Being charitable, I'd like to think that part of the reason is that canonically most Starfleet ships used beams, and it's understandable that players want to replicate that.
Also, until the recent skill revamp, Beams performed better at long range, which made them (even more) relatively easy to use compared to cannons. Now that's been corrected, I'm personally finding cannon boats much more competitive.
FAW is easy, yes. It also gives people massive DPS numbers which is nice. But my own experience is that when you want to kill a particular target, cannons are *far* more efficient.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
That has got to be a site to see when using Volley and attacking the clumps of spheres in ISA. Toss in that 180 degree Q Torp and Spread for a real light show.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
That has got to be a site to see when using Volley and attacking the clumps of spheres in ISA. Toss in that 180 degree Q Torp and Spread for a real light show.
I use the same premise with one of the Scimmies. Turrets aft and SC fore. Enemy things can haz explode now.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
That has got to be a site to see when using Volley and attacking the clumps of spheres in ISA. Toss in that 180 degree Q Torp and Spread for a real light show.
Yeah its a nice change of pace from the same old same old.
That Cryptic didn't give them one of our oldest Reputations, and removed Battlefleet Omega, makes me wonder if they have some story plans for the Borg and the STFs?
Of course, it could just be that they intend to release them slowly over the next months or years to not overwhelm the new players.
There's so many things tied to Omega, that could be a factor. Most reputations, have one ground set, one space weapon set, and one space deflector/shield/engine set. Omega has several with the MACO/Honor Guard and Omega Force and the Adapted version of MACO/Honor Guard
Fate - protects fools, small children, and ships named Enterprise Will Riker
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There are a lot of points to be made about why beams are the "meta" at the moment. I played through the era of escorts online where dual heavy cannons were the only option and beams were laughable. I think what really changed the game is how much weapon power we have available to us now. During the escorts online era energy management was a problem for most players trying to use beams. Only the KDF had access to plasmonic leech and we didn't have any starship traits, personal traits, or much gear for that matter that could help with energy management. So if you had a ship with 6-8 beam arrays fire a broadside your weapon energy would drop dramatically causing a huge drop in damage. Dual Heavy cannons with turrets in the rear handled weapon energy more efficiently causing less damage drop off. We also lacked the omni-directional beam arrays back then which made dual beam banks essentially useless at that time. Mostly only saw a single dual beam banks equipped on ships in pvp for BO strikes.
I think when the feds got access to plasmonic leech it was a turning point in the game. LoR was another as it made things even worse with the release of the Romulan faction. Ships crewed with SRO boffs pushing critical chance and severity way higher then ever before. Finally, we have the upgrade system pushing damage and critical rates even further.
Beam Fire at Will is why. An overpowered ability that can be buffed, buffed and buffed some more, can be used almost constantly (i.e no significant cooldown) due to certain abilities, is more powerful against single targets than any other ability and has no real downside.
Just trying to understand why everyone is saying beams are better than cannons right now. Need to pick a setup for my ship.
Used to be that cannons were always better, but I've been out of the game for a long time.
Most DPS, very little effort required to pilot. From recent experience though I'd say that popular wisdom is bunk. My cannon/torpedo builds tend to be more effective in practice. Target selectivity is one big component. My DPS isn't bleeding to every moving shield face of every target in range. I can focus on 1 face of specific targets and work my way through a large group of enemies one by one (or sub-group by sub-group) with much more noticeable results than a thinly-spread beam barrage.
Naturally at the very apex that's not really a big factor (everything goes boom, the key then is just getting yourself to where you can smite everything) but below that a cannon/torp build can be the way to go.
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Just trying to understand why everyone is saying beams are better than cannons right now. Need to pick a setup for my ship.
Used to be that cannons were always better, but I've been out of the game for a long time.
Most DPS, very little effort required to pilot. From recent experience though I'd say that popular wisdom is bunk. My cannon/torpedo builds tend to be more effective in practice. Target selectivity is one big component. My DPS isn't bleeding to every moving shield face of every target in range. I can focus on 1 face of specific targets and work my way through a large group of enemies one by one (or sub-group by sub-group) with much more noticeable results than a thinly-spread beam barrage.
Naturally at the very apex that's not really a big factor (everything goes boom, the key then is just getting yourself to where you can smite everything) but below that a cannon/torp build can be the way to go.
Heh, my scimmie does that too, TT, APB, CSV and TS.
Kinda a new player, but I prefer beam weapons to cannons for a different reason... 250 degree firing arc vs 45-90 degree firing arc This allows me to shoot at the enemy from more angles then a cannon does. As an example, my federation ship is almost constantly able to fire both beam weapons at the enemy, and only has to go head on to fire a torpedo. My Klingon ship on the other hand is usually only firing one 360 degree firing arc cannon in the aft, until I manage to go directly towards the enemy, at which point the rest of my cannons can now shoot. This means that against faster ships, my KDF ship is less effective then the federation ship.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
You might be able to get even more then that. I made a turret only build for kicks on my Herald Vonph and got clocked at 75k-ish I think it was. Using only turrets is completely viable.
Biggest change I'd make to Cannons to help bring them up to speed is increase their firing Arc from 45 degrees to 75/80 degrees
I agree an kinda wish that the devs might look into differing the dual cannons and dual heavy cannons abit, which could be increasing the dual cannon's firing arc as said to something between 75-90 degrees. Mostly it is just that the fact of the innate critical severity buff that dual heavies gets plus their higher damage output makes using dual cannons inferior.
I would personally increase these few things on dual cannons to make them more viable alternative option to slot instead of dual heavies, but also to make it that there is not such a huge gap in the firing arc between dual/dual heavy cannons compared to beam arrays/banks.
First I would increase the firing arc of dual cannons to 75-90 degree, while keeping dual heavy cannons still at the normal 45 degree. This would make it that dual cannons an dual heavies have a niche to fill between each other, while also that the slower turning dual cannon capable cruisers/dreads don't need to drop so much bonus to turn rate to make actually slotting them viable.
Next thing I would do is increase the number of shots fired per firing-cycle (which is universally a 3 second firing-cycle.). So I would increase the shots fired per firing-cycle from 4 shots to 6 shots, but that the damage output is decreased from 86 damage to 72-76 damage per shot, which would I hope make it that procs could be more effective from such a fast firing weapon.
Dual Cannons have a 45* arc--single cannons have 180*, so you can broadside (with a turret in the rear) with single cannons. Rule of thumb: The smaller the firing arc, the higher the damage potential.
I'm a canon (not cannon) nut, so my builds are as close as possible to what can be observed on-screen. I probably have less-than-optimal builds because of this self-mandated restriction but I've never had any issues with survivability and damage-dealing in the PvE game-play.
My AoY Tac character flying a Ranger-class uses Dual Beam Bank Phasers in the front with Dual Beam Arrays in the rear--photons in both. I tend to remain mostly stationary on the outside edge of battle, firing into the crowd. I use Evasive Maneuvers to quickly reposition myself when the crowd gets too close, to keep me on the outside so I don't get surrounded.
My Fed Engineer in a Regent (Sovereign refit) has Phaser Beam Arrays & Quantums in both. He'll do a wide, slow circle around his enemies broadsiding everything in sight.
My Klingon Tac is in a Vor'cha, with Disruptor arrays & photons. This guy likes to get in the middle--pick one target and chase him till he blows up then picks a different target. He has the LEAST survivability, but the T5-U Vor'cha is sturdy so I probably die less than I should using this tactic.
My Romulan-Fed Sci is in a Ha'Nom loaded with Plasma arrays & torps fore & aft. I pretty much use him the same way I do the Regent, except when I want to hit something with a Heavy Plasma Torp.... then I'll Evasive maneuver to face my target, fire, then back to circling again.
My Romulan-KDF Sci (head-canon'ed to be RSE instead of Republic) is in a Scimitar. Disruptor single cannons & plasma torps in front, disrupter turrets & plasma torps in the rear. This guy probably deals the MOST damage out of all of my characters and is hella fun to fly. I'll come in cloaked, use cloaked barrage to fire Cannon Volley and Torp Spread at the enemy crowd... uncloak, throw up my secondary shields, then fly right through the middle of the enemy crowd, pulling agro the whole time. Once I'm past the mass, I'll cloak again, reposition myself with Evasive Maneuver right as the bad guys are huddled in a big cluster--then uncloak with my Thalaron Pulse aimed right at the cluster. This method doesn't work when I have allies distracting the enemies, or if the enemies are all escorts, because they won't stay clustered up like I need them to... but when I'm alone against a bunch of bigger ships: I AM THE BRINGER OF DEATH!
In the end, it's all about trade-offs and how you play. Beam array builds are only superior because they're easier to put together. Throw up a bunch of arrays then spam the spacebar: voila. Beam banks and cannon builds take a little more planning, and a little more paying attention to what's happening during a battle, but have the *potential* to make a beam array build look like Winnie the Pooh.
I'm a real heretic - I like one of the aft weapons on my escort to be a mine-launcher. Then I've got four independent projectiles per shot targeting whichever enemy craft is within their range, while the energy weapons on my ship are dealing their own damage. Set everything to autofire, and rock on...
Hahaha, that's how I roll also.
Meta is little more then an e-peen contest anyway, the only real purpose behind higher DPS is making a queue like ISA end faster, the mission doesn't require insane DPS to be successful, before all this DPS craze people actually used tactics to make an ISA run go smoothly, rather then just try to abuse power creep to out-DPS the incoming nanites.
Personally I don't give a flying cram about DPS, I've already found that it gives me no satisfaction to almost turn playing STO into a job for a high DPS count, so I long stopped bothering, I use the weapons and setups I want to use, off course it means I end up on the lower half of the readouts when they're posted, but as I said, I don't care.
Infact, usually only the guys having a heart attack because a pugged ISA doesn't go fast enough care about the readout they post while hyperventilating.
I'd much rather have -real- functions, built in functions to show who did what exactly during the mission, then a 3rd party parser that really only shows DPS done when a readout is posted, thus in itself basically stating that the only measure of usefulness is your output.
The following is from a game called Warframe, which I also actively play, this readout is shown after every mission and details what every player did, or failed to do, it's far more useful then just a raw DPS readout, and does justice to DPS and support.
Have to agree. ISA is too easy in general and I've seen high DPS teams finish it in 50 seconds.
Off course, as I said, ISA doesn't require insane DPS for success, before all the DPS stuff became so prominent tactics like the 10% strategy were used in conjunction with gravity wells and repulsors, off course you'd still require decent firepower to blow up the thing, but beyond people using 5 different energy types (rainbow boats) I never saw much stress about DPS.
Nowadays it's just waiting for that run with the hyperventilating parser readout posting namecaller whining about how everyone but him is useless because his ISA run lasted a minute, or god forbid, 2 minutes longer.
Anyway, again, I've long stopped worrying about what position I have in a parser readout one of those derps posts, because I found that worrying about it, and worrying about my DPS in general, was ruining my enjoyment of the game, I only ever PUG the queues, so I don't feel like I have an obligation to worry about what Mr. ultra high DPS thinks I should be outputting, there's private queues and DPS channels for him to get his high DPS runs.
Also helps that my way of playing allows me to use whatever ship I want with whatever weapon setup I want to use, rather then the ''deemed to be most useful escort with beam arrays and FAW''.
Lastly I do want to stress that encountering these kind of people is a rarity, most often even the high DPS folks, even if they post a readout, aren't dicks about it.
Have to agree. ISA is too easy in general and I've seen high DPS teams finish it in 50 seconds.
Off course, as I said, ISA doesn't require insane DPS for success, before all the DPS stuff became so prominent tactics like the 10% strategy were used in conjunction with gravity wells and repulsors, off course you'd still require decent firepower to blow up the thing, but beyond people using 5 different energy types (rainbow boats) I never saw much stress about DPS.
Nowadays it's just waiting for that run with the hyperventilating parser readout posting namecaller whining about how everyone but him is useless because his ISA run lasted a minute, or god forbid, 2 minutes longer.
This is why they removed the Borg Elites. The maps require more than just DPS. They required team work and tactics. Then the DPS race began and those Elites went away because they became "to hard." Now all STFs are the same. More PEW, less team work or thought required. And you are talking about ISA, which, less face it. Any DPSer can complain about it in their tricked out T6 ship. But real players have done this and Elite in a T4 or T4.5 Mirror ship. But then you just have to overlook the DPSer's. They're like the guy with the overly tricked out vehicles. You know they're compensating for what they lack in other areas.
There was a time when Turret builds were viable too, especially in Sci ships. Is there any point in trying something like that nowadays?
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
You might be able to get even more then that. I made a turret only build for kicks on my Herald Vonph and got clocked at 75k-ish I think it was. Using only turrets is completely viable.
So you're the guy.
Yeah, I had heard of a few people from the DPS channels who brought turret builds to 75K+
"Impressive, most impressive" - *Vader Voice*
DPS is somewhat meaningless. Ask the guy who brought his "200k" build to kerrat a couple weeks ago. He was gloating that because he was higher on the tables than anyone else in the map he understood the game better than everyone present. it did not end well for him.
Anyway
Regarding the often thrown about "BFAW kills single targets faster" I have about 9 escort builds running a Beam Overload+Trait+[Over] DBB and CRF+Jemhadar Trait that would like to demonstrate how wrong that is. And I have fun doing so, because BFAW is boring.
Yes, ive built a ISA BFAW boat, in the SCM tables at 114k. And I never fly it because its, well, boring
DPS is somewhat meaningless. Ask the guy who brought his "200k" build to kerrat a couple weeks ago. He was gloating that because he was higher on the tables than anyone else in the map he understood the game better than everyone present. it did not end well for him.
Yeah...but everyone knows not to bring a PvE build into PvP.... unless they're super green (n00b).
I hope we haven't forgotten the DPS channel top 5 vs The PvP Premade 5 experiment ?
Needless to say, the PvP Premade 5 wiped the floor with the DPS Top 5.
DPS is somewhat meaningless. Ask the guy who brought his "200k" build to kerrat a couple weeks ago. He was gloating that because he was higher on the tables than anyone else in the map he understood the game better than everyone present. it did not end well for him.
Yeah...but everyone knows not to bring a PvE build into PvP.... unless they're super green (n00b).
I hope we haven't forgotten the DPS channel top 5 vs The PvP Premade 5 experiment ?
Needless to say, the PvP Premade 5 wiped the floor with the DPS Top 5.
Exactly. And there is something else, is a 100k+ ISA parsed BFAW ship better than anything else in any other maps? Say, Mirror Invasion, Or SFD, or any other map with a multitude of distant, small groups of enemy NPCs that require much travel time? Not really
Any ship that can pull 30k or more in whatever build they want is just as useful in pretty much any other situation. STO is more than one map - people should put less blind faith in the DPS numbers coming from it as a measure of their performance
I don't personally think that we need to narrow the firing arc of beam fire at will, as that would basically narrow beam arrays to that same area of firing arc, and the fact is that even the csv as well as rf cannon abilities don't do that as it is the innate firing arc of the cannons that enforce that narrow field. I could see maybe making it that beam fire at will had a native/innate accuracy reduction applied to all beam arrays/banks while it was active, which might only effect be applied maybe to the non-primary target.
I personally would not mind seeing beam overload turned from a single target one use ability into more of a toggle ability. Which could be fun as it would yes increase damage of beam builds, yet also would make power management more important to gain such increased damage. So basically I would do the fallowing to make beam overload function as a toggle ability.
Beam overload toggle
While beam overload is toggled on your beam arrays/banks have their weapon power drain increased by a percentage base on the ability's rank. As your pumping greater amount of power into the weapon system than is normally allowed by the weapon system's safeties. I could see the power drain increaded by 20-30% maybe.
While you have beam overload toggled on your slotted beam arrays, and beam banks have their damage output increased by 15-35% (just for example.), but the firing cycle is increased by 2 seconds as the draw back of needing to draw so much power prior to firing.
This part would be optional though i think it would be a nice draw back , or interesting method. Maybe make it that when you toggle beam overload off your weapon's damage output drops by 20% fpr a short duration, but that also if your weapon power drops to zero than beam overload would toggle off automatically, but this would not proc from enemy energy drain effects.
Have to agree. ISA is too easy in general and I've seen high DPS teams finish it in 50 seconds.
Off course, as I said, ISA doesn't require insane DPS for success, before all the DPS stuff became so prominent tactics like the 10% strategy were used in conjunction with gravity wells and repulsors, off course you'd still require decent firepower to blow up the thing, but beyond people using 5 different energy types (rainbow boats) I never saw much stress about DPS.
Nowadays it's just waiting for that run with the hyperventilating parser readout posting namecaller whining about how everyone but him is useless because his ISA run lasted a minute, or god forbid, 2 minutes longer.
This is why they removed the Borg Elites.
They didn't remove them, they renamed them Advanced and created a few STFa/Queues with Elite difficulty.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
We could fix ISA and go via the same route as some other STF's and time gate the objectives
1. Kill the initial guards you have 2 mins. But killing them doesn't end the timer you have to wait for it to run down as the transformers are shielded
2. Kill the left transformer before Nanites get there to heal it you have 3 mins to obtain objective. Killing it however doesn't end the timer as you have to wait for it to run out before the being able to shoot the other side as its shielded for that 3 min period.
3. Kill right transformer within 3 mins. Unable to shoot gate unless transformer is killed within 3 min objective timer or transformer is killed after 3 mins due to failed objective.
4. Kill gate and final cube.
Lol good way to kill a queue. Hope no Dev's are reading and take this as a serious suggestion as it is NOT
We could fix ISA and go via the same route as some other STF's and time gate the objectives
1. Kill the initial guards you have 2 mins. But killing them doesn't end the timer you have to wait for it to run down as the transformers are shielded
2. Kill the left transformer before Nanites get there to heal it you have 3 mins to obtain objective. Killing it however doesn't end the timer as you have to wait for it to run out before the being able to shoot the other side as its shielded for that 3 min period.
3. Kill right transformer within 3 mins. Unable to shoot gate unless transformer is killed within 3 min objective timer or transformer is killed after 3 mins due to failed objective.
4. Kill gate and final cube.
Lol good way to kill a queue. Hope no Dev's are reading and take this as a serious suggestion as it is NOT
If that setup were to be implemented i would saturate the area of the transformer with enough tricobolt mines that the explosion could be seen/felt in the next STF. Gotta make the most of a time gate after all.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Comments
Also, until the recent skill revamp, Beams performed better at long range, which made them (even more) relatively easy to use compared to cannons. Now that's been corrected, I'm personally finding cannon boats much more competitive.
FAW is easy, yes. It also gives people massive DPS numbers which is nice. But my own experience is that when you want to kill a particular target, cannons are *far* more efficient.
I have a turret build. Disruptor.
Hit 35k with it in my Nandi before the skill tree revamp. Should parse around 40-45k now with ease.
And yeah they work. And they're a lot of fun. Ever have the urge to unload a chain gun ? Try a turret build.
That has got to be a site to see when using Volley and attacking the clumps of spheres in ISA. Toss in that 180 degree Q Torp and Spread for a real light show.
My character Tsin'xing
Yeah its a nice change of pace from the same old same old.
There's so many things tied to Omega, that could be a factor. Most reputations, have one ground set, one space weapon set, and one space deflector/shield/engine set. Omega has several with the MACO/Honor Guard and Omega Force and the Adapted version of MACO/Honor Guard
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My forum single-issue of rage: Make the Proton Experimental Weapon go for subsystem targetting!
I think when the feds got access to plasmonic leech it was a turning point in the game. LoR was another as it made things even worse with the release of the Romulan faction. Ships crewed with SRO boffs pushing critical chance and severity way higher then ever before. Finally, we have the upgrade system pushing damage and critical rates even further.
I sense butthurt.
Most DPS, very little effort required to pilot. From recent experience though I'd say that popular wisdom is bunk. My cannon/torpedo builds tend to be more effective in practice. Target selectivity is one big component. My DPS isn't bleeding to every moving shield face of every target in range. I can focus on 1 face of specific targets and work my way through a large group of enemies one by one (or sub-group by sub-group) with much more noticeable results than a thinly-spread beam barrage.
Naturally at the very apex that's not really a big factor (everything goes boom, the key then is just getting yourself to where you can smite everything) but below that a cannon/torp build can be the way to go.
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My character Tsin'xing
You might be able to get even more then that. I made a turret only build for kicks on my Herald Vonph and got clocked at 75k-ish I think it was. Using only turrets is completely viable.
Turrets are cannons so they are buffed by CSV and CRF.
I agree an kinda wish that the devs might look into differing the dual cannons and dual heavy cannons abit, which could be increasing the dual cannon's firing arc as said to something between 75-90 degrees. Mostly it is just that the fact of the innate critical severity buff that dual heavies gets plus their higher damage output makes using dual cannons inferior.
I would personally increase these few things on dual cannons to make them more viable alternative option to slot instead of dual heavies, but also to make it that there is not such a huge gap in the firing arc between dual/dual heavy cannons compared to beam arrays/banks.
I'm a canon (not cannon) nut, so my builds are as close as possible to what can be observed on-screen. I probably have less-than-optimal builds because of this self-mandated restriction but I've never had any issues with survivability and damage-dealing in the PvE game-play.
My AoY Tac character flying a Ranger-class uses Dual Beam Bank Phasers in the front with Dual Beam Arrays in the rear--photons in both. I tend to remain mostly stationary on the outside edge of battle, firing into the crowd. I use Evasive Maneuvers to quickly reposition myself when the crowd gets too close, to keep me on the outside so I don't get surrounded.
My Fed Engineer in a Regent (Sovereign refit) has Phaser Beam Arrays & Quantums in both. He'll do a wide, slow circle around his enemies broadsiding everything in sight.
My Klingon Tac is in a Vor'cha, with Disruptor arrays & photons. This guy likes to get in the middle--pick one target and chase him till he blows up then picks a different target. He has the LEAST survivability, but the T5-U Vor'cha is sturdy so I probably die less than I should using this tactic.
My Romulan-Fed Sci is in a Ha'Nom loaded with Plasma arrays & torps fore & aft. I pretty much use him the same way I do the Regent, except when I want to hit something with a Heavy Plasma Torp.... then I'll Evasive maneuver to face my target, fire, then back to circling again.
My Romulan-KDF Sci (head-canon'ed to be RSE instead of Republic) is in a Scimitar. Disruptor single cannons & plasma torps in front, disrupter turrets & plasma torps in the rear. This guy probably deals the MOST damage out of all of my characters and is hella fun to fly. I'll come in cloaked, use cloaked barrage to fire Cannon Volley and Torp Spread at the enemy crowd... uncloak, throw up my secondary shields, then fly right through the middle of the enemy crowd, pulling agro the whole time. Once I'm past the mass, I'll cloak again, reposition myself with Evasive Maneuver right as the bad guys are huddled in a big cluster--then uncloak with my Thalaron Pulse aimed right at the cluster. This method doesn't work when I have allies distracting the enemies, or if the enemies are all escorts, because they won't stay clustered up like I need them to... but when I'm alone against a bunch of bigger ships: I AM THE BRINGER OF DEATH!
In the end, it's all about trade-offs and how you play. Beam array builds are only superior because they're easier to put together. Throw up a bunch of arrays then spam the spacebar: voila. Beam banks and cannon builds take a little more planning, and a little more paying attention to what's happening during a battle, but have the *potential* to make a beam array build look like Winnie the Pooh.
Hahaha, that's how I roll also.
Meta is little more then an e-peen contest anyway, the only real purpose behind higher DPS is making a queue like ISA end faster, the mission doesn't require insane DPS to be successful, before all this DPS craze people actually used tactics to make an ISA run go smoothly, rather then just try to abuse power creep to out-DPS the incoming nanites.
Personally I don't give a flying cram about DPS, I've already found that it gives me no satisfaction to almost turn playing STO into a job for a high DPS count, so I long stopped bothering, I use the weapons and setups I want to use, off course it means I end up on the lower half of the readouts when they're posted, but as I said, I don't care.
Infact, usually only the guys having a heart attack because a pugged ISA doesn't go fast enough care about the readout they post while hyperventilating.
I'd much rather have -real- functions, built in functions to show who did what exactly during the mission, then a 3rd party parser that really only shows DPS done when a readout is posted, thus in itself basically stating that the only measure of usefulness is your output.
The following is from a game called Warframe, which I also actively play, this readout is shown after every mission and details what every player did, or failed to do, it's far more useful then just a raw DPS readout, and does justice to DPS and support.
They just get less sober.
Off course, as I said, ISA doesn't require insane DPS for success, before all the DPS stuff became so prominent tactics like the 10% strategy were used in conjunction with gravity wells and repulsors, off course you'd still require decent firepower to blow up the thing, but beyond people using 5 different energy types (rainbow boats) I never saw much stress about DPS.
Nowadays it's just waiting for that run with the hyperventilating parser readout posting namecaller whining about how everyone but him is useless because his ISA run lasted a minute, or god forbid, 2 minutes longer.
Anyway, again, I've long stopped worrying about what position I have in a parser readout one of those derps posts, because I found that worrying about it, and worrying about my DPS in general, was ruining my enjoyment of the game, I only ever PUG the queues, so I don't feel like I have an obligation to worry about what Mr. ultra high DPS thinks I should be outputting, there's private queues and DPS channels for him to get his high DPS runs.
Also helps that my way of playing allows me to use whatever ship I want with whatever weapon setup I want to use, rather then the ''deemed to be most useful escort with beam arrays and FAW''.
Lastly I do want to stress that encountering these kind of people is a rarity, most often even the high DPS folks, even if they post a readout, aren't dicks about it.
This is why they removed the Borg Elites. The maps require more than just DPS. They required team work and tactics. Then the DPS race began and those Elites went away because they became "to hard." Now all STFs are the same. More PEW, less team work or thought required. And you are talking about ISA, which, less face it. Any DPSer can complain about it in their tricked out T6 ship. But real players have done this and Elite in a T4 or T4.5 Mirror ship. But then you just have to overlook the DPSer's. They're like the guy with the overly tricked out vehicles. You know they're compensating for what they lack in other areas.
So you're the guy.
Yeah, I had heard of a few people from the DPS channels who brought turret builds to 75K+
"Impressive, most impressive" - *Vader Voice*
Anyway
Regarding the often thrown about "BFAW kills single targets faster" I have about 9 escort builds running a Beam Overload+Trait+[Over] DBB and CRF+Jemhadar Trait that would like to demonstrate how wrong that is. And I have fun doing so, because BFAW is boring.
Yes, ive built a ISA BFAW boat, in the SCM tables at 114k. And I never fly it because its, well, boring
Yeah...but everyone knows not to bring a PvE build into PvP.... unless they're super green (n00b).
I hope we haven't forgotten the DPS channel top 5 vs The PvP Premade 5 experiment ?
Needless to say, the PvP Premade 5 wiped the floor with the DPS Top 5.
Exactly. And there is something else, is a 100k+ ISA parsed BFAW ship better than anything else in any other maps? Say, Mirror Invasion, Or SFD, or any other map with a multitude of distant, small groups of enemy NPCs that require much travel time? Not really
Any ship that can pull 30k or more in whatever build they want is just as useful in pretty much any other situation. STO is more than one map - people should put less blind faith in the DPS numbers coming from it as a measure of their performance
I personally would not mind seeing beam overload turned from a single target one use ability into more of a toggle ability. Which could be fun as it would yes increase damage of beam builds, yet also would make power management more important to gain such increased damage. So basically I would do the fallowing to make beam overload function as a toggle ability.
Beam overload toggle- While beam overload is toggled on your beam arrays/banks have their weapon power drain increased by a percentage base on the ability's rank. As your pumping greater amount of power into the weapon system than is normally allowed by the weapon system's safeties. I could see the power drain increaded by 20-30% maybe.
- While you have beam overload toggled on your slotted beam arrays, and beam banks have their damage output increased by 15-35% (just for example.), but the firing cycle is increased by 2 seconds as the draw back of needing to draw so much power prior to firing.
- This part would be optional though i think it would be a nice draw back , or interesting method. Maybe make it that when you toggle beam overload off your weapon's damage output drops by 20% fpr a short duration, but that also if your weapon power drops to zero than beam overload would toggle off automatically, but this would not proc from enemy energy drain effects.
1. Kill the initial guards you have 2 mins. But killing them doesn't end the timer you have to wait for it to run down as the transformers are shielded
2. Kill the left transformer before Nanites get there to heal it you have 3 mins to obtain objective. Killing it however doesn't end the timer as you have to wait for it to run out before the being able to shoot the other side as its shielded for that 3 min period.
3. Kill right transformer within 3 mins. Unable to shoot gate unless transformer is killed within 3 min objective timer or transformer is killed after 3 mins due to failed objective.
4. Kill gate and final cube.
Lol good way to kill a queue. Hope no Dev's are reading and take this as a serious suggestion as it is NOT
If that setup were to be implemented i would saturate the area of the transformer with enough tricobolt mines that the explosion could be seen/felt in the next STF. Gotta make the most of a time gate after all.