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Why are Phasers weak?

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  • karlbarbkarlbarb Member Posts: 166 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Forgive me if I didn't read the other 7 pages. This may have been mentioned elsewhere:

    First off, Antiproton's proc depends on having a high crit rating. Which means focusing on high crit builds. Thing is, these builds still depend on a 'proc' of sorts ... to take advantage of the +20% crit severity, you need to crit first.

    So even if you go with vulnerability locators, it's very rare to see anyone with higher than, say, 15-20% crit rate. The AP bonus is only 20%. Other weapons can also have high crit damage, just 20% less *on crits only*. And that 20% is stacking ... it's just adds to your existing rating.

    So let's say you have 20% to-crit rating. 20% of 20% is 4% ... so 4% is the damage boost you'd get from AP weapons over other weapons. On a high crit build specifically. Most of us hover in the 5-10% range.

    But there are reasons to go AP otherwise here:

    - Obelisk set grants a 10% bonus to AP ... and includes a 360 omni beam which anyone can get. That's kind of a big deal. That being said, the omni beam is best on forward firing builds. On Cruisers who broadside, not so much.
    - The 'proc' doesn't have a cooldown, per se. For example, plasma burns from energy weapons don't stack (not counting plasma doping which is obviously an unintended exploit and is getting nerfed for a reason) ... so someone could never have multiple burns going at once. But if you keep criting, the AP bonus always applies. For people who like chancy burst damage builds
    - There are boff abilities that REALLY take advantage of crit severity. Beam Overload *always* crits, for one. Surgical Strikes from Intel also crits a lot of times.

    But like any other optimization, all of that depends on you getting exactly the right type of gear and boff skills to suit it. Otherwise, it sucks. And that's one of the reasons I myself am not a fan of AP ... it corrals you into a very specific cookie cutter setup to be most effective. Plus I don't like the weird red and black beams. Call me superficial.


    Now, every weapon type has reasons to be used:

    Phasers: Not much boosts the damage per se on this one. But there are federation ships and items that take solid advantage of it. For example, the Vesta uses phaser aux cannons. The Phantom and Dreadnought have powerful phaser lance attacks. All of which get boosted by phaser tac consoles. Also, there are undine rep consoles that boost phasers and photon torpedoes both. So if you're using a ship with special phaser weaponry, go phasers.

    Disruptors: a chance to proc lessened damage resistance on your target? Yes, please! Remember that a target with less DR affects not only your damage, but the damage of everyone else who's firing at it. Great team weapon and a solid choice for anyone. Sadly, no special set bonuses or consoles exist for it. But it also supports those undine consoles for torp and disruptor builds. Are there any Klingon ships with special disruptor based weapons?

    Tetryon: Nukara set boosts base damage a bit. And there are Tetryon based special weapons if I remember correctly. Tetryon is actually not a bad idea for Cruisers who tend to circle their targets as the shield drain proc applies to all shield facings. Plus they are boosted by Flow Capacitors if I am not mistaken.

    Plasma: My personal favorite (and not for plasma doping). Romulan set boosts overall plasma damage, including from plasma torps. Plasma burn ignores shields. Experimental Romulan beam does not drain energy, so overall damage boost for beam builds. Again, this favors Cruisers over Escorts.

    Polaron: Jem'Hadar set can boost damage. Polaron also works with lots of flow caps. By itself, it's not huge, but on focused drain builds, it really shines. This and Tetryon tend to be best with Science characters as they more than likely all have at least 84 points in flow caps.

    Proton: Meh. There are ways to burst with Proton due to special items and ships, but there are no base Proton weapons in the game last I checked. I wouldn't try and make a build that depends on Proton damage unless you have very very specific ship/set combos.

    In other words, OP, it all depends on the build you go for. Burst damage works with AP very well. But it's very spiky and not sustained. All other damage types still work nicely, so play what you'd like.
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,594 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Why do you think AP is stronger?

    Because of gratuitously built-in CrtD mod, maybe?!

    That is why everyone uses AP. I would love to see phasers get a buff too!
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  • razar2380razar2380 Member Posts: 1,187 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    karlbarb wrote: »
    Forgive me if I didn't read the other 7 pages. This may have been mentioned elsewhere:

    First off, Antiproton's proc depends on having a high crit rating. Which means focusing on high crit builds. Thing is, these builds still depend on a 'proc' of sorts ... to take advantage of the +20% crit severity, you need to crit first.


    Actually, AP don't have a proc. If you had the same crit chance when switching to another weapon, then you will crit the same. The only difference is that AP gave up the option of a proc for extra damage every time they crit.

    To say that is a proc is the same as saying that any mod added to a weapon is a proc.

    A proc has a chance to happen whether or not the weapons crits during normal use. And, the chance a proc can happen can not be changed. You can change how often you get a crit.

    Therefore, they are not the same, and also why the AP are the go to weapon for more DPS. If they turn that extra crit damage into a proc, then you will see a difference in which weapons will be the higher DPS weapons.

    There are other weapons that if their proc was turned into a 100% link to crit chance, they would either out perform AP, or be tied with them in usefulness for high DPS.
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  • ghyudtghyudt Member Posts: 1,112 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Phasers are no better or worse than any other weapon in this game. The only reason players co.plain about them is because they have something other than a damage proc. I run 6 phaser beams and 2 photon torpedos on my ship, and have never been disappointed.
  • the1tiggletthe1tigglet Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    the proc doesn't "kinda" suck. It really does suck.

    There are plenty of examples in this game where the proc sucks on certain weapon types. What gets me is the people who deny that this very thing happens. 2.5% proc rate is awful and a one size fits all proc rate on every weapon type doesn't work!

    It's not just phasers either there are plenty of weapons with terrible proc rates.
  • sohtohsohtoh Member Posts: 620 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    There are plenty of examples in this game where the proc sucks on certain weapon types. What gets me is the people who deny that this very thing happens. 2.5% proc rate is awful and a one size fits all proc rate on every weapon type doesn't work!

    It's not just phasers either there are plenty of weapons with terrible proc rates.

    I think what part of the problem some have with the phaser proc, is the lockout period (can't think of any other proc that has one) and the randomness of the subsystem that is disabled.

    With the 2.5% proc, per math, about every 40th cycle will result in the proc landing; and about every 160th time, would the disabled subsystem be the one you wanted disabled.

    I can see why some would be dissatisfied with the phaser proc.
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  • ddesjardinsddesjardins Member Posts: 3,056 Media Corps
    edited March 2015
    *fingers crossed* that the updates to DMG may be beneficial. Or just boosting Phasers in general would be nice.
  • karlbarbkarlbarb Member Posts: 166 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    There's a reason I wrote 'proc' in quotes when describing AP weapons. It depends on you actually landing a critical hit to be effective. From a base crit of 5%, each AS crit severity bonus effectively adds *overall* 1% damage. You can build up crit chance to make it more effective, but that also boosts the damage on other weapons as basic crit already comes with a 50% boost to damage. So an AP weapon goes from a base 50% extra damage to 70% extra damage on a crit. that's it. It's not a flat 20% damage boost to all your attacks.

    So at a crit rate of 5%, AP adds 1% damage. A crit rate of 20% makes AP add around 4% damage, but everyone else who doesn't boost crit rate will end up boosting something else to compensate, for example overall steady damage. The other weapon abilities have a 2.5% proc, and some of their damage bypasses shields. Or gives a DR drop to target that affects your whole team. Or drains shields and energy if playing a drain boat, etc ...

    Where AP really shines is when using Beam Overload or Surgical Strikes. Beam Overload *guarantees* a crit, so AP is a flat 20% damage boost to Beam Overload. Surgical Strikes crits very often, so AP really shines there too. But that depends on you having those skills equipped in the first place. For someone who *doesn't* have a ton of tac or intel boff slots to spare, it is nowhere near that useful. I play a cruiser with two tac slots. I don't have room for BO.

    In the end, it really depends on how you build your ship and boff abilities. AP works VERY well on escorts or other tac heavy ships. For others, not so much.
  • dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    What I haven't seen in this post yet:

    All weapons of a given mark/mod combination do exactly the same base levels of damage.

    Mk XII white AP = Mk XII white Phaser = Mk XII white polaron = Mk XII white anything.

    Same if both weapon types have [CrtD] x3, or [Acc]x2 [Dmg]x2. Identical levels of damage.

    What makes AP the "best" DPS weapon is, as others have said, it's "proc effect" is a bonus to critical damage when the crit is landed - and that there's enough stuff out there in power-creep land to have 15% - 25% "base" crit rate(s).

    Personally, I prefer polaron over AP - as a Sci, I'm "tooltipping" at -21 power per polaron proc, with a couple of those, plasmonic leech, and an energy syphon II on I've seen (old) elite tac cube energy weapons do "tickle" levels of damage (heck, I've seen stretches of zero damage in logs). As such, I feel that the polaron proc actually enhances all of the team's DPS because it's a lot harder for people to die to Elite Borg Feather Weapons and powerless shields have negative resists meaning everyone does more pain...

    I'd appreciate Tetryon more, heck, early ITHE runs with 2x or 3x tetryon ships meant that the diamond was running redline shields all battle - because the pile of tet procs were stripping away her regen as soon as she raised it - but the current "pile of HP / Shields" mode means that the target's usually dead before a handful of papercuts takes 10% off of the "non facing shields"...

    What bugs me with phaser weapons (which I use on my Gal-X DN and Vesta) is that the proc is "time gated" with that "no reapplication within 10 seconds of an initial application" thing that's sorta-necessary in PvP. It would be nice if the proc would "stack" and if I "rolled" 3 procs in a volley, the ship would have random systems drop over a 30 second span instead of have a ton of procs "wash away" - the only other proc that does this (sorta) is plasma, in that only one DoT can be active at a time, however, if you stack 3 the DoT effect lasts till the end of the "most recent application" instead of cuts out when that first proc ends...
    Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...

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  • doctordositheusdoctordositheus Member Posts: 29 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Simply replace phasers proc with a built-in CritH mod, just like APs have CritD...problem solved.
  • antiquesroadshowantiquesroadshow Member Posts: 227 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    And now we have the new Crystalline Entity Event!! And what will it will feature?..STO's most iconic of weapons, the new Anti-Proton Torpedo Launcher! With 40% crit bonus!! As Captain Kirk once famously said,.."set your anti-protons to stun Mr. Sulu!.." On a serious not, Phasers just need to be improved to be more usful. They dont have to be the most damaging weapon type, but they have to be...something...
  • leviathan99#2867 leviathan99 Member Posts: 7,747 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    When the game launched, they expected much more of a classic RPG trinity playstyle. The bas eNPCs were harder to fight.

    On the whole players rejected this which made the control orientation of phasers less valuable. That and players tend to complain when they lose control of their character, which tends to result in games developing automatic control resists.

    The idea with phasers wasn't bad in that they were shooting for more of a "pacifist's weapon" but the problem is that gameplay never really favored pacifists and does even less so now.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    When the game launched, they expected much more of a classic RPG trinity playstyle. The bas eNPCs were harder to fight.

    On the whole players rejected this which made the control orientation of phasers less valuable. That and players tend to complain when they lose control of their character, which tends to result in games developing automatic control resists.

    The idea with phasers wasn't bad in that they were shooting for more of a "pacifist's weapon" but the problem is that gameplay never really favored pacifists and does even less so now.
    Also you could get chain disabled by NPCs. Especially Cardassian frigates. Back then it'd roll each subsystem separately, so it was really more like a 10% chance of phaser proc. and there was no immunity. you could have a subsystem get re-disabled before it came un-disabled from the first hit. WORSE, you could have all your subsystems disabled at once.

    Sure there were options to un-disable systems back then the same as now, but they didn't give the current immunity. PvP had a lot of cases of premade PvP teams that all used phaser for better odds of mass shutdowns.
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  • bobbydazlersbobbydazlers Member Posts: 4,534 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Since I have played the game for 2 years, the biggest "immersive" dissapointment is phaser weapon type. Why is it that phaser weapons,..one of the most iconic weapons in the star trek universe, reduced to 3rd hand damage types? I hate the fact that I have to run anti-proton villain weapons to get great dps on a fed ship!! This kills the immersive feeling I'm suppose to get when playing the game. I understand in pvp their suppose to be good, but I dont pvp. Why did criptic do this? I haven't seen much complaint about this on forums, but people talk about it in chat all the time. I wish I could take a vote to see how many people would want to change this. What gives Criptic?.. Make Phasers iconic again!!

    yet again like everyone who wants iconic this and canon that you are thinking of the past, don't you think that shields might have been developed to resist phaser weapons, this is not the star trek you see on the tv and in the movies this is a future time and many things have changed, new and better ships have been developed, new and better weapons have been introduced and shields have been developed and are more resistant to older stuff.

    star trek TOS covered the time period from 2254 to 2269 star trek online is based from 2409 onwards, we don't use weapons from 150 years past and you should not expect a future trek to do so either.
    even stuff from star trek TNG set 78 years later would be considered relics of the past in sto`s time period.

    star trek TOS and TNG canon stuff is great for a bit of nostalgia but it is about time players realised STO has its own canon that is growing as we play.

    that means more non canon ships and differant varieties of non canon weapons that will be more powerful then canon stuff.

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  • thatcursedwolfthatcursedwolf Member Posts: 1,617 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    And now AP gets a torpedo that runs off normal AP consoles.
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  • amosov78amosov78 Member Posts: 1,495 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    When the game launched, they expected much more of a classic RPG trinity playstyle. The bas eNPCs were harder to fight.

    On the whole players rejected this which made the control orientation of phasers less valuable. That and players tend to complain when they lose control of their character, which tends to result in games developing automatic control resists.

    The idea with phasers wasn't bad in that they were shooting for more of a "pacifist's weapon" but the problem is that gameplay never really favored pacifists and does even less so now.

    The Voth Antiproton proc would have suited the defensive role Cryptic wanted Starfleet to fill I thought, just a shame it was used for the Voth.
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  • sonnikkusonnikku Member Posts: 77 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    Phasers are awful. They should be accurate. Instead, they disable systems at random. There's nothing accurate about that. Might better have just given the beam a built in [acc] mod and called it a day. That at least might be useful. Such as it is, they gave it a mod that is trash in the dps race they have created, then took it a step further adding even further insult to injury by arbitrarily making phasers all but useless against one of the core villains of the game. For conduit runners, you might as well be running beams with no mods.

    That's Cryptic logic for you. Apologist logic is even worse, you had forum goers defending Cryptic's Polarons to their dying breath that in addition to becoming worthless when a targets shields were down, were in fact inferior to disruptors even while a targets shields were up. (disruptors of course continued to be useful after a targets shields were down) Talk about a big flippin' joke.
  • dareaudareau Member Posts: 2,390 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    sonnikku wrote: »
    Phasers are awful. They should be accurate. Instead, they disable systems at random. There's nothing accurate about that. Might better have just given the beam a built in [acc] mod and called it a day. That at least might be useful. Such as it is, they gave it a mod that is trash in the dps race they have created, then took it a step further adding even further insult to injury by arbitrarily making phasers all but useless against one of the core villains of the game. For conduit runners, you might as well be running beams with no mods.

    That's Cryptic logic for you. Apologist logic is even worse, you had forum goers defending Cryptic's Polarons to their dying breath that in addition to becoming worthless when a targets shields were down, were in fact inferior to disruptors even while a targets shields were up. (disruptors of course continued to be useful after a targets shields were down) Talk about a big flippin' joke.

    Polarons with all subsystem energy drain or tetryons with their shield-vaping mechanic?

    Just wanting to make sure...
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  • millimidgetmillimidget Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited March 2015
    karlbarb wrote: »
    So even if you go with vulnerability locators, it's very rare to see anyone with higher than, say, 15-20% crit rate.
    You're doing it wrong.

    Easy to hit 25% on a non-rom, 30% on a rom.
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