Your post surprised me. Because, not to be rude, but 84 Power Insulators is, indeed, nothing! I thought it was common knowledge that, for Power Insulators to be reasonably effective in PvE, you need around 130 of them. And with the new and improved TB, I'd say the comfort zone against Borg is around ca. 170. All of which comes from Deflectors, Assimilated Coonsole, Zero-Point Energy Conduit, etc. I added a crafted Sci console, with 37.5% extra PI (and some partgens) after the new TB, and am faring quite well again against Borg.
So, not sure where all the sarcasm about adding Power Insulators is suddenly coming from, but Power Insulators *do* help. 84 just simply isn't enough of them.
one role for a cruiser is to tank , Most cruisers have only 2 science console slots
with DPS out of control a cruiser is pushed into the romulan embassy consoles for increased threat generation to hold agro
and + threat is only on science consoles
To hold threat and have 170 power insulators is beyond what most cruisers can do and still be able to tank effectively
Most pugs don't have high dps so the time a tank has to hold agro and tank is a LOT longer than in a premade group with high dps and coordination
That's the problem in most pugs as ive saw...hull tanking is also not a very common skill either most pugs simply cant do it and arnt skilled for it
cruiser commands are really out of date as well and are way behind in attract fire and shield reinforcement and need a buff with + threat on romulan embassy consoles needed a buff as well
when cruiser commands were introduced DPS was about 1/3rd of what it is now
I guess Geko forgot this but then most cruiser consoles and most cruiser BO powers have been forgotten for quite some time
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
one role for a cruiser is to tank , Most cruisers have only 2 science console slots
My Borg Deflector has [Threat]. And you can spec into Threat Control (which I'm assuming you did; so did I, btw). But, other than that, yeah, Embassy Consoles it is.
With the Borg Deflector, for example, plus the Assimilated Coonsole, Zero-Point Energy Conduit, etc, with 6/9 in the skill, you'll get around 130 Insulators. So you'd need 1 extra Embassy Console (power insulators + threat?). Attract Fire should help too, of course,
To hold threat and have 170 power insulators is beyond what most cruisers can do and still be able to tank effectively
Most pugs don't have high dps so the time a tank has to hold agro and tank is a LOT longer than in a premade group with high dps and coordination
I understand what you're saying. And I didn't particular *like* having to up my Insulators with an extra Console either, as it inevitably goes at the expense of something else. But way it is is the way it is. The crafted consoles (and, to a degree, the Embassy ones), are usually combo's with Insulators as being just one component of it, though.
cruiser commands are really out of date as well and are way behind in attract fire and shield reinforcement and need a buff with + threat on romulan embassy consoles needed a buff as well
when cruiser commands were introduced DPS was about 1/3rd of what it is now
Has it been that long already? Feels like only yesterday when Cruiser commands were introduced. But sure, they could use a buff.
Wait, are people really complaining and their shields are dropping and they can't handle it in ISA?
There are many ways to hull tank. If you lose your shields, Yay! That means that the enemy is actually doing something worth caring about.
My Tac/Escort can tank them, and that's with Mk XII gear and a crappy pilot.
Attack Pattern Expertise, Aux to ID, ET, HE, TSS, Borg Procs, and Samsar console.
If I can do it, anyone can. I get that there's a misplaced decimal, but seriously - it's not as if it's suddenly impossible. And if you die? So what? Did you expect to be immortal?
I'm wondering if this change is more to do with the FAW builds that dominate the game. They couldn't nerf the power directly due to player backlash so buffed NPC Tachyon Beam to overpowered amounts to make FAW/AOE targeting less favourable, Having 1 Borg drain you're shields is bad enough but a whole mob instant zap them and then bombard you with plasma torpedos, i know i'm trying to avoid mob aggro since this change as my poor armitage has been battered to hell
LOL with you guys still struggling with this, even with all the counteractions listed by people to get past this!
Erm, yes?
6 points in PI, 1.1 shield mod and still lost shields in about 0.3 seconds flat against one sphere in a normal IS I ran.
I certainly haven't died as a result of it, but it's definitely OP the way it is right now. A buff to tachyon beam is needed and would be fine, if it wasn't to this crazy degree.
EDIT
Well, no. To be truthful it's less of a struggle and more annoying.
Erm, yes?
6 points in PI, 1.1 shield mod and still lost shields in about 0.3 seconds flat against one sphere in a normal IS I ran.
I certainly haven't died as a result of it, but it's definitely OP the way it is right now. A buff to tachyon beam is needed and would be fine, if it wasn't to this crazy degree.
You still don't understand, just like the others around here.
Instead of me cutting & pasting, I'll just link a response I had for all this from here.
Yup all those powers do work to a degree, however how much DPS does a team have to sacrifice in order to protect itself against a op'd attack.
Cryptic have made this game about DPS, if you can't DPS in Advanced or Ellite than you are stuffed. Its all geared to beat the timer and when it requires blowing stuff up to beat that timer then DPS is required. (I'll admit the dps channels have a overkill of firepower they take into these matches)
The casual player who is not in dedicated channels who uses the public channels like a vast majority of people haven't got a chance of running these missions with success, this leads to frustration and the deserted PvE queues we now see, (Although a Senior Dev tested the queues and tried to pass it off as a reporting error, Yeah right) I don't run Pugs since Delta hit other than Crystal Entity as having a mission fail within 90-120 secs and being locked out for that 1hr is no fun. Although if i hear right the "optional" for Crystal Entity is being made a auto-fail which now forces me out of pugging that mission.
A game is supposed to be fun, Ever since Delta hit with its hp sponges and constant nerfs to rewards and powers the fun is being taken out of the game.
If i were a new player starting out now as this game currently stands, without knowing how certain things work and constantly being hit with a auto-fail and no reward and a 1 hr lock out of re-running the mission, i wouldn't be hanging around for long.
The whole premise of Delta Rising is anti-gaming there's no encouragement outside pre-mades with good players with excellent ship builds to play the public queues beyond normal. Everything is being monetized, Fleet consoles, weapons, have been completely devalued in favour of an expensive R&D and upgrade system.
Whoever is currently at the helm and making these decisions needs a dam good slap. This game used to be universally friendly, encouraged casual gamers and hard core gamers, Its not anymore having multiple alts is a nightmare to get them from lvl 55-60. I won't go into the specialization trees.
Its been said before, if Cryptic lost the Star Trek i.p and have to remove all cannon ships, characters ect from the game how many would stick around.
Cryptic have a i.p that sells itself, They just don't respect it
I know having a mere 103 PI score and, some 8600 shield strength, a single sphere can sap it away by themselves.
The good thing about the massive tach beam attack is its super fast and you notice it
My counter is RSP with tac team ..that gives me 20 seconds of full shields to plan my next move I have the rsp doff so I get 8 more seconds of rsp with him
so instead of wasting your shield buffs use the rsp TT combo then follow it up with your normal shield buffsor be ready to hull tank
if your using aux to batt your rsp should be ready soon
Jellico....Engineer ground.....Da'val Romulan space Sci
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I actually enjoy the massive shield drains. Sure I die more often now, but if I am being attacked by 4 or 5 Spheres at the same time, I should be dying. It makes it a requirement to think and plan ahead before simply spamming AoE attacks.
I think you can still build ships with good defense and enough DPS to manage advanced queues (haven't played in Elite yet). Even in PUGs where we die a lot, we still succeed with time to spare in ISA.
I say we keep the new shield drain values from the Borg.
Yup all those powers do work to a degree, however how much DPS does a team have to sacrifice in order to protect itself against a op'd attack.
Cryptic have made this game about DPS, if you can't DPS in Advanced or Ellite than you are stuffed. Its all geared to beat the timer and when it requires blowing stuff up to beat that timer then DPS is required. (I'll admit the dps channels have a overkill of firepower they take into these matches)
The casual player who is not in dedicated channels who uses the public channels like a vast majority of people haven't got a chance of running these missions with success, this leads to frustration and the deserted PvE queues we now see, (Although a Senior Dev tested the queues and tried to pass it off as a reporting error, Yeah right) I don't run Pugs since Delta hit other than Crystal Entity as having a mission fail within 90-120 secs and being locked out for that 1hr is no fun. Although if i hear right the "optional" for Crystal Entity is being made a auto-fail which now forces me out of pugging that mission.
A game is supposed to be fun, Ever since Delta hit with its hp sponges and constant nerfs to rewards and powers the fun is being taken out of the game.
If i were a new player starting out now as this game currently stands, without knowing how certain things work and constantly being hit with a auto-fail and no reward and a 1 hr lock out of re-running the mission, i wouldn't be hanging around for long.
The whole premise of Delta Rising is anti-gaming there's no encouragement outside pre-mades with good players with excellent ship builds to play the public queues beyond normal. Everything is being monetized, Fleet consoles, weapons, have been completely devalued in favour of an expensive R&D and upgrade system.
Whoever is currently at the helm and making these decisions needs a dam good slap. This game used to be universally friendly, encouraged casual gamers and hard core gamers, Its not anymore having multiple alts is a nightmare to get them from lvl 55-60. I won't go into the specialization trees.
Its been said before, if Cryptic lost the Star Trek i.p and have to remove all cannon ships, characters ect from the game how many would stick around.
Cryptic have a i.p that sells itself, They just don't respect it
Since when does slotting Hazard Emitters 1 lower your DPS??? Those abilities, those tactics WORK. Not to a degree. They WORK.
What I see are a bunch of guys that are exposed with 1 dimension builds and refuse to adjust to the realities of the game.
I think you missed what I was saying, these new changes do not encourage the casual gamer to play, instant shield zap, quick death, instant fail on the attempted mission, and not to mention all those poor sods that ground out for fleet or reputation shields paid again to upgrade them to mk xiv ur or even gold to have that investment totally devalued.
I can adapt my play style I workout what powers a NPC uses and build minimal defences around that.
Pugs/ casual players don't or can't ( their weakness sure) but I just think with each hurdle they are throwing at us the more casual players they lose out of frustration with the game.
These guys are just as important as the hardcore.
Normal and advancd should be pugable with proper elite being for high end gamer.
The good thing about the massive tach beam attack is its super fast and you notice it
My counter is RSP with tac team ..that gives me 20 seconds of full shields to plan my next move I have the rsp doff so I get 8 more seconds of rsp with him
so instead of wasting your shield buffs use the rsp TT combo then follow it up with your normal shield buffsor be ready to hull tank
if your using aux to batt your rsp should be ready soon
That's pretty much what I have been having to do, as armor just isn't enough to compensate for shields being down so often.
You still don't understand, just like the others around here.
No. It seems to me that you are the one who does not understand. Hazard emitters do not counter tachyon beam, period. All it does is a hull heal, hazard cleanse (hint; tachyon beam is not a hazard) and damage resist buff. Those can help mitigate the lack of shields somewhat, but it will not stop the tachyon beam drain even if you are somehow quick enough to notice the drain and lucky enough to have the UI cooperate by actually activating when you click it.
Borg shield neut is a hazard and is thus cleared by hazard emitters, though it is such a weak drain that one might as well ignore it unless you're under the affects of half a dozen of them at once.
Tachyon beam is not a hazard and thus is not cleared by hazard emitters as it does not give a debuff. It's just a strait up shield drain
A lot of people seem to mistakenly believe tachyon beam and the Borg shield neutralizer are the same power. I don't know where they got that idea from.
warmaker clearly doesn't play this game in any way to encounter enemy NPCs and doesn't know what he's talking about. Everything he is adamantly proclaiming about the new changes sounds like it's based on 3-year-old gameplay experiences. At this point I'm inclined to ignore him as I would a troll, since he clearly isn't discussing, debating, adding anything to the topic, and is in fact spreading misinformation.
No. It seems to me that you are the one who does not understand. Hazard emitters do not counter tachyon beam, period. All it does is a hull heal, hazard cleanse (hint; tachyon beam is not a hazard) and damage resist buff. Those can help mitigate the lack of shields somewhat, but it will not stop the tachyon beam drain even if you are somehow quick enough to notice the drain and lucky enough to have the UI cooperate by actually activating when you click it.
Borg shield neut is a hazard and is thus cleared by hazard emitters, though it is such a weak drain that one might as well ignore it unless you're under the affects of half a dozen of them at once.
Tachyon beam is not a hazard and thus is not cleared by hazard emitters as it does not give a debuff. It's just a strait up shield drain
^^ Zactly!
I found it amusing to see peeps post allegedly pro-info on how to clear Tachyon Beam first. LOL.
Tachyon Beam can't be cleared, by anything. Except by saying what I've been saying all along: install Power Insulators. It's a pretty straight-forward mechanism: have enough of them, and you'll be fine; have too little, and you'll feel the sting.
No. It seems to me that you are the one who does not understand. Hazard emitters do not counter tachyon beam, period. All it does is a hull heal, hazard cleanse (hint; tachyon beam is not a hazard) and damage resist buff. Those can help mitigate the lack of shields somewhat, but it will not stop the tachyon beam drain even if you are somehow quick enough to notice the drain and lucky enough to have the UI cooperate by actually activating when you click it.
Borg shield neut is a hazard and is thus cleared by hazard emitters, though it is such a weak drain that one might as well ignore it unless you're under the affects of half a dozen of them at once.
Tachyon beam is not a hazard and thus is not cleared by hazard emitters as it does not give a debuff. It's just a strait up shield drain
Hazard Emitters does nt counter Tachyon Beam, but it can help you deal with the damage you take from your shields being down. In essence - prepare to do some more hull tanking. HE alone will probably not suffice, of course.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I found it amusing to see peeps post allegedly pro-info on how to clear Tachyon Beam first. LOL.
Tachyon Beam can't be cleared, by anything. Except by saying what I've been saying all along: install Power Insulators. It's a pretty straight-forward mechanism: have enough of them, and you'll be fine; have too little, and you'll feel the sting.
It can be shutoff with Photonic shockwave but good luck trying to pull it off.
But yeah, PI and running away work wonders. If you drop a GW you have to expect to get aggro.
Photonic shockwave? That makes me laugh. The limited range and rather terrible performance of this boff skill makes it pretty underwhelming when compared to most other choices available.
And... I have to say it... you can't counter tachyon beam, even IF there was a counter for it. Why? Because it's not DoT. There's no T in that equation. Your shields are just GONE. Period. Within a fraction of a second you are shield-less. What's the point of brushing your teeth after they've already fallen out? Okay, bad analogy. The point being you cannot (not would not, COULD NOT, physically) react fast enough to stop the drain in the short duration of its effect. On top of that, the STOPPING of the drain doesn't NEGATE the drain. The shields are gone.
Period.
They don't come back if you "cleanse" your ship, because it's not a temporary hazard. It's just an immediate effect.
The NPCs' use of tachyon beam is supremely OP right now. It needs a major fix.
Photonic shockwave? That makes me laugh. The limited range and rather terrible performance of this boff skill makes it pretty underwhelming when compared to most other choices available.
And... I have to say it... you can't counter tachyon beam, even IF there was a counter for it. Why? Because it's not DoT. There's no T in that equation. Your shields are just GONE. Period. Within a fraction of a second you are shield-less. What's the point of brushing your teeth after they've already fallen out? Okay, bad analogy. The point being you cannot (not would not, COULD NOT, physically) react fast enough to stop the drain in the short duration of its effect. On top of that, the STOPPING of the drain doesn't NEGATE the drain. The shields are gone.
Period.
They don't come back if you "cleanse" your ship, because it's not a temporary hazard. It's just an immediate effect.
The NPCs' use of tachyon beam is supremely OP right now. It needs a major fix.
The T is too short for your reaction. Whatever the wiki says, the end result is that you get 2 basic "pulses" and after the first you're at 50% shields, and after the second you are shield-less. That happens in under one second.
You cannot react to that. You realize boff skills, even if you KNEW -- if you were freaking psychic -- the precise milisecond the NPC was going to fire that skill off, you couldn't counter it. You know that boff skills have a 1-second activation time, right?
There is no counter to the latest F-up of the devs with NPCs. There have been some doozies in the past, but I think this is the biggest F-up they've made to date. That's saying something.
EDIT: And it's not just that you get 10 at once. This is happenening with just 1 or 2. It's OP even when you try to engage a solo target. It's not just borg, either. Apparently the majority of NPCs are using tachyon beam, even if undocumented.
Hell, I replayed Dust 2 Dust after the tachyon change and in the stage of the mission where alien-Kim beams up to the Samsar, and you close out that dialog box? The second I closed that out he hit me with tachyon beam and my shields dropped to 1/8th of what they were full, when the dialog box was up.
What's happening is about 10 spheres hit you, each for say -600 per pulse and your shields go in 2 or 3 seconds.
Not sure I would call it a DoT, per se; more like a continuously applied debuff (in the sense that, say, APB isn't a DoT). Anyway, not important, really.
As an Engineer, I have it easier, btw. I can just pop a MW (next to ET) at the right time.
Also, ships, and their assorted play-style, matter. Was back in my old Mobius for a few days, just for fun, and was doing the rather stationary, point-and-shoot Spiel, making me feel the sting a lot harder (but still not enough to leave me helpless) than being back on my Phantom, zipping around, with very high Defense value, hardly getting hit to begin with.
The T is too short for your reaction. Whatever the wiki says, the end result is that you get 2 basic "pulses" and after the first you're at 50% shields, and after the second you are shield-less. That happens in under one second.
You cannot react to that. You realize boff skills, even if you KNEW -- if you were freaking psychic -- the precise milisecond the NPC was going to fire that skill off, you couldn't counter it. You know that boff skills have a 1-second activation time, right?
There is no counter to the latest F-up of the devs with NPCs. There have been some doozies in the past, but I think this is the biggest F-up they've made to date. That's saying something.
Is it the biggest F-up they've made to date? Or did they do so deliberately, as an indirect means to reign in the power creep? (= Making sure ppl will need to fit consoles with PI in them). I dunno.
it's a channeled power like the vesta phaser lance or the arkif's singularity beam or even extend shields. Photonic shockwave will disrupt any channeled power, but like I said earlier, good luck getting it to work well. Your best bet is putting effort in PI and moving >10km away when aggro bombed by the spheres.
Another thing that will work is moving out of the tachyon beam arc. If you're in a zippy escort you can fly behind the spheres. That will also shut off Tachyon Beam.
Another thing that will work is moving out of the tachyon beam arc. If you're in a zippy escort you can fly behind the spheres. That will also shut off Tachyon Beam.
The tricky part of that plan is knowing which part of the sphere is the front! lol
Comments
one role for a cruiser is to tank , Most cruisers have only 2 science console slots
with DPS out of control a cruiser is pushed into the romulan embassy consoles for increased threat generation to hold agro
and + threat is only on science consoles
To hold threat and have 170 power insulators is beyond what most cruisers can do and still be able to tank effectively
Most pugs don't have high dps so the time a tank has to hold agro and tank is a LOT longer than in a premade group with high dps and coordination
That's the problem in most pugs as ive saw...hull tanking is also not a very common skill either most pugs simply cant do it and arnt skilled for it
cruiser commands are really out of date as well and are way behind in attract fire and shield reinforcement and need a buff with + threat on romulan embassy consoles needed a buff as well
when cruiser commands were introduced DPS was about 1/3rd of what it is now
I guess Geko forgot this but then most cruiser consoles and most cruiser BO powers have been forgotten for quite some time
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
My Borg Deflector has [Threat]. And you can spec into Threat Control (which I'm assuming you did; so did I, btw). But, other than that, yeah, Embassy Consoles it is.
With the Borg Deflector, for example, plus the Assimilated Coonsole, Zero-Point Energy Conduit, etc, with 6/9 in the skill, you'll get around 130 Insulators. So you'd need 1 extra Embassy Console (power insulators + threat?). Attract Fire should help too, of course,
I understand what you're saying. And I didn't particular *like* having to up my Insulators with an extra Console either, as it inevitably goes at the expense of something else. But way it is is the way it is. The crafted consoles (and, to a degree, the Embassy ones), are usually combo's with Insulators as being just one component of it, though.
Has it been that long already?
There are many ways to hull tank. If you lose your shields, Yay! That means that the enemy is actually doing something worth caring about.
My Tac/Escort can tank them, and that's with Mk XII gear and a crappy pilot.
Attack Pattern Expertise, Aux to ID, ET, HE, TSS, Borg Procs, and Samsar console.
If I can do it, anyone can. I get that there's a misplaced decimal, but seriously - it's not as if it's suddenly impossible. And if you die? So what? Did you expect to be immortal?
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
If one makes the ship good only for one aspect but does not know how to cover for a build's deficiencies, that is the end result.
Even worse when the other supposedly higher end players on the premade team don't know or will not help that other player getting hit.
Erm, yes?
6 points in PI, 1.1 shield mod and still lost shields in about 0.3 seconds flat against one sphere in a normal IS I ran.
I certainly haven't died as a result of it, but it's definitely OP the way it is right now. A buff to tachyon beam is needed and would be fine, if it wasn't to this crazy degree.
EDIT
Well, no. To be truthful it's less of a struggle and more annoying.
You still don't understand, just like the others around here.
Instead of me cutting & pasting, I'll just link a response I had for all this from here.
It's extremely easy to get past this.
Cryptic have made this game about DPS, if you can't DPS in Advanced or Ellite than you are stuffed. Its all geared to beat the timer and when it requires blowing stuff up to beat that timer then DPS is required. (I'll admit the dps channels have a overkill of firepower they take into these matches)
The casual player who is not in dedicated channels who uses the public channels like a vast majority of people haven't got a chance of running these missions with success, this leads to frustration and the deserted PvE queues we now see, (Although a Senior Dev tested the queues and tried to pass it off as a reporting error, Yeah right) I don't run Pugs since Delta hit other than Crystal Entity as having a mission fail within 90-120 secs and being locked out for that 1hr is no fun. Although if i hear right the "optional" for Crystal Entity is being made a auto-fail which now forces me out of pugging that mission.
A game is supposed to be fun, Ever since Delta hit with its hp sponges and constant nerfs to rewards and powers the fun is being taken out of the game.
If i were a new player starting out now as this game currently stands, without knowing how certain things work and constantly being hit with a auto-fail and no reward and a 1 hr lock out of re-running the mission, i wouldn't be hanging around for long.
The whole premise of Delta Rising is anti-gaming there's no encouragement outside pre-mades with good players with excellent ship builds to play the public queues beyond normal. Everything is being monetized, Fleet consoles, weapons, have been completely devalued in favour of an expensive R&D and upgrade system.
Whoever is currently at the helm and making these decisions needs a dam good slap. This game used to be universally friendly, encouraged casual gamers and hard core gamers, Its not anymore having multiple alts is a nightmare to get them from lvl 55-60. I won't go into the specialization trees.
Its been said before, if Cryptic lost the Star Trek i.p and have to remove all cannon ships, characters ect from the game how many would stick around.
Cryptic have a i.p that sells itself, They just don't respect it
The good thing about the massive tach beam attack is its super fast and you notice it
My counter is RSP with tac team ..that gives me 20 seconds of full shields to plan my next move I have the rsp doff so I get 8 more seconds of rsp with him
so instead of wasting your shield buffs use the rsp TT combo then follow it up with your normal shield buffsor be ready to hull tank
if your using aux to batt your rsp should be ready soon
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
I think you can still build ships with good defense and enough DPS to manage advanced queues (haven't played in Elite yet). Even in PUGs where we die a lot, we still succeed with time to spare in ISA.
I say we keep the new shield drain values from the Borg.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Since when does slotting Hazard Emitters 1 lower your DPS??? Those abilities, those tactics WORK. Not to a degree. They WORK.
What I see are a bunch of guys that are exposed with 1 dimension builds and refuse to adjust to the realities of the game.
I can adapt my play style I workout what powers a NPC uses and build minimal defences around that.
Pugs/ casual players don't or can't ( their weakness sure) but I just think with each hurdle they are throwing at us the more casual players they lose out of frustration with the game.
These guys are just as important as the hardcore.
Normal and advancd should be pugable with proper elite being for high end gamer.
That's pretty much what I have been having to do, as armor just isn't enough to compensate for shields being down so often.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Tachyon Beam doesn't have a hard counter skill. Hazard emitter's clears the Borg shield neutralizer, but it does nowt to tachyon beam I'm afraid.
Borg shield neut is a hazard and is thus cleared by hazard emitters, though it is such a weak drain that one might as well ignore it unless you're under the affects of half a dozen of them at once.
^^ Zactly!
I found it amusing to see peeps post allegedly pro-info on how to clear Tachyon Beam first. LOL.
Tachyon Beam can't be cleared, by anything. Except by saying what I've been saying all along: install Power Insulators. It's a pretty straight-forward mechanism: have enough of them, and you'll be fine; have too little, and you'll feel the sting.
Hazard Emitters does nt counter Tachyon Beam, but it can help you deal with the damage you take from your shields being down. In essence - prepare to do some more hull tanking. HE alone will probably not suffice, of course.
It can be shutoff with Photonic shockwave but good luck trying to pull it off.
But yeah, PI and running away work wonders. If you drop a GW you have to expect to get aggro.
Interesting bit about the Photonic Shockwave. Didn't know that.
And... I have to say it... you can't counter tachyon beam, even IF there was a counter for it. Why? Because it's not DoT. There's no T in that equation. Your shields are just GONE. Period. Within a fraction of a second you are shield-less. What's the point of brushing your teeth after they've already fallen out? Okay, bad analogy. The point being you cannot (not would not, COULD NOT, physically) react fast enough to stop the drain in the short duration of its effect. On top of that, the STOPPING of the drain doesn't NEGATE the drain. The shields are gone.
Period.
They don't come back if you "cleanse" your ship, because it's not a temporary hazard. It's just an immediate effect.
The NPCs' use of tachyon beam is supremely OP right now. It needs a major fix.
Anything that breaks target lock/placates, pretty much. Getting out of firing arc, too.
It is a dot.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_Tachyon_Beam
What's happening is about 10 spheres hit you, each for say -600 per pulse and your shields go in 2 or 3 seconds.
You cannot react to that. You realize boff skills, even if you KNEW -- if you were freaking psychic -- the precise milisecond the NPC was going to fire that skill off, you couldn't counter it. You know that boff skills have a 1-second activation time, right?
There is no counter to the latest F-up of the devs with NPCs. There have been some doozies in the past, but I think this is the biggest F-up they've made to date. That's saying something.
EDIT: And it's not just that you get 10 at once. This is happenening with just 1 or 2. It's OP even when you try to engage a solo target. It's not just borg, either. Apparently the majority of NPCs are using tachyon beam, even if undocumented.
Hell, I replayed Dust 2 Dust after the tachyon change and in the stage of the mission where alien-Kim beams up to the Samsar, and you close out that dialog box? The second I closed that out he hit me with tachyon beam and my shields dropped to 1/8th of what they were full, when the dialog box was up.
Not sure I would call it a DoT, per se; more like a continuously applied debuff (in the sense that, say, APB isn't a DoT). Anyway, not important, really.
As an Engineer, I have it easier, btw. I can just pop a MW (next to ET) at the right time.
Also, ships, and their assorted play-style, matter. Was back in my old Mobius for a few days, just for fun, and was doing the rather stationary, point-and-shoot Spiel, making me feel the sting a lot harder (but still not enough to leave me helpless) than being back on my Phantom, zipping around, with very high Defense value, hardly getting hit to begin with.
Is it the biggest F-up they've made to date? Or did they do so deliberately, as an indirect means to reign in the power creep? (= Making sure ppl will need to fit consoles with PI in them). I dunno.
Another thing that will work is moving out of the tachyon beam arc. If you're in a zippy escort you can fly behind the spheres. That will also shut off Tachyon Beam.
The tricky part of that plan is knowing which part of the sphere is the front! lol
I LOL-ed.