It's like people haven't heard of AOE/multiple target attacks in STO.
The disables shouldn't have been constant. This is exactly the same problem they ran into with changing TB or adding EPtS to Borg NPCs. Too much of an interesting thing is no longer interesting.
And with the skyhigh cost attached to investing into upgrading a build, I tend to just suicide through the FEs as needed.
This is why I prefer ground content to space content; for the cost of upgrading one space set, I can upgrade multiple ground sets, and provide myself some actually build diversity which I can leverage to handle diverse content demands.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
True and worst is that the ONLY counter is ET that happens to be a hull heal so I am throwing away heals because of a disable ability that its spammed constant.
I can live with that, provided ET was actually an effective counter.
Instead, it works only so long as it lasts, and then you're instantly re-disabled.
And this doesn't even cover the disables the Iconian vessels themselves can use. Only the ones their carrier pets use.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Haven't yet found a reliable repeatable technique to deal with the pet spam and all the associated brouhaha. I have begun trying some things which worked with other NPC Big Bads. After all, we're talking about Cryptic Devs here. Whose initial answer to ramping up NPCs was adding a gazillion HP to them and then making a lot more of them show up.
Yeah, that's an interesting fight.
Did Geko hold a contest to see who can come up with the dumbest idea faster than anyone else? With free food as the prize?
Eventually, someone will solve the enemies in...
Cue excessive reverb and volume. Cue extra cheesy summer blockbuster soundtrack. Add extra cheese.
The War Which Is Not A War But Is A Collection Of Blogs And Cutscenes!
annnd, Scene. :P
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
Calling people who disagree with you 'trolls' doesn't help, especially considering your rather... vague original post.
Clearly describing the problem would have likely been better recieved, however, being vague then calling people trolls... Yeah, not gonna end well. :rolleyes:
Oh?
There's giving helpful advice and there's being a sarcastic condescending insulting troll. Let me give you examples.
Instead of calling it OP and cry for nerfs you could just manually target that thing and shoot it. You know, instead of mindlessly mashing the space bar like a brain dead zombie.:rolleyes:
Who am I kidding, it's STO we're talking about....
I didn't "cry for nerfs". And this poster made the assumption that I'm "mindlessly mashing the space bar like a brain dead zombie". Even with the oh-so-helpful "just manually target that thing and shoot it", they couldn't resist to insult in the process.
Learn some tactics! Mindless and sitting in one spot going PEW PEW doesn't work on Iconian stuff. I can list at least four ways to beat those. But hey you don't care because you are not willing to learn new tactics and would rather cry nerf it nerfit it killed me.
And this one implies I'm haven't bothered to try or learn tactics. While they claim they can list four ways to beat them, did they provide those "helpful tactics" for me to "learn"? No. Instead they insist I don't care because I'm "not willing to learn new tactics and would rather cry nerf it nerfit it killed me." Again, I didn't "cry for nerfs". And as if that wasn't enough, the same poster...
Was going to say something but it'd be wasted breath on the OP.
So he got two in.
There's helpful advice, constructive criticism, passing on learned tactics, etc., and there's acting like a troll.
If my post was too vague (I already explained why in a later post), someone could ask "Can you be more specific?" If someone honestly wanted to help, they could say "What problem(s) are you having with them? Maybe I can give you some advice. Here, try this tactic out." And if someone disagrees with my post, "I don't think they're OP, and here's why" without the sarcasm, condescension, and insults.
Hence, trolls.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Cue excessive reverb and volume. Cue extra cheesy summer blockbuster soundtrack. Add extra cheese.
The War Which Is Not A War But Is A Collection Of Blogs And Cutscenes!
annnd, Scene. :P
LOL But you forgot "Cue Don LaFontaine back from the dead."
Other than "unlocking" each FE on each toon, I'll wait for "The War" to come out on DVD. I'm on summer vacation on Risa...busy grinding favor and vouchers. :rolleyes:
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,671Community Moderator
True and worst is that the ONLY counter is ET that happens to be a hull heal so I am throwing away heals because of a disable ability that its spammed constant.
Engie Team isn't the only thing that can fix disabled subsytems. I believe the individual consumable batteries can do that as well, along with clicky consoles (Which come off low level C-Store ships, but there's only one each for Fed and KDF if I remember correctly), and the Red Matter Capacitor.
I do agree that the disable spam can get annoying, but... isn't that also a PvP tactic? Render your opponent unable to fight back? Granted PvPers prefer the "Kill you Dead" over just disabling you, but still...
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
I wouldn't have used that feature at all. I personally (other opinion may very well vary) hate everything that plays with "subspace" other than sending messages... The whole portal, teleport, isntakill-wavy stuff is really annoying in my opinion.
Er... um...
Psst... Targ...
In STO, the Klingons are really good at manipulating subspace... they were doing the "teleport vape" before it was cool...
Sure, they're a different mechanic that anything else previously - but it's also not hard to defeat. They do a lot of damage (and quickly), so you need to pay attention to them. If you find yourself getting scorched, look for the scary orange flickering and follow it back to it's source.
Counters:
Run away.
Manually Target
FAW
CSV
Pets
Heals
High resists
Rock N Roll
Surrounded by too many NPCs? Use TBR to get yourself some breathing room.
Even those oh so dastardly Iconian Probes are easily dealt with. Just get to them before they get to you. And if they do get to you, a decent Subsystem Repair skill and/or Human crew brings you back up rather quickly.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
In STO, the Klingons are really good at manipulating subspace... they were doing the "teleport vape" before it was cool...
Unless you are talking about PVP that must be something I'm missing. And even so, my point still stands: Whenever in the whole of Star Trek "subspace" comes up I roll my eyes. That's a "thing" that has never been established to be anything else but "magic problem solver". It doesn't really matter who uses subspace weapons, they're all dumb :P
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
I just love how the OP is stomping his little feet and crying that he got called out. LMAO at the OP. OP you obviously have no clue what you are doing. Several people have given you the answer how to defeat the Solar yet you still rant and rave like a two year old. You call me a troll like you are going to some how hurt my feelings seriously thats pretty pathetic coming from the likes of you. Perhaps this game is above you skill levels so go back to playing Spongebob oh wait thats to hard game for someone with your mental abilities so maybe a juice box and crayons are more your speed.
I tjus olve hwo eht Op si stpgimno hie ietltl tefe nda gyncri that eh got leldca tou. Lamo ta het Op. Op uyo bvloiyuso aehv on eluc atwh uyo era ndiog. Eralesv peelpo vahe gveni uyo eth ensrwa owh ot eedfta the Rosla tey uyo sltli rtna nad rave ielk a wot arye old. You allc me a torll elik ouy ear inggo ot smeo how uhtr my gslenife ylrisoesu sttah tepryt tphtaeci imcgon fomr the ilkes of uyo. Hresapp ihts agem si oavbe yuo llsik llseve os go kcab ot agiynpl Oegobsnbp ho itwa tshta to rdha gaem rfo oneosem htwi ryou etmanl eiiblatsi os yeabm a ujeic oxb dna sraocyn rea emro oury epdes.
What was that? Sorry, I don't speak trollish.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Unless you are talking about PVP that must be something I'm missing. And even so, my point still stands: Whenever in the whole of Star Trek "subspace" comes up I roll my eyes. That's a "thing" that has never been established to be anything else but "magic problem solver". It doesn't really matter who uses subspace weapons, they're all dumb :P
Aw.
But I like my Subspace Jump console... and the Subspace Snare Console...
I like to imagine the brief moment of surprise on the Tholians nearly-expressionless face as I teleport their Recluse in front of my Bortas'que before I light it up.
The disables shouldn't have been constant. This is exactly the same problem they ran into with changing TB or adding EPtS to Borg NPCs. Too much of an interesting thing is no longer interesting.
And with the skyhigh cost attached to investing into upgrading a build, I tend to just suicide through the FEs as needed.
This is why I prefer ground content to space content; for the cost of upgrading one space set, I can upgrade multiple ground sets, and provide myself some actually build diversity which I can leverage to handle diverse content demands.
Then I repeat myself.
"It's like people haven't heard of AOE/multiple target attacks in STO."
It's like people don't notice the amount of spam the Heralds throw at the team and forget they have abilities specifically designed in dealing with them. Those Probes, Gateways, MRfighters that people seem so helpless against die like throwing an ant on a stove top. Personally, I'm in the camp of "If in doubt, FAW it out." Like my sig implies Because in PVE, BFAW is typically the best answer.
AOE/multiple target attacks in general are performers against the Heralds because of that multiple targeting ability. They do their job: Clearing the trash because that's exactly what the Heralds throw at you at a constant rate. If your group does not have AOE/multiple target ability, good CC, then your Engineering Team or Respawn button will be going into overtime.
And I'm not talking about always going with some Premade Team. I do most of my stuff with PUGs. If the PUG runs lots of multi-target abilities, runs CC, the Heralds are easy and routinely killed off. With multi-target and CC, even if the group did not have great DPS, the mission is easy because the Heralds' numbers are contained and they're bunched up for easy killing.
Gear doesn't matter much, believe it or not, when dealing with the Heralds. There's a very recent thread where the OP had problems dealing with the Heralds. First thing he does is take his shield to Mk XIV which I'll tell you now, doesn't mean **** in any part of the game. Then he goes on to blame Cryptic for having the game nudge the players ever more to T5U/T6.
Against the Heralds, your playstyle determines many things because a number of the old cheap things players liked to do before the Heralds came will lead to headaches against them. You can curbstomp the Heralds with your freebie Lv40 ship and cheap equipment. My Delta Noobs can do just fine. Not on the same level as my Pre-Delta Recruit Event characters, but with the right flying and a basic build to cover the bases, they're just fine and I feel are an asset to any team I jump with.
Against the Heralds, your playstyle determines many things
This part in particular is so true. My pre-delta character is in a t5u defiant. Torp spread and cannon fires (both rapid and spread). She takes alot longer to finish the pegh mission than my kdf delta who is only lvl40 and in the free vorcha, because she is using cannons. The beams on my Vor'cha went into overdrive with fire at will and he didn't explode once.
*******************************************
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
"It's like people haven't heard of AOE/multiple target attacks in STO."
Unless it's as simple as training a new boff ability, then I'm just not getting involved in it.
The cost attached to every other adjustment is too high. Frankly, it's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap to another ship.
Besides, as I point out, it's not a case where one or even two counters would suffice. Given the level of spam, you'd need to swap out entirely to an AOE build just to stay on top of these things.
Unless you're already rolling with BFAW. BFAW spammers probably haven't even noticed an issue.
In hindsight, I have a point defense console sitting around, and since I already rock the 3-piece delta space set, I can throw on the delta warp core sitting in my bank for the delta 4-piece active ability. Both of those would be additional counters, but I'm sure I'd hardly notice their beneifts given their relative lengthy cooldowns and the sheer volume of spam.
As with EPtS or the new TB, it just comes down to volume. Counterplay can offer some interesting dynamics, but there's very little counterplay here, because as soon as your counter expires you're immediately hit with more disables.
The best example of counterplay I can think of in STO would be Chel Gretts using SNB in the Defera space dailies; sure, I'm forced to slot science team as a counter, but at least I get some benefit for having slotted it. It's not like the SNB is re-applied as soon as science team expires.
If your group does not have AOE/multiple target ability, good CC, then your Engineering Team or Respawn button will be going into overtime.
And that's the problem with Cryptic's approach.
The content doesn't support diverse builds. It demands build monotony. Which would be fine, if the cost to diversify your build wasn't so high.
Hence why I moved to ground content; the cost to diversify a build there is relatively low, affording me far more enjoyment in terms of build diversity than the space content ever could.
It's not that I'm oppossed to adjusting my build, it's that the cost of adjusting space builds is too high, and, at least in this case, the benefit is too low.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
Unless it's as simple as training a new boff ability, then I'm just not getting involved in it.
The cost attached to every other adjustment is too high. Frankly, it's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap to another ship.
Besides, as I point out, it's not a case where one or even two counters would suffice. Given the level of spam, you'd need to swap out entirely to an AOE build just to stay on top of these things.
Unless you're already rolling with BFAW. BFAW spammers probably haven't even noticed an issue.
In hindsight, I have a point defense console sitting around, and since I already rock the 3-piece delta space set, I can throw on the delta warp core sitting in my bank for the delta 4-piece active ability. Both of those would be additional counters, but I'm sure I'd hardly notice their beneifts given their relative lengthy cooldowns and the sheer volume of spam.
As with EPtS or the new TB, it just comes down to volume. Counterplay can offer some interesting dynamics, but there's very little counterplay here, because as soon as your counter expires you're immediately hit with more disables.
The best example of counterplay I can think of in STO would be Chel Gretts using SNB in the Defera space dailies; sure, I'm forced to slot science team as a counter, but at least I get some benefit for having slotted it. It's not like the SNB is re-applied as soon as science team expires.
And that's the problem with Cryptic's approach.
The content doesn't support diverse builds. It demands build monotony. Which would be fine, if the cost to diversify your build wasn't so high.
Hence why I moved to ground content; the cost to diversify a build there is relatively low, affording me far more enjoyment in terms of build diversity than the space content ever could.
It's not that I'm oppossed to adjusting my build, it's that the cost of adjusting space builds is too high, and, at least in this case, the benefit is too low.
You are over complicating things for yourself with worries completely irrelevant to being effective against the Heralds.
Edit: Are you worried that much about the Viral Matrix spam? I am. Do you know what the BEST counter to them is? I'll tell you now, it's not Engineering Team. It's KILLING the cheap, fragile probes that the Heralds pump out that spam Viral Matrix. Control the amount of Spam so the Spam can't Spam you with VM!
You know, switching abilities on the BOFF station is quite cheaper and less time consuming than all you mentioned about having to switch gear, switch ships. You can take a ship that was generally built for single target focus and turn it into a multi-target and/or CC machine.
Example, an Escort built with DHCs and CRF with HYT can easily be changed to DHCs with CSV and TS for torps and you'll be going a long way for effectiveness against the Heralds. That didn't involve switching to an entirely new set of gear. That didn't involve switching or buying an entirely new ship.
You're complaining about the cost to upgrade. But you know what? You don't need that **** at Mk XIV with UR/Epic Rarity. You can bitchslap the embarrassing **** out of this game with Mk XI and Mk XII gear. You can curbstomp this game with grabbing cheap Common/Uncommon TRIBBLE from anywhere and throwing them on your ship, provided you know how to put it all together with the right flying.
You don't need a Point Defense Console.
You don't even need Reputation Equipment.
You don't even need any Lobi Store Equipment.
You don't even need Lockbox Consoles / Lockbox Weapons.
You don't even need Fleet Equipment.
You don't need some fancy ship.
======
You can adapt and thrive.
Or you can refuse to adapt and keep on struggling despite the obvious answers to do better at little to no cost.
It's KILLING the cheap, fragile probes that the Heralds pump out that spam Viral Matrix.
My entire point is that they're replaced too quickly, and/or reapply their disables too soon.
There's little counterplay. Either you're already running BFAW, which is the only AOE that can actually keep up with the spawn rate, or you can do what I do and just keep focusing on the enemy ships, disables and deaths be damned.
If focusing on the probes bought you 20-30 seconds probe free, it would be one thing. But it doesn't. It just ends up being damage you're not directing at the Iconian ships.
Actually, that's a classic MMO mechanic; the infinite add spawning boss. The traditional solution is to ignore the adds as much as possible while burning the boss as fast as possible. Except these adds constantly CC you. It's a bad combination of mechanics, born from a poor application of canon.
Or you can refuse to adapt and keep on struggling despite the obvious answers to do better at little to no cost.
What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
I'll continue to die a bunch during these FEs, and write off the Iconian content as a wasted opportunity. It's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap ships, let alone invest in a set of even common Mk XII beams.
Not that it really matters to me; already T5 in the rep, have all the gear I want from the rep, and don't need to run Iconian content more than once per week.
It doesn't change the fact that, as usual, Cryptic took a potentially interesting mechanic but totally dropped the ball by dialing up to 11.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
Do you have a Lt Sci, as all T5 and above ships do (unless you're running with Universal BOffs)?
Congratulations, you have access to TBR - one of the best anti-spam tools available.
Do you have BOff slots available? You can run 2x Maintenance Engineers (?) to bring ET down to about a 15 second CD. Add in a Warp Core Engineer that clears debuffs when you use EPtX abilities.
Throw in the Iconian shield for added debuff clearing.
There's many ways to deal with these things that aren't FAW or Beam related.
What I've seen so far is "These things pose a challenge to me, but I refuse to change my build or adapt to counter them."
Congratulations, you have access to TBR - one of the best anti-spam tools available.
So, TBR to win?
What's the cooldown like? 30s? 45s? Am I going to need to find a new deflector, and/or some new doffs, just to bring the cooldown down enough to make it a practical counter?
Do you have a Lt Sci, as all T5 and above ships do (unless you're running with Universal BOffs)?
Congratulations, you have access to TBR - one of the best anti-spam tools available.
Do you have BOff slots available? You can run 2x Maintenance Engineers (?) to bring ET down to about a 15 second CD. Add in a Warp Core Engineer that clears debuffs when you use EPtX abilities.
Throw in the Iconian shield for added debuff clearing.
There's many ways to deal with these things that aren't FAW or Beam related.
What I've seen so far is "These things pose a challenge to me, but I refuse to change my build or adapt to counter them."
TBR 1 is not going to kill the probes without a lot of part gens and aux power. It will push them away which will keep them out of range to disable you, as long as you hit it beforehand, but they will still be there with a little less HP when TBR goes on cooldown for ~30s.
ET at 15s still leaves 10s of random disable fun time.
A lockbox DOFF is not likely to be affordable for most people, or even in ready supply.
The shield I haven't looked at myself but I would presume it only clears a disabled subsystem not the viral matrix, which does not help you when it triggers a new disable, but otherwise still does little for probe swarms. Also requires investing in a shield which you might not use outside fighting the heralds.
And none of that helps you actually clear the spam, only mitigate some of the problems the probes cause.
My entire point is that they're replaced too quickly, and/or reapply their disables too soon.
There's little counterplay. Either you're already running BFAW, which is the only AOE that can actually keep up with the spawn rate, or you can do what I do and just keep focusing on the enemy ships, disables and deaths be damned.
If focusing on the probes bought you 20-30 seconds probe free, it would be one thing. But it doesn't. It just ends up being damage you're not directing at the Iconian ships.
Actually, that's a classic MMO mechanic; the infinite add spawning boss. The traditional solution is to ignore the adds as much as possible while burning the boss as fast as possible. Except these adds constantly CC you. It's a bad combination of mechanics, born from a poor application of canon.
What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
I'll continue to die a bunch during these FEs, and write off the Iconian content as a wasted opportunity. It's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap ships, let alone invest in a set of even common Mk XII beams.
Not that it really matters to me; already T5 in the rep, have all the gear I want from the rep, and don't need to run Iconian content more than once per week.
It doesn't change the fact that, as usual, Cryptic took a potentially interesting mechanic but totally dropped the ball by dialing up to 11.
You really do not understand how AOE/Multitarget abilities work, don't you?
I can focus on my main target (i.e. Herald Dread or Cruiser) with the multitarget abilities and still whittle down the spam. And thereby lessening the amount of spam coming at the team as well as the resulting Viral Matrix, Gateways, MRfighters, etc. It doesn't matter if I use BFAW, though that's what I personally prefer. CSV works fine. Torp Spread works great, especially certain torps. And you can still have the main targets lined up while you work down the trash at the same time.
Gravity Well? Bunch everything up for easier killing, including the spam units that you're spazzing about.
The repeat application, the amount of AOE/Multitarget abilities performed by the team keeps down the amount of TRIBBLE swarming around you. Simple. It's been repeated many times in this thread already. It works. People changed up a bit what they were doing and now they were doing fine. Except guys like you intent on making things harder for yourself and your team as a result.
My favorite part is this piece of your own level of panic:
===
"What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
I'll continue to die a bunch during these FEs, and write off the Iconian content as a wasted opportunity. It's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap ships, let alone invest in a set of even common Mk XII beams."
===
"The best defense is a good offense."
You do not need to have Engineering Team being spammed all the time. Not when the trash is being cleared by said Multitarget/AOE abilities, keeping their numbers down.
So you don't have high end science abilities? NO PROBLEM. You can live with it and hope someone else in the team does. My old Escorts and TAC Cruisers are getting along just fine without that LtCdr/Cmdr SCI station.
So you don't use beams? Then that means you use either cannons and/or torpedoes? NO PROBLEM. CSV, Torp Spread. Issue solved, no switching of gear, no upgraded gear required. It requires a different playstyle, BUT OH WELL.
And I said before, you can stomp the **** out of this game with lower quality, cheap equipment if resources are a stretch. Provided you know what you're doing.
This is all on you, bud. It's been laid out how to make the Heralds a trivial enemy. Either you adapt or keep crying on the boards. Because the solutions are out there. You are really going out of your own way to make this harder on yourself. Quit defeating yourself.
What's the cooldown like? 30s? 45s? Am I going to need to find a new deflector, and/or some new doffs, just to bring the cooldown down enough to make it a practical counter?
I am not space rich. I can't work on upgrading a build while still supporting build diversity.
No, you don't have to do anything in order to support a decent TBR. You don't need any sort of 'investment' with space money into it, beyond the minuscule EC cost to train a BOff in it.
You're using it for the push - the damage is a nice touch. The magnitude of the push scales with your Aux and GravGens. Even if you're using a minimal amount of both, you'll push them out enough so that they won't be able to disable you.
That's just one solution though - and for every solution, you're nitpicking at it as if you want to find a way to justify your "I JUST CAN'T EVEN" attitude, instead of actually seeing if there is a way to defeat them. Do you want to actually find a solution, tactic, or methodology to beat these, or do you want people to just agree and say "Yeah, you know what? You are right - everything I, and everyone else, has been doing so far to successfully combat these is just too demanding!"
Post your build, maybe we can find some way to work something in. All we know so far is that you have limited Sci slots and don't use FAW.
Another idea, use EPtE and/or Aux to ID to speed tank and/or keep yourself away from the Probes.
No, you're not going to click 1 button and have them poof away (minus sufficient DPS behind FAW/SV/RF), leaving you free to smash the defenseless NPCs. They're going to make you work a little. Is that so wrong?
Again, there are numerous solutions to this problem - you're almost intentionally avoiding all of them.
TBR 1 is not going to kill the probes without a lot of part gens and aux power. It will push them away which will keep them out of range to disable you, as long as you hit it beforehand, but they will still be there with a little less HP when TBR goes on cooldown for ~30s.
ET at 15s still leaves 10s of random disable fun time.
A lockbox DOFF is not likely to be affordable for most people, or even in ready supply.
The shield I haven't looked at myself but I would presume it only clears a disabled subsystem not the viral matrix, which does not help you when it triggers a new disable, but otherwise still does little for probe swarms. Also requires investing in a shield which you might not use outside fighting the heralds.
And none of that helps you actually clear the spam, only mitigate some of the problems the probes cause.
TBR 1 is going to push the probes away and give you time. The repel component is dependent upon GravGens and Aux power - the damage is PartGens alone.
Using ET will give you enough time to, at worst, pop an Evasives and run away.
The lockbox DOff, admittedly, isn't the ideal solution, but it still is one.
The Shield clears a Debuff entirely (though, that may be wonky since VM's mechanics are different).
Again, you're not going to push 1 button and magically find your problems fixed (unless, that button is FAW and you have enough DPS).
You might have to, oh I don't know... adapt, change your tactics, work a little bit?
Is that so wrong?
Hot dang, people were up in arms that Ionic Turbulence was "useless" after it got fixed - I'd be afraid to see how you guys handled the original implementation of that if this is so gamebreakingly difficult.
Comments
And with the skyhigh cost attached to investing into upgrading a build, I tend to just suicide through the FEs as needed.
This is why I prefer ground content to space content; for the cost of upgrading one space set, I can upgrade multiple ground sets, and provide myself some actually build diversity which I can leverage to handle diverse content demands.
Instead, it works only so long as it lasts, and then you're instantly re-disabled.
And this doesn't even cover the disables the Iconian vessels themselves can use. Only the ones their carrier pets use.
Yeah, that's an interesting fight.
Did Geko hold a contest to see who can come up with the dumbest idea faster than anyone else? With free food as the prize?
Eventually, someone will solve the enemies in...
Cue excessive reverb and volume. Cue extra cheesy summer blockbuster soundtrack. Add extra cheese.
annnd, Scene. :P
There's giving helpful advice and there's being a sarcastic condescending insulting troll. Let me give you examples. I didn't "cry for nerfs". And this poster made the assumption that I'm "mindlessly mashing the space bar like a brain dead zombie". Even with the oh-so-helpful "just manually target that thing and shoot it", they couldn't resist to insult in the process. This poster implies I'm not "using the thing called brain". Not a shred of any helpful hints whatsoever, just insult. And this one implies I'm haven't bothered to try or learn tactics. While they claim they can list four ways to beat them, did they provide those "helpful tactics" for me to "learn"? No. Instead they insist I don't care because I'm "not willing to learn new tactics and would rather cry nerf it nerfit it killed me." Again, I didn't "cry for nerfs". And as if that wasn't enough, the same poster... So he got two in.
There's helpful advice, constructive criticism, passing on learned tactics, etc., and there's acting like a troll.
If my post was too vague (I already explained why in a later post), someone could ask "Can you be more specific?" If someone honestly wanted to help, they could say "What problem(s) are you having with them? Maybe I can give you some advice. Here, try this tactic out." And if someone disagrees with my post, "I don't think they're OP, and here's why" without the sarcasm, condescension, and insults.
Hence, trolls.
Other than "unlocking" each FE on each toon, I'll wait for "The War" to come out on DVD. I'm on summer vacation on Risa...busy grinding favor and vouchers. :rolleyes:
Engie Team isn't the only thing that can fix disabled subsytems. I believe the individual consumable batteries can do that as well, along with clicky consoles (Which come off low level C-Store ships, but there's only one each for Fed and KDF if I remember correctly), and the Red Matter Capacitor.
I do agree that the disable spam can get annoying, but... isn't that also a PvP tactic? Render your opponent unable to fight back? Granted PvPers prefer the "Kill you Dead" over just disabling you, but still...
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Er... um...
Psst... Targ...
In STO, the Klingons are really good at manipulating subspace... they were doing the "teleport vape" before it was cool...
Sure, they're a different mechanic that anything else previously - but it's also not hard to defeat. They do a lot of damage (and quickly), so you need to pay attention to them. If you find yourself getting scorched, look for the scary orange flickering and follow it back to it's source.
Counters:
Surrounded by too many NPCs? Use TBR to get yourself some breathing room.
Even those oh so dastardly Iconian Probes are easily dealt with. Just get to them before they get to you. And if they do get to you, a decent Subsystem Repair skill and/or Human crew brings you back up rather quickly.
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Unless you are talking about PVP that must be something I'm missing. And even so, my point still stands: Whenever in the whole of Star Trek "subspace" comes up I roll my eyes. That's a "thing" that has never been established to be anything else but "magic problem solver". It doesn't really matter who uses subspace weapons, they're all dumb :P
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I disagree, you seem to be able to speak it fluently.
Aw.
But I like my Subspace Jump console... and the Subspace Snare Console...
I like to imagine the brief moment of surprise on the Tholians nearly-expressionless face as I teleport their Recluse in front of my Bortas'que before I light it up.
Then I repeat myself.
"It's like people haven't heard of AOE/multiple target attacks in STO."
It's like people don't notice the amount of spam the Heralds throw at the team and forget they have abilities specifically designed in dealing with them. Those Probes, Gateways, MRfighters that people seem so helpless against die like throwing an ant on a stove top. Personally, I'm in the camp of "If in doubt, FAW it out." Like my sig implies
AOE/multiple target attacks in general are performers against the Heralds because of that multiple targeting ability. They do their job: Clearing the trash because that's exactly what the Heralds throw at you at a constant rate. If your group does not have AOE/multiple target ability, good CC, then your Engineering Team or Respawn button will be going into overtime.
And I'm not talking about always going with some Premade Team. I do most of my stuff with PUGs. If the PUG runs lots of multi-target abilities, runs CC, the Heralds are easy and routinely killed off. With multi-target and CC, even if the group did not have great DPS, the mission is easy because the Heralds' numbers are contained and they're bunched up for easy killing.
Gear doesn't matter much, believe it or not, when dealing with the Heralds. There's a very recent thread where the OP had problems dealing with the Heralds. First thing he does is take his shield to Mk XIV which I'll tell you now, doesn't mean **** in any part of the game. Then he goes on to blame Cryptic for having the game nudge the players ever more to T5U/T6.
Against the Heralds, your playstyle determines many things because a number of the old cheap things players liked to do before the Heralds came will lead to headaches against them. You can curbstomp the Heralds with your freebie Lv40 ship and cheap equipment. My Delta Noobs can do just fine. Not on the same level as my Pre-Delta Recruit Event characters, but with the right flying and a basic build to cover the bases, they're just fine and I feel are an asset to any team I jump with.
This part in particular is so true. My pre-delta character is in a t5u defiant. Torp spread and cannon fires (both rapid and spread). She takes alot longer to finish the pegh mission than my kdf delta who is only lvl40 and in the free vorcha, because she is using cannons. The beams on my Vor'cha went into overdrive with fire at will and he didn't explode once.
A Romulan Strike Team, Missing Farmers and an ancient base on a Klingon Border world. But what connects them? Find out in my First Foundary mission: 'The Jeroan Farmer Escapade'
The cost attached to every other adjustment is too high. Frankly, it's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap to another ship.
Besides, as I point out, it's not a case where one or even two counters would suffice. Given the level of spam, you'd need to swap out entirely to an AOE build just to stay on top of these things.
Unless you're already rolling with BFAW. BFAW spammers probably haven't even noticed an issue.
In hindsight, I have a point defense console sitting around, and since I already rock the 3-piece delta space set, I can throw on the delta warp core sitting in my bank for the delta 4-piece active ability. Both of those would be additional counters, but I'm sure I'd hardly notice their beneifts given their relative lengthy cooldowns and the sheer volume of spam.
As with EPtS or the new TB, it just comes down to volume. Counterplay can offer some interesting dynamics, but there's very little counterplay here, because as soon as your counter expires you're immediately hit with more disables.
The best example of counterplay I can think of in STO would be Chel Gretts using SNB in the Defera space dailies; sure, I'm forced to slot science team as a counter, but at least I get some benefit for having slotted it. It's not like the SNB is re-applied as soon as science team expires.
And that's the problem with Cryptic's approach.
The content doesn't support diverse builds. It demands build monotony. Which would be fine, if the cost to diversify your build wasn't so high.
Hence why I moved to ground content; the cost to diversify a build there is relatively low, affording me far more enjoyment in terms of build diversity than the space content ever could.
It's not that I'm oppossed to adjusting my build, it's that the cost of adjusting space builds is too high, and, at least in this case, the benefit is too low.
You are over complicating things for yourself with worries completely irrelevant to being effective against the Heralds.
Edit: Are you worried that much about the Viral Matrix spam? I am. Do you know what the BEST counter to them is? I'll tell you now, it's not Engineering Team. It's KILLING the cheap, fragile probes that the Heralds pump out that spam Viral Matrix. Control the amount of Spam so the Spam can't Spam you with VM!
You know, switching abilities on the BOFF station is quite cheaper and less time consuming than all you mentioned about having to switch gear, switch ships. You can take a ship that was generally built for single target focus and turn it into a multi-target and/or CC machine.
Example, an Escort built with DHCs and CRF with HYT can easily be changed to DHCs with CSV and TS for torps and you'll be going a long way for effectiveness against the Heralds. That didn't involve switching to an entirely new set of gear. That didn't involve switching or buying an entirely new ship.
You're complaining about the cost to upgrade. But you know what? You don't need that **** at Mk XIV with UR/Epic Rarity. You can bitchslap the embarrassing **** out of this game with Mk XI and Mk XII gear. You can curbstomp this game with grabbing cheap Common/Uncommon TRIBBLE from anywhere and throwing them on your ship, provided you know how to put it all together with the right flying.
You don't need a Point Defense Console.
You don't even need Reputation Equipment.
You don't even need any Lobi Store Equipment.
You don't even need Lockbox Consoles / Lockbox Weapons.
You don't even need Fleet Equipment.
You don't need some fancy ship.
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You can adapt and thrive.
Or you can refuse to adapt and keep on struggling despite the obvious answers to do better at little to no cost.
There's little counterplay. Either you're already running BFAW, which is the only AOE that can actually keep up with the spawn rate, or you can do what I do and just keep focusing on the enemy ships, disables and deaths be damned.
If focusing on the probes bought you 20-30 seconds probe free, it would be one thing. But it doesn't. It just ends up being damage you're not directing at the Iconian ships.
Actually, that's a classic MMO mechanic; the infinite add spawning boss. The traditional solution is to ignore the adds as much as possible while burning the boss as fast as possible. Except these adds constantly CC you. It's a bad combination of mechanics, born from a poor application of canon.
What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
I'll continue to die a bunch during these FEs, and write off the Iconian content as a wasted opportunity. It's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap ships, let alone invest in a set of even common Mk XII beams.
Not that it really matters to me; already T5 in the rep, have all the gear I want from the rep, and don't need to run Iconian content more than once per week.
It doesn't change the fact that, as usual, Cryptic took a potentially interesting mechanic but totally dropped the ball by dialing up to 11.
Do you have a Lt Sci, as all T5 and above ships do (unless you're running with Universal BOffs)?
Congratulations, you have access to TBR - one of the best anti-spam tools available.
Do you have BOff slots available? You can run 2x Maintenance Engineers (?) to bring ET down to about a 15 second CD. Add in a Warp Core Engineer that clears debuffs when you use EPtX abilities.
Throw in the Iconian shield for added debuff clearing.
There's many ways to deal with these things that aren't FAW or Beam related.
What I've seen so far is "These things pose a challenge to me, but I refuse to change my build or adapt to counter them."
What's the cooldown like? 30s? 45s? Am I going to need to find a new deflector, and/or some new doffs, just to bring the cooldown down enough to make it a practical counter?
I am not space rich. I can't work on upgrading a build while still supporting build diversity.
TBR 1 is not going to kill the probes without a lot of part gens and aux power. It will push them away which will keep them out of range to disable you, as long as you hit it beforehand, but they will still be there with a little less HP when TBR goes on cooldown for ~30s.
ET at 15s still leaves 10s of random disable fun time.
A lockbox DOFF is not likely to be affordable for most people, or even in ready supply.
The shield I haven't looked at myself but I would presume it only clears a disabled subsystem not the viral matrix, which does not help you when it triggers a new disable, but otherwise still does little for probe swarms. Also requires investing in a shield which you might not use outside fighting the heralds.
And none of that helps you actually clear the spam, only mitigate some of the problems the probes cause.
Adapt or Die. Not anyone's fault you chose the latter.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/10052253
Why are you not rejoicing?
You really do not understand how AOE/Multitarget abilities work, don't you?
I can focus on my main target (i.e. Herald Dread or Cruiser) with the multitarget abilities and still whittle down the spam. And thereby lessening the amount of spam coming at the team as well as the resulting Viral Matrix, Gateways, MRfighters, etc. It doesn't matter if I use BFAW, though that's what I personally prefer. CSV works fine. Torp Spread works great, especially certain torps. And you can still have the main targets lined up while you work down the trash at the same time.
Gravity Well? Bunch everything up for easier killing, including the spam units that you're spazzing about.
The repeat application, the amount of AOE/Multitarget abilities performed by the team keeps down the amount of TRIBBLE swarming around you. Simple. It's been repeated many times in this thread already. It works. People changed up a bit what they were doing and now they were doing fine. Except guys like you intent on making things harder for yourself and your team as a result.
My favorite part is this piece of your own level of panic:
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"What "little to no cost?" I've already gone over this. The ship I fly doesn't support AOE science abilities. I don't use beams. There's no way to push ET to 100% uptime, or anywhere close.
I'll continue to die a bunch during these FEs, and write off the Iconian content as a wasted opportunity. It's not even worth it to me to head back to spacedock to swap ships, let alone invest in a set of even common Mk XII beams."
===
"The best defense is a good offense."
You do not need to have Engineering Team being spammed all the time. Not when the trash is being cleared by said Multitarget/AOE abilities, keeping their numbers down.
So you don't have high end science abilities? NO PROBLEM. You can live with it and hope someone else in the team does. My old Escorts and TAC Cruisers are getting along just fine without that LtCdr/Cmdr SCI station.
So you don't use beams? Then that means you use either cannons and/or torpedoes? NO PROBLEM. CSV, Torp Spread. Issue solved, no switching of gear, no upgraded gear required. It requires a different playstyle, BUT OH WELL.
And I said before, you can stomp the **** out of this game with lower quality, cheap equipment if resources are a stretch. Provided you know what you're doing.
This is all on you, bud. It's been laid out how to make the Heralds a trivial enemy. Either you adapt or keep crying on the boards. Because the solutions are out there. You are really going out of your own way to make this harder on yourself. Quit defeating yourself.
No, you don't have to do anything in order to support a decent TBR. You don't need any sort of 'investment' with space money into it, beyond the minuscule EC cost to train a BOff in it.
You're using it for the push - the damage is a nice touch. The magnitude of the push scales with your Aux and GravGens. Even if you're using a minimal amount of both, you'll push them out enough so that they won't be able to disable you.
That's just one solution though - and for every solution, you're nitpicking at it as if you want to find a way to justify your "I JUST CAN'T EVEN" attitude, instead of actually seeing if there is a way to defeat them. Do you want to actually find a solution, tactic, or methodology to beat these, or do you want people to just agree and say "Yeah, you know what? You are right - everything I, and everyone else, has been doing so far to successfully combat these is just too demanding!"
Post your build, maybe we can find some way to work something in. All we know so far is that you have limited Sci slots and don't use FAW.
Another idea, use EPtE and/or Aux to ID to speed tank and/or keep yourself away from the Probes.
No, you're not going to click 1 button and have them poof away (minus sufficient DPS behind FAW/SV/RF), leaving you free to smash the defenseless NPCs. They're going to make you work a little. Is that so wrong?
Again, there are numerous solutions to this problem - you're almost intentionally avoiding all of them.
TBR 1 is going to push the probes away and give you time. The repel component is dependent upon GravGens and Aux power - the damage is PartGens alone.
Using ET will give you enough time to, at worst, pop an Evasives and run away.
The lockbox DOff, admittedly, isn't the ideal solution, but it still is one.
The Shield clears a Debuff entirely (though, that may be wonky since VM's mechanics are different).
Again, you're not going to push 1 button and magically find your problems fixed (unless, that button is FAW and you have enough DPS).
You might have to, oh I don't know... adapt, change your tactics, work a little bit?
Is that so wrong?
Hot dang, people were up in arms that Ionic Turbulence was "useless" after it got fixed - I'd be afraid to see how you guys handled the original implementation of that if this is so gamebreakingly difficult.