I'm wondering if people who are saying that the problem is people who are complaining/their build have actually experienced one of those instances and tried for themselves.
Because I tell you I did ISN and two spheres drained my shields in about 3 seconds. Did you read right? Normal difficulty, two spheres.
"Oh, but it's your build" -> Right, that must be it!... because my ship has resist to shield drain in pretty much every console, plus skill points in the character build meant to provide resistance as well.
We're talking about 14K shields, plus the resist as I mentioned, in 3 seconds, by 2 spheres.
Was I in any danger? No, because being Normal, they do me almost no damage, and I blew them up right away. But if they can do this on Normal, I imagine in Advanced and when there's more of them. It's not a build issue.
Sure, you can adjust a build, but that's not the point.
Sure, you can adjust a build, but that's not the point.
Why not? It's not like we're saturated in dynamic content where one would not be able to prepare for the content they're going to be tackling...so one can tweak their build specifically to what they're doing.
It ticks some people off, but I still think the toolbox analogy works well.
You need to TRIBBLE something in. When you go to the toolbox, do you grab a screwdriver or a hammer?
Why not? It's not like we're saturated in dynamic content where one would not be able to prepare for the content they're going to be tackling...so one can tweak their build specifically to what they're doing.
It ticks some people off, but I still think the toolbox analogy works well.
You need to TRIBBLE something in. When you go to the toolbox, do you grab a screwdriver or a hammer?
I can give you my reasons. Others may have different ones.
Here's where I'm at - I play for fun. Meaning, I'm not rushing to get all the gear to maximum, all the specialization, etc. I do have many characters (9) and they are at several stages. Also, I like to have different ships, careers and playstyles. At the moment some of my characters can't be "brought up" unless I invest a lot in them - time, I mean. I went from doing Elite with mk VIII to mk X, to having a lot of trouble to do Advanced- Please note, that I always PUG.
And as I said in my previous post, my build is not for DPS, it has a lot of resists, so I really can't find the logic in believing that my shields can be brought down as easily as that. I no longer do Advanced, and everyday they seem to encourage me to keep not doing them.
I can give you my reasons. Others may have different ones.
Here's where I'm at - I play for fun. Meaning, I'm not rushing to get all the gear to maximum, all the specialization, etc. I do have many characters (9) and they are at several stages. Also, I like to have different ships, careers and playstyles. At the moment some of my characters can't be "brought up" unless I invest a lot in them - time, I mean. I went from doing Elite with mk VIII to mk X, to having a lot of trouble to do Advanced- Please note, that I always PUG.
And as I said in my previous post, my build is not for DPS, it has a lot of resists, so I really can't find the logic in believing that my shields can be brought down as easily as that. I no longer do Advanced, and everyday they seem to encourage me to keep not doing them.
One doesn't need to touch Reputations, Specializations, Fleets, R&D, etc, etc, etc...to change tweak a build for something. The game existed for years before any of that was added.
Doing content where it's more about Shield tanking, then slot more Shield abilities - more about Hull tanking, slot more Hull abilities, yeah? With the way they've changed the BOFF system, it's far easier than it was before. It's not some big production to change small things that can make a big difference.
Having a bunch of different toons...doesn't change that the content is what it is. Doesn't matter if you're running a Tac Healer or an Eng DPS...the content is what it is, and it doesn't change each time you run it - so if one doesn't want to reduce potential issues they might run into by making even small adjustments, they really don't have anybody to blame other than themselves.
I can be damn lazy at times and not feel like changing things...but I know that's on me, and I'm not going to blame Cryptic for that when they've provided me all sorts of options as how I could have avoided the issues.
And I really don't get why folks keep saying "I play for fun." Like, no ****...it's a game, everybody's playing for fun.
One doesn't need to touch Reputations, Specializations, Fleets, R&D, etc, etc, etc...to change tweak a build for something. The game existed for years before any of that was added.
Doing content where it's more about Shield tanking, then slot more Shield abilities - more about Hull tanking, slot more Hull abilities, yeah? With the way they've changed the BOFF system, it's far easier than it was before. It's not some big production to change small things that can make a big difference.
Having a bunch of different toons...doesn't change that the content is what it is. Doesn't matter if you're running a Tac Healer or an Eng DPS...the content is what it is, and it doesn't change each time you run it - so if one doesn't want to reduce potential issues they might run into by making even small adjustments, they really don't have anybody to blame other than themselves.
I can be damn lazy at times and not feel like changing things...but I know that's on me, and I'm not going to blame Cryptic for that when they've provided me all sorts of options as how I could have avoided the issues.
And I really don't get why folks keep saying "I play for fun." Like, no ****...it's a game, everybody's playing for fun.
I said it didn't hurt me. My build can cope with it easily. I'm saying it doesn0t make any sense that 2 single spheres on Normal can strip down 14K shields in a ship that is already built with many resists with such ease. The same way I already said in other topics that a Recluse with 900K hull plus shields makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and so on...
I'm not saying I mind changing things, I'm sayinf that some things are way off the mark.
As for the fun part, you know as well as I do, even more, perhaps since you've been here longer that there are a lot of people that feel they need to be at a given stage to be able to have fun. i'm just telling you that it's not the case with me. I don't even care what damage I'm putting out on my ships. I usually adjust by testing it out and seeing if it works or not.
I believe you're taking my "complaining" in the wrong direction.
I believe you're taking my "complaining" in the wrong direction.
That's entirely possible...I was sitting here reading what I had typed wondering why I was all aggro and thinking that maybe I needed to check my blood sugar...meh, yeah...ugh, pain in the freaking keester at times.
As for the fun part, you know as well as I do, even more, perhaps since you've been here longer that there are a lot of people that feel they need to be at a given stage to be able to have fun. i'm just telling you that it's not the case with me. I don't even care what damage I'm putting out on my ships. I usually adjust by testing it out and seeing if it works or not.
Until I'd actually checked the sugar, I'd figured that was the part that had ticked me off. Having read it (and well, loading it all in together with having seen it said so much recently)...and the meh that's there. Where the person might mean to say that something else isn't fun for them rather than saying that something else isn't fun at all...sort of thing.
I said it didn't hurt me. My build can cope with it easily. I'm saying it doesn0t make any sense that 2 single spheres on Normal can strip down 14K shields in a ship that is already built with many resists with such ease. The same way I already said in other topics that a Recluse with 900K hull plus shields makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and so on...
I'm not saying I mind changing things, I'm sayinf that some things are way off the mark.
Hrmm...
3pts should be 27% resist, 73% effect.
6pts should be 42% resist, 58% effect.
9pts should be 50% resist, 50% effect.
Where basically each point of PI supposedly offers 0.5% resist...
So if 2 Spheres drained ~14k in 3 seconds...
~14000 / 2 = ~7000 / 3 = ~2333 drain per tick against 0 PI.
vs. 3pts, they'd have to be doing ~3196 drain per tick.
vs. 6pts, they'd have to be doing ~4022 drain per tick.
vs. 9pts, they'd have to be doing ~4666 drain per tick.
With more PI, it would be even higher what they were doing...
...unless there is something broken there - something wonky, eh?
For me, I didn't even really notice it - well, cause I noticed an issue with shields disappearing back in mid January and adjusted for it after having that initial cow, lol. Cause I'm usually doing the aggro magnet thing anyway and with my shields already having gone haywire, well shields were basically gone before the Tachyon Beam changes. The video I did in the other thread, folks noticed the drain as being more (I just noticed that as I was flying around in circles that I got stuck in a Trans, lol).
Without the drain being written to the log to see what's actually going on there, it could only be a case of raising the concern with Frost and maybe having Bort take a look at it sort of thing, eh?
BTW, my apologies for going all aggro there...and...thanks for being coolheaded and trying to defuse the situation.
That's entirely possible...I was sitting here reading what I had typed wondering why I was all aggro and thinking that maybe I needed to check my blood sugar...meh, yeah...ugh, pain in the freaking keester at times.
Until I'd actually checked the sugar, I'd figured that was the part that had ticked me off. Having read it (and well, loading it all in together with having seen it said so much recently)...and the meh that's there. Where the person might mean to say that something else isn't fun for them rather than saying that something else isn't fun at all...sort of thing.
Hrmm...
3pts should be 27% resist, 73% effect.
6pts should be 42% resist, 58% effect.
9pts should be 50% resist, 50% effect.
Where basically each point of PI supposedly offers 0.5% resist...
So if 2 Spheres drained ~14k in 3 seconds...
~14000 / 2 = ~7000 / 3 = ~2333 drain per tick against 0 PI.
vs. 3pts, they'd have to be doing ~3196 drain per tick.
vs. 6pts, they'd have to be doing ~4022 drain per tick.
vs. 9pts, they'd have to be doing ~4666 drain per tick.
With more PI, it would be even higher what they were doing...
...unless there is something broken there - something wonky, eh?
For me, I didn't even really notice it - well, cause I noticed an issue with shields disappearing back in mid January and adjusted for it after having that initial cow, lol. Cause I'm usually doing the aggro magnet thing anyway and with my shields already having gone haywire, well shields were basically gone before the Tachyon Beam changes. The video I did in the other thread, folks noticed the drain as being more (I just noticed that as I was flying around in circles that I got stuck in a Trans, lol).
Without the drain being written to the log to see what's actually going on there, it could only be a case of raising the concern with Frost and maybe having Bort take a look at it sort of thing, eh?
BTW, my apologies for going all aggro there...and...thanks for being coolheaded and trying to defuse the situation.
Hey, no need for apologies. We're just talking here!
As for the math, you lost me there eheh. I told you, I don't really go all into the math behind stuff, I just test it and go with whatever works better. But I do know I have skill points for it, and a lot of gear with drain resists as well. When I am home, I can make a list of what, exactly, and provide the numbers. I believe the sum of all the points in the consoles should also have diminishing returns, right?
I went from doing borg disconnected and red alerts in which I could be in the middle of lots of borg and they didn't even pinch my shields (by drain), to the situation I described. So I have to believe something is wrong here. The very least it's not proportional.
I believe the sum of all the points in the consoles should also have diminishing returns, right?
Nope, no diminishing returns there. Only things that really have any diminishing returns are Damage Reduction/Damage Resistance and Damage Resistance Debuffs.
The way skills are setup creates the illusion that there are diminishing returns for skills and the like, but that's just Cryptic being Cryptic.
Cause anybody looking at skills sees that they get X for ranks 1-3, but only Y for ranks 4-6, and only Z for ranks 7-9 with a casual glance.
Have to look closer to see that 1-3 provide +18 per rank, 4-6 provide +10 per rank, and 7-9 provide +5 per rank. So it's not that investing more provides less for the same things, it's investing more simply provides less of the same thing. Most of the bonuses from skills/consoles are flat per skill point. Amicus dropped out a chart for it, but I'm not entirely sure of the last time he updated it: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
So for something like PI, we're looking at 0.5% resistance per point in PI.
99 providing that 99 * 0.5 = 49.5%, rounded to 50%.
150 would provide 99 * 0.5 = 75%
Etc, etc, etc.
Nope, no diminishing returns there. Only things that really have any diminishing returns are Damage Reduction/Damage Resistance and Damage Resistance Debuffs.
The way skills are setup creates the illusion that there are diminishing returns for skills and the like, but that's just Cryptic being Cryptic.
Cause anybody looking at skills sees that they get X for ranks 1-3, but only Y for ranks 4-6, and only Z for ranks 7-9 with a casual glance.
Have to look closer to see that 1-3 provide +18 per rank, 4-6 provide +10 per rank, and 7-9 provide +5 per rank. So it's not that investing more provides less for the same things, it's investing more simply provides less of the same thing. Most of the bonuses from skills/consoles are flat per skill point. Amicus dropped out a chart for it, but I'm not entirely sure of the last time he updated it: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
So for something like PI, we're looking at 0.5% resistance per point in PI.
99 providing that 99 * 0.5 = 49.5%, rounded to 50%.
150 would provide 99 * 0.5 = 75%
Etc, etc, etc.
Got it. Thanks for the explanation.
I'll get the numbers later and we'll see. If nothing else we should get a better picture of what we're dealing here.
Got it. Thanks for the explanation.
I'll get the numbers later and we'll see. If nothing else we should get a better picture of what we're dealing here.
Heh, and if it looks like I go overboard with numbers at times...it's not really a case that I think everybody needs to know every little number (nor is it a case that I know every little number)...
...it's just I'm a craptastic pilot and overcompensate.
ST3 -> HE3
TSS2 -> ST2
HE1 -> PH1
ET3 -> EPtS3
EPtS1 -> ET1
Active Hull Hardening -> Advanced Hull Reinforcement
2pc Nukara -> 2pc Borg or 2pc Kobali
Maybe even FE/Rugan -> Keel'el.
Did swap out for the Borg Def/Eng combo, and the Delta shield (50% shield drain Res)
Went alot smoother. Took in 70% of the damage, never died. So yeah, change setups. Dropped the Nukara 2 piece. Don't tank without the right gear for it.
Basically Worst case.....Go blazing in as a Beamscort with DPS gear and yeah. lol
Beamscort is a position this game shoulda NEVER got itself into. it needs more of this kinda difficulty. Go to tank or don't use FAW if you can't take the return agro. Go Single target if your that Squishy.
Heh, and if it looks like I go overboard with numbers at times...it's not really a case that I think everybody needs to know every little number (nor is it a case that I know every little number)...
...it's just I'm a craptastic pilot and overcompensate.
Numbers are good. I just don't like sticking to them alone.
So, anyway, here's what I have:
Power insulators skill - 6 points
Consoles:
(VR) Zero-Point energy conduit +19.7 PI
(VR)Nukara particle converter MK XIV + 19.5 PI
(UR)Conductive RCS Accelerator mk XII [ins] + 31.9 PI
(UR)Exotic particle field exciter mk XII [ins] +31.9 PI
I did made a mistake when I said I had 14K shields, because I forgot I'd swapped a console a few days back. They are 13,211, not 14.
Still, with the above, it's beyond me how 2 spheres on Normal could drop my shields, let alone hastely.
I ran into this too, thank god for that Brace for Impact and Grace Under Fire traits. My command ship was set up for full tank and I was struggling to keep up popping BFI as soon as it was off CD, same with MW. Was interesting for sure, the Borg are actually tough for a change! As they should be, the shield neutraliser was their classic thing in TNG so it's only fitting that they do the same here. I think the TB buff has made them a little TOO capable at stripping huge shields so quickly (I was running 2x Mk XIV UR Field Generators).
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Yeah, unless there's some cap that I don't know about (one of the drain guys would know about that)...you're looking at 187 PI there for 93.5% drain resistance.
13211 / 2 = 6605.5 / 3 = 2202ish
They'd have to be doing ~33877 drain per tick to drop those shields like that...
...so yeah, I'm wondering what one of the drain guys would have to say about that.
Wonder if there is a decimal issue there...something that was done to the base that perhaps did not take into consideration how it was adjusted for the mob instead of the player sort of thing.
Basically, does 338.77 sound more like what one would expect than 33877...?
I like the idea of mixing things up some but after actually doing a test run I think they overdid it a little. You do something simple like throw a GW+Spread combo on a sphere wave, in range for just a few seconds and not FAWing, but since that aggroed the lot of them you still eat 6 TBs and your shields are gone in a flash even with ~100 in PI. Not sure what more of a counter there is since its not technically a debuff so can't be hard-countered, and no heal is going to keep up with that level of drain short of maybe chained RSPs. Rock & Roll works to a point but given R&R's duration and cooldown vs the sheer number of spheres involved thats not really feasible for the entire mission. Given the multipliers Borg torps get once they actually hit hull, hull tanking isn't really a practical approach. Nukara mines with DPB maybe, thought kinda silly to gear a ship just for one specific enemy spawn in one specific mission. Scramble Sensors maybe (if in a premade team), or would they drain you off before the SS took effect, and only have half a second from their jacked-up resistances anyways? Hmm.
I dunno. I get the bad feeling the 'solution' is just going to be the usual 'such volume of fire they never complete the TB cycle.' Without any straightforward counters, its certainly less pug friendly. I just hope they fine-tune it rather than either 1 meganerf it or 2 leave it as-is.
The solution to me seems to not rely on shields, and bring some extra hull heals and resists to survive.
TB in groups deals effectively with your shields. Trying to counter it with even more shields is not working? Well, adjust your expectations - there are now times you need to hull-tank.
Maybe we need all those hull heals you can equip on a Cruiser in the end after all. Maybe it does cost you some DPS. But isn't that what we always wanted? Not the enemies just being a bag of hit points you best beat with increasing your DPs even more, but actually having to make meaningful choices?
So if those two Spheres took out the 13k'ish shields in ~3 seconds, which would mean ~33877 drain per tick based on the 187 PI the player had...
...it starts to look like a heinous decimal oopsie, eh?
I think it has to do with how NPCs are now scaling in Advanced and Elite, similar to their HP/Shield scaling. Drain modifiers for NPCs must be taking account other NPCs as enemies, and they have so much HP/Shields that their drain capabilities are being balanced around that.
Yeah, but show me a player who has shield and hull strength that comes even REMOTELY close to that of the tac cube.....
We have heals and massive resistencies. The cubes dont. Usually they do have massive resistencies though, but unfortunately for them, they are massively negative
If I drop down to 50 Aux Power (NPCs tend to have "Balanced" Power)...
-387.1 All Shields Per Pulse
If I unslot Astrophysicist, dropping to 99 Flow Caps (still at 50 Aux)...
-374.6 All Shields Per Pulse
So yeah...that -338.77 from earlier...starts to sound about right, eh? Drain's aren't my thing to know for sure though.
So if those two Spheres took out the 13k'ish shields in ~3 seconds, which would mean ~33877 drain per tick based on the 187 PI the player had...
...it starts to look like a heinous decimal oopsie, eh?
Tachyon Beam takes 10 pulses (one every 0.4 seconds). To drain 13K shields, a Tachyon Beam only needs to reach about 650 drain per pulse each one. They probably have Tachyon Beam 3 (Unskilled) with high Aux power.
Tachyon Beam takes 10 pulses (one every 0.4 seconds). To drain 13K shields, a Tachyon Beam only needs to reach about 650 drain per pulse each one. They probably have Tachyon Beam 3 (Unskilled) with high Aux power.
Oh, 0.4 and not 1.0...that would change what I had going there...so probably closer to 8 pulses for it rather than just the 3.
13211 / 2 = 6606 / 8 = 826 / 0.065 = 12707 per pulse then...given his 187 PI, eh?
What are everyone's thoughts on how flow cap skill points affect TB? Too little? Too much? I'm just wondering if lowering the base and upping the point reward is better, so it would reward sci ships with higher sci slots and consoles, vs NPCs that wouldn't (I think) have flow cap skills.
The doff that clears debuffs on EPT power use is not a solution. That can trigger at most every 15 seconds (plus 1 second activation time). It only takes ONE second to lose all shields.
My char in a Sarr Theln was losing all shields from a pretty basic-level sector red alert. I kid you not, I was hull tanking the entire damn thing. So much shield neutralizer spam on TOP of so much tachyon beam bull****. I have ET, HE, ST, TSS, and EPTS on this tank setup. I was out of heals 99% of the time and could NEVER recover my shields until combat was over.
It's utter bull****
Several other characters were also hull tanking through myriad missions. Even the really basic daily missions which should pose no threat to anybody with fleet gear and rep sets were stripping my shields away pretty quickly.
Bort, could you please take a look at how the NPC tables affect the NPC versions of the power?
With the recent changes to difficulty and HP/Shield pools, I guess the NPC tables are taking those increased amounts into account, resulting in a much stronger effect against players than probably intended.
Or, NPC TB seems to be taking other NPC's shield pools (much larger than players') when calculating the amount of shield drain to do.
I hope this makes sense. I was thinking that this could be related, in terms of functionality, to the last change to pets when they were using the NPC tables.
Yup. It's way out of whack.
There's a 10 page thread about the increased damage they're doing here:
P.S. Bort: while you're at it can you limit shield neutralizers to 1 stack maximum? And when tachyon is used have it reset the shield neutralizer cooldown back to full? Getting hit with so many tachyons and neutralizers back to back is absurdly OP! I had what looked like at least 3 stacks of neutralizer going last night and it was not fun when every heal I had was on cooldown.
The doff that clears debuffs on EPT power use is not a solution. That can trigger at most every 15 seconds (plus 1 second activation time). It only takes ONE second to lose all shields.
The WCE Cleanse wasn't for that though...it was to provide coverage for other things, so you could use other things for that.
Just my two cents (because I can spend it like anyone else)
I, for one, like the change. Too often I have read in the forums and in-game chats, how many people say that the game is too easy; that the NPC's are a joke; but finally give some of the npc's oomph again and some people start complaining.
Some people like it, others do not. That is the nature of the beast.
Things have happened like this before in the last few years and the players and the community as a whole have always seemed to find a way around it. Give it some time and they will find a way, again.
I, myself, would like to think that it will give pause to the zerg/dps enthusiasts and make them rethink some of their pew pew tactics. Maybe science and engineer powers will finally become relevant again.
I don't expect everyone to agree with this opinion, because it is my own and we all know what opinions are like... but i am fairly certain there are others that share it.
Comments
Because I tell you I did ISN and two spheres drained my shields in about 3 seconds. Did you read right? Normal difficulty, two spheres.
"Oh, but it's your build" -> Right, that must be it!... because my ship has resist to shield drain in pretty much every console, plus skill points in the character build meant to provide resistance as well.
We're talking about 14K shields, plus the resist as I mentioned, in 3 seconds, by 2 spheres.
Was I in any danger? No, because being Normal, they do me almost no damage, and I blew them up right away. But if they can do this on Normal, I imagine in Advanced and when there's more of them. It's not a build issue.
Sure, you can adjust a build, but that's not the point.
Why not? It's not like we're saturated in dynamic content where one would not be able to prepare for the content they're going to be tackling...so one can tweak their build specifically to what they're doing.
It ticks some people off, but I still think the toolbox analogy works well.
You need to TRIBBLE something in. When you go to the toolbox, do you grab a screwdriver or a hammer?
I can give you my reasons. Others may have different ones.
Here's where I'm at - I play for fun. Meaning, I'm not rushing to get all the gear to maximum, all the specialization, etc. I do have many characters (9) and they are at several stages. Also, I like to have different ships, careers and playstyles. At the moment some of my characters can't be "brought up" unless I invest a lot in them - time, I mean. I went from doing Elite with mk VIII to mk X, to having a lot of trouble to do Advanced- Please note, that I always PUG.
And as I said in my previous post, my build is not for DPS, it has a lot of resists, so I really can't find the logic in believing that my shields can be brought down as easily as that. I no longer do Advanced, and everyday they seem to encourage me to keep not doing them.
One doesn't need to touch Reputations, Specializations, Fleets, R&D, etc, etc, etc...to change tweak a build for something. The game existed for years before any of that was added.
Doing content where it's more about Shield tanking, then slot more Shield abilities - more about Hull tanking, slot more Hull abilities, yeah? With the way they've changed the BOFF system, it's far easier than it was before. It's not some big production to change small things that can make a big difference.
Having a bunch of different toons...doesn't change that the content is what it is. Doesn't matter if you're running a Tac Healer or an Eng DPS...the content is what it is, and it doesn't change each time you run it - so if one doesn't want to reduce potential issues they might run into by making even small adjustments, they really don't have anybody to blame other than themselves.
I can be damn lazy at times and not feel like changing things...but I know that's on me, and I'm not going to blame Cryptic for that when they've provided me all sorts of options as how I could have avoided the issues.
And I really don't get why folks keep saying "I play for fun." Like, no ****...it's a game, everybody's playing for fun.
I said it didn't hurt me. My build can cope with it easily. I'm saying it doesn0t make any sense that 2 single spheres on Normal can strip down 14K shields in a ship that is already built with many resists with such ease. The same way I already said in other topics that a Recluse with 900K hull plus shields makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and so on...
I'm not saying I mind changing things, I'm sayinf that some things are way off the mark.
As for the fun part, you know as well as I do, even more, perhaps since you've been here longer that there are a lot of people that feel they need to be at a given stage to be able to have fun. i'm just telling you that it's not the case with me. I don't even care what damage I'm putting out on my ships. I usually adjust by testing it out and seeing if it works or not.
I believe you're taking my "complaining" in the wrong direction.
That's entirely possible...I was sitting here reading what I had typed wondering why I was all aggro and thinking that maybe I needed to check my blood sugar...meh, yeah...ugh, pain in the freaking keester at times.
Until I'd actually checked the sugar, I'd figured that was the part that had ticked me off. Having read it (and well, loading it all in together with having seen it said so much recently)...and the meh that's there. Where the person might mean to say that something else isn't fun for them rather than saying that something else isn't fun at all...sort of thing.
Hrmm...
3pts should be 27% resist, 73% effect.
6pts should be 42% resist, 58% effect.
9pts should be 50% resist, 50% effect.
Where basically each point of PI supposedly offers 0.5% resist...
So if 2 Spheres drained ~14k in 3 seconds...
~14000 / 2 = ~7000 / 3 = ~2333 drain per tick against 0 PI.
vs. 3pts, they'd have to be doing ~3196 drain per tick.
vs. 6pts, they'd have to be doing ~4022 drain per tick.
vs. 9pts, they'd have to be doing ~4666 drain per tick.
With more PI, it would be even higher what they were doing...
...unless there is something broken there - something wonky, eh?
For me, I didn't even really notice it - well, cause I noticed an issue with shields disappearing back in mid January and adjusted for it after having that initial cow, lol. Cause I'm usually doing the aggro magnet thing anyway and with my shields already having gone haywire, well shields were basically gone before the Tachyon Beam changes. The video I did in the other thread, folks noticed the drain as being more (I just noticed that as I was flying around in circles that I got stuck in a Trans, lol).
Without the drain being written to the log to see what's actually going on there, it could only be a case of raising the concern with Frost and maybe having Bort take a look at it sort of thing, eh?
BTW, my apologies for going all aggro there...and...thanks for being coolheaded and trying to defuse the situation.
Hey, no need for apologies. We're just talking here!
As for the math, you lost me there eheh. I told you, I don't really go all into the math behind stuff, I just test it and go with whatever works better. But I do know I have skill points for it, and a lot of gear with drain resists as well. When I am home, I can make a list of what, exactly, and provide the numbers. I believe the sum of all the points in the consoles should also have diminishing returns, right?
I went from doing borg disconnected and red alerts in which I could be in the middle of lots of borg and they didn't even pinch my shields (by drain), to the situation I described. So I have to believe something is wrong here. The very least it's not proportional.
Nope, no diminishing returns there. Only things that really have any diminishing returns are Damage Reduction/Damage Resistance and Damage Resistance Debuffs.
The way skills are setup creates the illusion that there are diminishing returns for skills and the like, but that's just Cryptic being Cryptic.
Cause anybody looking at skills sees that they get X for ranks 1-3, but only Y for ranks 4-6, and only Z for ranks 7-9 with a casual glance.
Have to look closer to see that 1-3 provide +18 per rank, 4-6 provide +10 per rank, and 7-9 provide +5 per rank. So it's not that investing more provides less for the same things, it's investing more simply provides less of the same thing. Most of the bonuses from skills/consoles are flat per skill point. Amicus dropped out a chart for it, but I'm not entirely sure of the last time he updated it: http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
So for something like PI, we're looking at 0.5% resistance per point in PI.
99 providing that 99 * 0.5 = 49.5%, rounded to 50%.
150 would provide 99 * 0.5 = 75%
Etc, etc, etc.
Got it. Thanks for the explanation.
I'll get the numbers later and we'll see. If nothing else we should get a better picture of what we're dealing here.
Heh, and if it looks like I go overboard with numbers at times...it's not really a case that I think everybody needs to know every little number (nor is it a case that I know every little number)...
...it's just I'm a craptastic pilot and overcompensate.
Did swap out for the Borg Def/Eng combo, and the Delta shield (50% shield drain Res)
Went alot smoother. Took in 70% of the damage, never died. So yeah, change setups. Dropped the Nukara 2 piece. Don't tank without the right gear for it.
Basically Worst case.....Go blazing in as a Beamscort with DPS gear and yeah. lol
Beamscort is a position this game shoulda NEVER got itself into. it needs more of this kinda difficulty. Go to tank or don't use FAW if you can't take the return agro. Go Single target if your that Squishy.
Numbers are good. I just don't like sticking to them alone.
So, anyway, here's what I have:
Power insulators skill - 6 points
Consoles:
(VR) Zero-Point energy conduit +19.7 PI
(VR)Nukara particle converter MK XIV + 19.5 PI
(UR)Conductive RCS Accelerator mk XII [ins] + 31.9 PI
(UR)Exotic particle field exciter mk XII [ins] +31.9 PI
I did made a mistake when I said I had 14K shields, because I forgot I'd swapped a console a few days back. They are 13,211, not 14.
Still, with the above, it's beyond me how 2 spheres on Normal could drop my shields, let alone hastely.
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13211 / 2 = 6605.5 / 3 = 2202ish
They'd have to be doing ~33877 drain per tick to drop those shields like that...
...so yeah, I'm wondering what one of the drain guys would have to say about that.
Wonder if there is a decimal issue there...something that was done to the base that perhaps did not take into consideration how it was adjusted for the mob instead of the player sort of thing.
Basically, does 338.77 sound more like what one would expect than 33877...?
125 Auxiliary Power
109 Starship Flow Capacitors
-578.6 All Shields Per Pulse (10 pulse max)
If I drop down to 50 Aux Power (NPCs tend to have "Balanced" Power)...
-387.1 All Shields Per Pulse
If I unslot Astrophysicist, dropping to 99 Flow Caps (still at 50 Aux)...
-374.6 All Shields Per Pulse
So yeah...that -338.77 from earlier...starts to sound about right, eh? Drain's aren't my thing to know for sure though.
So if those two Spheres took out the 13k'ish shields in ~3 seconds, which would mean ~33877 drain per tick based on the 187 PI the player had...
...it starts to look like a heinous decimal oopsie, eh?
But thats whats called tanking, take all the heat. And as for the borg, it even make sense when they coordinate themselves.
Wouldnt be the first one
Because, I haven't really seen it resist any drains really.
Not to mention, why they listed 2 DR types, 1 for all energy types & 1 for polaron?
90 PI + Delta rep shield = no noticeable difference, than if I used some other shield array IMO.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
It was for the spheres, lol.
Just joking with you!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
The solution to me seems to not rely on shields, and bring some extra hull heals and resists to survive.
TB in groups deals effectively with your shields. Trying to counter it with even more shields is not working? Well, adjust your expectations - there are now times you need to hull-tank.
Maybe we need all those hull heals you can equip on a Cruiser in the end after all. Maybe it does cost you some DPS. But isn't that what we always wanted? Not the enemies just being a bag of hit points you best beat with increasing your DPs even more, but actually having to make meaningful choices?
Well, the Tactical Cube at the end doesn't get to complain "6 players shooting at my with all their guns, it shouldn't work like that!"
Focus fire is a nasty thing.
I think it has to do with how NPCs are now scaling in Advanced and Elite, similar to their HP/Shield scaling. Drain modifiers for NPCs must be taking account other NPCs as enemies, and they have so much HP/Shields that their drain capabilities are being balanced around that.
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We have heals and massive resistencies. The cubes dont. Usually they do have massive resistencies though, but unfortunately for them, they are massively negative
Tachyon Beam takes 10 pulses (one every 0.4 seconds). To drain 13K shields, a Tachyon Beam only needs to reach about 650 drain per pulse each one. They probably have Tachyon Beam 3 (Unskilled) with high Aux power.
Oh, 0.4 and not 1.0...that would change what I had going there...so probably closer to 8 pulses for it rather than just the 3.
13211 / 2 = 6606 / 8 = 826 / 0.065 = 12707 per pulse then...given his 187 PI, eh?
My char in a Sarr Theln was losing all shields from a pretty basic-level sector red alert. I kid you not, I was hull tanking the entire damn thing. So much shield neutralizer spam on TOP of so much tachyon beam bull****. I have ET, HE, ST, TSS, and EPTS on this tank setup. I was out of heals 99% of the time and could NEVER recover my shields until combat was over.
It's utter bull****
Several other characters were also hull tanking through myriad missions. Even the really basic daily missions which should pose no threat to anybody with fleet gear and rep sets were stripping my shields away pretty quickly.
This needs to change.
Yup. It's way out of whack.
There's a 10 page thread about the increased damage they're doing here:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1382601
P.S. Bort: while you're at it can you limit shield neutralizers to 1 stack maximum? And when tachyon is used have it reset the shield neutralizer cooldown back to full? Getting hit with so many tachyons and neutralizers back to back is absurdly OP! I had what looked like at least 3 stacks of neutralizer going last night and it was not fun when every heal I had was on cooldown.
The WCE Cleanse wasn't for that though...it was to provide coverage for other things, so you could use other things for that.
I, for one, like the change. Too often I have read in the forums and in-game chats, how many people say that the game is too easy; that the NPC's are a joke; but finally give some of the npc's oomph again and some people start complaining.
Some people like it, others do not. That is the nature of the beast.
Things have happened like this before in the last few years and the players and the community as a whole have always seemed to find a way around it. Give it some time and they will find a way, again.
I, myself, would like to think that it will give pause to the zerg/dps enthusiasts and make them rethink some of their pew pew tactics. Maybe science and engineer powers will finally become relevant again.
I don't expect everyone to agree with this opinion, because it is my own and we all know what opinions are like... but i am fairly certain there are others that share it.
Two cents spent and no refunds expected.