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+ Threat Buff
jellico1
Member Posts: 2,719
Cruisers have a hard time holding agro because of the limited science console slots
Add + Threat to embassy engineering consoles just like the science consoles have so cruisers can do there job
And attract Fire needs a big buff as well and more resistance to go with it
You at cryptic keep raiseing the DPS bar but you don't raise the + Threat bar
Add + Threat to embassy engineering consoles just like the science consoles have so cruisers can do there job
And attract Fire needs a big buff as well and more resistance to go with it
You at cryptic keep raiseing the DPS bar but you don't raise the + Threat bar
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
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
Post edited by jellico1 on
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http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1406941
There are a few things we can do to increase threat, such as get in close to the targets, and use other gear which boosts threat generation like the elite fleet fermion deflector.
Most tanks should be able to hold aggro for folks with DPS up to around 3 times the tank DPS. Exceptional tanks can extend that to 5 times, maybe more.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1413781
The thing is 9 points of captian skill points for 10 damage resistance is such a poor deal its comical
At that rate it should be moved to ensign
most cruisers have 5 engineering slots and 2 science slots,,It only makes sense to have threat Generation on engineering consoles as well
If cryptic wants cruisers to tank they need to make it easier and more attractive for players
90% or more cruisers ignor tanking and use -threat because its so unattractive to do it is my point from a pug point of view
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
Umm... DPS IS Threat...
So is buffing, debuffing, healing...
...until they do something about that range bit though and just how much that might make a difference, it's difficult to get into much of anything else, eh?
Do they?
I agree that threat control would be better used at ensign or lieutenant level for skill points, to make it "cheaper" to get into it.
As for if cryptic wants cruisers to tank, they have, but in a round-about way. T6 traits greatly help. Reciprocity is a big boost for cruisers, if you have aggro, and that's just 1 of many T6 traits you can use to help tanks.
Not many folks have the mindset to tank. It's not a glory job.
Wait, were we just directed to threads denoting the In Game Qualified Experts on Three Year Old Content?
Good stuff, and I bet typed out in all seriousness as well.
In any case, what Virus said about what the other guy (Bort, a developer I believe) is what I'm going with as well.
Oh,and that bit about the range of torpedoes being used as the threat multiplier for the damage owner. Cause that seems likely. Unconfirmed, but likely. Much anecdotal evidence though.
Plus DPS and TPS isn't the only (or most useful) measures in the game. You can top both of those charts and still lose threat constantly.
Peace. Happy tanking:rolleyes:
EDIT: Cryptic never wanted cruisers to tank. You'll find no evidence that there were mechanics in place to make cruisers the most effective tanks. And you still won't. That was more a response to players inability to grasp the basics and give people what they were comfortable with than anything else. And just in case you find the one video of one person that worked on the game in beta using the word 'tank' with 'cruiser' that's not going to carry a lot of weight without some numbers to back it up. It never happened. And Cryptic and the content was fine with that.
Surviving damage isn't necessarily tanking though. One can tank damage, but that's not the same as tanking aggro. Yes, they added the Cruiser Command Arrays with the Attract Fire...but the Starship Threat Control is a Tactical Skill and the +Th/-Th Consoles are Science Consoles.
Do I tank in my Geneva? Sure. I've got 0 pts in Starship Threat Control, rarely have a +Th console, and am usually running Shield Frequency Modulation. I'm just up close to the targets and doing damage. I'll tank even more if I'm in a Sci boat or Carrier cause I'm more likely to have the +Th console(s) while also doing more damage...while generally being that much closer to the targets with some good ol' Reverse Tractor Beam Repulsors come to papa magic going on.
Reciprocity feeding All Hands on Deck feeding DPS...all sorts of fun...all sorts of PvP in a PvE queue, as folks fight for aggro to feed their Reciprocity to feed their All Hands on Deck to feed their DPS...which in turn feeds their aggro which feeds their Reciprocity which feeds their All Hands on Deck which feeds their DPS which in turn...yeah.
Unless that boat is actually doing something to grab aggro with the funky way it works in this game...that Reciprocity won't be feeding anything. Tank fights are awesome fun...oh, you want the aggro - no, no, that's my aggro...muahahaha!
I usually end up tanking in whatever I'm flying - no, I'm not always going to be grabbing 70-90% of the aggro, but even in an BoP I'm going to be pulling 40-50% aggro even when Cruisers are about.
No mechanics in place to make cruisers the most effective tanks?
So, you're telling me...
Man. That's a lot of things I need to unlearn.
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!
Tank fight would be interresting. I first wanted to be a healing/ support player but eventually found tanking was more my niche. If I don't have aggro, which I periodically check in STFs when I run my tank, I can fall back on healer/ DPS player. My tank builds aren't all tank as I want to get the most DPS I can get while still barely surviving through having aggro for the team. It's kinda like the Deferi, it's a balance thing.
As for reciprocity fights, that could be a painful experience for some. Who ever has the most aggro keeps reciprocity going and others go without.
No. I'm telling you you don't understand game mechanics. So sure. There's a lot of things you need to unlearn.
Anyway I'm sorry I used the past tense as that wasn't strong enough. Let me clear that up.
Cryptic never intended at launch for the cruisers to be tanks.
Read more about that here.
If they had, don't you think they could have gotten it right? What's your opinion on the devs?
Stop playing square peg, round hole, and life gets better.
So go ahead. Find the evidence to support that this game was designed with the cruiser as a tank. I dare you to post it here.
And don't come back with "well they added this stuff to help cruisers tank". Seriously. Even a blind person could see that they are trying to give the players what they seem to want and understand. And also that it isn't working because the basic fundamental way that threat was implemented.
Does that even ring any bells with you? Or are you like all "Big ship, must tank!"?
No they do not..............If they did engineering consols would have +Threat on them like science consoles have, attract fire would give 250 threat not 100 and 25 resistance to all
That's my point
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've got your standards with the +5x4 for +20...
You've got some +10/10 for +20...
JHSS sports +20...
Sarr Theln sports +20...
Manasa sports +20...
Poor Hazari only sports +15....poor Hazari.
Pathfinder's only +15 too...poor Pathfinder.
So just a few ships at +20 besides Cruisers?
Narcine too...Obelisk, JHDC...not the poor Recluse.
I'm not going to go through all the ships that are +20, +15, +10...
* * * * *
Course, I always found the basic discussions on DPS/Tank/Healer to be interesting with the assignment of DPS to "Escort", Tank to "Cruiser", and Healer to "Science Vessel"...
Cause the BOFF slots for the Sci Vessel don't quite match up with the ability to do the healing thing there...don't forget the Teams were locked.
ET, AtS, ExS
ST, TSS, HE
And well, there's no healing coming from a Cmdr Sci BOFF slot...but there is from a Cruiser.
So uh, wouldn't that lean toward the Cruiser being the healer? Oh, something like the Star Cruiser type boat, eh?
X, X
X, X, X, X
X, X, X
X, X
X
Can even work in an APD there when needed while tossing out the TT when needed...while having ET, AtS, ExS, ST, TSS, and HE all available as well...and when they split the teams, made it even easier to drop out the TT, ET, ST on somebody, yeah? Doing that while still being able to work a pair of EPtX or even an EPtX/EPtY...etc, etc, etc.
It also sported the 2 Tac - 4 Eng - 3 Sci consoles...pretty much screaming...I'm a Healer!
Did any of the basic Sci Vessels say that? Nope.
So what do Sci BOFFs mainly offer? Crowd Control w/ Movement/Confuse/Stun, Debuffs w/ Energy/Shield Drains, and some Exotic Damage thrown into the mix.
Ah, the TRIBBLE child of the MMO Trinity...the 4th Role. Shhhhhh!
Well if the Escort is DPS, Cruiser is Heals, and Sci Vessel is the [Redacted]...who's the Tank?
Going a bit on what Thissler had there in that one article...I'd point to around where things were at the time of the F2P conversion up through S7 or so.
Escorts, eh?
X, X, X, X
X, X, X
X, X
X
X, X
Was the Fleet Escort...became the Patrol Escort.
What does that BOFF layout provide access to, eh?
Depends, eh? Folks have their preferences for their EPtX/EPtY stuff...but uh, a Tankscort would likely have the EPtS going, eh? Perhaps working either EPtE or EPtW for the other - depending on where they were sitting, yeah?
Would also have access to the RSP, yeah? Sure, sure, more stuff came along that changed all sorts of things as far as what a person could do (power creep's not just offensive stuff)...and there were different BOFF layouts, etc, etc, etc.
They'd also have access to PH, no? Yeah, yeah that's there. Maybe carry a spare HE as well, no? Back then HE was a bit more needed to cleanse the Burn than it is now where you can trip over cleanses (heh, did you see that Iconian shield...every 6 seconds, eh?).
So hrmm, the guy doing the most damage...also has some "tank" abilities they can have going for them there...while getting healed from the Cruiser and the Sci Vessel is debuffing the targets and setting them up for the kill.
Cruiser couldn't do the damage to hold aggro...Hell, a Cruiser couldn't even hold aggro from a Sci Vessel. All that Sci Hax really ticks those NPCs off. Tada...-Th Sci Consoles. Sure, there are +Th as well...ever notice how often the TRIBBLE hits the fan for a Sci Vessel when they tick off the mobs...which is pretty easy to do?
But, but, but...the Cruiser is tanky! The Cruiser has enough "tanky" so that it can toss heals...eh?
* * * * *
Vel, you're an Eng tanking in a Scimitar, right? Scimitar...Dreadnought Warbird...big mutha escort...yeah?
Me, I'm a little more complicated cause I pug. I'm a Sci in a Geneva, er - Science Command Battlecruiser for those reading along but don't know. When I say I'm a little more complicated, that's not in any way dismissing what you do. I couldn't do what you do. It's just a case, well, you've seen where I've posted things and asked "what am I?", yeah? Tends to be "tank"...but I'm only the "tank" cause I'm pugging. I'm usually at the top for damage, top for aggro, and top for heals...the first two play into one another. Doing all that damage...I'm going to get the aggro. If I'm there doing 15-20k DPS and the other folks are doing 1-6k...well, that aggro is going to happen. Put me in a group with folks doing 15-30k+...and...yeah, I don't have the aggro.
Put me in a group with folks doing that kind of damage...and...give me somebody in a Sci Vessel dropping out some crowd control/GW/etc...and I make three changes to BOFF abilities to go from my fake DPS Tank Healer to Healer.
EPtW becomes EPtA...DOFF'd at that.
GW becomes TSS or ST, though I might go HE3 and run either TSS2 or ST2.
RSP becomes ExS.
Cause...I'm a Sci in a Geneva...I'm going to bring my innate debuffing as well as my group buffing to work in with the healing stuff that the Geneva allows me to do...and I'll plod around chasing down folks that need healing. Okay, maybe a fourth change - may or may not change out APB for APD to drop out on somebody.
But what stuff would I be sporting to do the healing/support thing?
TT1, APD1
FAW1, OE2 or OE1, FAW2 (OE being Overwhelm Emitters - debuff something, folks heal their shields)
EPtA1, AtS1/ET2, AtS2, ET3, RPM3 (RP being Rally Point Marker - nifty little Command BOFF ability, imho)
EPtS1, ExS1
TachBeam1, TSS2/ST2/HE2, TSS3/ST3/HE3
And because I'm in a Cruiser, I'm going to have that bit of buffer for the random fire that would actually come my way from multiple target/AoE sorts of attacks.
* * * * *
Note: None of the below reflect the layout above the asterisks - that would be a build I'd run if I knew before hand...the below were just my typical muddling through stuff.
Last 3 ISA pugs... DPS% / Aggro % / Heal %
Player Me) 37.8% / 45.0% / 60.7%
Player
Player C) 19.6% / 42.0% / 32.6%
Player D) 8.8% / 4.8% / 2.0%
Player E) 6.0% / 2.4% / 1.3%
Tank fight! Wouldn't have been, but he did 6.9k DPS to my 13.3k DPS. If he had my DPS, he would have been the Tank hands down.
Player A) 42.9% / 16.5% / 6.5%
Player
Player Me) 17.9% / 65.3% / 86.0%
Player D) 8.7% / 8.4% / 3.5%
Player E) 5.5% / 2.0% / 0.2%
Pretty sure A & B were running -Th as both were dropping Plasma Explosions.
Player Me) 37.3% / 76.8% / 91.8%
Player
Player C) 18.1% / 8.0% / 2.0%
Player D) 12.1% / 2.7% / 0.3%
Player E) 9.0% / 5.8% / 2.3%
3,019,903 healing where the next guy was 113,459.
Just pug stuff...can't do any of that with the DPS folks.
I appreciate any and all responses. I apologize for only reading this one. I'm very sick and very cranky.
I know a fair number of you read the blog. Thank you.
Virus 'gets' it.
Remember the key isn't just what abilities each ship has on its own, its what abilities it can GRANT to other ships. Tactical ships had the highest defense. Avoidance as a tanking stat is extremely powerful and extremely hard to balance. In all seriousness please study that a bit. Read some trade articles or something. It is an eye opener.
All ships had access to the same Lt rank of repairs and buffs. Some very good or stronger buffs reside at Lt Cmdr and above. But. Here's the thing.
Escorts can't grant defense to Cruisers or Science. Cruisers or Science can grant hull repairs, hull resists, shield resists, shield repairs, and increased power levels to an escort. And because of the way diminishing returns works, this strategy was extremely effective considering the console layouts of the ships.
Here's something. One of the most raged on abilities, Extend Shields, is a tremendous self heal and resists boost. Kidding. It was Other Only. And it was so strong that two cruisers rotating that on each other wouldn't die until a Science wiped that silly extend off of their hulls. That's considerable, and it's available at Lt.
Anyway.
Or you can swap out escorts. Bring two escorts and two cruisers and one science. Swap escorts as needed. We all agree range is the greatest modifier to threat. How simple is it to move one escort closer, and one further away?
See when I hear tanking discussed on these forums I see the old clunky MMO model of Big Slow Tank, and even sometimes Big Slow Tank that just plain does it all. Okay no. There's no support for that. It just isn't there.
What I envision is the cruiser being the hub and the escorts being the screen. The cruiser calls the shots and props up the team. The Science works its dirty magic tricks from a distance as well, always ready to scoot in with their particular buffs. Teams would REALLY be working together, but the payoff would be HUGE.
And you wouldn't have to change anything in the game. Current Command Cruisers MORE than support this concept. Seriously they bring a huge potential to damage dealers.
Peace. Once again if I even felt a little better I'd hang out and be sociable, but I'm pretty much on a Rat's TRIBBLE Of Society Level, so I think this thread can only improve by my leaving.
Cheers! and TY!
An escort player would rarely go out of their way to make sure they have everything firing at them to make life easier for their teammates. An escort is more likely to just try to kill everything as fast as possible which has the side effects of getting aggro due to threat and eliminating the threats to other players.
A tanky cruiser will go out of their way to get aggro first to take the heat off of the other teammates which may include escorts. The escort gets aggro as a result of trying to kill first. Escorts are rarely concerned with trying to produce more threat via +TH mods since their hulls can't take the incoming fire if they don't kill it fast enough, where a cruiser typically can use +TH mods because it has more hull, more console space available to put toward better resist/ heals and has a few extra bridge officer abilities that can be set for healing, resists or more damage output, depending on the player's preferences.
Folks can argue over minute details till the cows come home, but each is different.
It's a different mindset for each side, one which gets aggro through a different purposeful act.
What is the difference in DPS between your ship and the other player that is getting aggro?
If the high DPS player is getting more than 3 times your DPS, you may want to try to increase your ship's DPS to get within a good threshold to maintain aggro.
personally I would think EVERYONE would want cruisers to be able to get and hold threat better but most of the responses in this thread seem to think everything is fine
I think its reasonable to put +Threat on embassy engineering consoles and increase attract fire + threat
So a player does not have to gut his DPS to survive without shields which if you are in a cruiser holding threat in a advanced borg mission you do not have shields when rsp goes down
your not getting team heals in pugs and I am not talking about PvP
I guess we will rock on like we are if the rest of you are happy as it is
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
Are you talking pugs or premades? It sounds...pugs. A pug isn't necessarily going to have DPS Tank, DPS, Heals, 4th Role. And in pugging, well, kind of gave examples of where it takes care of itself in another way generally anyway...
But then again, in general...it was more of a design discussion than any sort of player preference/mindset kind of discussion.
There tend to be folks coming from other MMOs with certain expectations...and...STO doesn't quite cater to them.
I am a PvE cruiser tank player. I'm horrible at PvP. Threat matters very little in PvP, so take that into account.
Yes, you very rarely get a heal from other players, especially in pugged runs. The trouble is that you can easily get far too tanky and sacrifice some DPS potential for it. If you alter just a bit, you might find you can increase DPS, which increases threat, and still be surviveable.
If you use combatlogreader, check the results. A decent tank should expect to be able to get and hold aggro from folks doing 2-3 times the tank's DPS. Check the hits in tab to see your percentages. Over 50% is good, 60% is even better.
If you are struggling with figuring out how to improve damage output without sacrificing much tank, you could always put up a link to your build so we can try to help give you some more ideas.
...Okay then. Let's learn some things here, at Vel's school of actual facts.
Raw defensive stats are more than simply defense. Hull strength, shield modifier, starship masteries these days, and defense are all things. Cruisers have the obvious defensive edge in three of those. And defense... the extra amount escorts get is insignificant, especially when there are some auto-hit abilities that can one-shot escorts, even if their hull resist is 50% and their shields are at full.
I don't care when attract fire was added. That is a crystal clear mechanic in place to make cruisers tanks. Something you said didn't exist in the post I was replying to.
So, you're telling me that cruisers were designed to stand away and shoot at stuff? I've heard of exactly 0 mechanics ever that support that. While I'm sure you're thinking "escorts were meant for cannons, cruisers were meant for beams, beams don't get by falloff that hard," first, that's not even the current game state (in which everything is meant for beams), but secondly, that still encourages cruisers to get up close, to avoid fall-off, which is still significant on beams. Beyond that, whichever ship type you arbitrarily chose to tank is going to want to get closer still, because aggro reasons.
Okay, power levels. EPTx, obviously, boosts power levels. EPTx abilities fit ratherly easily on cruisers, with their innate focus. Furthermore, most cruisers have a total of +20 innate power, while most other ships have +15 innate power. Power is more import on a tank than other ships because a dps'er just innately needs weapons power, a debuff ship needs aux and possibly weapons, but a tank needs weapons (to hold threat), aux (for heals), and shield power (for resists).
Survivability: Well, there's the raw innate stats. Then there's the strength of the commander engineering seat for defensive purposes. I really hope I don't have to break that down for you.
And... Did you literally just say that survivability wasn't relevant for tanking?
---
Aside from the fact that you just linked an article that links the same absurdity you just spewed at me (and cites nothing anyway), probably because you wrote it, it doesn't even describe tanks. It describes a general buff/heal class on a dps-class. None of that described an actual tank.
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!
Strategic Maneuvering
Weapon System Efficiency
Survivability != Tanking
Not enough caffeine to contribute more at the moment...damn store brand sodas going light on the caffeine...meh.
You providing any sort of argument, except to say that your right and you don't care what I think.
You restate your case. Great. I'm not sure if you're ESL, nor do I care. If you are I'm sorry I can't make it any more plain for you.
If you don't know how to calculate things like effective health, aggro potential, or other relative things, again I can't help you.
If you're that sad that you can't see the difference between the game at launch, and the game now, I can't help you.
Cause here's what you don't get. That's what you need to look at. Not some TRIBBLE backward retrofit 'tanking' abilities grafted onto cruisers. Look at the underlying design.
Or do you think the wails of the 'pro tankers' ie; I had threat half the time! I'm good! Indicate that yah cruisers are meant to be tanks and **** is working pretty much as intended.
And fun stuff. At launch, try to get a cruiser in close and keep it there. See what happens to your defense. Your actual defense. The basic fundamental stat along with Acc. And not some **** you feel like calling defense.
And guess what happened to any ship in that position? It got blowed up, resistances or not.
Do YOU need the math done for you? Just flat out, don't be moronic, threat makes the tank
If you don't have the threat you don't have a tank.
At launch, that would have been the escort. Where's the rest of the discussion? What make believe world do you live in, where sto was launched and cruisers were the premier dps class?
What make believe world do you live in, where sto was launched, and the forums were NOT on fire with players complaining about the way cruisers tended to explode on contact with the enemy?
This is what happened. Where you there?
It's sad that you style yourself a thinker, and yet are unwilling to let go for a minute and say..."Okay, what was the state of the game at launch, what were the mechanics in place?"
There's no debate that cryptic is trying to retrofit some tanking onto cruisers due the demand of players and it's equally clear that it isn't working. Like when a developer says..."yah it isn't working". That's your tip.
Hey, did you notice that ground is set up the same way? Do you think the developers worked in the same building? Maybe?
And as far as 'absurdity' if you don't know how other MMO's use exactly the same mechanics I describe to allow for non traditional tank roles, here's what I have to say.
Educate yourself.
Peace and best of luck with your peg issue.
EDIT:Aside from the fact that you just linked an article that links the same absurdity you just spewed at me (and cites nothing anyway), probably because you wrote it, it doesn't even describe tanks. It describes a general buff/heal class on a dps-class. None of that described an actual tank. Yah... It's the combination of the two, or three. What don't you get? The game was/is about team work. It was by working together that you got the best most flexible tanking/support combinations. Escorts brought Threat, damage, and defense. Cruisers and Science brought power, resistances, repairs, cleanses, oh, and pick something. You just be stubborn.
And here's the thing, a cruiser can have those effective on any escorts between it and the target and that will just make the escorts better tanks yet again.
Hi virus!
Did you see that Engineering console from Delta Flight?
Console - Engineering - Polaric Modulator Mk XII
+5 Inertia
+12% Flight Speed
+20% Flight Turn Rate
Adds 7.5% of your Weapon Power to your Engine Power as bonus power
+20% Turn Rate while in Slipstream
Can be upgraded, but I can't remember what the Mk XIII stats were from the upgrade window and I didn't take it to Tribble to G14 it for those stats.