After having failed an ISA pug multiple times now because someone blew up a generator before the cube was down, I decided to make a post here, hoping that at least some people will see it and reconsider their tactics.
DO NOT use beam Fire at will near the generators. Unless you can destroy everything with it in a few seconds or if there's some very high DPS guy who can still take out the transformer before the nanite spheres arrive.
If you are, or anyone else is unable to do that, CHECK YOUR FIRE. It shouldn't be that difficult to understand that if there's targets nearby that can die very fast and you don't want them to die yet, you shouldn't be using tactical abilities that shoot everything, including those generators.
How do you know if there's someone on your team who can take out everything fast enough for FAW to work? That's what the first battle against the tactical cube and the four spheres is for. Use that fight to estimate your team's fire power.
In a game where most people play tactical officers, I would expect a bit more tactical thinking. But I think this is just another example that proves that most 'tactical' officers should simply be called 'soldiers' or something like that, who can pew pew a lot but are apparantly unable to even understand basic tactics.
a lot of people have bfaw on there spacebar , its all they got with a beam boat they think
BO is next to useless in PvE so they figure bfaw its my attack so spam it !
TS3 isn't very nice to the generators either
if I am lucky and have a few fleet members on the team we dive to the generators and ignor the cube and take down the transformer
in a 4 man pug..................meh about to get another fail unless a grav well is used to stop the approaching nanite spheres
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Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
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TBH I usually ignore the cube totally and focus on the generators then the transformer. The Cube and Sphere's don't do enough damage in Advanced to overwhelm a ship with the Kobali set on so no big issue there. Once the transformer is down I focus on mop up. repeat for second though position oneself away from the gate unless you have epic tank skills until ready to take it on (staying just outside 10K is best as it minimises time delay between combat).
20K for completion is about right, though it's incredibly tight without a grav well in there somewhere. Only failure I've had recently was from a pair of noobs in Scimitars. I was running an Alt in an Eclipse and they were only parsing around 1-2K each. The rest were good, but the Scimi's seemed to be stoned or something as they just flew into trouble and died. 3 times before the first transformer and eventually the Sphere's healed it
Chris Robert's on SC:
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
BFAW rarely rarely ever blows a gen unless an idiot has focus fired it down first. They have a lot of hit points. Idiots focus fire them first for some reason.
Guy above me is one of those idiots. He has no idea why he focuses on the gens, maybe because they can't shoot back.
Just bring GW and TBR. You will never get the pug to stop firing at will or indeed doing anything that they want to do. Should be plenty for an 8000 dps group (a very common result).
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The correct and current tactic for ISA (and KSA) is to go for the Gens right away, destroy them as quickly as possible and then take out the Transformer. tac captains should use FOMM on the trans, and scie captains should use sensor scan, science ships should use sensor analysis on it.
The Cube above the transformer will die fairly quickly to the secondary fire of FAW so just ignore it.
BFAW rarely rarely ever blows a gen unless an idiot has focus fired it down first. They have a lot of hit points. Idiots focus fire them first for some reason.
Guy above me is one of those idiots. He has no idea why he focuses on the gens, maybe because they can't shoot back.
Some dinosaurs still use the 10% rule. Times change, the games moves on, and new more efficient tactics are used.
Just be ready for the worst. Even a decent team can have problems. Murphey's Law is not alien to STO.
Bring along a Sci with GW and TR or better TR-Vacuum mode. More than once we have seen a stray pet get to the right and cause a nightmare. More than once, a quick Sci or even a non-Sci that has a GW slotted has saved the mission with CC. As someone said above, forget the cube in a pinch. Don't worry. He will gladly wait for you. If you are on a lower DPS team, check your ego on the right side. Just because you smoked the left doesn't mean you will smoke the right so don't get all Leroy Jenkins and pop things too fast. If you have a CC guy and his stuff is still on CD, it's not gonna stop the spheres.
Popping the cube makes it easier because the cube don't pop you but the cube is a tertiary, if brutish at times, target. I say tertiary because once those sphere come out, if that side isn't close to coming down, they trump the cube yet again. Of course, this is a worst case scenarios but if you are ready for it, you can pull it out of the gutter and win it.
If you see someone shooting one and not shooting another, change. Don't wait for them to realize it. If they change too, change back. If you are not with friends or in TS/Vent/Whatever, chances are anything said in chat won't be seen. Don't depend on it. Pretend everyone is deaf and you move to whatever is not being done.
Toss out a decoy. Let an aceton assimilator aggro things. I don't suggest photonic fleet as per paragraph one. Seriously, Scis (myself included), don't use it on the first side - at all. Same for fleet support. They can and do run amok like zombie monkeys. If they don't make a mess, they often just shoot the gate until it kills them anyway.
Carrier guys, check your pets. Pretty self-explanatory.
FAW is not such a bad thing but losing awareness is. Keep an eye on what is going on behind you. It can save the day.
That initial engagement, and knowing in your gut that it should be finished already - but it's not. That being halfway to the Trans and nobody's there with you...is a good out of combat time to make some adjustments to the build based on what's likely to happen, etc, etc, etc.
Lots of folks will go in doing the...this is what we always do...and well, yeah - heh, like you said; all sorts of stuff can go wrong. Folks need to try to kind of pay attention to what's going on around them and try to adjust to that.
Course, if somebody can solo the run and just needed four warm bodies to get it started...have at it...right? But for the random group from a public queue...
The correct and current tactic for ISA (and KSA) is to go for the Gens right away, destroy them as quickly as possible and then take out the Transformer. tac captains should use FOMM on the trans, and scie captains should use sensor scan, science ships should use sensor analysis on it.
The Cube above the transformer will die fairly quickly to the secondary fire of FAW so just ignore it.
So, what if it is a group of all escorts?
Or, maybe all sci vessels?
Could even be all cruisers or, maybe a group of all Tacs, hmmm?
I think this is probably the 1 time, I would have to say your advise isn't the best!
The correct and current tactic for ISA (and KSA) is to go for the Gens right away, destroy them as quickly as possible and then take out the Transformer. tac captains should use FOMM on the trans, and scie captains should use sensor scan, science ships should use sensor analysis on it.
The Cube above the transformer will die fairly quickly to the secondary fire of FAW so just ignore it.
This is correct tactic for DPS channel run. You can't expect cube to die so easily in pugs. (Well, probably you can, but most players can't.)
This has less to do with FAW and more to do with an idiot that wanted to blow you the generators before the Cube. I have seen this multiple times, and it really pisses me off also.
So kill the generators first, then. The cube is not a mission objective.
Attacking the transformer first is only a problem if the rest of the team doesn't follow.
BFAW rarely rarely ever blows a gen unless an idiot has focus fired it down first. They have a lot of hit points. Idiots focus fire them first for some reason.
Guy above me is one of those idiots. He has no idea why he focuses on the gens, maybe because they can't shoot back.
Ignore this guy and look at what sarcasmdetector has written at the bottom of page 1. This guy doesn't know what he's on about sadly.
In a game where most people play tactical officers, I would expect a bit more tactical thinking. But I think this is just another example that proves that most 'tactical' officers should simply be called 'soldiers' or something like that, who can pew pew a lot but are apparantly unable to even understand basic tactics.
In a game where it's so easy to roflstomp all the 'advanced' and 'elite' content, I would expect a bit less crying. But I think this is just another example that proves that most of the player base doesn't actually understand anything about the games mechanics, and can't be bothered to try and learn.
If you're going to queue for a PuG, maybe expect that there are newbies or casuals who either haven't done ISAdvanced yet until that point or who may not be up to speed on what the newer tactics are?
Maybe just say in group chat: Skip the cube. Gens + Trans first.
I know typing that up may put a small dent in the almighty parse, but it could help put the rest of the team on the same page and save the entire group from an hour-long cooldown. And it might even bring said players up to speed on the newer tactics so that less PuGs would have this problem.
An extremely weak group has to take down the cube with single target fire, then take out the generators at the same time. That's an extremely weak group though. If they're having to worry about it at all.. they've got bigger problems.
A single decent player can simply park near the cube, hit FAW.. and all the generators are going to die. They're extremely weak (not sure what game the guy that said they've got a ton of HP is playing..). In all honesty, a single good player can practically take down the transformer before the nanites arrive, as in your average pug any "good" players are generally doing so much damage compared to the rest of the team that the additional damage they're contributing is fairly negligible.
You know there is that emission plasma torp on the exchange for 2 mil or so, right? That one that drops a plasma cloud that slows down ships? With every hit?
Yeah. Go get that. Solves 1000% of all pugging problems in advanced borg stfs.
I haven't done IS in awhile. So the strategy is no longer center patrols - left - right - tac cube - gate?
Yes, not all of us got the memo
It's still center patrol, left, right....beyond that it might vary with the group. If the tanking is going ok, they might just hit the tac cube last (usually no, though, it's almost always gate goes last).
The 10% thing has been dead for a while in pugs. No problem with me, those clusters always go down in time.
It's still center patrol, left, right....beyond that it might vary with the group. If the tanking is going ok, they might just hit the tac cube last (usually no, though, it's almost always gate goes last).
The 10% thing has been dead for a while in pugs. No problem with me, those clusters always go down in time.
Hrmm, I'm trying to think of a single ISE/ISA where it wasn't Gate then Tac Cube...with the Gate being far more deadly than the Tac Cube. That Gate burn could slaughter somebody without a HE ready while the Tac Cube's basically just been a meatshield. One of those pull the Tac Cube over by the Gate so that as you're burning the Gate down, any AoE damage could also affect the Tac Cube for prettier parsing numbers.
Hrmm, I'm trying to think of a single ISE/ISA where it wasn't Gate then Tac Cube...with the Gate being far more deadly than the Tac Cube. That Gate burn could slaughter somebody without a HE ready while the Tac Cube's basically just been a meatshield.
There's plenty of time to take down the gate while the cube is being slow and stupid.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
A group of Sci will have enough TBR and GW to hold off the Spheres as long as necessary between them.
A group of Escorts or Cruisers will have enough damage to take out what they need.
Yes but, the strategy can vary greatly depending on the team.
All sci vessels might go for CC, with no1 actually attacking the transformer, why?
Because I have seen it happen.
All escorts bombarding the transformer, leaving the cube + sphere intact, out pops several more spheres, watch as escorts become possibly overrun and pop themselves, leaving the nanite spheres possibly adequate time to get there since no 1 has CC.
I don't mean to discredit sarcasm's strategy, because it can and does work but, it will always depend on the strengths/weaknesses of the team and, shouldn't be the only advise as a strategy.
to be honest, I'm one of those that spams FAW when I get to the cube. However, I always make sure I'm much more than 10 km away from the transformers and generators before I do it, so that all I hit is the cube and the spheres that appear. I have noticed people not doing that, however, and end up bringing down all sorts of fail.
Good post OP I feel you. This problem is mostly surfacing in mixed teams of course and not at all limited to FAW. A few years ago we had a 10% rule. Think many have just become spoiled by their own build or by running with high DPS groups and forget that this rule was there for a reason.
Another problem I have noticed there is that only few tend to the generator after the nanites are destroyed. In my opinion, aside from donating a grav well to the incoming folk of spheres, todays STF kids should focus a bit more on the simple mission objectives. Unfortunately few seem to do.
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And I would expect at least 20k as the average dps (calculated from all players). Unfortunately the world is not that simple.
BO is next to useless in PvE so they figure bfaw its my attack so spam it !
TS3 isn't very nice to the generators either
if I am lucky and have a few fleet members on the team we dive to the generators and ignor the cube and take down the transformer
in a 4 man pug..................meh about to get another fail unless a grav well is used to stop the approaching nanite spheres
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
20K for completion is about right, though it's incredibly tight without a grav well in there somewhere. Only failure I've had recently was from a pair of noobs in Scimitars. I was running an Alt in an Eclipse and they were only parsing around 1-2K each. The rest were good, but the Scimi's seemed to be stoned or something as they just flew into trouble and died. 3 times before the first transformer and eventually the Sphere's healed it
"You don't have to do something again and again and again repetitive that doesn't have much challange, that's just a general good gameplay thing."
Guy above me is one of those idiots. He has no idea why he focuses on the gens, maybe because they can't shoot back.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The Cube above the transformer will die fairly quickly to the secondary fire of FAW so just ignore it.
Some dinosaurs still use the 10% rule. Times change, the games moves on, and new more efficient tactics are used.
Bring along a Sci with GW and TR or better TR-Vacuum mode. More than once we have seen a stray pet get to the right and cause a nightmare. More than once, a quick Sci or even a non-Sci that has a GW slotted has saved the mission with CC. As someone said above, forget the cube in a pinch. Don't worry. He will gladly wait for you. If you are on a lower DPS team, check your ego on the right side. Just because you smoked the left doesn't mean you will smoke the right so don't get all Leroy Jenkins and pop things too fast. If you have a CC guy and his stuff is still on CD, it's not gonna stop the spheres.
Popping the cube makes it easier because the cube don't pop you but the cube is a tertiary, if brutish at times, target. I say tertiary because once those sphere come out, if that side isn't close to coming down, they trump the cube yet again. Of course, this is a worst case scenarios but if you are ready for it, you can pull it out of the gutter and win it.
If you see someone shooting one and not shooting another, change. Don't wait for them to realize it. If they change too, change back. If you are not with friends or in TS/Vent/Whatever, chances are anything said in chat won't be seen. Don't depend on it. Pretend everyone is deaf and you move to whatever is not being done.
Toss out a decoy. Let an aceton assimilator aggro things. I don't suggest photonic fleet as per paragraph one. Seriously, Scis (myself included), don't use it on the first side - at all. Same for fleet support. They can and do run amok like zombie monkeys. If they don't make a mess, they often just shoot the gate until it kills them anyway.
Carrier guys, check your pets. Pretty self-explanatory.
FAW is not such a bad thing but losing awareness is. Keep an eye on what is going on behind you. It can save the day.
...and be prepared to adapt for it, yeah?
That initial engagement, and knowing in your gut that it should be finished already - but it's not. That being halfway to the Trans and nobody's there with you...is a good out of combat time to make some adjustments to the build based on what's likely to happen, etc, etc, etc.
Lots of folks will go in doing the...this is what we always do...and well, yeah - heh, like you said; all sorts of stuff can go wrong. Folks need to try to kind of pay attention to what's going on around them and try to adjust to that.
Course, if somebody can solo the run and just needed four warm bodies to get it started...have at it...right? But for the random group from a public queue...
So, what if it is a group of all escorts?
Or, maybe all sci vessels?
Could even be all cruisers or, maybe a group of all Tacs, hmmm?
I think this is probably the 1 time, I would have to say your advise isn't the best!
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This is correct tactic for DPS channel run. You can't expect cube to die so easily in pugs. (Well, probably you can, but most players can't.)
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Attacking the transformer first is only a problem if the rest of the team doesn't follow.
Ignore this guy and look at what sarcasmdetector has written at the bottom of page 1. This guy doesn't know what he's on about sadly.
Ummm..... was that even necessary? Apart from demonstrating idiocy, why did you waste your time posting this?
A group of Sci will have enough TBR and GW to hold off the Spheres as long as necessary between them.
A group of Escorts or Cruisers will have enough damage to take out what they need.
In a game where it's so easy to roflstomp all the 'advanced' and 'elite' content, I would expect a bit less crying. But I think this is just another example that proves that most of the player base doesn't actually understand anything about the games mechanics, and can't be bothered to try and learn.
If you're going to queue for a PuG, maybe expect that there are newbies or casuals who either haven't done ISAdvanced yet until that point or who may not be up to speed on what the newer tactics are?
Maybe just say in group chat: Skip the cube. Gens + Trans first.
I know typing that up may put a small dent in the almighty parse, but it could help put the rest of the team on the same page and save the entire group from an hour-long cooldown. And it might even bring said players up to speed on the newer tactics so that less PuGs would have this problem.
A single decent player can simply park near the cube, hit FAW.. and all the generators are going to die. They're extremely weak (not sure what game the guy that said they've got a ton of HP is playing..). In all honesty, a single good player can practically take down the transformer before the nanites arrive, as in your average pug any "good" players are generally doing so much damage compared to the rest of the team that the additional damage they're contributing is fairly negligible.
Yes, not all of us got the memo
Yeah. Go get that. Solves 1000% of all pugging problems in advanced borg stfs.
It's still center patrol, left, right....beyond that it might vary with the group. If the tanking is going ok, they might just hit the tac cube last (usually no, though, it's almost always gate goes last).
The 10% thing has been dead for a while in pugs. No problem with me, those clusters always go down in time.
Hrmm, I'm trying to think of a single ISE/ISA where it wasn't Gate then Tac Cube...with the Gate being far more deadly than the Tac Cube. That Gate burn could slaughter somebody without a HE ready while the Tac Cube's basically just been a meatshield. One of those pull the Tac Cube over by the Gate so that as you're burning the Gate down, any AoE damage could also affect the Tac Cube for prettier parsing numbers.
There is no idiocy in my statement, only you questioning them is idiocy!
Yes but, the strategy can vary greatly depending on the team.
All sci vessels might go for CC, with no1 actually attacking the transformer, why?
Because I have seen it happen.
All escorts bombarding the transformer, leaving the cube + sphere intact, out pops several more spheres, watch as escorts become possibly overrun and pop themselves, leaving the nanite spheres possibly adequate time to get there since no 1 has CC.
I don't mean to discredit sarcasm's strategy, because it can and does work but, it will always depend on the strengths/weaknesses of the team and, shouldn't be the only advise as a strategy.
That's all my statement was about!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Another problem I have noticed there is that only few tend to the generator after the nanites are destroyed. In my opinion, aside from donating a grav well to the incoming folk of spheres, todays STF kids should focus a bit more on the simple mission objectives. Unfortunately few seem to do.
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Exactly, in another thread similar to this, I listed 5 major reasons for fails outside of technical problems.
What you have listed, pretty much falls into the top 3.
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