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Temporal Bridge Officer Space Powers
jbmaverick
Member Posts: 935 Arc User
I'm surprised there doesn't seem to be any discussion about the new bridge officer powers yet. I've been playing around with them a bit but as Temporal Officer was intended to be the Science Specialization I'm not finding the abilities terribly strong because I'm not built for it. The Entropy resource mechanic is interesting, but given the state of damage output and the per-target form of the resource means it will be difficult to utilize beyond a super-target like the Voth City Ships. Almost all Temporal abilities are physical damage, meaning they completely bypass shields. They also almost all seem to count as Exotic damage abilities and as such scale on Particle Generators, which I'm not strongly skilled for. I'm interested if anyone else has done any substantial testing.
Entropy builders (each enemy can have a maximum of 5 Entropy, only Entropy built by your own abilities can be used by you):
Channeled Deconstruction - deals physical damage that scales up over time and builds 1 Entropy every 2 seconds. Takes 10 seconds to reach full Entropy on a single target, and you have to keep them in you forward 180 arc for the duration like Tachyon Beam. Damage at max is pretty negligible against large targets and small targets aren't going to live the 10 seconds for it to be worth stacking Entropy on them. Potential note is that higher rank versions of the Epoch fighters have rank 1 of this ability, I don't know if the Entropy they generate can be used by the carrier.
Heisenberg Amplifier - builds 1 Entropy on targets within 3km of the initial target while also confusing them and randomly teleporting them. The teleport could work against the user depending on the type of build they want to use (and I strongly suspect many of these abilities would work best with a build that gathers enemies to a single point like Gravity Well).
Shared Fate - 10% chance to build 1 Entropy per second (power tooltip is unclear on duration, maybe 15 seconds?) on targets within 3km of the initial target while also increasing damage to their shields and draining their shields, scaling up as more enemies are affected. Possibly one of the better abilities overall as a damage multiplier but only 10% Entropy chance means it's not a reliable builder.
Entropic Cascade - Deals minor physical DoT to primary target every second, randomly targets a nearby hostile each second for physical damage roughly 2.5x stronger than the main DoT, if no second target available builds 1 Entropy on the main target. Reliable builder if only fighting 1 target but the main DoT is pretty small, you'd be better off using Channeled Deconstruction I think against a large single target. No Entropy build if using against group targets, damage from the main DoT is kind of weak but if there's only 2 targets the second is going to be hit fairly hard.
Recursive Shearing - possibly one of the best situationally useful abilities in the list, records the difference in hull strength on a target over 5 seconds, then deals 25%/35%/45% (depending on ability rank) of the lost hull as damage to the target again (no resistance to this damage). Also builds 2 Entropy. This ability pretty much requires you use it against a target that can survive for more than 5 seconds to be truly useful, so again something like a Borg Tac Cube or Voth City Ship.
Chronometric Inversion Field - this is basically an AoE targeted Suppression Barrage from the Command Specialization with some minor physical damage thrown in. Reduces enemy flight speed and damage output significantly while they remain in the 5km area, 10%/15%/20% (based on ability rank) chance to build 1 Entropy on each target per second. About as useful as Suppression Barrage from a tanking standpoint but not reliable as an Entropy builder or for the damage output. Could be useful for keeping higher speed targets within the area of effect of a Gravity Well if used together.
Entropy spenders (affected enemies have all Entropy stacks from your abilities removed):
Gravimetric Conversion - PBAoE shield drain on enemies and shield heal on yourself, bonus shield drain per stack of Entropy on each target. Possibly a good tank ability for someone getting into the thick of the fight, could pair well with the Pilot specialization talent Danger Zone, haven't tested this one yet but seems potentially useful for certain builds.
Rapid Decay - 5 second physical DoT and hull resistance debuff that's extended by 1 second for each stack of Entropy. If you manage to build max Entropy on the target with each use it has a 25% uptime. Probably more useful for the resistance debuff than the damage, I'm not familiar enough with hull resistance debuffs to say how good this is.
Timeline Collapse - basically a mini Gravity Well, has the same seat rank requirements but a slightly faster cooldown and not on a shared cooldown so they could be used together, with its pull strength and damage depending on each affected target's Entropy stacks. Only deals damage in one burst on expiration, looking at the numbers an equivalent rank Gravity Well will deal more damage to a target that's kept within its area of effect over its duration than Timeline Collapse will in its one burst discounting Entropy stacks, power tooltip doesn't really inform how much damage scaling comes from Entropy. Timeline Collapse uses the Pull mechanic rather than negative Repel like Gravity Well does, so not sure how to compare but it did seem to be a fair bit stronger based off casual observation.
Special powers:
Causal Reversion - hull heal on self, gets stronger with each enemy that has at least one Entropy stack (stacks are not removed) within 5km of the user, removes DoT and Entropy on self over 5 seconds. Same cooldown timer and seat rank requirement as Engineering Team but heal is weaker even with the max 5 Entropy-afflicted enemies. Only benefit over Engineering Team is the DoT removal.
Entropic Redistribution - removes Entropy from 1 target and reapplies that value to all enemies within 5km of the target, dealing reasonable physical damage to the initial target plus extra per stack of Entropy removed, then dealing physical damage per Entropy stack to each target to which Entropy was added. The only really reliable way to apply Entropy to multiple targets but requires you build Entropy on a primary target first.
There are some potential combos in here with existing powers, primarily Gravity Well, but the main problem is that most of the Temporal abilities presume a target is going to last long enough to make the powers useful. These don't really fit my standard playstyle and I don't think they'll really have a place in the current min/max but I'm still curious if anyone else sees something I don't. They could be more useful in a casual pre-built team or a maybe a 5-man Science! team.
Entropy builders (each enemy can have a maximum of 5 Entropy, only Entropy built by your own abilities can be used by you):
Channeled Deconstruction - deals physical damage that scales up over time and builds 1 Entropy every 2 seconds. Takes 10 seconds to reach full Entropy on a single target, and you have to keep them in you forward 180 arc for the duration like Tachyon Beam. Damage at max is pretty negligible against large targets and small targets aren't going to live the 10 seconds for it to be worth stacking Entropy on them. Potential note is that higher rank versions of the Epoch fighters have rank 1 of this ability, I don't know if the Entropy they generate can be used by the carrier.
Heisenberg Amplifier - builds 1 Entropy on targets within 3km of the initial target while also confusing them and randomly teleporting them. The teleport could work against the user depending on the type of build they want to use (and I strongly suspect many of these abilities would work best with a build that gathers enemies to a single point like Gravity Well).
Shared Fate - 10% chance to build 1 Entropy per second (power tooltip is unclear on duration, maybe 15 seconds?) on targets within 3km of the initial target while also increasing damage to their shields and draining their shields, scaling up as more enemies are affected. Possibly one of the better abilities overall as a damage multiplier but only 10% Entropy chance means it's not a reliable builder.
Entropic Cascade - Deals minor physical DoT to primary target every second, randomly targets a nearby hostile each second for physical damage roughly 2.5x stronger than the main DoT, if no second target available builds 1 Entropy on the main target. Reliable builder if only fighting 1 target but the main DoT is pretty small, you'd be better off using Channeled Deconstruction I think against a large single target. No Entropy build if using against group targets, damage from the main DoT is kind of weak but if there's only 2 targets the second is going to be hit fairly hard.
Recursive Shearing - possibly one of the best situationally useful abilities in the list, records the difference in hull strength on a target over 5 seconds, then deals 25%/35%/45% (depending on ability rank) of the lost hull as damage to the target again (no resistance to this damage). Also builds 2 Entropy. This ability pretty much requires you use it against a target that can survive for more than 5 seconds to be truly useful, so again something like a Borg Tac Cube or Voth City Ship.
Chronometric Inversion Field - this is basically an AoE targeted Suppression Barrage from the Command Specialization with some minor physical damage thrown in. Reduces enemy flight speed and damage output significantly while they remain in the 5km area, 10%/15%/20% (based on ability rank) chance to build 1 Entropy on each target per second. About as useful as Suppression Barrage from a tanking standpoint but not reliable as an Entropy builder or for the damage output. Could be useful for keeping higher speed targets within the area of effect of a Gravity Well if used together.
Entropy spenders (affected enemies have all Entropy stacks from your abilities removed):
Gravimetric Conversion - PBAoE shield drain on enemies and shield heal on yourself, bonus shield drain per stack of Entropy on each target. Possibly a good tank ability for someone getting into the thick of the fight, could pair well with the Pilot specialization talent Danger Zone, haven't tested this one yet but seems potentially useful for certain builds.
Rapid Decay - 5 second physical DoT and hull resistance debuff that's extended by 1 second for each stack of Entropy. If you manage to build max Entropy on the target with each use it has a 25% uptime. Probably more useful for the resistance debuff than the damage, I'm not familiar enough with hull resistance debuffs to say how good this is.
Timeline Collapse - basically a mini Gravity Well, has the same seat rank requirements but a slightly faster cooldown and not on a shared cooldown so they could be used together, with its pull strength and damage depending on each affected target's Entropy stacks. Only deals damage in one burst on expiration, looking at the numbers an equivalent rank Gravity Well will deal more damage to a target that's kept within its area of effect over its duration than Timeline Collapse will in its one burst discounting Entropy stacks, power tooltip doesn't really inform how much damage scaling comes from Entropy. Timeline Collapse uses the Pull mechanic rather than negative Repel like Gravity Well does, so not sure how to compare but it did seem to be a fair bit stronger based off casual observation.
Special powers:
Causal Reversion - hull heal on self, gets stronger with each enemy that has at least one Entropy stack (stacks are not removed) within 5km of the user, removes DoT and Entropy on self over 5 seconds. Same cooldown timer and seat rank requirement as Engineering Team but heal is weaker even with the max 5 Entropy-afflicted enemies. Only benefit over Engineering Team is the DoT removal.
Entropic Redistribution - removes Entropy from 1 target and reapplies that value to all enemies within 5km of the target, dealing reasonable physical damage to the initial target plus extra per stack of Entropy removed, then dealing physical damage per Entropy stack to each target to which Entropy was added. The only really reliable way to apply Entropy to multiple targets but requires you build Entropy on a primary target first.
There are some potential combos in here with existing powers, primarily Gravity Well, but the main problem is that most of the Temporal abilities presume a target is going to last long enough to make the powers useful. These don't really fit my standard playstyle and I don't think they'll really have a place in the current min/max but I'm still curious if anyone else sees something I don't. They could be more useful in a casual pre-built team or a maybe a 5-man Science! team.
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Comments
I'm very anxious and interested to try them--or at least the few that caught my eye, especially since I already love and use exotic damage builds. Unfortunately, the ships they can be used in are limited and I don't have any at the moment, so... yeah...
Some of them don't sound very appealing or useful, or are far too situational-sounding to outperform other alternatives that are more regularly good, but some of them seem like they could augment an existing exotic build quite nicely.
In particular Rapid Decay and Timeline Collapse both sound like they could potentially work well with existing exotic builds, at least on paper. The -DR from Rapid Decay is what makes it appealing to me from the perspective of an exotic build. Timeline Collapse sounds like it could make for another good GW combo to both help keep targets closer to the center, and for the AoE damage from the explosion. However, these both appear to be "consumers" and I'm not exactly sure how the Entropy scaling affects them, so a builder might be necessary to get the most out of these, except none of the builders sound particularly great on paper. Entropic Cascade sounds like it could at least build Entropy well enough, especially if you've already pulled in a bunch of targets to a GW, and it also stacks for single targets, so that'd possibly be the one I'd default to for a builder.
I use them to make my "used to be main weapons officer" into auxiliary healing officer....
and hope for adv epoch fighters to score any entropy so it could be better.....
for the moment being they fail at it miserably....
but hey even with no entropy those two heals are.... decent? maybe? [whom am I lying....]
I'm afraid that if epoch fighters are meant to be good at what they are doing either chaneled deconstruction needs much wider arcs or they should have "special" kind of it.. .with MUCH wider arcs:P
overally mechanics wisely it looks interesting but 90% of stuff dies long beofre you can get any entropy on them - not mentioning utilising it
The thing I like about the Temporal powers is I like flying cruisers, but don't like most engineering powers, so on my Chronos when I finally figure out how to get or train temporal boffs, I'll be able to dump most of my engineering powers, except for my ensigns copy of engineering teaming, I likely won't have any.
In away it doesn't sound like temporal powers are broken, it sounds like the rest of the game is, if enemies don't last long enough for enthropy to matter.
On my Trill and Liberated Borg science characters, basically my only other space characters that I'm really active on, regular sci drain and exotic damage powers are effective enough.
It also doesn't help that these powers can only be used on special ships and only in one or two specific slots. If they were usable in standard universal boff slots, I might also use them more often when flying a Vesta or Narcine carrier.
So, long story short, if I have to fly other ships than I would like to fly to use these powers, and sacrifice already effective powers when I do fly a Theseus or Vengeance class, then I have little reason to use them. Even though some of them can be fun to try for a change, but other than that, I don't see much reason to keep using them, nor do I want to be forced in a specific ship and load out to be able to use them.
I am using the temporal kit modules a lot on my liberated Borg sci. Especially Causal Entanglement is a very effective module and I am considering getting it for my Caitian engineer who's heavily focussed on mines, bombs and what could be called fortification. The most important drawback of the module is that it disables running, which isn't that important when you're luring enemies towards you or your mines.
Since I've been looking for a new module for a while to replace a support drone, I thought I might as well put this new thingy there. And this is very important: you can put those modules everywhere, on all characters, regardless of kit (which could be considered the equivalent of ships here).