My thinking, most people ignored the power insulators skill and are now paying the price. If that is the problem, then, bravo devs.
I hope they buff the drain from Voth Tyken's and Breen Energy Siphons also. Seems that teaches a lesson to the Kirk FAW boys about doing more than pressing the spacebar.
This explains why my drain boat did so well today. I have 135 PI and high flow caps. I was draining the spheres completely with Tyken's 3 and getting hit by their "Souped up Tachyon Beam" but remaining alive and well in ISA.
Seems drain boats finally got a worthwhile role. Keeping the spheres shield drain at bay.
My thinking, most people ignored the power insulators skill and are now paying the price. If that is the problem, then, bravo devs.
I hope they buff the drain from Voth Tyken's and Breen Energy Siphons also. Seems that teaches a lesson to the Kirk FAW boys about doing more than pressing the spacebar.
I put 3 points there, for shield drains and Nadian Inversion. It is making 0 difference.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
"Invest" all you want it doesn't matter. 24k facings will be gone in 2 secs. So... makes the borg Billly Bad *ss again, cool we will adapt. :cool:
Then Hazard Emitters is more important than ever. Oh lookie! All Hands on Deck helps that ability also! How nice of Cryptic to make that trait available! :P
Also, the very old full Borg Space Set will be nice for the Omega STFs/Borg Space Content. The shields have Plasma Resist and the 2 and 3 piece bonus will be great. Most esp the 3 piece bonus that puts a high shield regen/heal and clears hazards over a course of time.
I'm glad to hear this skill is of use in PvP. I'm concerned about it's state in PvE, though - the borg already had strong shield drains before, and what I'd ballpark from your numbers as a 2.5x increase has become incredibly painful.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Not specced into Power Insulators, don't make me laugh! I've got about 150 points in Power Insulators and all that means is it takes a fraction of a second (literally) longer for the Tachyon Beam to drain my shield than if I had 0 points.
I'm glad to hear this skill is of use in PvP. I'm concerned about it's state in PvE, though - the borg already had strong shield drains before, and what I'd ballpark from your numbers as a 2.5x increase has become incredibly painful.
I'm glad to hear this skill is of use in PvP. I'm concerned about it's state in PvE, though - the borg already had strong shield drains before, and what I'd ballpark from your numbers as a 2.5x increase has become incredibly painful.
I've already resorted to slotting one of them fancy crafted Sci consoles with extra power insulators. My shields went a wee too fast for my taste, where even EPtS doesn't really do much. And I'm usually sitting at a heretofore comfortable ~130 power insulators.
I can still survive. But I dread to see what the Voth will do in Elites.
P.S. @Cryptic: It's not really a buff when you give with your right hand, but take away with your left.
I'm going to be frank to the people complaining, going full ridiculous DPS isn't going to save your shields.
Embassy shield repairing consoles
R&D Science console
Power insulators
Traits and abilities that help with shields
Higher shield power and more alive crew.
That will help.
I've done two ISAs with my crappy 8.5K variant of my drain build and my shields did fine both times.
If you adjust your build AWAY from your 30-50K DPS builds, your shields will do fine. Those [Pla] embassy consoles instead of the shield repair ones aren't doing you any favors. My ship ran two ISAs and its shields did fine.
I think now cuz of the Kobali set has such strong healing abilities, they had to buff enemies
Playing ISA was brutal last night after the update... earlier in the day I was protected pretty well then at night Borg were zapping my shields away in 1 or 2 hits like crazy
6 points in Power Insulators (84 pts) + Assimilated Deflector (+26.2pts, so a grand total of 110.2 pts ) and you got almost half drain reduction guys, pay attention to your skill trees
If you adjust your build AWAY from your 30-50K DPS builds, your shields will do fine.
I think I said that's what I just did.
Those [Pla] embassy consoles instead of the shield repair ones aren't doing you any favors. My ship ran two ISAs and its shields did fine.
I've not been doping to begin with. I have my trusted Tachyo, Zero-Point, Assimilated Console, Bio-neural Infusion Circuits, Leech, etc. Who has room for all that soon-to-get-nerfed-anyway doping sh*t?! :P
Another hint, tachyon beam's effectiveness depends on Aux power. Maybe throwing a Tyken's (with aftershocks doff) over to that mob will help because frankly, they do almost nothing to me.
Funny how we went from "PvP is responsible for all nerfs" to "PvE heroes want a nerf" from one week to the next.
If you adjust your build AWAY from your 30-50K DPS builds, your shields will do fine. Those [Pla] embassy consoles instead of the shield repair ones aren't doing you any favors. My ship ran two ISAs and its shields did fine.
Great. Unlike you, I actually pull threat in PvE. And ShH and HuH were worthless procs compared to Pla even pre-dr.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
I'm going to be frank to the people complaining, going full ridiculous DPS isn't going to save your shields.
Embassy shield repairing consoles
R&D Science console
Power insulators
Traits and abilities that help with shields
Higher shield power and more alive crew.
That will help.
I've done two ISAs with my crappy 8.5K variant of my drain build and my shields did fine both times.
I'm going to be frank with you, when a ship that three days ago tanked HSE with no problems is having issues in ISA today, there's a bit of an issue.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Great. Unlike you, I actually pull threat in PvE. And ShH and HuH were worthless procs compared to Pla even pre-dr.
If you need the consoles for their main function, great! But their proc is as useful as the proc on, say, Elite Phasers. Well, maybe a little better; but nothing beats just adding insulators, one way or the other (Deflector, crafted Consoles, etc).
I've not pugged ISA since the recent TB change and I just did a couple of 30-50k runs where I didn't really notice such a huge TB buff ... I used to perhaps die when bfawing and taking aggro from everything before, I use to perhaps die now in the same phase and the biggest threat is not the TB but my clumsiness flying towards exploding targets lol ... so, no big change and I have just 3 points in power insulator ( Pve Dps space toon).
However, I'll know better doing more runs ... anyway , just a "noob" question : do you guys use the Dyson shield?
I've not pugged ISA since the recent TB change and I just did a couple of 30-50k runs where I didn't really notice such a huge TB buff ... I used to perhaps die when bfawing and taking aggro from everything before, I use to perhaps die now in the same phase and the biggest threat is not the TB but my clumsiness flying towards exploding targets lol ... so, no big change and I have just 3 points in power insulator ( Pve Dps space toon).
However, I'll know better doing more runs ... anyway , just a "noob" question : do you guys use the Dyson shield?
I get the feeling that if you're running with that sort of player, everything is dead before it can particularly drain you. Its more the people in the 10-20k range that are probably going to feel this the most. Below 10k it was probably a challenge anyways so its just one more thing. Above 20-25k things are still dead quite quickly. But in the middle is likely where you'll find the people that two days ago where shield-tanking just fine, but today are being rudely surprised. I'm not in the DPS channels (I don't want to associate with them), but my guess is that asking around the 10k channel you'd get a different response.
(And for the record, 6 points in PI on all my characters, plus whatever comes on their deflector. I hate being vulnerable )
My experience has been the opposite of that. I don't run any other content, haven't been to Ker'rat in over a month - haven't done a Red Alert since Sep/Oct of last year, where I would have experienced the particular visual FX and disappearing of shields unless it were from the BSN. The don't bother with shield heals at certain points until after dropping out the HE...tends to be that combo while fighting the Spheres near the Gateway or Gate/Tac Cube combo - HE/RSP. I don't HE for Plasma since I don't remember the last time the Plasma DoTs were any kind of a threat...it's HE to be able to get shields back up for the torp spammage. Could it be a thing I see cause my ISA runs (public queue only) usually take 9-12 minutes or so...where I'm usually pulling 50-80% of the attacks in?
I haven't noticed anything different in ISA runs since the maintenance yesterday. Back on Jan 18th, I reported a "wtf where did my shields go issue?" that started for me...which looked to be tied into Attack Pattern Expertise while running Pattern Recognition - which I noticed in bouncing from the Sarr Theln to the Apex to chill - that I didn't see in the Benthan or any other boats, but that I soon started to see regardless of the ship I was in (Sarr Theln, Apex, Benthan, Hazari, APU, MUHCR, etc, etc, etc). So I adapted my builds/rotations/activations to deal with that...which might explain why "today" is no different than "yesterday" for me. I'm not seeing my shields drop any faster than usual, because I'm used to my shields dropping in a certain period of time since that "wtf?" moment back in the middle of Jan.
Hrmmm, my last run earlier today...for me it was the normal fight of shields/no shields, took 55.4% of the attacks...the next guy that took 23.9% of the attacks had no issue with his shields...the third guy with 18.7% of the attacks was almost always shieldless. The other two guys barely combined for 2% of the attacks and if their paint was even scratched wouldn't have noticed. Nobody died...Hell, nobody came anywhere near dying. It was an 11 minute 20 second run. For the group it was 3,478,879 damage in (10,254,891 base) and 4,288,474 heal out (2,379,214 hull / 1,909,259 shield). Tachyon's not going to be written to the log, so there's no way to track what's going on there.
Not going to try to argue with folks experiencing anything, have a good idea that a bunch of folks are having those "wtf where did my shields go?" moments...it's just a case I started having that a month ago and adjusted my builds to reflect that - so I'm not seeing/feeling any difference between before/after maintenance yesterday.
T6 intrepid here with 17k strenght resilient shields, specced into insulators..... shields drop like 1 second flat in ISA... repeatedly.
No matter what i do its just impossible to keep them up for more than a few seconds, and this is a ship that has 3-4 different shield heals and Boff cooldown reducing gear and boff powers, so I can spam them, and I still can't keep them up.
I'm in a Samsar, sporting the Kobali shields, with ~13.4k capacity, and the following shield related abilities/gearing.
Emergency Power to Shields III
Reverse Shield Polarity I
Science Team I
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator
Science Fleet III
Rally Point Marker II
VR SDO(BFI)
VR DLS(ST)
VR WCE(Cleanse)
Kobali Engine Shield/Hull Heal CD Reduction
Kobali Shield Capacitor
Conductive RCS [ShHP] Hull Heal -> Shield Damage Reduction / +25% Shield Capacity
Exotic Particle Field Exciter +25% Shield Capacity
Attack Patter Beta I (Attack Pattern Expertise II)
Boost Morale II
Predictive Algorithms
Positive Feedback Loop
T6 intrepid here with 17k strenght resilient shields, specced into insulators..... shields drop like 1 second flat in ISA... repeatedly.
No matter what i do its just impossible to keep them up for more than a few seconds, and this is a ship that has 3-4 different shield heals and Boff cooldown reducing gear and boff powers, so I can spam them, and I still can't keep them up.
They should put back EPTE on spheres and maybe add TT on them as well, then wait on someone to open a thread where they ask why are there not much more SCIs in queues, as opposite of those that told that SCI guy that he should BFAW DPS or go away from advanced queues.
They should put back EPTE on spheres and maybe add TT on them as well, then wait on someone to open a thread where they ask why are there not much more SCIs in queues, as opposite of those that told that SCI guy that he should BFAW DPS or go away from advanced queues.
Yup, sci captains playing pure sci in STFs are always frowned upon. I'd be perfectly fine if they did both of those.
FYI - The spheres do still use EPtE, but it was nerfed compared to the payers version in terms of length.
Now I would have loved this over just giving the enemy huge hp pools. This involves more than just pushing the same button to get high DPS. Though, since they didn't come out with the command ships then, they had no need to make TB useful till now.
But, one of the things I found out a long time ago is that PI never really did much to affect the shield drain ability. I had characters with it maxed, with only 6 points in it, and ones with none in it. They all were affected the same.
The best thing in PVE/STFs is to just have one or more copies of HE handy just to pop when you get hit with a shield drain. And if you are running a cruiser, just present another shield facing, and keep killing. For escorts, you can run beam arrays, and do the same as cruisers with more speed to keep your defense up higher.
But adjusting Boff skills to make enemies a challenge is far better than just increasing their hp pool. It makes you have to change your strategy, instead of just upgrading weapons, and doing more DPS.
I approve of this. It is actually the best game play improvement since before DR or the upgrade Dil sink. (The new Boff system would be ranked close to it, but it needs to work right first. Then it will be a tie).
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Not specced into Power Insulators, don't make me laugh! I've got about 150 points in Power Insulators and all that means is it takes a fraction of a second (literally) longer for the Tachyon Beam to drain my shield than if I had 0 points.
So what are you going to do about it??? :(:( some more?
The ways to resist it are there. The immediate action to take to STOP the drain is there. Or are you angry that you actually have to worry about your hull resists now? Are you angry that you have to take an immediate action against a serious danger and not just faceroll it?
Resist it? BS. The NPCs cheat, period. The fact that there's no drain -- it's just GONE, is also BS. You can't prepare for or recover from it. You just are defenseless. End of story.
On top of that, not EVERY SHIP should have tachyon beam. It's not a standard loadout. On top of THAT glaring BS-ness, you have 20+ ships firing it all at once while you only have 1 HE and maybe 2 shield heals if you're lucky.
This is a major "TRIBBLE you!" to the players. It was presented under the guise of making it more useful for players. Bullflop. It was a major middle finger when all is said and done.
This is a major "TRIBBLE you!" to the players. It was presented under the guise of making it more useful for players. Bullflop. It was a major middle finger when all is said and done.
As is usually the case.
I have a feeling this was an underhanded attempt to make the Kobali Cruiser and the Command Ships, with their better defensive and support capabilities, look more appealing to those who were on the fence about grinding for/spending money on them.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
Comments
I hope they buff the drain from Voth Tyken's and Breen Energy Siphons also. Seems that teaches a lesson to the Kirk FAW boys about doing more than pressing the spacebar.
Seems drain boats finally got a worthwhile role. Keeping the spheres shield drain at bay.
I put 3 points there, for shield drains and Nadian Inversion. It is making 0 difference.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Then Hazard Emitters is more important than ever. Oh lookie! All Hands on Deck helps that ability also! How nice of Cryptic to make that trait available! :P
Also, the very old full Borg Space Set will be nice for the Omega STFs/Borg Space Content. The shields have Plasma Resist and the 2 and 3 piece bonus will be great. Most esp the 3 piece bonus that puts a high shield regen/heal and clears hazards over a course of time.
135 PI will be the new normal, lol. (50% drain resistance)
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I've already resorted to slotting one of them fancy crafted Sci consoles with extra power insulators. My shields went a wee too fast for my taste, where even EPtS doesn't really do much. And I'm usually sitting at a heretofore comfortable ~130 power insulators.
I can still survive. But I dread to see what the Voth will do in Elites.
P.S. @Cryptic: It's not really a buff when you give with your right hand, but take away with your left.
Embassy shield repairing consoles
R&D Science console
Power insulators
Traits and abilities that help with shields
Higher shield power and more alive crew.
That will help.
I've done two ISAs with my crappy 8.5K variant of my drain build and my shields did fine both times.
Playing ISA was brutal last night after the update... earlier in the day I was protected pretty well then at night Borg were zapping my shields away in 1 or 2 hits like crazy
I think I said that's what I just did.
I've not been doping to begin with. I have my trusted Tachyo, Zero-Point, Assimilated Console, Bio-neural Infusion Circuits, Leech, etc. Who has room for all that soon-to-get-nerfed-anyway doping sh*t?! :P
Funny how we went from "PvP is responsible for all nerfs" to "PvE heroes want a nerf" from one week to the next.
Great. Unlike you, I actually pull threat in PvE. And ShH and HuH were worthless procs compared to Pla even pre-dr.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
I'm going to be frank with you, when a ship that three days ago tanked HSE with no problems is having issues in ISA today, there's a bit of an issue.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
If you need the consoles for their main function, great! But their proc is as useful as the proc on, say, Elite Phasers.
However, I'll know better doing more runs ... anyway , just a "noob" question : do you guys use the Dyson shield?
I get the feeling that if you're running with that sort of player, everything is dead before it can particularly drain you. Its more the people in the 10-20k range that are probably going to feel this the most. Below 10k it was probably a challenge anyways so its just one more thing. Above 20-25k things are still dead quite quickly. But in the middle is likely where you'll find the people that two days ago where shield-tanking just fine, but today are being rudely surprised. I'm not in the DPS channels (I don't want to associate with them), but my guess is that asking around the 10k channel you'd get a different response.
(And for the record, 6 points in PI on all my characters, plus whatever comes on their deflector. I hate being vulnerable
My experience has been the opposite of that. I don't run any other content, haven't been to Ker'rat in over a month - haven't done a Red Alert since Sep/Oct of last year, where I would have experienced the particular visual FX and disappearing of shields unless it were from the BSN. The don't bother with shield heals at certain points until after dropping out the HE...tends to be that combo while fighting the Spheres near the Gateway or Gate/Tac Cube combo - HE/RSP. I don't HE for Plasma since I don't remember the last time the Plasma DoTs were any kind of a threat...it's HE to be able to get shields back up for the torp spammage. Could it be a thing I see cause my ISA runs (public queue only) usually take 9-12 minutes or so...where I'm usually pulling 50-80% of the attacks in?
I haven't noticed anything different in ISA runs since the maintenance yesterday. Back on Jan 18th, I reported a "wtf where did my shields go issue?" that started for me...which looked to be tied into Attack Pattern Expertise while running Pattern Recognition - which I noticed in bouncing from the Sarr Theln to the Apex to chill - that I didn't see in the Benthan or any other boats, but that I soon started to see regardless of the ship I was in (Sarr Theln, Apex, Benthan, Hazari, APU, MUHCR, etc, etc, etc). So I adapted my builds/rotations/activations to deal with that...which might explain why "today" is no different than "yesterday" for me. I'm not seeing my shields drop any faster than usual, because I'm used to my shields dropping in a certain period of time since that "wtf?" moment back in the middle of Jan.
Hrmmm, my last run earlier today...for me it was the normal fight of shields/no shields, took 55.4% of the attacks...the next guy that took 23.9% of the attacks had no issue with his shields...the third guy with 18.7% of the attacks was almost always shieldless. The other two guys barely combined for 2% of the attacks and if their paint was even scratched wouldn't have noticed. Nobody died...Hell, nobody came anywhere near dying. It was an 11 minute 20 second run. For the group it was 3,478,879 damage in (10,254,891 base) and 4,288,474 heal out (2,379,214 hull / 1,909,259 shield). Tachyon's not going to be written to the log, so there's no way to track what's going on there.
Not going to try to argue with folks experiencing anything, have a good idea that a bunch of folks are having those "wtf where did my shields go?" moments...it's just a case I started having that a month ago and adjusted my builds to reflect that - so I'm not seeing/feeling any difference between before/after maintenance yesterday.
BTW, I'm still just sporting the 8 PI for 94...
I'm in a Samsar, sporting the Kobali shields, with ~13.4k capacity, and the following shield related abilities/gearing.
Emergency Power to Shields III
Reverse Shield Polarity I
Science Team I
Bio-Molecular Shield Generator
Science Fleet III
Rally Point Marker II
VR SDO(BFI)
VR DLS(ST)
VR WCE(Cleanse)
Kobali Engine Shield/Hull Heal CD Reduction
Kobali Shield Capacitor
Conductive RCS [ShHP] Hull Heal -> Shield Damage Reduction / +25% Shield Capacity
Exotic Particle Field Exciter +25% Shield Capacity
Attack Patter Beta I (Attack Pattern Expertise II)
Boost Morale II
Predictive Algorithms
Positive Feedback Loop
No matter what i do its just impossible to keep them up for more than a few seconds, and this is a ship that has 3-4 different shield heals and Boff cooldown reducing gear and boff powers, so I can spam them, and I still can't keep them up.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
Yup, sci captains playing pure sci in STFs are always frowned upon. I'd be perfectly fine if they did both of those.
FYI - The spheres do still use EPtE, but it was nerfed compared to the payers version in terms of length.
Now I would have loved this over just giving the enemy huge hp pools. This involves more than just pushing the same button to get high DPS. Though, since they didn't come out with the command ships then, they had no need to make TB useful till now.
But, one of the things I found out a long time ago is that PI never really did much to affect the shield drain ability. I had characters with it maxed, with only 6 points in it, and ones with none in it. They all were affected the same.
The best thing in PVE/STFs is to just have one or more copies of HE handy just to pop when you get hit with a shield drain. And if you are running a cruiser, just present another shield facing, and keep killing. For escorts, you can run beam arrays, and do the same as cruisers with more speed to keep your defense up higher.
But adjusting Boff skills to make enemies a challenge is far better than just increasing their hp pool. It makes you have to change your strategy, instead of just upgrading weapons, and doing more DPS.
I approve of this. It is actually the best game play improvement since before DR or the upgrade Dil sink. (The new Boff system would be ranked close to it, but it needs to work right first. Then it will be a tie).
So what are you going to do about it???
The ways to resist it are there. The immediate action to take to STOP the drain is there. Or are you angry that you actually have to worry about your hull resists now? Are you angry that you have to take an immediate action against a serious danger and not just faceroll it?
On top of that, not EVERY SHIP should have tachyon beam. It's not a standard loadout. On top of THAT glaring BS-ness, you have 20+ ships firing it all at once while you only have 1 HE and maybe 2 shield heals if you're lucky.
This is a major "TRIBBLE you!" to the players. It was presented under the guise of making it more useful for players. Bullflop. It was a major middle finger when all is said and done.
As is usually the case.
I have a feeling this was an underhanded attempt to make the Kobali Cruiser and the Command Ships, with their better defensive and support capabilities, look more appealing to those who were on the fence about grinding for/spending money on them.