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Shield Bypassing Stuff
reginamala78
Member Posts: 4,593 Arc User
So embarrassing as it is to say, having some trouble killing Heralds quickly enough (optional timers in Gateway To Grethor) due to how thick their shields and heavy shield regeneration are. However I always pug it from the queues and sometimes I see ships that are killing things despite the targets still having full shields up, which with Heralds in particular seems to way to go. So what are they using?
I know Partigen builds work quite well of course, drain builds are all right to simply turn them off, DEM is useful to a point, and of course there are the Embassy plasma-burst cheat consoles. Is there anything else I'm missing?
And no not looking for build specifics. I've already got my ET and a cleanse doff slotted for the probe spam, and I'm looking more for tactics usable by my various tanks, FAW cruisers, DHC escorts, and beamscorts, all with various Mk12 gear. So just plain knowledge-wise, what am I not seeing?
I know Partigen builds work quite well of course, drain builds are all right to simply turn them off, DEM is useful to a point, and of course there are the Embassy plasma-burst cheat consoles. Is there anything else I'm missing?
And no not looking for build specifics. I've already got my ET and a cleanse doff slotted for the probe spam, and I'm looking more for tactics usable by my various tanks, FAW cruisers, DHC escorts, and beamscorts, all with various Mk12 gear. So just plain knowledge-wise, what am I not seeing?
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A lot of people forget just how much more damage you can do if you get behind something.
They do have massive shields and regen but their hulls seem weak to me. Anything that bunches them up and hits multiple targets at once seems to shine here.
Even against the dreadnought I find that outflanking it and hitting it with everything partigen I can slot at once does a huge amount of damage to it in seconds.
Grav well, plasma emission torp, embassy plasma explosions, destabilized resonance beam, TBR, warp plasma - all those seem to be pretty lethal against them if you can get in under the probe spam and solar gateways.
Yeah thats what I run on my Vesta and Ning'tao builds more or less and it is a beautiful thing. Likewise I have a drain-based Sarr Theln that just turns them off, even the battleships, for easy pounding. However my eng/Guardian, tac/Phantom, tac/Eclipse, eng/Aelahl, eng/Samsar, tac/Mat'ha, and soon to be tac/Nandi all just feel like banging my head against a wall. Its not like they're killing me or anything, but it just feels so clunky and I'm thinking there has to be a better way than just brute force and broken mechanics.
That's essentially what I've found as well. Science tricks seem to work really well against them but other more "brute force" tactics just don't seem to do quite so well.
My tac phantom can easily tank their attacks but actually killing them is a long slog to get past those shields.
I'm actually surprised just how well things like grav wells do as I was under the impression the Heralds were masters of gravity and such like, they seem to have plenty of gravity defying tricks on the ground anyway and their ships seem to be held together by energy fields. I fully expected them to have immunity to grav wells or something!
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Never do it alone. Use what the team brings to the STF. FAW ships take out the probes, solar gateways, etc. Tanks take aggro so the other team-mates can line up and execute the attacks. Grav wells bring little ships in close to the dreadnought, switch to the small ships to get warp core explosions on the dreadnought since those will bypass shields or bypass alot of the shields. If you are going to try to take shields down, get everybody hitting the same shield facing to inflict hull damage as quick as possible. Play to the strengths of the team, not just what you bring to the STF.
Shield Slam? Not familiar with that phrase.
Unlike bypassing attacks that rely on fancy bypassing damage types like plasma burn etc slamming just goes for brute force to overpower the shield's built in resistance to kinetic damage.
But you gotta consistently get big hits for it to work.
This works nicely in Advanced Queues, and somewhat effectively in the Elite Queues (Korfez, VCE). The problem comes in the newer Elites, where even dropping 500K+ nukes on the shields barely dents the hull. Meanwhile, energy weapons and their mechanics "hard boil" the targets consistently (kills the target while its shields are still up).
If GGE et al become the norm, and the current trend in weapons enhancements continues, only energy weapons will be viable. For those that like to push the envelope in the game and enjoy Elite difficulty challenges, being forced into one build style is... disheartening.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Reputation focuses on DPS - Quantum Torps and Antiproton energy.
But, the recent event that gave the Preserver kit shelled out Disruptor and Transphasics - which give resistance debuffs (Dizzys) and straight-to-hull Transphasic damage...
And as I thought about it, I had slightly better results bashing on Heralds with my polarons (resistance drop via power drain) than I am with the Preserver Set...
So there's the key. If you're not "that high up on the DPS charts" to melt them with all those defenses, use the tricks available to you to remove and/or bypass those defenses...
I'll let those who understand builds better than I figure out how to put all of that together for you...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Any kind of massed assault with fighters, frigates or platforms really takes the attention away from you and if set on intercept they can shoot down all those annoying probes and gateways.
Even the dreadnought cannot withstand 2 fully loaded carriers hammering into it with fighters, this exact thing happened earlier. Me in a Sar Theln and another guy in an Obelisk really massacred those poor Heralds.
Sometimes they call it "hard mode'? Sort of a joke I suppose. Like playing badminton without a racket.
Sort of like the old all turret builds.
Hey, was that a shuttlecock?
Most of the time to get what you describe when I'm in cruiser, I'm just hitting hard enough to do that much bleed-through while the Heralds are regening their shields hugely fast. SS3 + OSS3 on an Intel cruiser does that pretty well, even with Mk XII consoles and Mk XII Radiant AP, but puts you at risk if there isn't someone nearby FAWing down the probes. The already mentioned Singularity Overload on Warbirds does pretty decent too.
Not tried it yet --and it would be expensive to try-- is the old lockbox Polarized Disruptor, drop their energy levels and debuff thier hull too. Maybe mix in Bio-Molecular Disruptor (Undine Reputation) for the slow and Radiation damage after a time proc. Elachi weapons for the burst damage resist-ignoring proc would work well too. There's also Elite Fleet Disruptors KDF side for shield ripping, and Nanite Disruptor for more shield bleed-through and minor hull debuff.
Hrm. All I've got is power creep P2W mixing really, just of different sorts. What ships and weapon colors have you been seeing doing the kind of things you want? If it's red and yellow, I'd expect that the T4 Iconian trait and the +Haste of the Advanced weapon that's doing the heavy lifting.
List of ways to do more damage through shields that I can think of:
Probably missing a few, but that should be most of it.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
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To add to the rad detination, i've had good success with TS3/Kemo2, neutronic torpedo, and gravwell for the hold/gather, plus stuff like intense focus and plasma consoles to add general pen and lots of plasma explosions.
Eject Warp Plasma is the usual go-to shield bypass for cruisers, but the Viral Matrix burst thing the Heralds have would make that pretty risky.
What do OKS and OGA stand for? Also, Voth AP is a weapon damage debuff, I think you meant Protonic Polaron.
OKS = Omega Kinetic Shearing
OGA = Omega Graviton Amplifier
Both are rep traits for Omega reputation.