Using it with my kdf tac captain, but only because I've got the most toys there. Would love to have the extra bang with some sci cap abilities but yeah, maybe in another life
Just done an ISA pug run with my "toys" build, GravWell III (+the doffs), Grav Torp Spread III, Subspace Rupture, Spatical Charges, DRB II, Chroniton Lance and some other stuff to help keep the fireworks alive & boys, it was so much fun, even the spheres wouldn't stop dancing ^^ Did a solid 32k by just parking in front of the gate until the second transformer fell.
I say, this is a machine, its wants to hurt, but it also wants to play - so make a build around that and have fun
This ship may do great in PvE no denying that, but where it will really shine is PvP.
It's a potential Rage Quit machine in the proper hands.
IMO if you're not doing PvP with it (with a sound build) you're a wasting it's potential.
Id name it the Crybaby, for all the tears it would induce.
The whine would be so strong ! It would be delightful.
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
This ship may do great in PvE no denying that, but where it will really shine is PvP.
It's a potential Rage Quit machine in the proper hands.
IMO if you're not doing PvP with it (with a sound build) you're a wasting it's potential.
Id name it the Crybaby, for all the tears it would induce.
The whine would be so strong ! It would be delightful.
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
Welcome to STO...why Sci's can't have good things...Tacs always ruining it for Science.
Should have altered APA so it doesn't effect Science or least not nearly as much as it does...like maybe 10%.
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
This ship may do great in PvE no denying that, but where it will really shine is PvP.
It's a potential Rage Quit machine in the proper hands.
IMO if you're not doing PvP with it (with a sound build) you're a wasting it's potential.
Id name it the Crybaby, for all the tears it would induce.
The whine would be so strong ! It would be delightful.
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
I think the solution is to dismantle the profession system, honestly, and make it kind of a super-specialization. Because you want to sell all ships to all people and that means you've got to go Shaka when the Walls Fell on the playerbase.
Replace the existing skill tree with a profession system similar to specs. What you select at the login determines which one you progress through first. Each profession point after you complete your first profession qualification is designed to cost expertise. Around two million expertise to max out a profession. After the first profession, you start getting a cooldown of around 48 hours on each profession point (which can be bypassed with a large Energy Credit cost) and can begin filling out the other two professions (science and engineering). No cooldown if you're gold. More professions get added. Bridge officers can get alternate professions, again one active at a time, with a big EC sink.
You may only have one profession active at a time but may change on the fly.
This drives gold subs (which Neverwinter and Champions are targeting) and it combats EC inflation (EC will work its way to free players who will sink large quantities of it). EC inflation needs to be combated to get and keep the market value of lockbox/promo prizes below 500 million EC so that the Exchange can work properly.
And if people can have all three professions, there is more incentive for Cryptic to balance them and introduce new "hot" professions and less grounds for complaints about "I'm an X Captain."
This ship may do great in PvE no denying that, but where it will really shine is PvP.
It's a potential Rage Quit machine in the proper hands.
IMO if you're not doing PvP with it (with a sound build) you're a wasting it's potential.
Id name it the Crybaby, for all the tears it would induce.
The whine would be so strong ! It would be delightful.
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
I think the solution is to dismantle the profession system, honestly, and make it kind of a super-specialization. Because you want to sell all ships to all people and that means you've got to go Shaka when the Walls Fell on the playerbase.
Replace the existing skill tree with a profession system similar to specs. What you select at the login determines which one you progress through first. Each profession point after you complete your first profession qualification is designed to cost expertise. Around two million expertise to max out a profession. After the first profession, you start getting a cooldown of around 48 hours on each profession point (which can be bypassed with a large Energy Credit cost) and can begin filling out the other two professions (science and engineering). No cooldown if you're gold. More professions get added. Bridge officers can get alternate professions, again one active at a time, with a big EC sink.
You may only have one profession active at a time but may change on the fly.
This drives gold subs (which Neverwinter and Champions are targeting) and it combats EC inflation (EC will work its way to free players who will sink large quantities of it). EC inflation needs to be combated to get and keep the market value of lockbox/promo prizes below 500 million EC so that the Exchange can work properly.
And if people can have all three professions, there is more incentive for Cryptic to balance them and introduce new "hot" professions and less grounds for complaints about "I'm an X Captain."
I came to STO after about 12 years of Diablo 2, where the skill tree was God. Needless to say, I'd grown accustom to them, and even grew quite fond of them in general.
Seeing that STO had something similar made me feel like I'd found a new home.
Around the time we got our new Specializations, there was some chatter (rumors maybe) about dev's wanting to "readjust" the skill tree, well you can imagine I was completely against the idea and was until now...
I think you've just sold me on the idea of Professions. Well played sir.
I'd even be willing to pay a 1 time Zen fee to access/unlock each of the other professions on my main. (I'd probably even a few of my alts).
And the potential for more professions to be added is very intriguing.
I know there have been interesting threads on these forums about players wanting new professions, like Trader, Pirate, Diplomat etc. And here would be the perfect opportunity to do so.
Great concept Leviathan, and nice way of describing it. Someone at Cryptic/pwe should hire this man.
I really hate the idea of dps being the deciding factor on who gets what ship. I feel bullied into giving the annorax to my tactical toon instead of my science. I want to give it to my science character but as soon as I start pvping I know I'll regret this decision. All lockbox/doff ships should be renamed pandora's box 1,2,3 and so becasue thats what your opening.]]
Cryptic could make Lockbox/doff ships account wide unlocks and fix the problem but greed won't allow it. It will probably end up like my sheshar. Its been setting in my engineers bank now for over 6 months. I've come close to selling it numerous of times becasue of this same issue I have with the annorax. I didn't think it would be this hard choosing a toon for the annorax, guess I got fooled. I feel like my brain has turned to mush since winning the damn thing. No need to worry ppl, I think I'm loosing 2 iq points a day it stays in my account bank. In 2 months I'll probably list it on the exchange for 500ecs thinking I listed it for 500mil. Everything I say now sounds like gibberish. I'm going crazy.
The tears would be overwhelming; the 'Wizards', so fond of posting 'sci ship does blah blah DPS' videos would have a seizure.
I'd like to watch a handful of those vids. Please be so kind and post some links.
They're easy enough to find. Just type 'STO Wizards' (or similar) into the Youtube search bar.
And then marvel at how many different ways you can do uber DPS using a Tac Captain, in any ship, using BFAW.
I sometimes watch them if I am tired; they help me sleep.
Oh, I know how to use a searchbar, but couldn't find any sci ship video besides Ryan's Nova/Intrepid one. Since you mentioned them, there should be dozens.
And just for my understanding, how much more DPS actually comes from tac-boosted sci abilities? I mean, take a sci in sci ship and a tac in a sci ship. What's the difference between those two if you just take the non-weapon abilities into account?
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
But a tact Captain can still do even better with a competent sci "wingman"
This ship may do great in PvE no denying that, but where it will really shine is PvP.
It's a potential Rage Quit machine in the proper hands.
IMO if you're not doing PvP with it (with a sound build) you're a wasting it's potential.
Id name it the Crybaby, for all the tears it would induce.
The whine would be so strong ! It would be delightful.
Edit: To answer the question at hand, if you're going to only use it for PvE (which would be a shame), give it to your tac, for alpha buffs and more bangbang.
For PvP i'd say the same thing, ***Unless of course you are a very knowledgeable sci. Even then, you'll still get more bangbang from a tac.
I think you just described exactly what's wrong with this game to date: *everything* is done better with a Tact Captain. 'Parity', my *TRIBBLE.
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
Absolutely! Could not agree more!
The tears would be overwhelming; the 'Wizards', so fond of posting 'sci ship does blah blah DPS' videos would have a seizure.
Sadly, the tears that such a move would produce is one of the reasons it'll never be fixed.
Actually you guys have no clue what the Wizards are thinking tbh. Its not like we're so massivly fond of being restricted to one type of toon (rom tacs) or that we hate sci or engs and all that. We are also not really fond if having absolutely no content that ever requires even close to what we are capable of. We use what cryptic gives us to its full potential but its not like we actually think its fun doing isa in under 50 seconds.
So if there were any kind of rage about nerfing stuff like gdf or alpha to not include exotic dmg and maybe like even give scis some form of exotic-apa or whatever they could think of to make sci and engs more useful a lot of us would be the first to embrace that, not flame against it.
Just because we're doing loads of dps if lag permits it does not mean we're completely fine with everything thats going on. Its rather the complete opposite thats closer to the thruth. I cant speak for the numbers-admins and i'm not technically a metals admin either but I now my guys long for harder content and much less powercreep.
Just yesterday I had a conversation about how to make an extreme-tank work and how much the game is just not letting us do that effectivly. The biggest problem of this game is its extremely complex combat system that propably not even the devs understand as well as some of us and that this extremely complex system is nowhere close to being easy accessable for even older players, let alone new ones. There is no real feedback on what your abilities actually do or even worse they may have misleading explanations with stuff like "10% all dmg something when xyz happens" where always we have to test out ourselfs whether its actually base or flat dmg or whatever you might call it. The game itself is not clear at all what it actually does. So we have a game for casuals and fanboys (which we also are in some way at least most of us love star trek as much as the next guy) but they give those casuals a system they could never even hope to understand and learn to effectivly interact with. That might be the case in every game to some extend but here its like the king of differences.
I would just ask you guys to be fair and dont assume that just because someone is able to build a char and do 150k+ dps in isa automatically makes him or her an imbalance loving power creep junky with no regard for other playstyles. Most of us see it as much of a problem as any of you how little actual meaningful design choises this game offers and offers in such a way even ordinary players can play with it to at least some of its potential.
Welcome to STO...why Sci's can't have good things...Tacs always ruining it for Science.
Should have altered APA so it doesn't effect Science or least not nearly as much as it does...like maybe 10%.
Thank you, and Ryan, and Taylor for this.
One of the things that should definitely happen, IMHO, is that both Attack Pattern Alpha and Tactical Initiative should *not* be affected by AHOD. Especially AHOD + TI is a ludicrously OP combo! It's an ability cd reducer wrapped inside an ability cd reducer! And because AHOD affects Science abilities, Tact Captains get triple-score advantage:
TI reduces cd on all boff abilities -> AHOD reduces cd on TI -> *and* AHOD extra reduces cd on Science abilities.
And then they get to run APA almost permanently on top of that. Yeah, that's not OP or anything. :P
Furthermore, Fire on my Mark should actually have been an Engineering ability (as Engineers have no native debuff ability whatsoever, and hull debuff should really be an Engineering thing: see SIC).
For me...I love that you can (bizarrely) use the Wells/Mobius consoles on it...but I WOULD like to be able to use the Kremin, etc consoles on my Timeships :-(
if you don't want it you can send it to me.
it looks like a T6 vesta to me. so whatever toon you'd use a vesta wht would probly do well whit the anorax.
I ran a pure support build on a vesta prior to DR. I would love to have this ship. GW3 + TR2 in the commander science seat and tact team/Ap Delta/FaW3 + int team/AtB for LtC tact/ Lt universal(use intel/eng) seats. feel free to experiment whit the other slots.
THE NEW CRAFTING SYSTEM IS TERRA-BAD First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
1) totally agree with the need to adjust tac captains abilities.
2) is it really worth the 5 temporal consoles? With the exception of the 3pc Vesta and voth sets I'm really reluctant about slot that many set consoles
For me...I love that you can (bizarrely) use the Wells/Mobius consoles on it...but I WOULD like to be able to use the Kremin, etc consoles on my Timeships :-(
The Wells would benefit from it. I was just looking at the Wells and the Mobius in my shipyard. The Wells has 5 Science consoles and a secondary deflector. But loses a weapon slot and trades one Tac console for a Sci and one Tac console for an Eng. With the superiority of beams, the DHC loss is not a liability currently. You do get subsystem targeting attacks.
I personally think the state of sci ships (outside the Dreadnought) is worse than the state of Sci Captains (which a few power balance passes could fix; keeping in mind, DPS isn't optimized for science and isn't meant to be which is part of why I think captains should multi-class somehow.
I think the console and set bonus imbalances are more pronounced. A cruiser can do more set bonuses than any other ship without as much sacrifice (except for sets that use a secondary deflector) because of its weapon slots.
My challenge question is: if someone owns a Wells and a Mobius, why should they fly the Wells?
As I try to process the answer to that, I keep coming up against the console and weapon slot issues. I think all ships need the same number of weapon slots for set bonuses even if they aren't all active at once. Maybe reserve weapon slots would help there.
I lean towards:
1) Escorts get alternate weapon slots that can be "hotswapped" in combat but still benefiting from the inactive weapons' set bonuses. Remove the distance penalty and apply an armor pen BONUS for close proximity. Have the severity of this bonus scale with throttle level so escorts keep moving.
2) I also lean towards Science vessels getting an extra two weapon slots, maybe that come online during subsystem targeting attacks. Make subsystem targeting attacks a toggle power (with some changes):
Target Weapons adds a weapon disable proc, Target engines adds an engine disable proc, Target aux adds passive aux drain (and when aux is depleted starts draining other systems), Target Shield MODULATION adds shield pen, and Target Hull Structure adds bonus kinetic damage over time to energy weapons.
Part of the sci ship problem is that sci has too much to manage. I think the ship classes need to be equally viable at various skill levels so they are equally played so that resources can be financially justified on balance.
3) Two of cruisers' weapon slots need to be torpedo/projectile only; I'd be all for letting them pick any two but maybe do something like have a 75% weapon power debuff if two projectiles aren't present. Cruisers can be AoE beasts but they can currently be forward beasts, which detracts from raider style play who should be the forward damage dealers.
In addition to requiring cruisers to have two projectiles or face a penalty, I'd be fine with a similar "penalty" to escorts requiring two cannons be present. Let sci be more of a "bag of tricks" with no weapon requirement in this regard.
4) On that note, cannons need an ensign level ability. They didn't as much when the game launched but that has changed.
5) I'd look at adding energy weapon bonus consoles to Eng and Sci. Sci gets +Acc Energy Type, Eng gets +CritH/CritD Energy Type. Buff other consoles' effectiveness to match. Defensive hull consoles can't get too OP but probably need a De-Crit-er similar to Resilience in WoW. Defensive sci consoles need a De-penetration attribute, I'd imagine. I lean towards disabling set bonuses and maybe all special click consoles in PvP unless they are special versions tuned FOR PvP.
1) totally agree with the need to adjust tac captains abilities.
2) is it really worth the 5 temporal consoles? With the exception of the 3pc Vesta and voth sets I'm really reluctant about slot that many set consoles
It doesn't "need it" at all but it's not an awful choice with so many science console slots. It's not a max DPS choice but killing things isn't everyone's sole source of fun in combat. You shouldn't ever have a problem completing content with all the special consoles.
One more thought that occurs to me: Maybe one thing that would benefit the various ships in the game is the presence of a cooldown modifier on ships. Actually, one for BO stations and one for consoles. Sci ships could have a faster cooldown on gimmick consoles and an average cooldown on BOs. Escorts could have a slow cooldown on gimmick consoles and a very fast cooldown on BOffs. Cruisers could be slow/slow but get an extra ensign universal and a universal console slot. (Ship abilities would fall under console cooldowns.) Something that simulates the size and bureaucracy level of the ship as well as preparedness to use gimmicks.
A very light cruiser could be good at both.
Abilities could be introduced that toggle changes. Ie. "Red Alert" speeds up BOs and slows down consoles. Condition Yellow speeds up consoles and repairs but BOs are not sped up, stacking dodge bonus for every second you remain on yellow alert. Condition Green slows down BOs, drops your shields, and very, very rapidly enhances console cooldowns. Maybe Blue Alert would be a Sci station ability that throws the ship on lockdown (engines and weapons offline) entirely with shields up, completely freezes BO cooldowns, and rapidly speeds up consoles while building an exotic damage buff every second you remain on Blue Alert.
The tears would be overwhelming; the 'Wizards', so fond of posting 'sci ship does blah blah DPS' videos would have a seizure.
I'd like to watch a handful of those vids. Please be so kind and post some links.
They're easy enough to find. Just type 'STO Wizards' (or similar) into the Youtube search bar.
And then marvel at how many different ways you can do uber DPS using a Tac Captain, in any ship, using BFAW.
I sometimes watch them if I am tired; they help me sleep.
Oh, I know how to use a searchbar, but couldn't find any sci ship video besides Ryan's Nova/Intrepid one. Since you mentioned them, there should be dozens.
And just for my understanding, how much more DPS actually comes from tac-boosted sci abilities? I mean, take a sci in sci ship and a tac in a sci ship. What's the difference between those two if you just take the non-weapon abilities into account?
Actually, Ryan's Nova/Intrepid video is exactly the point; Tactical Captain in Science ship(s), making better use of those ships than a Science Captain can.
As for acutual numbers - I don't know, but the fact remains that a Tac Captain's buffs work on certain Sci abilities and combined with a Tac Captain's naturally superior DPS emphasis/potential....
And there are dozens of videos - they just come from various sources.
I wouldn't mind seeing a few Sci captains doing uber dps in a escort. Now thats some videos I wouldn't mind watching. Could someone link a few of those?
Its not about nerfing tacs, its about making the dps of all 3 specs more even. That way it would encourage more ppl to play engineers and science captains. In the long run maybe even get cryptic to build 5 man stfs that required engineer and science specific abilitys to advance. All in the fun of us players playing a Star Trek MMO and really enjoying ourselves.
Its not about nerfing tacs, its about making the dps of all 3 specs more even. That way it would encourage more ppl to play engineers and science captains. In the long run maybe even get cryptic to build 5 man stfs that required engineer and science specific abilitys to advance. All in the fun of us players playing a Star Trek MMO and really enjoying ourselves.
I am not comfortable with them being "even". They should at least be timed differently if you're going to maintain them as separate.
Conversely, if you allow multiclassing, I'm not sure sci has to be DPS oriented at all.
Its not about nerfing tacs, its about making the dps of all 3 specs more even. That way it would encourage more ppl to play engineers and science captains. In the long run maybe even get cryptic to build 5 man stfs that required engineer and science specific abilitys to advance. All in the fun of us players playing a Star Trek MMO and really enjoying ourselves.
I am not comfortable with them being "even". They should at least be timed differently if you're going to maintain them as separate.
Conversely, if you allow multiclassing, I'm not sure sci has to be DPS oriented at all.
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Just done an ISA pug run with my "toys" build, GravWell III (+the doffs), Grav Torp Spread III, Subspace Rupture, Spatical Charges, DRB II, Chroniton Lance and some other stuff to help keep the fireworks alive & boys, it was so much fun, even the spheres wouldn't stop dancing ^^ Did a solid 32k by just parking in front of the gate until the second transformer fell.
I say, this is a machine, its wants to hurt, but it also wants to play - so make a build around that and have fun
I don't disagree meimeitoo;
As someone who PvP's exclusively with a sci...It drives me up the wall that tac's can use science skill better then I can !!!
My initial reaction to this many moons ago;
"Say what ? Your Tac Captain at 50 Aux deals 3-5x reflect damage with Feedback Pulse ???!!!??"
"Wait a minute.... I'm a sci with full partgens/Maximum Aux build, and I only do 1.7 - 2.8x reflect damage ???!!!???"
"The fug is going on here ???!!!???"
Honestly that's my biggest gripe with this game.
I can live with the nerfs, I can live with the monetization, but this "Tacs are the be all and end all of STO" is where I drawn my line in the sand.
***Unfortunately the Devs have never addressed this (and as far as I know - I've NEVER heard ANY of them comment on this issue) and they never do anything about it, even though people have been screaming about this for years !
I'm just offering the OP the best advice I can at this time, with the mechanics we have currently.
It's a shame, and many people over the years have agreed that Alpha and GDF should NOT buff sci powers.
Can you imagine the WHINE and EPIC CRYING if the Devs ever did the RIGHT thing and restricted Alpha/GDF to weapons damage only ??
The forums would literally EXPLODE with RAGE (worst then anything we've ever seen before). It would make the DR rage look tame by comparison.
You'd have SO MANY angry Tacs, moaning, bellyaching, crying and complaining about it. It would be totally sickening.
Its almost comical just thinking about their reaction to it.
Welcome to STO...why Sci's can't have good things...Tacs always ruining it for Science.
Should have altered APA so it doesn't effect Science or least not nearly as much as it does...like maybe 10%.
I think the solution is to dismantle the profession system, honestly, and make it kind of a super-specialization. Because you want to sell all ships to all people and that means you've got to go Shaka when the Walls Fell on the playerbase.
Replace the existing skill tree with a profession system similar to specs. What you select at the login determines which one you progress through first. Each profession point after you complete your first profession qualification is designed to cost expertise. Around two million expertise to max out a profession. After the first profession, you start getting a cooldown of around 48 hours on each profession point (which can be bypassed with a large Energy Credit cost) and can begin filling out the other two professions (science and engineering). No cooldown if you're gold. More professions get added. Bridge officers can get alternate professions, again one active at a time, with a big EC sink.
You may only have one profession active at a time but may change on the fly.
This drives gold subs (which Neverwinter and Champions are targeting) and it combats EC inflation (EC will work its way to free players who will sink large quantities of it). EC inflation needs to be combated to get and keep the market value of lockbox/promo prizes below 500 million EC so that the Exchange can work properly.
And if people can have all three professions, there is more incentive for Cryptic to balance them and introduce new "hot" professions and less grounds for complaints about "I'm an X Captain."
I came to STO after about 12 years of Diablo 2, where the skill tree was God. Needless to say, I'd grown accustom to them, and even grew quite fond of them in general.
Seeing that STO had something similar made me feel like I'd found a new home.
Around the time we got our new Specializations, there was some chatter (rumors maybe) about dev's wanting to "readjust" the skill tree, well you can imagine I was completely against the idea and was until now...
I think you've just sold me on the idea of Professions. Well played sir.
I'd even be willing to pay a 1 time Zen fee to access/unlock each of the other professions on my main. (I'd probably even a few of my alts).
And the potential for more professions to be added is very intriguing.
I know there have been interesting threads on these forums about players wanting new professions, like Trader, Pirate, Diplomat etc. And here would be the perfect opportunity to do so.
Great concept Leviathan, and nice way of describing it. Someone at Cryptic/pwe should hire this man.
Cryptic could make Lockbox/doff ships account wide unlocks and fix the problem but greed won't allow it. It will probably end up like my sheshar. Its been setting in my engineers bank now for over 6 months. I've come close to selling it numerous of times becasue of this same issue I have with the annorax. I didn't think it would be this hard choosing a toon for the annorax, guess I got fooled. I feel like my brain has turned to mush since winning the damn thing. No need to worry ppl, I think I'm loosing 2 iq points a day it stays in my account bank. In 2 months I'll probably list it on the exchange for 500ecs thinking I listed it for 500mil. Everything I say now sounds like gibberish. I'm going crazy.
I'd like to watch a handful of those vids. Please be so kind and post some links.
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Oh, I know how to use a searchbar, but couldn't find any sci ship video besides Ryan's Nova/Intrepid one. Since you mentioned them, there should be dozens.
And just for my understanding, how much more DPS actually comes from tac-boosted sci abilities? I mean, take a sci in sci ship and a tac in a sci ship. What's the difference between those two if you just take the non-weapon abilities into account?
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Mhhh. Everybody's a Wizard nowadays?
Thanks for being honest.
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Actually you guys have no clue what the Wizards are thinking tbh. Its not like we're so massivly fond of being restricted to one type of toon (rom tacs) or that we hate sci or engs and all that. We are also not really fond if having absolutely no content that ever requires even close to what we are capable of. We use what cryptic gives us to its full potential but its not like we actually think its fun doing isa in under 50 seconds.
So if there were any kind of rage about nerfing stuff like gdf or alpha to not include exotic dmg and maybe like even give scis some form of exotic-apa or whatever they could think of to make sci and engs more useful a lot of us would be the first to embrace that, not flame against it.
Just because we're doing loads of dps if lag permits it does not mean we're completely fine with everything thats going on. Its rather the complete opposite thats closer to the thruth. I cant speak for the numbers-admins and i'm not technically a metals admin either but I now my guys long for harder content and much less powercreep.
Just yesterday I had a conversation about how to make an extreme-tank work and how much the game is just not letting us do that effectivly. The biggest problem of this game is its extremely complex combat system that propably not even the devs understand as well as some of us and that this extremely complex system is nowhere close to being easy accessable for even older players, let alone new ones. There is no real feedback on what your abilities actually do or even worse they may have misleading explanations with stuff like "10% all dmg something when xyz happens" where always we have to test out ourselfs whether its actually base or flat dmg or whatever you might call it. The game itself is not clear at all what it actually does. So we have a game for casuals and fanboys (which we also are in some way at least most of us love star trek as much as the next guy) but they give those casuals a system they could never even hope to understand and learn to effectivly interact with. That might be the case in every game to some extend but here its like the king of differences.
I would just ask you guys to be fair and dont assume that just because someone is able to build a char and do 150k+ dps in isa automatically makes him or her an imbalance loving power creep junky with no regard for other playstyles. Most of us see it as much of a problem as any of you how little actual meaningful design choises this game offers and offers in such a way even ordinary players can play with it to at least some of its potential.
Thank you, and Ryan, and Taylor for this.
One of the things that should definitely happen, IMHO, is that both Attack Pattern Alpha and Tactical Initiative should *not* be affected by AHOD. Especially AHOD + TI is a ludicrously OP combo! It's an ability cd reducer wrapped inside an ability cd reducer! And because AHOD affects Science abilities, Tact Captains get triple-score advantage:
TI reduces cd on all boff abilities -> AHOD reduces cd on TI -> *and* AHOD extra reduces cd on Science abilities.
And then they get to run APA almost permanently on top of that. Yeah, that's not OP or anything. :P
Furthermore, Fire on my Mark should actually have been an Engineering ability (as Engineers have no native debuff ability whatsoever, and hull debuff should really be an Engineering thing: see SIC).
No. Just tactical abilities.
And you forgot reciprocity which is available to all classes.
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Yes, my bad; I got carried away a bit.
That's why it doesn't count: it's not Tact Captain specific.
it looks like a T6 vesta to me. so whatever toon you'd use a vesta wht would probly do well whit the anorax.
I ran a pure support build on a vesta prior to DR. I would love to have this ship. GW3 + TR2 in the commander science seat and tact team/Ap Delta/FaW3 + int team/AtB for LtC tact/ Lt universal(use intel/eng) seats. feel free to experiment whit the other slots.
First of all it's not even a crafting system! It's just a dumb game system that's nothing more than a glorified slots machine.
second the "special items" you hope will be the saving the saving grace are messed up to.
2) is it really worth the 5 temporal consoles? With the exception of the 3pc Vesta and voth sets I'm really reluctant about slot that many set consoles
The Wells would benefit from it. I was just looking at the Wells and the Mobius in my shipyard. The Wells has 5 Science consoles and a secondary deflector. But loses a weapon slot and trades one Tac console for a Sci and one Tac console for an Eng. With the superiority of beams, the DHC loss is not a liability currently. You do get subsystem targeting attacks.
I personally think the state of sci ships (outside the Dreadnought) is worse than the state of Sci Captains (which a few power balance passes could fix; keeping in mind, DPS isn't optimized for science and isn't meant to be which is part of why I think captains should multi-class somehow.
I think the console and set bonus imbalances are more pronounced. A cruiser can do more set bonuses than any other ship without as much sacrifice (except for sets that use a secondary deflector) because of its weapon slots.
My challenge question is: if someone owns a Wells and a Mobius, why should they fly the Wells?
As I try to process the answer to that, I keep coming up against the console and weapon slot issues. I think all ships need the same number of weapon slots for set bonuses even if they aren't all active at once. Maybe reserve weapon slots would help there.
I lean towards:
1) Escorts get alternate weapon slots that can be "hotswapped" in combat but still benefiting from the inactive weapons' set bonuses. Remove the distance penalty and apply an armor pen BONUS for close proximity. Have the severity of this bonus scale with throttle level so escorts keep moving.
2) I also lean towards Science vessels getting an extra two weapon slots, maybe that come online during subsystem targeting attacks. Make subsystem targeting attacks a toggle power (with some changes):
Target Weapons adds a weapon disable proc, Target engines adds an engine disable proc, Target aux adds passive aux drain (and when aux is depleted starts draining other systems), Target Shield MODULATION adds shield pen, and Target Hull Structure adds bonus kinetic damage over time to energy weapons.
Part of the sci ship problem is that sci has too much to manage. I think the ship classes need to be equally viable at various skill levels so they are equally played so that resources can be financially justified on balance.
3) Two of cruisers' weapon slots need to be torpedo/projectile only; I'd be all for letting them pick any two but maybe do something like have a 75% weapon power debuff if two projectiles aren't present. Cruisers can be AoE beasts but they can currently be forward beasts, which detracts from raider style play who should be the forward damage dealers.
In addition to requiring cruisers to have two projectiles or face a penalty, I'd be fine with a similar "penalty" to escorts requiring two cannons be present. Let sci be more of a "bag of tricks" with no weapon requirement in this regard.
4) On that note, cannons need an ensign level ability. They didn't as much when the game launched but that has changed.
5) I'd look at adding energy weapon bonus consoles to Eng and Sci. Sci gets +Acc Energy Type, Eng gets +CritH/CritD Energy Type. Buff other consoles' effectiveness to match. Defensive hull consoles can't get too OP but probably need a De-Crit-er similar to Resilience in WoW. Defensive sci consoles need a De-penetration attribute, I'd imagine. I lean towards disabling set bonuses and maybe all special click consoles in PvP unless they are special versions tuned FOR PvP.
It doesn't "need it" at all but it's not an awful choice with so many science console slots. It's not a max DPS choice but killing things isn't everyone's sole source of fun in combat. You shouldn't ever have a problem completing content with all the special consoles.
One more thought that occurs to me: Maybe one thing that would benefit the various ships in the game is the presence of a cooldown modifier on ships. Actually, one for BO stations and one for consoles. Sci ships could have a faster cooldown on gimmick consoles and an average cooldown on BOs. Escorts could have a slow cooldown on gimmick consoles and a very fast cooldown on BOffs. Cruisers could be slow/slow but get an extra ensign universal and a universal console slot. (Ship abilities would fall under console cooldowns.) Something that simulates the size and bureaucracy level of the ship as well as preparedness to use gimmicks.
A very light cruiser could be good at both.
Abilities could be introduced that toggle changes. Ie. "Red Alert" speeds up BOs and slows down consoles. Condition Yellow speeds up consoles and repairs but BOs are not sped up, stacking dodge bonus for every second you remain on yellow alert. Condition Green slows down BOs, drops your shields, and very, very rapidly enhances console cooldowns. Maybe Blue Alert would be a Sci station ability that throws the ship on lockdown (engines and weapons offline) entirely with shields up, completely freezes BO cooldowns, and rapidly speeds up consoles while building an exotic damage buff every second you remain on Blue Alert.
I wouldn't mind seeing a few Sci captains doing uber dps in a escort. Now thats some videos I wouldn't mind watching. Could someone link a few of those?
I am not comfortable with them being "even". They should at least be timed differently if you're going to maintain them as separate.
Conversely, if you allow multiclassing, I'm not sure sci has to be DPS oriented at all.
I agree 100%