imagine with the all hands on deck trait + a few of those doffs now you should have no issues having it all at global all the time. Balance be damned. I know you where likely already there anyway... just way to much futzing with the cooldowns in general the last year or so. The chances of them ever being able to balance this game (not that they care to obviously) get further from being possible every patch.
All well... I been splitting my time 90/10 in EvE the last few months and its looking more and more like I should stop spending 10% of my game time in STO. (I know I say that all the time, and can never bring myself to completely leave)
You are right, but any boost is a welcome one, even if it's just used at lower level play. I've used Tachyon Beam 2 in Advanced STFs against Spheres and their shields barely budge. Much easier to use Tyken's Rift 3+Energy Siphon 2+Tgt shields subsystems to get those shields to drop and expose that bare hull.
If I got the trait (I haven't bought the ships), and fiddled with my gear, I could drop all 3 deflector doffs and just get global CD by spamming tac abilities.
A low level works well in combo with Tykens/GW Deflector doffs... having it all at cool down. Now with the silly shield restoration trait on the command cruiser it might make more sense as it will provide a heal every 10s anyway. (cause it will hit its global with traits / doffs).
I know drain boats are more a PvP then PvE thing so most people including Cryptic don't really care.
Lol, the trait should be the least of your worries. Like Yoda said: "There is another..."
The lockout makes it a little less reliable then that... still worth running the defelector doffs. Then if your forced to pop a bunch of stuff at once you still get to global on your main drains anyway. But ya I would say 2 doffs + the trait would be nice... then you can add the shield restoration tachyon beam trait... if I am reading this change right you should be able to have a constant tachyon up on someone (10s global) which even if it isn't much stronger then it is now makes it pretty good.
I would think this will also be a major buff to the Secondary Deflector that adds extra drain to it. It adds 33% more drain right now... so if that still holds true... a science ship with said deflector should be putting out a lot of shield hurt on one target.
No doubt its just icing... I just find this change funny in general. Clearly it is only happening because there not selling enough ship 3 packs. People are buying the one tactical for all hands on deck and ignoring the other 2.
This is bigger news than what Mr. Randall had to post. :eek:
Don't know about that. Armor penetration fix, neutronic torp and ionic turbulence fix will make great difference for first time since release of Delta Rising.
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Lol, you should have seen when I pestered them a year ago to fix it's 10th tick for a week until they did.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1058201&page=2
I'm sure tens of players are overjoyed that Tachyon Beam is getting an improvement.
What Tachyon Beam really needs is some kind of secondary effect.. like lowering shield resistance, increasing the bleed-through percentage or at the very least a hefty shield-healing penalty.
Just to be sure, I assume it will also affect the Chimera Heavy Destroyer's Tachyon Inversion Beams as well?
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
This is just part of the Cryptic cycle. I hate to be a downer all the time... but we have seen this before.
Pretty much every major release they do the same thing... a bunch of stuff that is clearly OP, but is paid for OP, so it gets ignored by devs that pretend to not know about it for 3-4 months.
Then they swoop in and go ohhh my yes that isn't right... we'll adjust that and fix this ... here ya go.
Then a week later Geko drops a new A bomb on the game.
Devs put fingers back in there ears and repeat cycle.
I would love to be wrong... to convince me they plan to break that cycle... I would have to see 6 months of releases that don't break the game all the time. Neut being fixed just makes be believe there is a new rep and a new super broken torpedo coming. Just like The bio before it and the Grav before the bio and the pang before the grav. The ionic being fixed ya that's cool and I think they will look at stupid things like the VM torp trait as well... and command is pretty balanced I will give them that. (sort of... some skills like interception having no cool down is just odd) Anyway... I'll stop now. lol
I've always had the opinion it should work like Subnucleonic Beam, only it strips any Shield buffs currently applied to the target over a period of time (with higher ranks having a longer time). Emergency Power to Shields, Transfer Shield Strength, RSP, Metaphasic Shields, Covariance Capacitor, Adaptive Resistance (from Elite Fleet and Aegis shields), etc.
As has been noted since... well, pretty much January-February 2010, Tachyon Beam is constantly overshadowed by simply brute forcing an opponent's shields down with energy weapons. Picking Tachyon Beam in any Science Bridge Officer slot is something many consider to be a "false choice", since there is plenty of other powers to choose from which are simply better.
If Tachyon Beam was used more like Subnuke for Shield buffs/heals, or a reverse-Hazard Emitters for Shield Buffs (and providing a shield DoT maybe), I think it would be seen as a far more devastating weapon, particularly in the end game when shields are especially beefy from both a PvE and PvP perspective.
That's nothing new though, there's nothing in this game that encourages any divergent behavior from All DPS, All The Time.
I know. But we can either complain about that, or we can offer some constructive criticism to maybe alter that line of thinking and encourage some outside-the-box thinking on what place Science has in STO, other than just being "Exotic Damage Escorts".
I think secondary effects to Tachyon Beam is better than nothing.
Correct. The only science abilities that affect NPCs enough to be useful are exotic damage and drain, with GW having a special place as CC separately form the damage.
Most garbage science skill for PvE is sensors. Anyone uses PSW, CPB, or VM in PvE?
For giggles, my KDF Sci runs a PvE-only Disable-heavy build that uses VM III. Other than that, I do not think I have seen VM deployed by a player in many years.
Thanks for the informative post, btw.
Yep, some people do.