Setting aside the issue of missing gear (e.g., plasma mission omni) for parity among various energy types, the real problem is that we appear to go in a circle where the addition of some new console or set suddenly pushes one energy type to the top of the heap.
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
That said, plasma definitely lags behind the other energy types for both sets and hard hitting weapons. However, wouldn't buffing or modifying existing weapons be a simpler solution, rather than trying to come up with something new? Just improve Corrosive or isolytic. It's this need to come up with the new, next next that drives this cycle where some new must-have weapon suddenly hits the game and we all leap.
Setting aside the issue of missing gear (e.g., plasma mission omni) for parity among various energy types, the real problem is that we appear to go in a circle where the addition of some new console or set suddenly pushes one energy type to the top of the heap.
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
That said, plasma definitely lags behind the other energy types for both sets and hard hitting weapons. However, wouldn't buffing or modifying existing weapons be a simpler solution, rather than trying to come up with something new? Just improve Corrosive or isolytic. It's this need to come up with the new, next next that drives this cycle where some new must-have weapon suddenly hits the game and we all leap.
Uhm no, we don't need to fix plasma by buffing old lockbox weapons to do it thus driving the prices to insanity for people that actually.. want to use plasma.
Wanna use disruptor? get the rep beam and the mission set. Wanna run tet? get the mission set, polaron use the rep or mission set. phaser mission. Plasma? go buy some friggin expensive lockbox weapons.
Sounds terrible..
I'd add too they could put in a mission set on par with the nausicaan set, perhaps even a TAD better and plasma still wouldnt pass Disruptor because of the Terran rep beam. It would take something kinda nuts to push Plasma over, which isn't what we need. We just need a 3 piece set that's worth running and brings Plasma up to close to parity
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
^this.
It's a sad state of affairs the game is full of all these weapons types and the most significant difference is the color.
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
^this.
It's a sad state of affairs the game is full of all these weapons types and the most significant difference is the color.
I disagree with this because simply put there is always going to be a set that is "best in most situations" and thus the meta set to run. Adding trade offs will do nothing other than punish the set that ends up with the worst negatives.
There will ALWAYS be a meta and there will ALWAYS be a best option. The goal is to try to make them all close enough that what you choose for flavor isn't punishing you. So actually I REALLY like that in STO that the most significant difference is color. If I want to run polaron on my Dominion ships I don't want to be punished because I'm not running disruptor/phaser. If I want to run plasma I don't like BEING punished by the lack of an omni/set to run it with.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
While T6 Lukari Rep has given some Plasma love, there is still the lack of a free mission reward set.
One of my fleetmates was pretty much AP meta. Ask him for build advice, he would direct you to AP as the end all damage type.
He doesn't like talking about his early losses to another fleetmate running Tetryon, which at the time was still considered garbage by the Meta. He respects it now, but he's still kinda in love with AP.
IMO weapon Procs aren't as much of a concern with the numbers we get nowadays. Also some procs just don't last long enough for you to take advantage of, like the Subsystem disable for baseline Phasers. Polaron and Tetryon would syngergize more with Drain builds a bit.
I always felt that any damage type can work, so it really was down to "what color do you like". But I am still kinda in the mindset that if you take a Tetryon build against an equivelent build of another damage type, generally Tetryon would start hitting bare hull sooner due to the Tetryon proc. But this is where the meta comes in and says "Tetryon is useless after the shields are gone". While somewhat true that Tetryon's proc won't work against something without shields... it still causes damage to bare hull. Not only that... shields regenerate.
But still.. Plasma does need to play catch up due to other damage types getting mission reward sets.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Plasma got a bad reputation back when everyone was geared up to face the Borg. Borg used plasma, so everyone's defense was against it. Plasma became the unloved orphan of the weapons types because the enemies had plasma resistances, which made them less effective.
IThe primary benefit f Plasma type weapons is the plasma burn, but players do not want DoT when they can get the same damage in a single hit, without stacking limits. Indeed, due to stacking limits, much of the potential damage of plasma weapons is wasted with a full plasma build.
There are exceptions, though. I have seen players make excellent use of plasma torpedoes, especially in conjunction with torp spread. The trick there is to hit with torps and start a plasma fire, which the enemy must extinguish with a cleanse power. Then it is followed by a torp spread to reignite the fires before the victim's cooldown expires and he gains another cleanse power.
Another use is to have high accuracy plasma beams on a torp boat, especially if one is running a low-power build and uses his beams to trigger Target Subsystems procs. In this case, the DOT will actually do some damage to the target, and the low power setting won't matter much due to the fact that if you are running two beam arrays you're not doing much damage with energy weapons anyway, no matter what type. Instead, you can get arrays with ridiculous ACC and PEN qualities for dirt cheap on the exchange and use them to keep kicking systems offline on your target with a bonus of forcing the opponent to constantly use up cleanses.
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
For fun, try Caustic Plasma. The DOT is twice the strength for half the time.
Plasma got a bad reputation back when everyone was geared up to face the Borg. Borg used plasma, so everyone's defense was against it. Plasma became the unloved orphan of the weapons types because the enemies had plasma resistances, which made them less effective.
IThe primary benefit f Plasma type weapons is the plasma burn, but players do not want DoT when they can get the same damage in a single hit, without stacking limits. Indeed, due to stacking limits, much of the potential damage of plasma weapons is wasted with a full plasma build.
There are exceptions, though. I have seen players make excellent use of plasma torpedoes, especially in conjunction with torp spread. The trick there is to hit with torps and start a plasma fire, which the enemy must extinguish with a cleanse power. Then it is followed by a torp spread to reignite the fires before the victim's cooldown expires and he gains another cleanse power.
Another use is to have high accuracy plasma beams on a torp boat, especially if one is running a low-power build and uses his beams to trigger Target Subsystems procs. In this case, the DOT will actually do some damage to the target, and the low power setting won't matter much due to the fact that if you are running two beam arrays you're not doing much damage with energy weapons anyway, no matter what type. Instead, you can get arrays with ridiculous ACC and PEN qualities for dirt cheap on the exchange and use them to keep kicking systems offline on your target with a bonus of forcing the opponent to constantly use up cleanses.
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
For fun, try Caustic Plasma. The DOT is twice the strength for half the time.
You beat me to bringing up Caustic Plasma. It's my favorite plasma type alongside Corrosive Plasma, purely for the "burns twice as hot at half the duration" effect. And the name. The unfortunate thing is that anyone not of the rommy faction has no access to it.
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
^this.
It's a sad state of affairs the game is full of all these weapons types and the most significant difference is the color.
I disagree with this because simply put there is always going to be a set that is "best in most situations" and thus the meta set to run. Adding trade offs will do nothing other than punish the set that ends up with the worst negatives.
Wrong. There is only a set that is "best in most situations" because the enemies are homogenous HP sponges with no different resistances.
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
Wrong. There is only a set that is "best in most situations" because the enemies are homogenous HP sponges with no different resistances.
This is very true. The mentality right now is "pure damage output" rather than "best damage type for the situation". Basically, as a friend likes to say... "The best disable is a Warp Core Breach".
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
Best example of this is Pokemon, where types are strong against other types.
Also... I've noticed that the Hur'q on the ground seem to take longer to kill for a Jem'Hadar than they do anyone else. Its like they have an innate Polaron Resistance, to which the Jem'Hadar use as their primary damage type.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
^this.
It's a sad state of affairs the game is full of all these weapons types and the most significant difference is the color.
I disagree with this because simply put there is always going to be a set that is "best in most situations" and thus the meta set to run. Adding trade offs will do nothing other than punish the set that ends up with the worst negatives.
Wrong. There is only a set that is "best in most situations" because the enemies are homogenous HP sponges with no different resistances.
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
Yeah I don't see STO completely revamping it's system to create situations where something like Phasers are totally worthless against enemy X, so you need to make sure you have a Phaser set, a Disruptor set and a Polaron set minimum to get through the story content.
At best I'd see them increase resistances a bit which would lead to what i said where one type would have the best overall performance and be the set to build. You might not spike against borg for instance but you do well vs all comers vs having to run everything. And thus you'd ruin the game for people that like faction builds, like anyone that runs a starfleet ship with phasers.
Yeah I don't see STO completely revamping it's system to create situations where something like Phasers are totally worthless against enemy X, so you need to make sure you have a Phaser set, a Disruptor set and a Polaron set minimum to get through the story content.
Yep, this is the big issue. If you had enemy type X be immune to Energy Type Y then you would have to carry multiple sets of weapons on every ship.. it would be a huge pain. Also when it comes to upgrading weapons.. instead of grinding out one set of Weapon Upgrades, you would instead have to do 2, 3 or more so you have enough for all the enemies.
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
That's not really true for Plasma projectiles they do not fill any niche with the exception of the Plasma Emission in an Exotic build. I moved away from plasma projectiles as the niche they used to fill is now filled by Photon and Quantum leaving Plasma without a roll.
The only reason I can see to use Plasma is if you want to build a themed build and don't mind that other weapons can do the same job better. Once you get access to reputation traits there is no benefit to plasma that I can see.
Sorry I ever spent the resources on any crafted plasma torps and weapons. Still have them on one Rom ship when I want to be a masochistic and semi canon to the series. Switched to Anti-Ps and Disrups on all the rest. Plasma weapons are so underwhelming. Slow Torpedoes that when overloaded that can be targeted with moderate damage sigh they really need some attention.
Wrong. There is only a set that is "best in most situations" because the enemies are homogenous HP sponges with no different resistances.
This is factually incorrect, as different species have greater resistance to their own weapon type, typical resistance against most others, and lower resistances to a specific energy type(the one that is the rep item set)
Evidence or it didn't happen.
In any case, any such differences are too small to be significant.
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
Generally speaking, in Trek canon, being hit by a phaser, disruptor, plasma, polaron, tetryon, proton, anti proton, etc. etc. beam is deadly, no matter what race you are. There is no normal Trek race healed by any of these energy types.
If all those energy types are functionally identical, there is no point in them existing at all.
Wrong. There is only a set that is "best in most situations" because the enemies are homogenous HP sponges with no different resistances.
This is factually incorrect, as different species have greater resistance to their own weapon type, typical resistance against most others, and lower resistances to a specific energy type(the one that is the rep item set)
Evidence or it didn't happen.
In any case, any such differences are too small to be significant.
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
Generally speaking, in Trek canon, being hit by a phaser, disruptor, plasma, polaron, tetryon, proton, anti proton, etc. etc. beam is deadly, no matter what race you are. There is no normal Trek race healed by any of these energy types.
If all those energy types are functionally identical, there is no point in them existing at all.
The Solar Gateway heal Tholians, i test it myself, could be a bug or intended, but it does… so, some damage types heal others...
The forces of darkness are upon us!
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
The Solar Gateway heal Tholians, i test it myself, could be a bug or intended, but it does… so, some damage types heal others...
If you think about it, Tholians LOVE extreme temperatures. Places like Nukara are perfect for them. Solar Gateways healing them makes sense because for all intents and purposes you're just hitting them with water.
COLD damage, on the other hand, is super effective against them. A Cryomancer Science Officer can just rip 'em a new one. The Sonic proc on the Sonic Antiproton weapons in Nukara Rep... feels underwhelming by comparison.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
The Solar Gateway heal Tholians, i test it myself, could be a bug or intended, but it does… so, some damage types heal others...
If you think about it, Tholians LOVE extreme temperatures. Places like Nukara are perfect for them. Solar Gateways healing them makes sense because for all intents and purposes you're just hitting them with water.
COLD damage, on the other hand, is super effective against them. A Cryomancer Science Officer can just rip 'em a new one. The Sonic proc on the Sonic Antiproton weapons in Nukara Rep... feels underwhelming by comparison.
I haven't tested that, but i had a feeling that the oposite was posible, so thanks for confirming that!
The forces of darkness are upon us!
0
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
I haven't tested that, but i had a feeling that the oposite was posible, so thanks for confirming that!
Well considering that one of the Nukara set weapons deals pure COLD damage while another shoots cold infused Antiproton... Yea I'd say so.
Also the Nukara Cryo Launcher is oversized as all hell for a pulsewave. It looks like it should be a bazooka.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Just spent the weekend and today playing around with plasma projectiles and the problem was even worse then I expected. Not only does it take 15seconds after hitting for plasmas just to match Quantum but I ran into a major speed problem.
We all know Plasma torpedoes are slow but Plasma mines are noticeably slower then Quantum in travel speed. What was happening was Quantum torpedoes and mines where killing targets before plasma even had a chance to hit and long before the Plasma burn had chance to do anything.
I could get away with Plasma in solo content but when teaming up the slowness of plasma projectiles both torps and mines often meant the other players killed the target long before you even hit. I was expecting that with torpedoes but I forgot just how slow plasma mines are. (I have all the projectiles travel speeds boosts fitted)
The short version is plasma not only dropped my damage by worse then half but the really silly thing is swapping to Plasma also reduced my burn damage to hull by around a 75% reduction!!!
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
That's not really true for Plasma projectiles they do not fill any niche with the exception of the Plasma Emission in an Exotic build. I moved away from plasma projectiles as the niche they used to fill is now filled by Photon and Quantum leaving Plasma without a roll.
The only reason I can see to use Plasma is if you want to build a themed build and don't mind that other weapons can do the same job better. Once you get access to reputation traits there is no benefit to plasma that I can see.
I use a wide variety of plasmas. There's two specific plasmas you didn't mention. Rom rep hyperplasma is neat because if you launch at point blank range it's functionally impossible for the enemies to shoot them down. Even if they target and destroy them, the torpedoes will explode and deal damage. Then there's TOS plasma. Those don't make a HY seeker at all.
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
That's not really true for Plasma projectiles they do not fill any niche with the exception of the Plasma Emission in an Exotic build. I moved away from plasma projectiles as the niche they used to fill is now filled by Photon and Quantum leaving Plasma without a roll.
The only reason I can see to use Plasma is if you want to build a themed build and don't mind that other weapons can do the same job better. Once you get access to reputation traits there is no benefit to plasma that I can see.
I use a wide variety of plasmas. There's two specific plasmas you didn't mention. Rom rep hyperplasma is neat because if you launch at point blank range it's functionally impossible for the enemies to shoot them down. Even if they target and destroy them, the torpedoes will explode and deal damage. Then there's TOS plasma. Those don't make a HY seeker at all.
While I didn’t mention TOS plasma it was one of the builds I tested. TOS plasma does seem superior to other forms of plasma but it still underperformed compared to Quantum in my testing. My Quantums had superior hull burn damage and superior DPS output so I couldn’t really find a good use for plasma projectiles even in TOS format.
The Rom Hyper Plasma is certainly unique. What I do is take master of mines which gives the Hyper Plasma 33% resistance. Pre Fire Sequence for a 41.1% speed boost, Temporal Operative Phasic Artillery for 11,873 Temporary hitpoints. The resistance and hitpoints keeps my mines and torpedoes alive most of the time. There is also the Vorgon set and Rom deflector set for a total of 3 speed boosts although the Vorgon set only works on Vorgon ships. It might not be as effective as Quantums but it is fun to spam a large amount of Rom Hyper balls with the above boosts.
If all those energy types are functionally identical, there is no point in them existing at all.
They aren't functionally identical. Both in Trek itself, and in-game, all of them have various unique properties that give them different effects then the other. Hence the procs all weapon types have.
The Solar Gateway heal Tholians, i test it myself, could be a bug or intended, but it does… so, some damage types heal others...
If you think about it, Tholians LOVE extreme temperatures. Places like Nukara are perfect for them. Solar Gateways healing them makes sense because for all intents and purposes you're just hitting them with water.
Solar gateways do radiation damage. Radiation damage healing tholians is the only one damage type immunity in the game. No comment on it "making sense," this is a game mechanic were talking about.
I never said they were, I said STO creates differences in its weapon types via procs since, in Trek lore, all of these things are deadly to pretty much everyone anyways.
rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,696Community Moderator
Something tells me this is going to be a circle of "Pointless" and "not pointless". Not gonna matter how many times you point out procs, in his mind as long as they kill... procs mean nothing therefore why bother having anything other than the best to kill fast. Why should we be allowed a choice? Give us all cookie cutter weapons that kill fast because reasons.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Comments
What's missing is a sense of tradeoffs where one energy type works best in some situations, but not in others. I'd argue it's not the availability of gear/weapons/energy types that are the problem. Rather, it's the uniformity of the enemies (or other players) defensive (and to a certain extent offensive) capabilities.
That said, plasma definitely lags behind the other energy types for both sets and hard hitting weapons. However, wouldn't buffing or modifying existing weapons be a simpler solution, rather than trying to come up with something new? Just improve Corrosive or isolytic. It's this need to come up with the new, next next that drives this cycle where some new must-have weapon suddenly hits the game and we all leap.
Uhm no, we don't need to fix plasma by buffing old lockbox weapons to do it thus driving the prices to insanity for people that actually.. want to use plasma.
Wanna use disruptor? get the rep beam and the mission set. Wanna run tet? get the mission set, polaron use the rep or mission set. phaser mission. Plasma? go buy some friggin expensive lockbox weapons.
Sounds terrible..
I'd add too they could put in a mission set on par with the nausicaan set, perhaps even a TAD better and plasma still wouldnt pass Disruptor because of the Terran rep beam. It would take something kinda nuts to push Plasma over, which isn't what we need. We just need a 3 piece set that's worth running and brings Plasma up to close to parity
It's a sad state of affairs the game is full of all these weapons types and the most significant difference is the color.
I disagree with this because simply put there is always going to be a set that is "best in most situations" and thus the meta set to run. Adding trade offs will do nothing other than punish the set that ends up with the worst negatives.
There will ALWAYS be a meta and there will ALWAYS be a best option. The goal is to try to make them all close enough that what you choose for flavor isn't punishing you. So actually I REALLY like that in STO that the most significant difference is color. If I want to run polaron on my Dominion ships I don't want to be punished because I'm not running disruptor/phaser. If I want to run plasma I don't like BEING punished by the lack of an omni/set to run it with.
One of my fleetmates was pretty much AP meta. Ask him for build advice, he would direct you to AP as the end all damage type.
He doesn't like talking about his early losses to another fleetmate running Tetryon, which at the time was still considered garbage by the Meta. He respects it now, but he's still kinda in love with AP.
IMO weapon Procs aren't as much of a concern with the numbers we get nowadays. Also some procs just don't last long enough for you to take advantage of, like the Subsystem disable for baseline Phasers. Polaron and Tetryon would syngergize more with Drain builds a bit.
I always felt that any damage type can work, so it really was down to "what color do you like". But I am still kinda in the mindset that if you take a Tetryon build against an equivelent build of another damage type, generally Tetryon would start hitting bare hull sooner due to the Tetryon proc. But this is where the meta comes in and says "Tetryon is useless after the shields are gone". While somewhat true that Tetryon's proc won't work against something without shields... it still causes damage to bare hull. Not only that... shields regenerate.
But still.. Plasma does need to play catch up due to other damage types getting mission reward sets.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
IThe primary benefit f Plasma type weapons is the plasma burn, but players do not want DoT when they can get the same damage in a single hit, without stacking limits. Indeed, due to stacking limits, much of the potential damage of plasma weapons is wasted with a full plasma build.
There are exceptions, though. I have seen players make excellent use of plasma torpedoes, especially in conjunction with torp spread. The trick there is to hit with torps and start a plasma fire, which the enemy must extinguish with a cleanse power. Then it is followed by a torp spread to reignite the fires before the victim's cooldown expires and he gains another cleanse power.
Another use is to have high accuracy plasma beams on a torp boat, especially if one is running a low-power build and uses his beams to trigger Target Subsystems procs. In this case, the DOT will actually do some damage to the target, and the low power setting won't matter much due to the fact that if you are running two beam arrays you're not doing much damage with energy weapons anyway, no matter what type. Instead, you can get arrays with ridiculous ACC and PEN qualities for dirt cheap on the exchange and use them to keep kicking systems offline on your target with a bonus of forcing the opponent to constantly use up cleanses.
Plasma weapons as they stand have a niche, but it's not in the Max DPS leagues.
For fun, try Caustic Plasma. The DOT is twice the strength for half the time.
You beat me to bringing up Caustic Plasma. It's my favorite plasma type alongside Corrosive Plasma, purely for the "burns twice as hot at half the duration" effect. And the name. The unfortunate thing is that anyone not of the rommy faction has no access to it.
Generally, games with damage types have "elemental rock-paper-scissors," where using the wrong type of attack is highly inefficient at best and completely useless at worst. Some opponents may even be healed by the wrong type of attack. In STO, this effect is only used for the tholians on the ground, who are healed by radiation damage.
Best example of this is Pokemon, where types are strong against other types.
Also... I've noticed that the Hur'q on the ground seem to take longer to kill for a Jem'Hadar than they do anyone else. Its like they have an innate Polaron Resistance, to which the Jem'Hadar use as their primary damage type.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Yeah I don't see STO completely revamping it's system to create situations where something like Phasers are totally worthless against enemy X, so you need to make sure you have a Phaser set, a Disruptor set and a Polaron set minimum to get through the story content.
At best I'd see them increase resistances a bit which would lead to what i said where one type would have the best overall performance and be the set to build. You might not spike against borg for instance but you do well vs all comers vs having to run everything. And thus you'd ruin the game for people that like faction builds, like anyone that runs a starfleet ship with phasers.
Yep, this is the big issue. If you had enemy type X be immune to Energy Type Y then you would have to carry multiple sets of weapons on every ship.. it would be a huge pain. Also when it comes to upgrading weapons.. instead of grinding out one set of Weapon Upgrades, you would instead have to do 2, 3 or more so you have enough for all the enemies.
Probably not the best of ideas.
The only reason I can see to use Plasma is if you want to build a themed build and don't mind that other weapons can do the same job better. Once you get access to reputation traits there is no benefit to plasma that I can see.
In any case, any such differences are too small to be significant.
If all those energy types are functionally identical, there is no point in them existing at all.
The Solar Gateway heal Tholians, i test it myself, could be a bug or intended, but it does… so, some damage types heal others...
If you think about it, Tholians LOVE extreme temperatures. Places like Nukara are perfect for them. Solar Gateways healing them makes sense because for all intents and purposes you're just hitting them with water.
COLD damage, on the other hand, is super effective against them. A Cryomancer Science Officer can just rip 'em a new one. The Sonic proc on the Sonic Antiproton weapons in Nukara Rep... feels underwhelming by comparison.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
I haven't tested that, but i had a feeling that the oposite was posible, so thanks for confirming that!
Well considering that one of the Nukara set weapons deals pure COLD damage while another shoots cold infused Antiproton... Yea I'd say so.
Also the Nukara Cryo Launcher is oversized as all hell for a pulsewave. It looks like it should be a bazooka.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
We all know Plasma torpedoes are slow but Plasma mines are noticeably slower then Quantum in travel speed. What was happening was Quantum torpedoes and mines where killing targets before plasma even had a chance to hit and long before the Plasma burn had chance to do anything.
I could get away with Plasma in solo content but when teaming up the slowness of plasma projectiles both torps and mines often meant the other players killed the target long before you even hit. I was expecting that with torpedoes but I forgot just how slow plasma mines are. (I have all the projectiles travel speeds boosts fitted)
The short version is plasma not only dropped my damage by worse then half but the really silly thing is swapping to Plasma also reduced my burn damage to hull by around a 75% reduction!!!
My character Tsin'xing
The Rom Hyper Plasma is certainly unique. What I do is take master of mines which gives the Hyper Plasma 33% resistance. Pre Fire Sequence for a 41.1% speed boost, Temporal Operative Phasic Artillery for 11,873 Temporary hitpoints. The resistance and hitpoints keeps my mines and torpedoes alive most of the time. There is also the Vorgon set and Rom deflector set for a total of 3 speed boosts although the Vorgon set only works on Vorgon ships. It might not be as effective as Quantums but it is fun to spam a large amount of Rom Hyper balls with the above boosts.
Procs != damage types.
Solar gateways do radiation damage. Radiation damage healing tholians is the only one damage type immunity in the game. No comment on it "making sense," this is a game mechanic were talking about.
AFAIK tholians die just fine from fire damage.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode