I like the ideas being posted about power cap increases for engineers. Moving on to the idea for adding immunity to shield bypassing damage to RSF (which I fully support), this is one of those things that I feel could benefit multiple aspects of the game. It would undoubtedly make engineers more unique in that they'd have a power that prevents shield pen for 30 seconds, but it would also build upon a mechanic which I feel should have been in game since shield penetration really took off. I believe that the anti-shield penetration mechanic would help balance space combat in PvE but more drastically in PvP, where one of the big problems is being able to do so much damage right to the hull. This could really increase PvP's playability (though obviously not fully).
Oh come on, it's not that hard to see what's changed. Console players are MASSIVELY, OVERWHELMINGLY interested in PvP. Its no longer a market segment he can afford to piddle on.
Oh come on, it's not that hard to see what's changed. Console players are MASSIVELY, OVERWHELMINGLY interested in PvP. Its no longer a market segment he can afford to piddle on.
This.
It is only because the console is the new hotness, and they tend to drop games quicker than a hot potato, when it get's boring.
So suddenly, PVP is now the greatest thing since sliced bread, instead of the most forgotten thing in STO!
Oh come on, it's not that hard to see what's changed. Console players are MASSIVELY, OVERWHELMINGLY interested in PvP. Its no longer a market segment he can afford to piddle on.
This.
It is only because the console is the new hotness, and they tend to drop games quicker than a hot potato, when it get's boring.
So suddenly, PVP is now the greatest thing since sliced bread, instead of the most forgotten thing in STO!
Yep if they spend some time and money re-balancing pvp adding maps and leaderboards etc and maybe some sort of rewards it will keep the console version of the game alive and lets face it once these things have been done all they would need to do is small balancing tweaks from time to time when they implement new abilities to the game, Look at games like COD etc the run for years with the same PVP content up until the next big version of the game.
PVP on the console right now is run feedback pulse watch people die basically rock paper scissors...... Its already almost dead helped along by a couple of PVP focused fleets that like to grab the new players into PVP and feedback pulse them and then smack talk about how they suck in local...... but thats the bad side of pvpers and all games have them..
The mastery trait system and most of the traits and skills added to the game over the years have made PVP pointless so yeah lots of work to balance it.
Been tooling around on my new Orion Engineer, who is sitting at level 52 currently (thank you Double XP Weekend!). EPS Corruption isn't that bad of a skill, but it is situational. Either fire it off at a target in a large group so the AOE can do some damage, or fire it at a single large target to increase your damage against it (think Planet Killers). To get more damage output out of it, you need to put points into EPG, as both it and Acteon Beam count as Exotic damage.
Still not as good as the other two ultimates, but not quite so bad if you don't fire it off every time it's up and pick your targets selectively.
If I remember right even though Eps corruption is a plasma-based damage dot it does not get much, or any bonus from plasma damage buffing consoles. Which might be nice to see implemented into it to bring it up to somewhat the level of the other two ultimates. Hell could have made it that the plasma dot was triggered not just by the weapon firing of the player, but also by the usage of abilities of the target as well, which could boost its strength.
We'll see. Also, it seems that Cryptic really, really wants me to respec my engineer after all. They just emailed me a code for a T6 Sovereign and 10 spec points. Granted, the spec points turned out to be only two, but now I have a brand new tank to deal with. O.o
We'll see. Also, it seems that Cryptic really, really wants me to respec my engineer after all. They just emailed me a code for a T6 Sovereign and 10 spec points. Granted, the spec points turned out to be only two, but now I have a brand new tank to deal with. O.o
They sure did. Already have the first three tiers of mastery completed on it. Trying to figure out the best way to set it up for when I go back to tanking.
They sure did. Already have the first three tiers of mastery completed on it. Trying to figure out the best way to set it up for when I go back to tanking.
when you figure it out, can you send me the specs?
We'll see. Also, it seems that Cryptic really, really wants me to respec my engineer after all. They just emailed me a code for a T6 Sovereign and 10 spec points. Granted, the spec points turned out to be only two, but now I have a brand new tank to deal with. O.o
**** me! They just gave you a free T6 Sov? Where's mine??
We'll see. Also, it seems that Cryptic really, really wants me to respec my engineer after all. They just emailed me a code for a T6 Sovereign and 10 spec points. Granted, the spec points turned out to be only two, but now I have a brand new tank to deal with. O.o
**** me! They just gave you a free T6 Sov? Where's mine??
They sure did. Already have the first three tiers of mastery completed on it. Trying to figure out the best way to set it up for when I go back to tanking.
when you figure it out, can you send me the specs?
I can post up my current build here in a bit. Don't know if you'd actually want to use it, as my build will probably change. Working on getting more Zen for a respec token and I'm probably gonna grab some stuff from K-13 when we get that unlocked and plenty of resources in it.
Tacs have their tactical buffs (crit severity + chance bonuses, resistance ignore, increased arc/shots per volley etc.) and science has debuffs (shield and power drain, removal of enemy buffs, disabling and shield ignoring damage).
What (if anything) should they give Engineers? Something new, something that's taken away from the other careers?
The thing engi should get boostd is their defnsive capabilities , tac should always have offenive boosted, sci well sci boosted , and engis should have their defensive stuff buffed.
if the devs wanted to balance things up they would nerf BFaW a bit, and make tacs more squishy same with sci, that way teaming would have to include engis to keep the tacs and sci alive.
I've actually been eyeballing Coalition Starship Tactics. Might get it (along with all the other traits mentioned) for my new KDF engineer. Instead of shying away from my main's DPS build, decided to go that route and give my Marauder Flight Deck Cruiser some love.
what's in them?
I still wanna find a way to avoid feeling like a skeet pigeon in a PVP, since my life expectancy is roughly 30-40 seconds in a PVP, despite having all Mk14 stuffs. ~large anime sweatdrop~
ENG Captain's don't heal or tank as well as they used to I've noticed over the last year or so and their damage while OK still comes no where close to TAC or the second damage class SCI.
Someone suggesting increasing their threat so they could once again fulfil their roles and I think that is a horrible idea since TAC's kill things 2-4x quicker and having ENG then also have to take far more damage just add's insult to injury. I do agree their healing & restoration abilities need to be improved by 25%. It's sad to see when an engineer with 2 full points in hull healing / restoration abilities hit's ENG TEAM II and barely heal's for 10% of his hull, or Miracle Worker does about 24% and the buff's to ENG TEAM I - III are equally available to TAC & SCI Captain's--if they have two points in ENG Hull Restoration.
ENG need a passive ability for their class that boost some skills of a few ENG Skill's and could use one decent damage option. I admit their are the specialist abilities which slotted help bridge officer's but one ENG one be nice.
Tacs have their tactical buffs (crit severity + chance bonuses, resistance ignore, increased arc/shots per volley etc.) and science has debuffs (shield and power drain, removal of enemy buffs, disabling and shield ignoring damage).
What (if anything) should they give Engineers? Something new, something that's taken away from the other careers?
The thing engi should get boostd is their defnsive capabilities , tac should always have offenive boosted, sci well sci boosted , and engis should have their defensive stuff buffed.
if the devs wanted to balance things up they would nerf BFaW a bit, and make tacs more squishy same with sci, that way teaming would have to include engis to keep the tacs and sci alive.
Well I certainly wouldn't disagree with you there... Most of what I talk about is improving ENG healing & repair abilities no only for themselves but their teams. Right now it seems to be at an all time LOW.
I have an engineer I put a massive amount of time in to. At one point I played him for nearly 2 years non-stop.
Started a tactical a couple weeks ago that has green weapons and isn't even level 60 yet.
The tac already does more dps than my crazy maxed out engineer.
Cryptic that is just plain stupid. I know the current love child is science but does anyone there have a character other than tac??
Cryptic that is just plain stupid. I know the current love child is science but does anyone there have a character other than tac??
It depends on how you build the Eng. Presently, my KDF-ENG with a Matha is outperforming my TAC-ROM with a scimitar in the new queues. Why? I've put more thought into the build. Eng requires a slightly different focus. You want to balance durability to the point where it becomes noticeable but not to the point of pure turtling. In most queues, you don't want to become a map fixture. You actually want to get stuff done. So, you optimize traits between damage, healing, damage resistance, and power levels. Specifically that involves dabbling in plasmonic leech draining, skill points spent across the board, and a mix of offensive and defensive traits (ex. intense focus and biotech patch.)
The result is something with a bit less firepower but a lot more staying power. That way, you can throw yourself into bad situations and come out with a useful result (where a tac may have lasted a minute then exploded). I can't always promise that will show up in a DPS tracker, but it will when you look at strategy and team success (and also simply fun.)
Presently I'm also playing with a FED-ENG exotic damage based tanking build. So far the results are very good, but it does require a much more specific setup than your standard tac build. I'll eventually be using a Sagittarius cruiser, focusing on drawing threat and smacking back with stuff like Feedback Pulse, Attack Pattern Delta, and BFAW in addition to other traits and temporal powers.
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Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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Cryptic that is just plain stupid. I know the current love child is science but does anyone there have a character other than tac??
It depends on how you build the Eng. Presently, my KDF-ENG with a Matha is outperforming my TAC-ROM with a scimitar in the new queues. Why? I've put more thought into the build. Eng requires a slightly different focus. You want to balance durability to the point where it becomes noticeable but not to the point of pure turtling. In most queues, you don't want to become a map fixture. You actually want to get stuff done. So, you optimize traits between damage, healing, damage resistance, and power levels. Specifically that involves dabbling in plasmonic leech draining, skill points spent across the board, and a mix of offensive and defensive traits (ex. intense focus and biotech patch.)
The result is something with a bit less firepower but a lot more staying power. That way, you can throw yourself into bad situations and come out with a useful result (where a tac may have lasted a minute then exploded). I can't always promise that will show up in a DPS tracker, but it will when you look at strategy and team success (and also simply fun.)
Presently I'm also playing with a FED-ENG exotic damage based tanking build. So far the results are very good, but it does require a much more specific setup than your standard tac build. I'll eventually be using a Sagittarius cruiser, focusing on drawing threat and smacking back with stuff like Feedback Pulse, Attack Pattern Delta, and BFAW in addition to other traits and temporal powers.
I'm pretty sure an equally invested tac or sci will nearly always outperform an eng. The main problem is that tacs can actually stay alive just as well as an eng but do much more damage. This is why the current top tanks in the game are tacs. Engineers are fine at the lower end of the spectrum, but they fall off terribly when more abilities get unlocked. For example, all of the engineering captain abilities can be outperformed by some console, trait, or even boff ability, which isn't really supposed to happen.
The way to rebalance the game is not making tac and sci more squishy. What works so well for Star Trek Online is that it isn't tank and spank for the most part. It allows you to be fairly successful with a balanced build and doesn't force you to overspecialize and be super weak in some areas. So you can be fairly tanky and output good damage and heal yourself and have disables. That is what makes space combat work and makes it so good. Making tac and sci even more squishy would ruin what makes Star Trek Online work.
The way to fix Engineer is to BOTH increase Engineer's defensive and offensive capabilities. Get rid of the 27 point talent and replace it with a talent that allows an Eng to more easily keep their hull at 75% or up and then deal more damage the more hull health they have while being under fire.
Ok, pause. The talents have NOTHING to do with your choice of profession. A science or tactical captain can build their way to EPS corruption. An Engineer captain can build their way to Probability manipulation and Frenzy... and probably should.
One of the advantages of an Engineer is since you have certain defensive tools built in, your Talents can actually be substantially MORE aggressive than a science or tac character. You can short those sustain/survival choices and dig deep into red line or blue line strategies, or just make a viciously ill tempered balanced spread that's quite light on yellow picks.
I can hardly imagine going for EPS corruption on an Engineer captain. Bleh!
The thing that gets me is with a maxed out reputation vs none at all wouldn't you think the maxed out engineer would be doing 5x as much damage? Was the reputation buffs completely removed from the game or something?
Comments
This.
It is only because the console is the new hotness, and they tend to drop games quicker than a hot potato, when it get's boring.
So suddenly, PVP is now the greatest thing since sliced bread, instead of the most forgotten thing in STO!
Yep if they spend some time and money re-balancing pvp adding maps and leaderboards etc and maybe some sort of rewards it will keep the console version of the game alive and lets face it once these things have been done all they would need to do is small balancing tweaks from time to time when they implement new abilities to the game, Look at games like COD etc the run for years with the same PVP content up until the next big version of the game.
PVP on the console right now is run feedback pulse watch people die basically rock paper scissors...... Its already almost dead helped along by a couple of PVP focused fleets that like to grab the new players into PVP and feedback pulse them and then smack talk about how they suck in local...... but thats the bad side of pvpers and all games have them..
The mastery trait system and most of the traits and skills added to the game over the years have made PVP pointless so yeah lots of work to balance it.
Still not as good as the other two ultimates, but not quite so bad if you don't fire it off every time it's up and pick your targets selectively.
They sent you one as well? o.o
when you figure it out, can you send me the specs?
**** me! They just gave you a free T6 Sov? Where's mine??
Oh, that is just so raw.
Getting a strange sense of déjà vu here.
I can post up my current build here in a bit. Don't know if you'd actually want to use it, as my build will probably change. Working on getting more Zen for a respec token and I'm probably gonna grab some stuff from K-13 when we get that unlocked and plenty of resources in it.
The thing engi should get boostd is their defnsive capabilities , tac should always have offenive boosted, sci well sci boosted , and engis should have their defensive stuff buffed.
if the devs wanted to balance things up they would nerf BFaW a bit, and make tacs more squishy same with sci, that way teaming would have to include engis to keep the tacs and sci alive.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/3ed7a9da7cd89d48a6bff6259bbb098e
Again, this isn't my final build for this ship. It's just what I have to work with atm.
ENG Captain's don't heal or tank as well as they used to I've noticed over the last year or so and their damage while OK still comes no where close to TAC or the second damage class SCI.
Someone suggesting increasing their threat so they could once again fulfil their roles and I think that is a horrible idea since TAC's kill things 2-4x quicker and having ENG then also have to take far more damage just add's insult to injury. I do agree their healing & restoration abilities need to be improved by 25%. It's sad to see when an engineer with 2 full points in hull healing / restoration abilities hit's ENG TEAM II and barely heal's for 10% of his hull, or Miracle Worker does about 24% and the buff's to ENG TEAM I - III are equally available to TAC & SCI Captain's--if they have two points in ENG Hull Restoration.
ENG need a passive ability for their class that boost some skills of a few ENG Skill's and could use one decent damage option. I admit their are the specialist abilities which slotted help bridge officer's but one ENG one be nice.
Well I certainly wouldn't disagree with you there... Most of what I talk about is improving ENG healing & repair abilities no only for themselves but their teams. Right now it seems to be at an all time LOW.
Started a tactical a couple weeks ago that has green weapons and isn't even level 60 yet.
The tac already does more dps than my crazy maxed out engineer.
Cryptic that is just plain stupid. I know the current love child is science but does anyone there have a character other than tac??
It depends on how you build the Eng. Presently, my KDF-ENG with a Matha is outperforming my TAC-ROM with a scimitar in the new queues. Why? I've put more thought into the build. Eng requires a slightly different focus. You want to balance durability to the point where it becomes noticeable but not to the point of pure turtling. In most queues, you don't want to become a map fixture. You actually want to get stuff done. So, you optimize traits between damage, healing, damage resistance, and power levels. Specifically that involves dabbling in plasmonic leech draining, skill points spent across the board, and a mix of offensive and defensive traits (ex. intense focus and biotech patch.)
The result is something with a bit less firepower but a lot more staying power. That way, you can throw yourself into bad situations and come out with a useful result (where a tac may have lasted a minute then exploded). I can't always promise that will show up in a DPS tracker, but it will when you look at strategy and team success (and also simply fun.)
Presently I'm also playing with a FED-ENG exotic damage based tanking build. So far the results are very good, but it does require a much more specific setup than your standard tac build. I'll eventually be using a Sagittarius cruiser, focusing on drawing threat and smacking back with stuff like Feedback Pulse, Attack Pattern Delta, and BFAW in addition to other traits and temporal powers.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I'm pretty sure an equally invested tac or sci will nearly always outperform an eng. The main problem is that tacs can actually stay alive just as well as an eng but do much more damage. This is why the current top tanks in the game are tacs. Engineers are fine at the lower end of the spectrum, but they fall off terribly when more abilities get unlocked. For example, all of the engineering captain abilities can be outperformed by some console, trait, or even boff ability, which isn't really supposed to happen.
The way to fix Engineer is to BOTH increase Engineer's defensive and offensive capabilities. Get rid of the 27 point talent and replace it with a talent that allows an Eng to more easily keep their hull at 75% or up and then deal more damage the more hull health they have while being under fire.
One of the advantages of an Engineer is since you have certain defensive tools built in, your Talents can actually be substantially MORE aggressive than a science or tac character. You can short those sustain/survival choices and dig deep into red line or blue line strategies, or just make a viciously ill tempered balanced spread that's quite light on yellow picks.
I can hardly imagine going for EPS corruption on an Engineer captain. Bleh!