Devs: Please bring tricobalt back into serious play

pweistheworst

Tricobalt torps are one of the weapon types that were awesome when they first arrived in the game but have seriously fallen out of favor due to the slow rate of fire, slow speed to target, and potential splash damage to the user.

The Vaadwaur cluster tricobalt torp was a good attempt to revisit tricobalt, but I'd really like to see the devs work on improving tricobalt so that it sees more play in the game.

I'd love to see a reduction to the native recharge on tricobalts ... 30 seconds (or 45 seconds for the Vaadwaur torp) is just too much. A good photon torpedo build can dish out crazy high damage with multiple high-yield photon torpedo barrages before a tricobalt build can even get a second torpedo to launch.

I know there is a duty officer that speeds up standard tricobalt torps, but even that buff isn't enough to make tricobalts worthwhile.

I'd also love to have the devs bring us a console that specifically helps torpedo builds ... maybe a console that adds kinetic damage resistance, adds critical damage to all torpedoes and prevents splash damage from our own torpedoes from damaging our own ship.

If anyone thinks tricobalts need to remain as slow as they are because "they deal too much damage," I'd like to point out that my fully buffed torpedo boat using the Terran Task Force Photon Torpedo regularly dishes out critical hits of more than 270,000 kinetic damage ... from a single torpedo hit ... multiple times in a single PVE or PVP match!

I'm not saying that photons should be nerfed. Gawd, you really have to work to make a torpedo build dish out similar DPS to a beamboat. I'm just saying that most players don't use tricobalt (for the reasons I mentioned) and I'd like to see the devs do something to motivate players to use tricobalt torps.

I'd really like to see tricobalt back in the meta for serious players.

talien

It's not just torps. For a while Tricobalt mines were useful with the dispersal pattern skills, with the right build you could blow transformers with one use of DP Tricobalt mines but now they're a bad joke.

questerius

Still use a trico bomber from time to time, but it is not nearly as effective as it once was.

mustrumridcully0

Isn't the main problem of Tri-Cobalts the same problem all heavy torpedoes have?
- Easily destroyed
- Often misfires, going on cooldown but not popping a torpedo.

Can any improvement really matter if the first two aren't adressed?

zerokillcf2011

They could easily de-nerf them now. The gam has progressed far enough that they wouldn't be ridiculously op anymore, but they could be not-worthless if the devs wanted.

szim

They could improve mines and heavy torpedoes by making them invulnerable to spash damage, hazard effects and exotic damage in general. Like, only direkt energy or torpedo damage should be able to destroy them.

But yeah the misfire bug makes them pretty much useless so this should be the first issue to be adressed.

pweistheworst

I'm not sure how I failed to address the misfire bug ... but, yeah, that really needs to be addressed if the devs decide to work on tricobalts again.

risian4

We could also bring down the power of other abilities.

risian4

Oh nevermind, I forgot for a moment that everything has to become more powerful, always, everywhere.

jorantomalak

Biggest thing for me concerning trics is they are targtable devices and you only shoot one at a time , if they made it like a quantum torp that would work non targetable will fire but has a long cooldown between firing.

cant comment on mines since i only use the nukara web mine.

mustrumridcully0

Does anyone remember that Romulan Prototype Plasma Torpedo misfiring? It seems to me it doesn't have that habit, yet it creates multiple torpedoes in a row. Could of course be that this is just masking the issue occuring with it, too. Selective Perception is so unreliable.

pweistheworst

I'd also settle for a two-piece set (console+torpedo) that "cloaks" tricobalt targetable torps and mines so that they cannot be shot down. Only good for tricobalt builds and you have to give up a console slot and use whatever tricobalt-based torp is part of the set, but it would be one way to make tricobalt torps and mines more attractive.

pwstolemyname

Honestly I think Tricobalts need a return to their original purpose. They were the big hitter with a cool down twice what it is now, and likewise damage twice as grate. Both were halved before DR, which on paper might seem like no over all change, but in actuality was a nerf. Tricobalts remained a targetable, and retained a longer global cool down then standard, which put them at a disadvantage against the other hard hitting torp types.


Return Tricobolts to the role of high risk high reward torpedo. Use them once in a long while, but get a huge alpha strike as a payoff if they actually hit. Doing anything else with them ever leaves them underwhelming, as they are now, or fails to distinguish them as any different from other torps.

Oh and for the love of Q don't try and fix them with a doff again. Using a doff or a trait slot to enhance just one weapon to anything other then OP is a horrible waist of a slot.

pwstolemyname

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Does anyone remember that Romulan Prototype Plasma Torpedo misfiring? It seems to me it doesn't have that habit, yet it creates multiple torpedoes in a row. Could of course be that this is just masking the issue occurring with it, too. Selective Perception is so unreliable.

It has the same problem. The torp misfire bug doesn't just occur with targetable torps, it effects some abilities as well. If your target dies, leaves weapon range, or leaves your targeting arc in the time between using the torp/ability and your instruction to use it being confirmed by the server then the torp/ability goes on cooldown but nothing happens.

Typically this effect is noticed most on torpedos, as these can be placed on auto fire, and thus will be triggered when an enemy is still on the very edge of your targeting arc, and may not therefore still be there when the server acknowledges the abilities use.

The reason your less likely to see this on the Hyper plasma torpedo is that your more likely to put this in the front of your ship. Tricobolts, with longer reuse time are often put in the rear, and people swing around to fire them, then swing back. Your most likely to do this quickly to keep your front weapons on target for as long as possible.

The hyper plasma on the other hand shoots a chain of torps and with projectile doffs its quite spammy, so people put it in the front far more often, not only dose this increase the chance that you will keep the enemy in your arc, but I believe the torp is coded so that the firing arc is only relevant to the first torpedo, or at least expanded for the next two. Honestly its been a long time since I last plasma spammed, but I know I had misfires with it in the rear.

feiqa

If I remember the tactic on a tricobalt right. You arm it but don't fire and fly as fast as you can to your target and release the torp inside 3km so the ship has little time to react as you try and get out of the blast radius yourself. On most NPC pretty much a kill or at least major damage. Not seeing it now though.

Question on the misfire. It is a bug not deliberate on the targetable torps?

asuran14

I could see adding either a new dispersal pattern, or a talent choice in the current speciality that could be done to improve the destructible torps an mines in the game further. Like as was said so far in the thread a talent that could cause destructible mines/torpedoes to cloak when fired, or even a chance when hit to negate damage as it phased-out, though this could be also turned into a new dispersal pattern for mines at least as well. Might be weird to may make a spec that has a talent in it which causes destructible torpedos/mines to partially phase-out taking reduced, or no damage till within a certain distance when it phases back in giving less time for destroying it (the distance it phased back in at would need to be fiddled with to be fair.).

feiqa

asuran14 wrote: »

I could see adding either a new dispersal pattern, or a talent choice in the current speciality that could be done to improve the destructible torps an mines in the game further. Like as was said so far in the thread a talent that could cause destructible mines/torpedoes to cloak when fired, or even a chance when hit to negate damage as it phased-out, though this could be also turned into a new dispersal pattern for mines at least as well. Might be weird to may make a spec that has a talent in it which causes destructible torpedos/mines to partially phase-out taking reduced, or no damage till within a certain distance when it phases back in giving less time for destroying it (the distance it phased back in at would need to be fiddled with to be fair.).

I just logged out. But I think the temporal operative specialization tier three phasic artillery. Oh it adds temporary hit points to targetable torps and mines.

questerius

One of them does. Don't remember exactly which one.
Many people don't know how to handle trico. E.g. i have taken out most of the team with a trico cluster or trico dispersal pattern more than once in CEA or ISA.

Edit: This was after i warned the team for the area effect.

asuran14

feiqa wrote: »

asuran14 wrote: »

I could see adding either a new dispersal pattern, or a talent choice in the current speciality that could be done to improve the destructible torps an mines in the game further. Like as was said so far in the thread a talent that could cause destructible mines/torpedoes to cloak when fired, or even a chance when hit to negate damage as it phased-out, though this could be also turned into a new dispersal pattern for mines at least as well. Might be weird to may make a spec that has a talent in it which causes destructible torpedos/mines to partially phase-out taking reduced, or no damage till within a certain distance when it phases back in giving less time for destroying it (the distance it phased back in at would need to be fiddled with to be fair.).

I just logged out. But I think the temporal operative specialization tier three phasic artillery. Oh it adds temporary hit points to targetable torps and mines.

Yeah though temp hp gains on a destructible torp or mines is a bit underwhelming, even if it helps somewhat it is just not enough imo to make them appealing an viable enough of a choice. If that talent were changed to give the torps/mines invulnerable buff with three charges on it (so then it would negate three hits) that I think would be much better.

nickcastleton

its a shame its to late for the new lock box but they could add a romulan cloaked mine launcher to the game that used tricobalt explosives and with it being cloaked it could be on top of you before any ship could really act.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Romulan_mine

darkknightucf

mustrumridcully0 wrote: »

Isn't the main problem of Tri-Cobalts the same problem all heavy torpedoes have?
- Easily destroyed
- Often misfires, going on cooldown but not popping a torpedo.

Can any improvement really matter if the first two aren't adressed?

This, plus Tricobalts do not benefit from Concentrate Firepower (a bug that has been reported since CF was introduced).

feiqa

asuran14 wrote: »

Yeah though temp hp gains on a destructible torp or mines is a bit underwhelming, even if it helps somewhat it is just not enough imo to make them appealing an viable enough of a choice. If that talent were changed to give the torps/mines invulnerable buff with three charges on it (so then it would negate three hits) that I think would be much better.

Kinda why I said Oh in there. Sorry. I read the synopsis but the character unlocking the spec was not using mines or destructible torps so just skipped it for now. I thought it phased them. I was reading the description from gamepedia and saw temp hit points and was underwhelmed.

As to charges versus thp. Depends on how much hp. Fire a destructible torp into vented plasma and the torp dies from pretty fast dots. Three invulnerabilities might pop fast and be done. But temp hp might hit a ship in a cloud of it.