Weapons need to be equalized more

shinnok918

disruptors need to do more damage debuff (as does romplas), phasers need to knock subs offline for longer (or more frequently), plasma burn needs to either be longer or do more damage (plasma hyperflux would receive an increase), tetryon needs to melt shields faster, polaron needs to hit the energy levels a little more. yes I missed a few but this is

all to make them more equal to antiproton. right now the game is set up that no matter what u do antiproton will outdo all, which takes some of the fun out of it. almost everyone who wants to do serious damage will cookie cutter over into antiproton. the weapons need to be equalized to some degree so players can make a build around their favorite weapon and take it into pve and/or pvp and not be outclassed all the time by the cookie cutter antiproton build.

equinox976

I disagree. I think the correct balance has been struck between debuffs and inconvenience; making them more frequent/longer lasting just result in everybody being slightly more irritated than usual

samt1996

The only weapon type that needs reworking is Tetryon all the rest work just fine if you know what your doing.

alcyoneserene

Depends what is meant by "serious damage" since ISA DPS I don't think is a good measure of the ability to destroy enemy NPC ships.

For example, what could a coordinated focused-fire team of say tetryon DHC battlecruisers along with a stealth torpedo bomber achieve vs one using antiproton along with that same bomber? Or a coordinated group of drain science ships using polarons vs one with antiproton? I don't know these answers, and haven't dug around in the forums if someone indeed has done the testing along with not just parsing but also observing the net result of the match based on different weapon types.

With the skill revamp it will shuffle things around a lot, and probably invalidate a lot of previous testing on damage types anyways. Will phaser procs have more of a role? Will tetryons be useful against hardened shields? Will polaron drain be underpowered against innate drain resistances? Even tribble's been changing around a lot (thankfully) going from a completely dire situation for science to one that seems more promising.

As I see it, antiproton is like the specialty ships of weapons (intel, pilot, command, etc.), while lockbox versions of those weapons are like lobi/lockbox/promo ships. One can have more canon-based looks (c-store) that give up some of their performance to specialty ship designs and other alien or exotic canon designs (wells, annorax, krenim warships etc.). Many c-store ships have bonuses for more traditional/canon damage types, and while these may (or may not) be sub-par to removing their consoles and replacing everything with AP, there's lockbox weapons that have the same damage type that maintains those special features (ex. Matha raptor's disruptor cannon console with coalition disruptors).

To that also comes the question of 'are consoles and weapon synergy even worth it?' My guess and observations is that most ship-specific consoles are pure gimmicks, so much so that they can even hinter any attempt to coordinated team play, not just ISA DPS by the numbers.

The point here is that I'd like to see much more testing, numbers, and group feedback on the existing (pre S11.5 and post) weapon types before I'll believe your claim that the playing field a) isn't levelled, and b) needs to be levelled considering the inherent tradeoffs mentioned earlier. Otherwise, this really turns into another bandwagon of 'nerf FAW because I say so' without really understanding the situation from all angles (AoE vs Focused Fire, the situation with Cannon plasma procs, coordinated team play, its impacts on certain ships - science - etc.).

Edit to add: the only testing I've had the chance to do lately was polaron. I had one vaadwaur polaron beam and it did not seem to work with beam overload (or CRF, I had to try despite it being a beam). Not sure if I tested FAW with it but I had only one test target at the time. Against 0 skill points in power insulators, polarons seemed to drain 5 subysystem power, but very rarely (2.5% is a low number when firing one weapon) and that's coming from a half-drain half-exotic damage science ship flown by my Sci main in holodeck. If certain weapons are outright broken, and nobody reports them or it simply gets buried in piles of bug reports on and endlessly long priority queue, how can we jump to large-scale conviction that so and so need boosting and/or scale back AP when nobody even catches if there's something wrong with a weapon type as a whole.

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equinox976

azrael605 wrote: »

My deadliest character uses TOS phasers.

I love those phasers, but the damned sound drives me so crazy I had to swap them out

dareau

shinnok918 wrote: »

almost everyone who wants to do serious damage will cookie cutter over into antiproton.

And no matter how much energy is lost to polarons, or how fast shields disappear when tagged with tetryons, the parser will always show more damage from antiproton and their bigger crits.

So when you measure DPS, antiproton is the "one ring". Sadly, parsers can't measure "contribution"...

taylor1701d

There isn't such a big difference between energy types these days. At least not like it used to be.
APs crtdx3 [pen] is only a few percent better then anything else.

However, some energy types suffer more then others due to not having a mission reward omni available. Like Disruptor or Phaser.
If all energy types could get a 2nd omni then things would equal out even more.
But as is, the difference isn't that extreme.

snoggymack22

shinnok918 wrote: »

and not be outclassed all the time by the cookie cutter antiproton build.

How outclassed are you though?

I'm serious too. Are we just talking about ISA? If so, it's kind of meh. I mean if you're doing I dunno, say 50k dps. And someone next to you using antiprotons is doing 75k, that 25k difference shows up in your parse for sure. But you're both outclassing that particular event anyways, by a long shot. So at that point you're in a situation where if you want to continue to fine tune and adjust your damage output in that particular event, you switch to antiprotons as the cookie-cutter is really mostly just specific to that mission.

Infected is a great testing mission for performance. But that same number doesn't translate to the other queues out there.

Back when I played a medieval fantasy based MMORPG that's now really quite old, I would parse a lot. And I had my testing content and I would be at a specific level. I'd then test against that same content with gear changes and the like to measure difference. But my parses on our actual encounters varied quite a bit, as did everyone else's. Due to the encounters themselves being different. There was one particular dragon that I always led the raid in DPS. It was mostly because of my positioning and my particular build. That's it. There were other bosses in the same zone that I was hard pressed to crack top 10.

leemwatson

The only reason AP is 'better' is that Cryptic have let Crit Hit levels soar into absurdity. In the old days of D&D getting a 20 (5% in STO terms) on a D20 was considered a crit, and rarely did anyone achieve anything better than 18 (15%). When you hear people reporting '40%' Crit Hit (13+ on a D20) there is something seriously wrong with that mechanic! Cryptic might as well get rid of that mechanic altogether with what people can 'achieve' these days. To be honest, I find Phasers and Plasmas more effective on my characters than AP, but I don't parse, I don't need to, the damage done is effective for the job at hand, plus on top of that, I find vaping just isn't fun.

One thing I can't understand is that regularly systems were knocked off-line by any major weapon hit (usually the Transporters being the first to go!) so why can't this mechanic be applied to every weapon!? Yes I realise that Phasers would then be like AP, but why couldn't Phasers then get a second proc?

At the end of the day, weapons don't need DPS or Proc Rate alterations. Players need to learn how builds work, and I mean learn by experience, not by copying a loadout.

samt1996

The difference between good equipment and ideal equipment is a few percent at best and like the other poster pointed out raw damage is a very small view to take of the game. I can go into the Badlands BZ in my drain boat and single handedly reduce the time it takes to kill the starbases by nearly half depending upon the team and although my contribution far outweighs everyone else's i won't get any attention or notice for it because DPSOMG!!!

The issue isn't one of AP being leagues better it's one of the hordes of mindless DPS chasing drones who have no idea how the game works and only copy down the builds of anyone they perceive as a good player. This isn't the DPS leagues fault in the strictest sense, they are just trying to help players but they do so by popularizing cookie cutter playstyles. In general the admins themselves seem to have a general understanding and appreciation of different build types (after all where would they be without nannies) I just wish they would encourage build diversity and pushing the limits on every aspect of the game instead of just one.

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darkbladejk

shinnok918 wrote: »

disruptors need to do more damage debuff (as does romplas), phasers need to knock subs offline for longer (or more frequently), plasma burn needs to either be longer or do more damage (plasma hyperflux would receive an increase), tetryon needs to melt shields faster, polaron needs to hit the energy levels a little more. yes I missed a few but this is

all to make them more equal to antiproton. right now the game is set up that no matter what u do antiproton will outdo all, which takes some of the fun out of it. almost everyone who wants to do serious damage will cookie cutter over into antiproton. the weapons need to be equalized to some degree so players can make a build around their favorite weapon and take it into pve and/or pvp and not be outclassed all the time by the cookie cutter antiproton build.

A couple of things here. First, there is no set in stone overall best energy type no matter what anyone tells you. If you know what to do and set your build up right, then you can do great damage with any of the energy types. Now there are certain energy types that lend more advantages to certain builds and have more support at the moment than others do, but beyond that all of the energy types aside from their proc are virtually the same.

The big reason alot of folks like AP is because of the nature of AP weaponry. Where as other energy types have a proc such as resistance bypasses in the case of disruptors, or a burn like plasma, AP weaponry has an innate crit severity bonus instead of a traditional proc. If you're going for 100% min/max in which you're trying to squeeze every last drop of dps from a ship, then AP lends strongly to that. If you're building a drain boat, then the AP proc is going to give you precisely poo in the way of drains where as Polaron would be a good choice for draining. Those are just a couple of examples of likely scenarios. However there is more to this game than just dps. You may have a ship that can deal 500k dps but if you're constantly dying then that 500k is doing you no good.

You're completely wrong when you say that no matter what, AP will outdo all. I know of several people who can get to 50k+ with energy types besides AP. I myself stay between 30k-40k typically using Polarons as a tank. With my build i know of quite a few people that can out do me on the damage meters, some of them AP users and some of them not. I've also seen several AP users who can't break 20k as well. With things in this game, yes gear, ship and all of that help, but at the end of the day it's how you use the build you have that matters. Someone could have full epic gear in a t6 scimitar or t6 odyssey but if they don't know what they're doing, can easily be outdone by someone who has lesser gear on a t5u or an old mirror ship. While I myself have ships that utilize AP weapons, typically my main ships don't use them. Not because AP is bad, as there is no bad energy type, but because I don't think AP fits the build. My ship that I use the most is a Cardassian Galor loaded with Polaron weapons and does fairly well in pvp and pve. Is it the strongest ship out there damage wise, far from it, but can still do virtually anything in game that I want it to do content wise.

The best way you're going to get that stuff "normalized" is to change how AP works. While I do agree there should be more stuff to encourage more diversity among the energy types used, what you're proposing is no simple undertaking and can't be taken lightly.

nikeix

I recently pitched a new skill as part of the revamp that would increase your chance of proc'ing weapon effects by 20/40/60% of the base chance. It would make 2.5% effects trigger 3%/3.5%/4% of the time. It would also do exactly nothing for Anti-proton which already has plenty of ways of increasing the chance to trigger it's "proc". Seemed like the Devs were at least mulling it over.

e30ernest

Aren't the new high-DPS runs done with Disruptors?

That said, unless you are aiming to top a DPS sheet, choice of weapon energy type is irrelevant. All of the weapon energy types will do 100k+ DPS in the right hands.

squirrleytunic

You were most likely misinformed as to how much of a gap there is between energy types. I see it a lot from people who are hearing things 2nd hand without any real data to back things up. No matter how little of a difference is between any two weapons, consoles, boff powers, doffs, etc.. there will always be a best in slot. When people are competing with each other for high scores, all of those best in slot choices are taken to give them a slight edge over the next guy, but they are definitely not necessary.

Complain more over the lack of a mission omni beam for all energy types. The lack of one limits people who wanna run dual beams to a few choices.

p.s. My dps builds runs all disruptors.

e30ernest

Who? Me?

Looking at the top 5 in the DPS table, 3/5 ran Disruptors (5/10 in the top 10). Granted the top is still an AP user, 2nd place (you) isn't far back. At that level of DPS, that difference can all be chucked down to luck.

I do agree that some people will try to squeeze out as much DPS as they can to top the sheets but that's what, less than 1% of the playerbase? And right now (and especially from what I've heard so far from Tribble), Disruptors may make a comeback over AP.

AP's proc is Cat 2, and at that level of gameplay, you guys are oversaturating your Cat 2 bonuses now.

asuran14

I would not mind see a talent in the tactical tree, or maybe each of the three career trees have a talent that buffs the proc change and/or strength of the proc as like a 3 point talent. Though I would say I would not mind seeing them rework anti-proton's critical severity buff into being more like the other weapon types, as back when it was made it was much rarer making it understandable to be quite powerful of a buff, maybe something like a stacking version that could proc an had a decent length duration. I personally would not mind seeing tetryon weapons getting a sort of buff that negates the innate shield regen of a target, while leaving a de-buff on the target that might reduce the shield healing they receive as well.

I do wish though also that we had things like projects from reps, or items we could get from older lockboxes that would allow you to upgrade thru crafting an omni-beam that uses a rep's or lockbox's proc effect. If this could be also be made to count as either your one crafted omni-beam or your one mission reward omni-beam than you could more easily deck out your ship with other rep an lockbox weapon types. But I would also say that some fo the older reps an even missions that give a specific rep-set weapon that is only beam or cannon based, could use a change to give both as a option, and even having them be able to toggle between the two weapon style like between a beam-array or beam-bank, as well as a cannon that could toggle between a dual cannon an dual heavy cannon type mode. As I like the romulan experimental plasma weapon yet would love to see a dual cannon version, or even a dual beam bank mode it could use, and to me it would make sense to do this as it would give it more versatility to be used in different weapon set-ups.

squirrleytunic

e30ernest wrote: »

Who? Me?

Looking at the top 5 in the DPS table, 3/5 ran Disruptors (5/10 in the top 10). Granted the top is still an AP user, 2nd place (you) isn't far back. At that level of DPS, that difference can all be chucked down to luck.

I do agree that some people will try to squeeze out as much DPS as they can to top the sheets but that's what, less than 1% of the playerbase? And right now (and especially from what I've heard so far from Tribble), Disruptors may make a comeback over AP.

AP's proc is Cat 2, and at that level of gameplay, you guys are oversaturating your Cat 2 bonuses now.

No, I was talking to OP. Sorry

alexraptorr

I do think that Antiproton needs to have its Crit bonus changed into an actual 2.5% proc to increase critical damage for the weapon, to bring it in line with all the other weapons.
There is no valid reason whatsoever that the antiproton reason should have an "always on" bonus when none of the other weapons have that.

lucho80

shinnok918 wrote: »

disruptors need to do more damage debuff (as does romplas), phasers need to knock subs offline for longer (or more frequently), plasma burn needs to either be longer or do more damage (plasma hyperflux would receive an increase), tetryon needs to melt shields faster, polaron needs to hit the energy levels a little more. yes I missed a few but this is

1) Disruptors proc - Fine as-is
2) Phaser proc - Proc could use a tad of a boost
3) Plasma proc - Fine as-is
4) Tetryon proc - Proc needs a serious boost. The worst of them all, and I think the devs know it since they've added so many different ways of boosting tetryon damage.
5) Polaron proc - Fine as-is
6) Antiproton - Fine as-is

shinnok918

leemwatson wrote: »

The only reason AP is 'better' is that Cryptic have let Crit Hit levels soar into absurdity. In the old days of D&D getting a 20 (5% in STO terms) on a D20 was considered a crit, and rarely did anyone achieve anything better than 18 (15%). When you hear people reporting '40%' Crit Hit (13+ on a D20) there is something seriously wrong with that mechanic! Cryptic might as well get rid of that mechanic altogether with what people can 'achieve' these days. To be honest, I find Phasers and Plasmas more effective on my characters than AP, but I don't parse, I don't need to, the damage done is effective for the job at hand, plus on top of that, I find vaping just isn't fun.

One thing I can't understand is that regularly systems were knocked off-line by any major weapon hit (usually the Transporters being the first to go!) so why can't this mechanic be applied to every weapon!? Yes I realise that Phasers would then be like AP, but why couldn't Phasers then get a second proc?

At the end of the day, weapons don't need DPS or Proc Rate alterations. Players need to learn how builds work, and I mean learn by experience, not by copying a loadout.

they could make the "innate crtd" that's always there only have a 50% chance of triggering over lets say, a normal damage crit hit. nothing else has an always on ability.

also most are too lazy to do the research and testing.

lucho80 wrote: »

shinnok918 wrote: »

disruptors need to do more damage debuff (as does romplas), phasers need to knock subs offline for longer (or more frequently), plasma burn needs to either be longer or do more damage (plasma hyperflux would receive an increase), tetryon needs to melt shields faster, polaron needs to hit the energy levels a little more. yes I missed a few but this is

1) Disruptors proc - Fine as-is
2) Phaser proc - Proc could use a tad of a boost
3) Plasma proc - Fine as-is
4) Tetryon proc - Proc needs a serious boost. The worst of them all, and I think the devs know it since they've added so many different ways of boosting tetryon damage.
5) Polaron proc - Fine as-is
6) Antiproton - Fine as-is

plasma burn can do a bit more. ive yet to see someone come in with a super high damage plasma build that comes near antiproton builds.

alexraptorr

I agree, plasma proc's are a bit on the weak side since they stopped being treated as exotic damage, especially in today's high DPS climate they really don't contribute much as targets end up being destroyed before the DoT can deal any meaningful amount of damage.

nikeix

lucho80 wrote: »

1) Disruptors proc - Fine as-is
2) Phaser proc - Proc could use a tad of a boost
3) Plasma proc - Fine as-is
4) Tetryon proc - Proc needs a serious boost. The worst of them all, and I think the devs know it since they've added so many different ways of boosting tetryon damage.
5) Polaron proc - Fine as-is
6) Antiproton - Fine as-is

What do you think of the Agony Phaser proc (which is quite different from normal phasers)?

I run them on two of my captains, but I'm not really sure how to get the most out of them.

lucho80

nikeix wrote: »

What do you think of the Agony Phaser proc (which is quite different from normal phasers)?

I run them on two of my captains, but I'm not really sure how to get the most out of them.

Haven't used them, but if that phaser DOT scales, then they should be nice. Otherwise, it just seems like a plasma variation with a halved phaser proc.

Coalition disruptors seem downright dangerous if used by a whole team.

sharpie65

I agree, other procs (disruptors aside) just can't compete with AP in terms of effectiveness. I normally use factional weapon types - phaser, disruptor, and plasma - so my DPS may end up being lower than somebody else who uses a similar build (changing the appropriate gear for AP/disruptor-related stuff)...although depending on what ship I'm using I can pull about 12k (human Fed engy).

risingwolfshadow

I assume we're talking PvE here because unless you're a super-duper DPSer no one really cares that much. They all have advantages and disadvantages (most of which were probably meant for PvP). The problem is that STO is so dumbed down that everyone is told to throw creativity out of the window because you can simply faceroll any NPC to death. At the end of the day the only time those procs make sense, with the exception of disruptor, plasma and ap, is PvP.

ltminns

Well, I created a Character who is at Level 3 for the sole purpose (right now) of opening Agony Phaser (and other) Lockbox Weapons at Mk II for the increased chances of a Quality Upgrade at very low Tech Point levels.

We shall see how it goes.

taylor1701d

^ wise man

noroblad

I agree with the OP. AP beams have what, a 25, 30% chance to "proc" on a high end build? And nearly everything else (apart from a couple of oddities) are sitting on a 2.5%? That is huge. It is telling that a 2 piece set for tet glider is nearly 40 times more effective than a tet weapon build. Its telling that the only phaser proc that does anything to NPCs is the shield drop, so phasers are not just 2.5 proc rate but actually 1/4 that because 3/4 of the procs you do get have no real effect. Its telling that disruptors are only good for buffing the guy with AP -- he will notice it more and tip his wings to you in thanks. Plasma might be OK like it is. Polaron does not do anything whether it procs or not (again, PVE) -- by the time you could tell a difference, it will be long dead.

I am not sure what the fix is. I would think the answer would be to proc on crit everything, but that means all players would need crit builds which isnt a good answer at all. A fixed rate of 20% is too high because the debuffs last long enough to make that 100% uptime. Maybe a combination of the two .. crits proc, 100%, and an improved proc rate all around (10 seems about right). Or maybe just increase the base damage of everything except AP by 10% or so (rough estimate).

darkknightucf

Meanwhile, other weapon platforms are looking to get bugs and archaic mechanics fixed/removed....