As many know, 2.5% is pretty much the standard for Proc rates in STO. Phasers have a 2.5% chance to take 1 subsystem offline. Tetryon, 2.5% chance for extra shield damage, etc. I've been thinking, with all that's occurred since the early days of STO, maybe it's time to take another look at that standard proc rate.
I've pretty much ditched all of my Reputation weapons, because 2.5% chance to do whatever typically does not make up for not having some of the pretty spectacular mods you can get on crafted weapons. Not to mention, the elephant in the room. Who cares about a 2.5% chance to do a couple hundred extra shield damage with Tetryons, when Antiproton's are dishing out all kinds of extra hurt at a 30% Crit rate?
I've suggested before leveling the playing field. Having all "enhancements" Proc on Crit. That was not received well.

So how about just doubling the rate for weapons to 5% and see how that goes? Double the chance for you to take advantage of your chosen weapon's specialty, but at still only 5%, hopefully not stepping on any toes.
And I say weapons, because I don't think we need to include things like the Embassy consoles just yet.
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And just FYI, Proc rate is different than Crit rate. Proc rate being how often your weapon's special ability takes affect, with Crit rate being how often you do extra damage.
When this game launched, Phasers were the best proc. There was no subsystem shutdown protection / lockouts back then. When you had a bunch of Feds shooting Phasers at a target in PVE or PVP, the target would suffer from a chain of random shutdowns, including shields. Taking those shots from a team of Feds and surviving was an artform back then. But when Science got nerfed into oblivion in about 2011, one of the things affected was Subsystem Disables & Shutdowns. Phaser Proc took it in the teeth alongside Science BOFF abilities.
There's tons of other procs that are very weak. Voth AP, Tetryon, Polaron has no purpose outside a Drain Build, etc.
Disruptor had always had a decent place. AP's initial problem was that it was a rare weapon and crit rates were nothing at all like today compared to launch.
Which brings us back to the question of "Which type of proc should replace disable a random subsystem so as to make it worthwhile?".
Leave the existing 2.5% stuff alone for everybody but...
Give the Fed's an extra 2.5% for using Phasers on Federation ships...
Give the Klink's an extra 2.5% for using Disruptors on Klingon ships...
Give the Rom's an extra 2.5% for using Plasmas on Romulan ships...
(the Romulan players would not get the extra Federation or Klingon percentages)
Then They could add 2.5% for anybody using Polarons on Dominion ships...
... and so forth.
Folks could still load whatever type of weapons they wish, but staying true to their faction would be a bit more advantageous.
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If we're talking strictly Phasers, remove Subsystem Disable Lockouts (which also applies to SCI BOFF abilities and unnerfing Viral Matrix), then we're talking.
You guys should have seen the chaos on a target unnerfed Phaser Proc did in both PVP and PVE. Most especially so since in those early days, EVERY Fed in PVP and PVE used Phasers. With a bunch of Feds focusing on a target, systems randomly shutting down made Phasers a very powerful proc in those days. Phasers were so good back then that even a small portion of the KDF playerbase, including myself resorted to using them even in PVP. Yes, KDF ships using Phasers. When the Lockout came with those Science nerfs, Phaser was instantly worthless except for "aesthetic purity" reasons on a Starfleet ship.
No proc in the game had fallen so far as Phaser proc did. It's 2.5% proc rate wasn't an issue before the massive nerf, especially with all the Phasers a ship could mount and the number of users.
Something like this for each base weapon type:
Polaron - flow caps
Plasma - prtg
Disruptor - subspace decompiler
Phaser - auxiliary power
Tetryon - graviton gens
Ap would use nothing
Most weapons have 2.5% chance but then you have protonic polaron that is 25% chance based off the critH value (so is the only proc rate that you can actually change) or the player and basic antiproton which is "always on" and so is instantly better than anything else.
Then you've got torps with all manner of weird proc rates:
And that's just 3 types, it's seriously confusing how this work in this game, there's just no standard rule to what to expect.
I would not mind seeing more things tagged onto the power sub-systems like the damage reduction from torpedos on shields, in that based on how much power you have in your shield system it would determine how much of a torpedo's damage is reduced instead of a static amount like it is now. Another thing that would be nice atleast with tetryon is is that it might have a chance to negate the shield recharge of the target for a period of time,
NPC'S would benefit from this just as much as players.
Alternatively, do like I did and load a ship with Rapid modded weapons. I have 6 of them. 6 weapons each with a 2.5% chance to trigger Rapid fire. Try it and see just how often procs happen at 2.5%.
If you are concerned about power creep, that ship has sailed my friends and like the Titanic, I don't think it's coming back. Again, I'm talking about a small increase to secondary weapon assets to bring them a tiny, tiny bit closer to being useful. I can assure you, the players ripping through your ISA with 150K DPS are not going to be switching to Tetryons because they are procing at 5%.
Exactly. With the phaser proc nullified, it would be nice if it got a new proc instead.
Back to the issue though, I would only like to see a single, one-per-ship proc increase console sort of deal. I'm neither overly optimistic about it, nor am I overly desperate for something like it to happen.
You might want to re-read the OP post, before posting something not on topic!
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The problem is that a number of those procs considered weak today have never scaled up properly, even in the STO launch era where there was no power creep.
Standard Tetryon Proc - Flow Caps dependent, but even on a high Flow Caps build, has never did enough shield damage on the proc to make it useful.
Standard Phaser Proc - I already mentioned about how far Phaser Proc had fallen from being the Best in the Game when STO launched to being worthless. This was nerfed with Science.
Standard Polaron Proc - Only useful on a very high Flow Caps Drain Build to supplement other SCI Drain Attacks.
There are numerous other Procs out there that their damage effects just don't scale with the game.
There are also Procs that help counter themselves, like Thoron-Infused!
All Fed ships - phaser proc bonus
All KDF ships - Disruptor
All Rom ships - Plasma and disruptor
Breen, Dominion, Vaad, Kaboli etc. - Polaron
An so on.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
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If there was a proc that needed a change, I think it would be Tetryon because its proc becomes useless once shields are down. Phasers would come in second due to the lockouts.
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Yea that maybe better. I was just listing examples because some stats are never used and this way it would incorporate them all.
The 2.5 proc rate is also fine. You have it at level 1 with your starting gear and you still have it at level 60 with MK XIV. It is supposed to be a constant.
If it was asked for a buff to the procc chance of these effects at only max level making it that prior to 60 you have a 2.5% chance to proc yet than at level 60 it is raised to 5% for example, than i would agree it would be bad to make that chance unless the boost is a mod (we do have the chance mod that boosts the chance to procc effects). Though what is being asked is actually boosting the base-line chance to procc the energy type effect from 2.5% top 5% roughly, which might be a good idea overall to make them more valuable overall.
My biggest issue though is that anti-proton is given a constant buff over a proccing buff like the other energy type, which made sense when it was released as it was rarer, but now it makes less sense with how much more common they are. Alongside it just makes it more attractive having a constant 10% critical severity (20% if you have anti-proton dual heavy cannons) compared to the other energy types having a unreliable proccing ability, even if some might be more useful in places than others, as such I think that anti-proton should in the least place be brought in line having it's critical severity buff shifted into procced buff like the other energy types. I would even say make it a stacking buff that slowly raises in power as you procc it off attacks, such as it proccs at 2.5-5% chance on hit for a 1-2% critical severity buff stacking up to 50% cap.