There are no tanks and healers. Not really. You can set up a ship to maximize its defensive abilities, but there's almost no reason to do so. I can only think of a couple instances where that would be effective, and even then you still need extremely high dps. Healers just don't exist in PvE, anyone trying to play as one is an utter waste. Any decent player is more than capable of keeping themselves alive in almost any situation in the game, even while remaining totally focused on increasing damage output. Healers are more useful in PvP, but that's mainly because the incoming damage is actually dangerous - something that's mostly not true in PvE.
For the most part though.. so long as you're not dying, pumping out damage IS about all that matters. The Galaxy is a terrible ship for doing that. It's a lot like the new Samsar (which is also pretty bad) but far worse.
aux2bat is pretty powerful. I use it myself. I can keep Power to weapons and power to shields both up simultaneously all the time with it. Where it really shines though is with Reverse Shield Polarity 2 and DEM 3. RSP2 is like a pally bubble and let's me keep up the firepower when things get extremely intense while most others would have to retreat to lick their wounds, losing precious dps time on their target. Aux2bat let's me do that twice as often. DEM 3 with my Marion doff however is the coup de grace. Getting double value out of firing all your beam weapons at maximum power is a huge buff. All the more so when you can do it frequently.
I disagree 100% for just one simple reason, a2b is one of the cheapest way for a low budget player to manage in doing decent dps. Without this u will see lots of 7 beams cruisers in pugs shooting stuff with 60% power to weapons. Pugs already suck so no thanks. And like other people said there are way more OP build using new ship features.
However, STO doesn't even have a trinity. Tanks and healers aren't needed, which is one piece of this game that's actually rather cool. It's one of the few I've seen that actually works without a trinity system. The idea that cruisers are "tanks" and shouldn't have much offense or that escorts are glass cannons that need to be protected is an outdated relic from when the game was first designed. Rather, each ship type should be able to be setup to gain both a reasonable defense and offense with the option of sacrificing one for the other as the player chooses - with the inherent capabilities of each being entirely equal.
I agree with this.
Canonically, tanks and healers make no sense.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
A2B complaints? I must agree most of the people in this thread; this complaint is years past.
Want to fly a tank? Slot reciprocity, you'll get your halved tac cooldowns and have aux power and A2SIF to boot. Or just duplicate your abilities, or run zemok builds. More damage+more innate survivability+better heals=more win.
Want to do damage? Run Zemok/Drake builds, and take advantage of a 4th AMP proc, extra SRO's (fed side), and nukara aux->offense, all without gimping your heals - or just flat out duplicate your abilities, or use an AHOD/TI build, or reciprocity.
Want to heal or do science? Why in god's name were you using A2B in the first place?
A2B sucks, frankly; it's cost of 3 doff slots, 2 boff abilities, and all your aux power is far too high for something replicable for less resources and without the downsides.
Nowadays, Aux2BS has moved beyond OP. Why? Because now traits and specialisations do all the healing your Sci Team and Eng Team can't manage, making auxiliary levels obsolete for a lot of ships. Now many Aux2BS ships are, in essence, 3 subsystem ships that happen to have the 3 subsystems they need at close to max power.
Something you might have missed, A2B has moved beyond OP, yes, due to traits, yes (and also doffs)... into the 'meh' tier. Anything A2B can do, there's myriads of cheaper options, all of which let you keep your aux power. On that note, I'll just drop this link here.
Now, I know there's going to be a lot of players who are going to attack this post. Most of them will be Aux2BS users and I'm sure many will care more about someone talking about taking their OP ship away than they will be about the balance in the game. Well, if you want to attack this post then I challenge you to show why it's not OP. I feel I've done a pretty good job of showing why it is.
Proof: see above.
Full disclosure: I have never flown an A2B ship, nor acquired technicians. I am not worried about any OP builds being taken away from me with a "nerf" to A2B, as I have none that would be affected by any direct nerfs to A2B.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
This is the most ridiculous thread I have seen in a long time, and that's saying something.
Aux2Bat is nothing but a stepping stone these days. It's an inexpensive way to stay at the lower side of the competitive scale until you can afford to switch to a good build.
There are many things this game needs, but an Aux2Bat nerf definitely isn't one of them.
At this point in the game a aux to batt build is mainly for FTP people because its costs virtually nothing to get the build going and does decent damage in most ships with most builds
PTW people have left aux in the dust and no longer use it for better choices
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
At this point in the game a aux to batt build is mainly for FTP people because its costs virtually nothing to get the build going and does decent damage in most ships with most builds
PTW people have left aux in the dust and no longer use it for better choices
I would concur with this. Established players with fancy this and fancy that have way better options without compromising your Subsystem Power levels and all the pro's and con's of that.
I'll be honest, I thought Aux2Bat was stupid from the get-go; why do some doffs stack while others don't, arbitrarily?
These days though, Aux2Bat has fallen by the wayside in terms of raw performance. It is moreso a holdover tool to boostrap ships with a limited bridge seating.. at the heavy cost of your Aux in a time where you can easily boost all power levels, convert Aux directly into raw damage for EVERY build, and have access to variety of cooldown-reducing alternatives that make this game more spammy than it has ever been before.
A2B complaints? I must agree most of the people in this thread; this complaint is years past.
Want to fly a tank? Slot reciprocity, you'll get your halved tac cooldowns and have aux power and A2SIF to boot. Or just duplicate your abilities, or run zemok builds. More damage+more innate survivability+better heals=more win.
Want to do damage? Run Zemok/Drake builds, and take advantage of a 4th AMP proc, extra SRO's (fed side), and nukara aux->offense, all without gimping your heals - or just flat out duplicate your abilities, or use an AHOD/TI build, or reciprocity.
Want to heal or do science? Why in god's name were you using A2B in the first place?
A2B sucks, frankly; it's cost of 3 doff slots, 2 boff abilities, and all your aux power is far too high for something replicable for less resources and without the downsides.
Well not entirely true. For ships with limited tac slots that can't double up or run Reciprocity (the Qib, the D'deridex, or the Kobali cruiser all come to mind), or even people who don't own a Phantom or AHOD cruiser Fed-side and want to fly something like a Gal-X or a Guardian, it does give them an option to boost their rate of fire. Plus for people running mostly solo or random queues, it lets them boost the recharge on not only their EPTx and offensive stuff, but also utility powers like RSP or Sci Team. Most importantly though, its a setup where the VR doffs can be simply farmed, making it a nice option for people who can't or don't want to spend a hundred million on doffs or $30 on a ship for the trait alone. (I think ya been spoiled by your normal budget ) Its a tool like anything else; good for some situations, bad for others. I certainly disagree with the OP calling it OP, but its not useless either. *shrugs*
I only partially agree. While tanks and healers my not make canonical sense, the problem is that a game designed without the concept of tanking and healing means there's only one focus: damage. And that is, unfortunately, where STO is and has been for some time. People will tell you that you're worthless if you can't reach a specific amount of damage output, the numbers varying from person to person but I haven't yet seen anyone called out for having survivability or support values being too low. The reason the trinity is a good base to begin from is that it allows for more gameplay styles. That isn't to say they shouldn't push the limits of what's expected of players, but if you build the game around only one of those three baselines then sooner or later everyone is going to gravitate to the same playstyle where there should be more variety.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
I only partially agree. While tanks and healers my not make canonical sense, the problem is that a game designed without the concept of tanking and healing means there's only one focus: damage. And that is, unfortunately, where STO is and has been for some time. People will tell you that you're worthless if you can't reach a specific amount of damage output, the numbers varying from person to person but I haven't yet seen anyone called out for having survivability or support values being too low. The reason the trinity is a good base to begin from is that it allows for more gameplay styles. That isn't to say they shouldn't push the limits of what's expected of players, but if you build the game around only one of those three baselines then sooner or later everyone is going to gravitate to the same playstyle where there should be more variety.
That's only because enemies don't really test our defenses to any real measure. In most STF's, we're simply in no danger. Were the game designed in such a way that a tank and/or healer were needed, they would be expected to perform at an acceptable level and likely be subjected to extreme scrutiny. Tanks and healers are almost always the most closely examined members of a group prior to starting a pugged dungeon.
In other MMO's that do use a trinity system, the tank dies.. he blames the healer. The healer blames the tank. The dps complains that the tank can't hold aggro. The other dps complains the healer couldn't heal him when he pulled aggro off the tank and got one shot. The last dps is an idiot, thinks that means the healer failed.. presses the vote kick button, and everyone but the dps complaining about the tank hits yes. Healer gets vote kicked. Group continues with terrible tank.
That's only because enemies don't really test our defenses to any real measure. In most STF's, we're simply in no danger. Were the game designed in such a way that a tank and/or healer were needed, they would be expected to perform at an acceptable level and likely be subjected to extreme scrutiny. Tanks and healers are almost always the most closely examined members of a group prior to starting a pugged dungeon.
In other MMO's that do use a trinity system, the tank dies.. he blames the healer. The healer blames the tank. The dps complains that the tank can't hold aggro. The other dps complains the healer couldn't heal him when he pulled aggro off the tank and got one shot. The last dps is an idiot, thinks that means the healer failed.. presses the vote kick button, and everyone but the dps complaining about the tank hits yes. Healer gets vote kicked. Group continues with terrible tank.
I never said there weren't flaws in such a system, I just meant that under the current system "tanking and healing" aren't under the same scrutiny BECAUSE, as you said, the game isn't built to require them. MMOs will always have that sort of player interaction, it happens in STO all the time but focuses mostly on damage output or knowledge of mission layout. Cookie cutter trinity systems aren't good enough on their own, but they're a good starting point to ensure variety in gameplay.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Right. Gotcha. A tank simply plays differently from a dps, and a healer too. They're reasons to make alts and see the game from a different point of view. They're the reason I had ten 90's in WoW, two of which were Paladins so I could play all three specs and a PvP spec.
Still, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in STO. I'd prefer to see alternative methods of damage output made equally viable. In WoW, a mage could only be a dps.. but a fire mage, arcane mage, and frost mage had entirely different rotations and corresponding strengths and weaknesses. Fire dealt in crits and DoT's, arcane simply large single target numbers accompanied by resource management, frost was mainly large spike damage coming from timely usage of various procs. Each viable, yet quite different.. and all only one class. Each class contained several such choices, with some being tanks and healers as well.
In comparison, STO is quite simplistic. Equip beam arrays. Debuff enemy defense. Buff own offense. Press FAW till it dies. It would be nice to have a bit of variety. Those plasma consoles for example.. they could have been made to rely on particle generator skills, and balanced (proc chance, dmg output) to make science ships using them (along with science abilities - of which there are entirely too few, and on far too long a cooldown) viable alternatives to ships simply pushing out beam crits. It would be not unlike a WoW mutilate rogue, with the plasma consoles substituting for their poison damage. A science captain could specialize in dealing plasma damage, or gravity manipulation, or who knows what else. The possibilities are there, they've just gotta utilize them.
In comparison, STO is quite simplistic. Equip beam arrays. Debuff enemy defense. Buff own offense. Press FAW till it dies. It would be nice to have a bit of variety. Those plasma consoles for example.. they could have been made to rely on particle generator skills, and balanced (proc chance, dmg output) to make science ships using them (along with science abilities - of which there are entirely too few, and on far too long a cooldown) viable alternatives to ships simply pushing out beam crits. It would be not unlike a WoW mutilate rogue, with the plasma consoles substituting for their poison damage. A science captain could specialize in dealing plasma damage, or gravity manipulation, or who knows what else. The possibilities are there, they've just gotta utilize them.
All weapons are viable for all elite content even if you use Exotic damage. Someone has got to win the DPS race. It just so happen that Beams currently has the edge.
The issue is that STO is not going the way you want it. They already nerf the plasma proc which benefits the Sci toons using Sci ships to do DPS due to 5 sci slots.
There are other viable DPS builds except those who knows those builds and those who can fly those builds also fly Beams. So you wont see them posting those runs or builds.
Just for comparison, using TBR1 with 80-90 PartGens deal roughly around 3K Dps, While Grave 1 will deal around 7-10k dps with 80-90 PartGen. An average player who spec for 400 Partgens and Grav3 or TBR3 will not even deal the same amount of DPS because they dont know how to use it nor build one. An average player will deal around 8k DPS of total DPS. So that is less DPS than ability alone TBR1+Grav1 used by the min/max player.
The problem with what you want in balance is the level competency needs to be balanced as well. A bad player will always be a bad player.
I didn't read the whole thread but I'm going to guess that everyone made fun of the OP for being stuck in 2013.
a2b is not OP. None of the top DPS builds use it. You lose out on the Nukara trait, heals, and even SRO boffs with it (to use a2b in a fper you have to put an eng into that universal slot).
But it's not totally irrelevant. It's good for:
A) ships that would otherwise be useless because they have fewer than 5 or 6 tactical boff ability slots
players who can not yet afford Zemok and DCEs and whatever else (a2b doffs are free!)
Taking it away means that some cruisers would suck even more and players with less money would have a harder time in this game. That's it. The hardcore players would still have their expensive doffs and would just stop using any ship with fewer than 5 tactical ability slots.
STO Tatical Escorts have no place in Canon either and make no sense either
That just about covers all the ships in STO doesn't it :P
Except carriers..........................lol
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
You're misunderstanding what I mean. Something will always be best, that's true. However.. what's best in one situation isn't always going to be best in another. Back when I played WoW, a fire mage won out in boss fights with lots of adds as it allowed them to spread DoT's around to lots of mobs. Arcane won in single target fights, especially ones that had stages were the boss went immune for one reason or another, as they could kick it into high gear for those brief times they could attack. In the end both had similar capabilities, but did their damage in vastly different manners. In a single target slugfest, they work out to be pretty equal.. as the company running the game took the time to mathematically calculate theoretical damage output and balance the abilities.
Competency isn't really something that can be fixed on anything more than an individual basis. What can be fixed is ensuring that the various abilities operate on the same level, so there aren't so many "bad" choices. All but one single weapon modifier being nearly useless isn't good. Entire types of weapons (mines, 180 degree cannons) being utterly useless.. isn't good. 2/3 of the game's class choices being far less useful than the remaining third (tactical) isn't good. So far they've done an extremely terrible job both at providing variety in gameplay styles and in balancing what little we do have.
You don't have to look any farther than science to see how messed up things are. Science dps plays effectively like a "mage" in a traditional MMO. You're using cooldown restricted ranged abilities to deal damage to an enemy or group of enemies. That damage is largely unaffected by your equipped weapon (being instead governed by other stats), and generally bypasses enemy defenses (like shields). However.. in STO, those abilities have monstrously long cooldowns ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and are extremely limited in number. Only a couple actually do damage. It'd be like a WoW mage casting fireball, then having to wait 45 seconds to cast another one.. and having to hop in melee and poke at the enemy with their dagger for next to no damage. That's pretty much the only alternative to FAW the enemy to death (or CSV.. which amounts to the same thing really) that we've got.. and it's pretty much hilariously broken.
Of course, even FAW'ing an enemy to death doesn't really have much to it. You basically just cycle through a very short series of buffs followed by a single attack ability. It's childishly simplistic compared to what most MMO's out there have in the way of abilities and ability rotations.
For example: We could have something more like this -
Ability one - Standard attack ability, increases damage against a single target (best option for single target, short cooldown.. 10 sec or so)
Ability two - Standard AoE ability, deals damage to a group of enemies (best used against groups of three or more) - shares cooldown with ability one
Ability three - briefly disables enemy shields (exploit defense weakness?) - moderate cooldown, 30-60 seconds
Ability four - can only be used against unshielded enemies, deals moderate damage (maybe beaming a torpedo aboard their vessel, requires a torpedo equipped - builds not running a torpedo wouldn't spec into this ability.. and maybe the one before it either, instead choosing a different ability set)
Ability five - standard attack ability (something like target shields), increased damage against single target, applies stacking debuff that allows use of ability three at a certain number of stacks. Short cooldown, 5 to 10 seconds.
Ability six - An interrupt ability, something like target transporter systems. Short cooldown, 15 seconds. All abilities that use transporters (like tac team, eng team, sci team..) have a short cast time (the team prepping and transporting over). Hitting an enemy with this ability during the transport briefly disables abilities that use the transporters.
Ability seven - Can only be used on nearly incapacitated enemies (very low health, 20% or less). Target warp core or something like that, deals major damage to the enemy. Moderate cooldown (30 sec).
You could have abilities that stack dots, abilities that exploit stacked dots to deal larger damage, abilities that spread dots to nearby enemies when used on an enemy with a dot, abilities that chain damage from one enemy to another.. tons of possibilities.
I realize that many of these things are already in the game. However, as it's currently set up.. most of them are useless because they aren't actual "attacks" that really do any damage, have stupidly long cooldowns, or simply aren't worth taking because we have extremely limited slots and most share cooldowns with one another. Very few abilities demonstrate any sort of synergy either, they don't really lead from one skill to the other or have a "rotation". You hit all your buffs as they come available and spam your attack button.
Basically, imagine how a game like WoW would be if I told you to pick a class.. then pick two attack abilities, a couple buffs, and a couple heals from that class.. and that's now all that class has to work with. That's how STO is set up.. and it's kinda silly and simplistic.
STO Tatical Escorts have no place in Canon either and make no sense either
That just about covers all the ships in STO doesn't it :P
Except carriers..........................lol
Huh? Most of the ships in the game, at least up to level 49 ARE canon. There are quite a few escort type ships in Star Trek. That said, the Defiant was the first to be specifically designed for warfare - or so they say in the shows. I don't really buy that BS though, pretty much all of the ships are designed for combat - they might not be "spartan" but they're more than capable of kicking alien rear.
Yeah let the engy cruisers keep using it but turn it off for PVP. That will expose those some who think they are good yet rely so heavily on the ability. Or at the very least (I think someone mentioned this earlier) give purple doffs a 15%-20% chance to......
Huh? Most of the ships in the game, at least up to level 49 ARE canon. There are quite a few escort type ships in Star Trek. That said, the Defiant was the first to be specifically designed for warfare - or so they say in the shows. I don't really buy that BS though, pretty much all of the ships are designed for combat - they might not be "spartan" but they're more than capable of kicking alien rear.
It was classified as a escort by star fleet intelligence to hide it during production and trials
It was never called a Tatical escort that's a STO term
Sisko called it a Warship and a great little warship it was
True up to 49 they look like canon ships
But they arnt canon in firepower/defense /speed/or crew abilitys/or repair abilitys STO shuffled all of that around to make this a tie fighter/X wing type of space shooter with wizards and warlocks at the Helm
It like D&D or WoW in space instead of star trek
most people even in this forum who are ( Soposed ) to be self claimed experts at the game refer to ( Healing ) there ships ....................Ships are repaired not healed ! unless its what Undine ?
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
1) Nerf this because I suck disguised as balancing issues
2) Nerf this because I cannot compete disguised as balancing issues
3) Nerf this because I have nothing to do and spend hours and the forums with my thousands of posts
4) Nerf this because I believe there are no uses for other weapons nor other skill other than Beams even though other players do know but I dont disguised as Beam users have no skill
5) Nerf this because the devs need to make the game easier disguised as the everyone in the playerbase wants it
6) Nerf this because I cannot adjust to the game so I want the game to adjust to me disguised as the game is too hard and the playerbase demands it
7) Nerf this so that I can make life harder for those who use this ability
After reading last two page I've come to conclusion that A2B needs this kind of nerf:
1) eliminate A2B completely
2) Tie technicians doff proc with OSS
3) eliminate disable random subsystem effect after OSS duration
It makes sense as any of last several post (excluding last paxdawns) :D:D
Max. One-Hit: 114,966 (Quantum Torpedo - Salvo II (Federation Typhoon Class Battleship))
1) Nerf this because I suck disguised as balancing issues
2) Nerf this because I cannot compete disguised as balancing issues
3) Nerf this because I have nothing to do and spend hours and the forums with my thousands of posts
4) Nerf this because I believe there are no uses for other weapons nor other skill other than Beams even though other players do know but I dont disguised as Beam users have no skill
5) Nerf this because the devs need to make the game easier disguised as the everyone in the playerbase wants it
6) Nerf this because I cannot adjust to the game so I want the game to adjust to me disguised as the game is too hard and the playerbase demands it
7) Nerf this so that I can make life harder for those who use this ability
You owe me a cup of coffee. Because your post made me spit mine all over my laptop while laughing. All I can say after reading it is:
Amen! Hallelujah! Preach on it, My Brother!
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
In other MMO's that do use a trinity system, the tank dies.. he blames the healer. The healer blames the tank. The dps complains that the tank can't hold aggro. The other dps complains the healer couldn't heal him when he pulled aggro off the tank and got one shot. The last dps is an idiot, thinks that means the healer failed.. presses the vote kick button, and everyone but the dps complaining about the tank hits yes. Healer gets vote kicked. Group continues with terrible tank.
for this exact reason is why me and a friend of mine would always run healers and tanks ourselves and use voip to make sure each of us knew what was happening. So long as the dps could keep up we were fine.
Comments
For the most part though.. so long as you're not dying, pumping out damage IS about all that matters. The Galaxy is a terrible ship for doing that. It's a lot like the new Samsar (which is also pretty bad) but far worse.
Canonically, tanks and healers make no sense.
Want to fly a tank? Slot reciprocity, you'll get your halved tac cooldowns and have aux power and A2SIF to boot. Or just duplicate your abilities, or run zemok builds. More damage+more innate survivability+better heals=more win.
Want to do damage? Run Zemok/Drake builds, and take advantage of a 4th AMP proc, extra SRO's (fed side), and nukara aux->offense, all without gimping your heals - or just flat out duplicate your abilities, or use an AHOD/TI build, or reciprocity.
Want to heal or do science? Why in god's name were you using A2B in the first place?
A2B sucks, frankly; it's cost of 3 doff slots, 2 boff abilities, and all your aux power is far too high for something replicable for less resources and without the downsides.
Something you might have missed, A2B has moved beyond OP, yes, due to traits, yes (and also doffs)... into the 'meh' tier. Anything A2B can do, there's myriads of cheaper options, all of which let you keep your aux power. On that note, I'll just drop this link here.
Proof: see above.
Full disclosure: I have never flown an A2B ship, nor acquired technicians. I am not worried about any OP builds being taken away from me with a "nerf" to A2B, as I have none that would be affected by any direct nerfs to A2B.
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!
Aux2Bat is nothing but a stepping stone these days. It's an inexpensive way to stay at the lower side of the competitive scale until you can afford to switch to a good build.
There are many things this game needs, but an Aux2Bat nerf definitely isn't one of them.
PTW people have left aux in the dust and no longer use it for better choices
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 would concur with this. Established players with fancy this and fancy that have way better options without compromising your Subsystem Power levels and all the pro's and con's of that.
These days though, Aux2Bat has fallen by the wayside in terms of raw performance. It is moreso a holdover tool to boostrap ships with a limited bridge seating.. at the heavy cost of your Aux in a time where you can easily boost all power levels, convert Aux directly into raw damage for EVERY build, and have access to variety of cooldown-reducing alternatives that make this game more spammy than it has ever been before.
Well not entirely true. For ships with limited tac slots that can't double up or run Reciprocity (the Qib, the D'deridex, or the Kobali cruiser all come to mind), or even people who don't own a Phantom or AHOD cruiser Fed-side and want to fly something like a Gal-X or a Guardian, it does give them an option to boost their rate of fire. Plus for people running mostly solo or random queues, it lets them boost the recharge on not only their EPTx and offensive stuff, but also utility powers like RSP or Sci Team. Most importantly though, its a setup where the VR doffs can be simply farmed, making it a nice option for people who can't or don't want to spend a hundred million on doffs or $30 on a ship for the trait alone. (I think ya been spoiled by your normal budget
I only partially agree. While tanks and healers my not make canonical sense, the problem is that a game designed without the concept of tanking and healing means there's only one focus: damage. And that is, unfortunately, where STO is and has been for some time. People will tell you that you're worthless if you can't reach a specific amount of damage output, the numbers varying from person to person but I haven't yet seen anyone called out for having survivability or support values being too low. The reason the trinity is a good base to begin from is that it allows for more gameplay styles. That isn't to say they shouldn't push the limits of what's expected of players, but if you build the game around only one of those three baselines then sooner or later everyone is going to gravitate to the same playstyle where there should be more variety.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
That's only because enemies don't really test our defenses to any real measure. In most STF's, we're simply in no danger. Were the game designed in such a way that a tank and/or healer were needed, they would be expected to perform at an acceptable level and likely be subjected to extreme scrutiny. Tanks and healers are almost always the most closely examined members of a group prior to starting a pugged dungeon.
In other MMO's that do use a trinity system, the tank dies.. he blames the healer. The healer blames the tank. The dps complains that the tank can't hold aggro. The other dps complains the healer couldn't heal him when he pulled aggro off the tank and got one shot. The last dps is an idiot, thinks that means the healer failed.. presses the vote kick button, and everyone but the dps complaining about the tank hits yes. Healer gets vote kicked. Group continues with terrible tank.
I never said there weren't flaws in such a system, I just meant that under the current system "tanking and healing" aren't under the same scrutiny BECAUSE, as you said, the game isn't built to require them. MMOs will always have that sort of player interaction, it happens in STO all the time but focuses mostly on damage output or knowledge of mission layout. Cookie cutter trinity systems aren't good enough on their own, but they're a good starting point to ensure variety in gameplay.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Still, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in STO. I'd prefer to see alternative methods of damage output made equally viable. In WoW, a mage could only be a dps.. but a fire mage, arcane mage, and frost mage had entirely different rotations and corresponding strengths and weaknesses. Fire dealt in crits and DoT's, arcane simply large single target numbers accompanied by resource management, frost was mainly large spike damage coming from timely usage of various procs. Each viable, yet quite different.. and all only one class. Each class contained several such choices, with some being tanks and healers as well.
In comparison, STO is quite simplistic. Equip beam arrays. Debuff enemy defense. Buff own offense. Press FAW till it dies. It would be nice to have a bit of variety. Those plasma consoles for example.. they could have been made to rely on particle generator skills, and balanced (proc chance, dmg output) to make science ships using them (along with science abilities - of which there are entirely too few, and on far too long a cooldown) viable alternatives to ships simply pushing out beam crits. It would be not unlike a WoW mutilate rogue, with the plasma consoles substituting for their poison damage. A science captain could specialize in dealing plasma damage, or gravity manipulation, or who knows what else. The possibilities are there, they've just gotta utilize them.
All weapons are viable for all elite content even if you use Exotic damage. Someone has got to win the DPS race. It just so happen that Beams currently has the edge.
The issue is that STO is not going the way you want it. They already nerf the plasma proc which benefits the Sci toons using Sci ships to do DPS due to 5 sci slots.
There are other viable DPS builds except those who knows those builds and those who can fly those builds also fly Beams. So you wont see them posting those runs or builds.
Just for comparison, using TBR1 with 80-90 PartGens deal roughly around 3K Dps, While Grave 1 will deal around 7-10k dps with 80-90 PartGen. An average player who spec for 400 Partgens and Grav3 or TBR3 will not even deal the same amount of DPS because they dont know how to use it nor build one. An average player will deal around 8k DPS of total DPS. So that is less DPS than ability alone TBR1+Grav1 used by the min/max player.
The problem with what you want in balance is the level competency needs to be balanced as well. A bad player will always be a bad player.
Qib and DD are superior without a2b
a2b is not OP. None of the top DPS builds use it. You lose out on the Nukara trait, heals, and even SRO boffs with it (to use a2b in a fper you have to put an eng into that universal slot).
But it's not totally irrelevant. It's good for:
A) ships that would otherwise be useless because they have fewer than 5 or 6 tactical boff ability slots
Taking it away means that some cruisers would suck even more and players with less money would have a harder time in this game. That's it. The hardcore players would still have their expensive doffs and would just stop using any ship with fewer than 5 tactical ability slots.
STO Tatical Escorts have no place in Canon either and make no sense either
That just about covers all the ships in STO doesn't it :P
Except carriers..........................lol
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
You shouldn't have bought a ship that sucks then.
Competency isn't really something that can be fixed on anything more than an individual basis. What can be fixed is ensuring that the various abilities operate on the same level, so there aren't so many "bad" choices. All but one single weapon modifier being nearly useless isn't good. Entire types of weapons (mines, 180 degree cannons) being utterly useless.. isn't good. 2/3 of the game's class choices being far less useful than the remaining third (tactical) isn't good. So far they've done an extremely terrible job both at providing variety in gameplay styles and in balancing what little we do have.
You don't have to look any farther than science to see how messed up things are. Science dps plays effectively like a "mage" in a traditional MMO. You're using cooldown restricted ranged abilities to deal damage to an enemy or group of enemies. That damage is largely unaffected by your equipped weapon (being instead governed by other stats), and generally bypasses enemy defenses (like shields). However.. in STO, those abilities have monstrously long cooldowns ranging from 30 seconds to 5 minutes, and are extremely limited in number. Only a couple actually do damage. It'd be like a WoW mage casting fireball, then having to wait 45 seconds to cast another one.. and having to hop in melee and poke at the enemy with their dagger for next to no damage. That's pretty much the only alternative to FAW the enemy to death (or CSV.. which amounts to the same thing really) that we've got.. and it's pretty much hilariously broken.
Of course, even FAW'ing an enemy to death doesn't really have much to it. You basically just cycle through a very short series of buffs followed by a single attack ability. It's childishly simplistic compared to what most MMO's out there have in the way of abilities and ability rotations.
For example: We could have something more like this -
Ability one - Standard attack ability, increases damage against a single target (best option for single target, short cooldown.. 10 sec or so)
Ability two - Standard AoE ability, deals damage to a group of enemies (best used against groups of three or more) - shares cooldown with ability one
Ability three - briefly disables enemy shields (exploit defense weakness?) - moderate cooldown, 30-60 seconds
Ability four - can only be used against unshielded enemies, deals moderate damage (maybe beaming a torpedo aboard their vessel, requires a torpedo equipped - builds not running a torpedo wouldn't spec into this ability.. and maybe the one before it either, instead choosing a different ability set)
Ability five - standard attack ability (something like target shields), increased damage against single target, applies stacking debuff that allows use of ability three at a certain number of stacks. Short cooldown, 5 to 10 seconds.
Ability six - An interrupt ability, something like target transporter systems. Short cooldown, 15 seconds. All abilities that use transporters (like tac team, eng team, sci team..) have a short cast time (the team prepping and transporting over). Hitting an enemy with this ability during the transport briefly disables abilities that use the transporters.
Ability seven - Can only be used on nearly incapacitated enemies (very low health, 20% or less). Target warp core or something like that, deals major damage to the enemy. Moderate cooldown (30 sec).
You could have abilities that stack dots, abilities that exploit stacked dots to deal larger damage, abilities that spread dots to nearby enemies when used on an enemy with a dot, abilities that chain damage from one enemy to another.. tons of possibilities.
I realize that many of these things are already in the game. However, as it's currently set up.. most of them are useless because they aren't actual "attacks" that really do any damage, have stupidly long cooldowns, or simply aren't worth taking because we have extremely limited slots and most share cooldowns with one another. Very few abilities demonstrate any sort of synergy either, they don't really lead from one skill to the other or have a "rotation". You hit all your buffs as they come available and spam your attack button.
Basically, imagine how a game like WoW would be if I told you to pick a class.. then pick two attack abilities, a couple buffs, and a couple heals from that class.. and that's now all that class has to work with. That's how STO is set up.. and it's kinda silly and simplistic.
Huh? Most of the ships in the game, at least up to level 49 ARE canon. There are quite a few escort type ships in Star Trek. That said, the Defiant was the first to be specifically designed for warfare - or so they say in the shows. I don't really buy that BS though, pretty much all of the ships are designed for combat - they might not be "spartan" but they're more than capable of kicking alien rear.
It was classified as a escort by star fleet intelligence to hide it during production and trials
It was never called a Tatical escort that's a STO term
Sisko called it a Warship and a great little warship it was
True up to 49 they look like canon ships
But they arnt canon in firepower/defense /speed/or crew abilitys/or repair abilitys STO shuffled all of that around to make this a tie fighter/X wing type of space shooter with wizards and warlocks at the Helm
It like D&D or WoW in space instead of star trek
most people even in this forum who are ( Soposed ) to be self claimed experts at the game refer to ( Healing ) there ships ....................Ships are repaired not healed ! unless its what Undine ?
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
1) Nerf this because I suck disguised as balancing issues
2) Nerf this because I cannot compete disguised as balancing issues
3) Nerf this because I have nothing to do and spend hours and the forums with my thousands of posts
4) Nerf this because I believe there are no uses for other weapons nor other skill other than Beams even though other players do know but I dont disguised as Beam users have no skill
5) Nerf this because the devs need to make the game easier disguised as the everyone in the playerbase wants it
6) Nerf this because I cannot adjust to the game so I want the game to adjust to me disguised as the game is too hard and the playerbase demands it
7) Nerf this so that I can make life harder for those who use this ability
1) eliminate A2B completely
2) Tie technicians doff proc with OSS
3) eliminate disable random subsystem effect after OSS duration
It makes sense as any of last several post (excluding last paxdawns)
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You owe me a cup of coffee. Because your post made me spit mine all over my laptop while laughing. All I can say after reading it is:
for this exact reason is why me and a friend of mine would always run healers and tanks ourselves and use voip to make sure each of us knew what was happening. So long as the dps could keep up we were fine.