Gravity Kills Advanced STF

alcyoneserene

Just did a Gravity Kills Advanced pug, sitting at 62K++ hull heavy dreadnought warbird, epic neutronium mk15, honored dead, repair crews, shield overload+EP2S, strengthened shields trait, buffed GDF, epic xenotech +sh hardness mk15, fully buffed 50-70% kinetic/physical dmg res, around 50% all dmg res, whole team getting vaporized repeatedly by tzenkethi tetryon torp spreads.

Really hard to maneuver with constant pull, ship clipping NPCs, hard to align to front shield facings of tzenkethi, hard to see anything through this game's extreme bloated special effects, can't see tzenkethi shield repair units, targeting anchors not registering properly (an old bug made targeting poor permanently).

We 'beat' the mission but failed all optionals. Escorts, Samsar, all getting vaporized near constantly while trying to ferry molecules to Jupiter.

Is something wrong with the NPC crits? I've seen patch notes recently halving crtD rate on normal difficulty. Does this mean they buffed NPCs for MkXV?

Do developers play their own game without god mode on?

Is there a strategy a pug group is supposed to figure out?

I'm using a tanky/exotic/temporal build, 3xEPG/CtrlX, +EPG CritD consoles, GW, SSV, Recursive shearing 3+entropy builders/consumers, elite pets, sci/tank traits. It's my first time flying the ship so am still fine-tuning it, but I never had this much trouble in this mission before using much less powerful ships and builds.

Appreciating the challenge, but this mission feels very off. I switched to TBR to push the final boss dreadnought into the black hole, and that took a good 5-6 pushes before he vanished and mission finished.

If pug players can't hold back some simple nanite spheres in ISA for years and years, how can they expect to slot TBR on ships and spec points lacking ctrlx, assuming that's even a valid strategy when the ships seem to spawn in endlessly as soon as they are destroyed?

Players were clearly annoyed, I was annoyed being stuck in a mission lasting forever, and then a measly reward that can be easily obtained in other, much simpler STFs or special events etc.

Again, I appreciate it seems like a very hard mission in a pug environment, I just did not have fun popping back into this game again to witness something like this.

What is elite like if advanced pug is like this? Anybody tried it recently?

echatty

You may be experiencing this:

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1241723/anyone-noticing-that-the-enemy-keeps-mega-critting/p1

This thread has been going on for awhile now.

darkbladejk

It's doable but you need folks to pay attention to what's going on and have a decent amount of damage going out. You can kill the tzenkethi without hitting their forward shields though it is going to be harder. It's not one that is easily pugged similarly to Korfez. I see plenty of people in queues like that who clearly are NOT ready for it. Based off what you're saying here it's possible that you got a team that just wasn't ready for it. Now with that said if you don't immediately hit the warp button when the screen goes all fuzzy it's an auto-kill type of thing.

As far as your build and survival goes, the amount of hull and shields don't matter as much as your ability to maintain them. Let's suppose you hypothetically had 500k shields and 500k hull. That would be cool and all but it would mean nothing in the grand scheme of things if you can't keep that healed up and maintain it. I run near exclusively as a tank, even on my escorts. In quite a few instances some of my crew that I run with my have a higher shield capacity than I do, but they can't maintain it as easily, so it really doesn't help them any.

I'm going to recommend filling out a builder on stoacademy.com and posting it up for us to look at. Fill out as much as you can see we can see what you're working with. Let's start by eliminating a potentially obvious cause which could be your ship build itself. Once we know more about where you're at then we can offer better advice.

alcyoneserene

Good point about the regeneration, I wasn't able to use rally point marker from the constant pull, and a large ship seems to be considered out of bounds easily.

Regen from damage output was also low, with the rom shield leech console and doff the ship couldn't deal damage to make those work as they usually do (being forced to raise shield power to survive meant conventional dmg-based healing went offline) - again, an unconventional science/temporal build on a slow 3-sci console dread/carrier/cruiser, but I have fun discovering a ship's ideal spot.


The problem however was the damage bursts and consistency with which NPCs everywhere would do this. Such damage resistances, combined with gear and traits that previously made my tanky ships invincible from almost all NPC damage sources, are just repeatedly obliterating the ship and my team too now, from full health and shields and buffs.

burstorion

One fun thing you can do on gravity kills is abuse the singularity - as in build for super high controlX and using tbr, overwhelming strikes high yields, photonic shockwave, engine disables and so on, punt all the enemies into the singularities pull - When I used to do it, I'd charge forward; blast the mobs into the singularity pull region and then return to particle collection

At the start you could even singularity kill the enemy dread...but I think they removed that option (a pity as I used to enjoy doing that)

fleetcaptain5

My preferred tactic against the Tzenkethi is to drain them.

Their weapons hit quite hard, but they do less damage if you use things like Tyken's rift or Chronometric inversion field. I know, not many ships can use that or have room for it, but it may be worth it to consider using it.

Besides my Vesta, another great 'ship' for that mission is any type of pilot escort. The extra speed boost and immunity are some of the best things you could wish for in that mission imo.

lordsteve1

A "questionable" tactic I've had some success with is using Viral Matrix to shut them down, then use TBR or Photonic shockwaves to push them into the singularity.
DPS on the build is TRIBBLE but it's a fun build and the shutdown Tzenkethi are helpless against your team's firepower.

markhawkman

I did it last night and while I died several times to the barrage ability, that was usually because you have to collect the stupid particles from ON TOP OF THE ENEMY. Also.... flying out of the gravity well of the singularity was iffy at best. Even at full throttle I often found myself struggling to get any distance from it at all. And thus being a sitting duck for that barrage power.

fleetcaptain5

markhawkman wrote: »

I did it last night and while I died several times to the barrage ability, that was usually because you have to collect the stupid particles from ON TOP OF THE ENEMY. Also.... flying out of the gravity well of the singularity was iffy at best. Even at full throttle I often found myself struggling to get any distance from it at all. And thus being a sitting duck for that barrage power.

I just realised that Pilot maneuvers aren't the only thing that might help there. The Competetive reputation engines can also be very useful.

Or, more old-fashioned, emergency power to engines and/or evasive maneuvers

markhawkman

I thought about EptE, but I couldn't change mid-STF. Evasive I guess works, but may or may not be available.

lordsteve1

I try to time my trips to the particles so that my Evasive Maneuvers is off cooldown by the time i'm ready to escape, having it doff'd also helps in this situation. Or alternatively something like Ep2E, or even ApO3; basically something that gives you a speed boost when you need it.
You probably only need to go in to grab particles maybe 3-4 times (?) if the rest of the team is doing similar tactics and at least one person is keeping the Jupiter safe.
I use the same tactic on Counterpoint for dropping away teams onto Terrok Nor.

markhawkman

APO.. I forgot that works here.

where2r1

Bursts of speed did you say? I was clowning around with this stuff for a bit before all these Events started...and now catching dust in my bins.

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Deuterium_Surplus