Evasive maneuvers and fly away? Brace for impact? Seriously, it's not nearly as OMG GONNA DIE! as you are making it sound like. Hell it's barely am inconvenience.
Ignorance is an obstacle not an excuse
Let the stupid suffer
Evasive maneuvers and fly away? Brace for impact? Seriously, it's not nearly as OMG GONNA DIE! as you are making it sound like. Hell it's barely am inconvenience.
LOL, tell that to those 3 weaksauce player's, that had a combined 16 deaths in KASA one night!
90% of those deaths, were from 1 sphere + cube combo, that protects 1 transformer no less.
I think people need to adapt. All I did is add an additional shield heal. Now I am no longer dies once per ISA. Thus DPS went up. Reconfigure your build and adapt. This is a good change and is one step in correcting the DPS power creep.
Assuming you're talking about the borg stfs? I run ISA and KARA at least once a night time permitting. Granted Im an engineer running a cruiser built to take the worst that the borg can throw at me and giggle because it tickles. Best feeling in the world is eating those instant death attacks, popping miracle worker and telling the boss "my grandma hits harder than that "
Ignorance is an obstacle not an excuse
Let the stupid suffer
So many tears, so few attempts to actually try and combat it. Adapt your build. Don't expect to just sit there and have EPtW/FAW/DEM do all the work for you, you might need to maneuver around, slot some armor, or pump out some heals.
There ARE ways to do it. I've done. Others have done it. It's not the end of the world.
It's nice to have NPCs that actually fight back for a change, instead of just sitting there and getting slapped in the face.
As much as I appreciate all the advice, I think some people are missing the point.
Yes, there are ways to work around this shield drain like isolating enemies or isolating yourself from those same enemies by flying away.
But that is not the point. The point is, when people invest a huge amount of skills in anti-draining abilities and shield improvement skills, buy gear that was specifically designed to fight the borg and add even more bonuses to those anti-draining abilities (MACO 2-set bonus), buy and equip some of the best gear available in the game to increase their amount of shielding, then a draining ability shouldn't still be able to drain shields in mere seconds.
The only logical conclusion at that point: the anti-draining measures aren't good enough / the draining ability (tachyon beam) was buffed so much or is used too much so that it may well be the most OP skill currently used by enemies.
Investing in power insulators or shield improvement skills/gear should have some effect, which it currently has not. That's the real problem.
I think people need to adapt. All I did is add an additional shield heal. Now I am no longer dies once per ISA. Thus DPS went up. Reconfigure your build and adapt. This is a good change and is one step in correcting the DPS power creep.
I did adapt, by spending skill points in skills that should have some effect and carefully choosing my gear to counter shield drains. When those skills and all bonuses have zero effect, shield drains are broken (hence the title of this thread). It's that simple.
Can we please NOT nerf everything as soon as NPC's start to actually make a difference against us?
Can we instead just adapt to the changes? Please?
lol, we adapted alright. By throwing out all our insulators gear/skill points that have ironically become useless and instead throwing all those points into resists and hull. Insulators are a great counter in a theory, but the numbers behind them is way off. The staggering amount of insulators you would have to stack to make shield drains a non issue boggles the mind. The shield drains are so frequent, so relentless and so stacked on top of each other and the effectiveness of insulators per point is so weak in countering the unending shield drain barrage that one might go for broke and just improve your hull instead. High capacity low regen shields have also become marginalized. I run my borg set now because stopping the shield sucking is pointless. Better to let it finish and regen back quickly. (130 shield power at all times with my plasmonic leech/aux2bat build) What a farce.
I guess the moral of the story is, if you can't change the drains back, improve the effectiveness of insulators point for point. Right now they don't seem like a good investment considering the apparent lack of effectiveness.
Eh, I don't really mind the change at its core. What bothers me is that there really isn't a solid mechanical counter.
If you come across the Borg, a Voth Bulwark, a Hirogen Apex, etc.. you just have to suck it up and hull tank it. There is nothing you can do to actually counter or deny them. Jam Sensors/Evade Target Lock? Half your shields are a gone before you can even activate the ability. There is no 'adapting'; it's just a switch NPCs can flip to suddenly remove all your shields arbitrarily; that's terrible gameplay.
My only 'reaction' is to hit brace for impact and dps them even harder.. anything else is a futile waste of effort.
Again, not everyone pilots a cruiser that has BOFF stations/console slots to spare for redundant heals and armor.
You're kind of missing the gist of what the OP was getting at.
My Tac/FPE-r can tank the Sphere rush. Hell, with half decent pilot skill, the Samsar console, HE (with everyone should really be using anyways) and BFI, anyone can do it. Extra heals are just extra icing on the cake.
I get that the OP was saying that NPC drains are too powerful, but I haven't seen any hard numbers to back it up. Just a lot of people saying "I can't."
Now, OP, I do agree with you - if you're fully decked out against Drains, you should be able to hold onto at least some of your shields (not always, though, like if you get hit by 5 Spheres worth of TB). Player TB/CPB (Charged Particle Burst) don't even scratch Shields that are spec'd against Drains, leading me to believe that A) There's a scaling issue (almost everything in STO has some sort of scaling issue) misplaced decimal point?
So many tears, so few attempts to actually try and combat it. Adapt your build. Don't expect to just sit there and have EPtW/FAW/DEM do all the work for you, you might need to maneuver around, slot some armor, or pump out some heals.
There ARE ways to do it. I've done. Others have done it. It's not the end of the world.
It's nice to have NPCs that actually fight back for a change, instead of just sitting there and getting slapped in the face.
Well I tried HE, ST, 16k shield cap, 200+PI, and a ton of shield and hull heals, with 50%+resists on my 100k+ hull at all times, at the same time... what else do you want me to do?
And you say what?
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Rotate Aux to ID/SIF (massive resistance boost, heal if using SIF), Samsar console, BFI, HE, TSS, TacTeam. RSP if you can afford to slot it.
The Samsar console alone is a 20 second "Get out of jail free" card, since your DPS (should, theoretically) be more than the Spheres.
Without RSP, you that rotation will run you at least 30-40 seconds. If the Spheres aren't popped by then, the heals should be coming back up in a few seconds. At that point, if you're really in trouble, you can always Evasive away.
Worst comes to worst, you die and respawn.
Now, going with what the OP said, if there is an issue where PI/drain resistance isn't helping at all/as much as it should, then it should be fixed.
Can we please NOT nerf everything as soon as NPC's start to actually make a difference against us?
Can we instead just adapt to the changes? Please?
Yeah I gotta agree with this, is it to hard to run EPTS and ST? Oh wait that's right...DPS junkies forgo defense in order to go pure offense...well maybe it's time to give that up?
Adapt and overcome.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Yeah I gotta agree with this, is it to hard to run EPTS and ST? Oh wait that's right...DPS junkies forgo defense in order to go pure offense...well maybe it's time to give that up?
Adapt and overcome.
I will be honest, EP2S will aid in recovery but, ST doesn't really help other than give you a shield heal in this instance.
Between EP2S & ST, EP2S would be better suited but, either one can just as easily be sucked away in a second or 2.
Full shields
TBeamed away
Shield heal applied
TBeamed away
Shields regen
TBeamed away
Next shield heal applied
TBeamed away
Shield heals on cd
Shields regen
TBeamed away
Suffer for a bit
Shield heals on standby
Rinse and repeat.
I did adapt, by spending skill points in skills that should have some effect and carefully choosing my gear to counter shield drains. When those skills and all bonuses have zero effect, shield drains are broken (hence the title of this thread). It's that simple.
Let me apologize for being blunt. I'm not buying it. I adapted to it and am doing fine. You must not have adapted enough. That is the wonderful and frustrating part of STO in a nutshell. They change, you adapt.
If you are still getting your buttocks kicked, then adapt some more.
You stated that you have a vesta. If you used the LCDR uni station for science, you have plenty of BO slots for hull and shield heals/ resists. If you used the ensign uni for science, then you'll have to consider using most of those precious sci BO stations for hull and shield heals, maybe all but the single CDR level ability.
Let me apologize for being blunt. I'm not buying it. I adapted to it and am doing fine. You must not have adapted enough. That is the wonderful and frustrating part of STO in a nutshell. They change, you adapt.
If you are still getting your buttocks kicked, then adapt some more.
You stated that you have a vesta. If you used the LCDR uni station for science, you have plenty of BO slots for hull and shield heals/ resists. If you used the ensign uni for science, then you'll have to consider using most of those precious sci BO stations for hull and shield heals, maybe all but the single CDR level ability.
Frankly I'm not believing that you're actually getting shot at.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Frankly I'm not believing that you're actually getting shot at.
A side effect of my use of cannons is that I'm almost never targeted by more than one NPC at a time (my target), and when other NPCs start targeting me I know it's time to run because the rest of my team either already has or has already died.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
I'm probably in the minority here, but I like the borg better this way ... feels more authentic. In the show, ships were never able to keep their shields up for more than a few seconds against the borg.
Shield power at 91 is hardly doing everything you can against it. You know the built in shield regen is based on that power level right? If you have it at 125, you have a chance to regen through the attack. Also, now you have a reason to put points into power insulators.
He said he has power insulators fully filled, how much do you think more think he can put in them?
Shield power at 91 is hardly doing everything you can against it. You know the built in shield regen is based on that power level right? If you have it at 125, you have a chance to regen through the attack. Also, now you have a reason to put points into power insulators.
In STF's, I run at 214 Power Insulators. And have access to Nadion Inversion. Despite stubborn claims to the contrary, fitting for Power Insulators *does* matter! Maybe not as much as I'd like, but enough.
And those Borg shield people scoff at, with a regen near 350, perhaps they don't suck so, after all?!
In STF's, I run at 214 Power Insulators. And have access to Nadion Inversion. Despite stubborn claims to the contrary, fitting for Power Insulators *does* matter! Maybe not as much as I'd like, but enough.
And those Borg shield people scoff at, with a regen near 350, perhaps they don't suck so, after all?!
FYI, Nadion Inversion doesn't (or shouldn't) do anything against shield drain - it's supposed to be Weapons power drain resistance.
EDIT: Derp. Was thinking of something else. NI does indeed protect against drains.
In STF's, I run at 214 Power Insulators. And have access to Nadion Inversion. Despite stubborn claims to the contrary, fitting for Power Insulators *does* matter! Maybe not as much as I'd like, but enough.
And those Borg shield people scoff at, with a regen near 350, perhaps they don't suck so, after all?!
I have to +1 this. I'm running some PI and armor consoles and I'm doing great, even in my squishy fleet Nova.
TIP: Everyone knows if you get all the sphere agro they're going to take out your shilds. Healing them while being drained will cause the Heals to also get drained. Moving away, hitting BFI, and waiting to heal your shields until after you get drained will give you your full heal and bring your shields right back up.
FYI, Nadion Inversion doesn't (or shouldn't) do anything against shield drain - it's supposed to be Weapons power drain resistance.
Where did you get the idea it's just good for weapons power drain?! Nadion Inversion reduces any power drain to any of your ship's power systems, from without (like ES being used on you) or from within (like thru firing weps).
I'm probably in the minority here, but I like the borg better this way ... feels more authentic. In the show, ships were never able to keep their shields up for more than a few seconds against the borg.
But in the show, we never saw borg spheres using shield drains IIRC. Nor did we see a dozen of them coming through a gate.
Maybe I forgot about some scenes of Voyager, but the only sphere I can remember at all was in First Contact and then later in Star Trek Enterprise, in pieces... and this sphere only fired some plasma bolts at Earth's surface.
And it could be destroyed by 4 quantum torpedoes.
Edit: Just remembered there were spheres in Voyager like in Endgame and Korok's sphere. But those never used shield drains either IIRC.
Comments
Evasive maneuvers and fly away? Brace for impact? Seriously, it's not nearly as OMG GONNA DIE! as you are making it sound like. Hell it's barely am inconvenience.
Let the stupid suffer
LOL, tell that to those 3 weaksauce player's, that had a combined 16 deaths in KASA one night!
90% of those deaths, were from 1 sphere + cube combo, that protects 1 transformer no less.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
$5 says they were stupid enough to get close enough to let the gate kill them.
Let the stupid suffer
Assuming you're talking about the borg stfs? I run ISA and KARA at least once a night time permitting. Granted Im an engineer running a cruiser built to take the worst that the borg can throw at me and giggle because it tickles. Best feeling in the world is eating those instant death attacks, popping miracle worker and telling the boss "my grandma hits harder than that "
Let the stupid suffer
Agreed, I can solo HSN post change, 5-man ISA gives me issues, and I'm not feeling like another HSE try.
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!
There ARE ways to do it. I've done. Others have done it. It's not the end of the world.
It's nice to have NPCs that actually fight back for a change, instead of just sitting there and getting slapped in the face.
Yes, there are ways to work around this shield drain like isolating enemies or isolating yourself from those same enemies by flying away.
But that is not the point. The point is, when people invest a huge amount of skills in anti-draining abilities and shield improvement skills, buy gear that was specifically designed to fight the borg and add even more bonuses to those anti-draining abilities (MACO 2-set bonus), buy and equip some of the best gear available in the game to increase their amount of shielding, then a draining ability shouldn't still be able to drain shields in mere seconds.
The only logical conclusion at that point: the anti-draining measures aren't good enough / the draining ability (tachyon beam) was buffed so much or is used too much so that it may well be the most OP skill currently used by enemies.
Investing in power insulators or shield improvement skills/gear should have some effect, which it currently has not. That's the real problem.
I did adapt, by spending skill points in skills that should have some effect and carefully choosing my gear to counter shield drains. When those skills and all bonuses have zero effect, shield drains are broken (hence the title of this thread). It's that simple.
lol, we adapted alright. By throwing out all our insulators gear/skill points that have ironically become useless and instead throwing all those points into resists and hull. Insulators are a great counter in a theory, but the numbers behind them is way off. The staggering amount of insulators you would have to stack to make shield drains a non issue boggles the mind. The shield drains are so frequent, so relentless and so stacked on top of each other and the effectiveness of insulators per point is so weak in countering the unending shield drain barrage that one might go for broke and just improve your hull instead. High capacity low regen shields have also become marginalized. I run my borg set now because stopping the shield sucking is pointless. Better to let it finish and regen back quickly. (130 shield power at all times with my plasmonic leech/aux2bat build) What a farce.
I guess the moral of the story is, if you can't change the drains back, improve the effectiveness of insulators point for point. Right now they don't seem like a good investment considering the apparent lack of effectiveness.
If you come across the Borg, a Voth Bulwark, a Hirogen Apex, etc.. you just have to suck it up and hull tank it. There is nothing you can do to actually counter or deny them. Jam Sensors/Evade Target Lock? Half your shields are a gone before you can even activate the ability. There is no 'adapting'; it's just a switch NPCs can flip to suddenly remove all your shields arbitrarily; that's terrible gameplay.
My only 'reaction' is to hit brace for impact and dps them even harder.. anything else is a futile waste of effort.
Lol, yeah that was the other 9%, while the last 1% went to the Tac cube!!!
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
My Tac/FPE-r can tank the Sphere rush. Hell, with half decent pilot skill, the Samsar console, HE (with everyone should really be using anyways) and BFI, anyone can do it. Extra heals are just extra icing on the cake.
I get that the OP was saying that NPC drains are too powerful, but I haven't seen any hard numbers to back it up. Just a lot of people saying "I can't."
Now, OP, I do agree with you - if you're fully decked out against Drains, you should be able to hold onto at least some of your shields (not always, though, like if you get hit by 5 Spheres worth of TB). Player TB/CPB (Charged Particle Burst) don't even scratch Shields that are spec'd against Drains, leading me to believe that A) There's a scaling issue (almost everything in STO has some sort of scaling issue)
And you say what?
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 telling you that I have done it.
Rotate Aux to ID/SIF (massive resistance boost, heal if using SIF), Samsar console, BFI, HE, TSS, TacTeam. RSP if you can afford to slot it.
The Samsar console alone is a 20 second "Get out of jail free" card, since your DPS (should, theoretically) be more than the Spheres.
Without RSP, you that rotation will run you at least 30-40 seconds. If the Spheres aren't popped by then, the heals should be coming back up in a few seconds. At that point, if you're really in trouble, you can always Evasive away.
Worst comes to worst, you die and respawn.
Now, going with what the OP said, if there is an issue where PI/drain resistance isn't helping at all/as much as it should, then it should be fixed.
Yeah I gotta agree with this, is it to hard to run EPTS and ST? Oh wait that's right...DPS junkies forgo defense in order to go pure offense...well maybe it's time to give that up?
Adapt and overcome.
I will be honest, EP2S will aid in recovery but, ST doesn't really help other than give you a shield heal in this instance.
Between EP2S & ST, EP2S would be better suited but, either one can just as easily be sucked away in a second or 2.
Full shields
TBeamed away
Shield heal applied
TBeamed away
Shields regen
TBeamed away
Next shield heal applied
TBeamed away
Shield heals on cd
Shields regen
TBeamed away
Suffer for a bit
Shield heals on standby
Rinse and repeat.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Let me apologize for being blunt. I'm not buying it. I adapted to it and am doing fine. You must not have adapted enough. That is the wonderful and frustrating part of STO in a nutshell. They change, you adapt.
If you are still getting your buttocks kicked, then adapt some more.
You stated that you have a vesta. If you used the LCDR uni station for science, you have plenty of BO slots for hull and shield heals/ resists. If you used the ensign uni for science, then you'll have to consider using most of those precious sci BO stations for hull and shield heals, maybe all but the single CDR level ability.
Frankly I'm not believing that you're actually getting shot at.
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!
He said he has power insulators fully filled, how much do you think more think he can put in them?
In STF's, I run at 214 Power Insulators. And have access to Nadion Inversion. Despite stubborn claims to the contrary, fitting for Power Insulators *does* matter! Maybe not as much as I'd like, but enough.
And those Borg shield people scoff at, with a regen near 350, perhaps they don't suck so, after all?!
FYI, Nadion Inversion doesn't (or shouldn't) do anything against shield drain - it's supposed to be Weapons power drain resistance.
EDIT: Derp. Was thinking of something else. NI does indeed protect against drains.
I have to +1 this. I'm running some PI and armor consoles and I'm doing great, even in my squishy fleet Nova.
TIP: Everyone knows if you get all the sphere agro they're going to take out your shilds. Healing them while being drained will cause the Heals to also get drained. Moving away, hitting BFI, and waiting to heal your shields until after you get drained will give you your full heal and bring your shields right back up.
Where did you get the idea it's just good for weapons power drain?! Nadion Inversion reduces any power drain to any of your ship's power systems, from without (like ES being used on you) or from within (like thru firing weps).
But in the show, we never saw borg spheres using shield drains IIRC. Nor did we see a dozen of them coming through a gate.
Maybe I forgot about some scenes of Voyager, but the only sphere I can remember at all was in First Contact and then later in Star Trek Enterprise, in pieces... and this sphere only fired some plasma bolts at Earth's surface.
And it could be destroyed by 4 quantum torpedoes.
Edit: Just remembered there were spheres in Voyager like in Endgame and Korok's sphere. But those never used shield drains either IIRC.