How are the Command ability buffs?

tom61sto

I've not gotten a chance to try out the buffs myself, so I'm curious what others have found out, whether hard data or anecdotes.

From https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/star-trek-online/news/detail/11485213-pc-patch-notes-for-3/11/21

Inspiration (Command Spec Ship Ability):

Activating Bridge Officer Abilities now generates 20% more Inspiration than it previously did.

Call Emergency Artillery:

Added a slight delay before firing begins, so that more of the damage is dealt in the intended area, instead of at your current location.
Increased area of damage from 2km to 2.5km.
Damage now applies twice as frequently (every 1 sec instead of 2 sec).
Cooldown reduced from 90sec to 60sec

Needs Of The Many:

Increase Temporary Hitpoints values granted by this ability to double the previous values.
Updated targeting to include all nearby allies that either are players, or are owned by players, within the affected radius (15km).
Cooldown reduced from 60sec to 50sec.

Overwhelm Emitters:

Triggers will no longer be consumed by DOT ticks, or very low sources of damage.
Doubled magnitude of both Shield Drain and Shield Healing at all ranks (from 10/15/20% to 20/30/40%).

Reroute Power from Life Support:

Recharge penalty now only affects Bridge Officer Abilities
Reduced the recharge penalty from 5% to 2% per tick

Subspace Interception:

Now can only be used to save Players.
Recharge reduced from 90sec to 40sec.
Duration scales up more aggressively with rank (was 6/8/10, now 6/12/18).
Removed variable immunity durations.
Replaced +Defense with +Damage Resistance Rating (self buff).
Added Heal-over-Time effect to saved teammate.
Added an AOE Taunt that will trigger after teleporting (only if Threatening Stance is active).

Suppression Barrage:

Cooldown reduced from 60sec to 45sec.

eladonwarps

Anecdotally, I've flown only 1 of my ships with a strong Command build recently, the Legendary Odyssey Dread. It was already a dream of a tank ship, and having even better BOFF skills is very nice.

Even outside that, the Inspiration buildup being faster is noticable. The lower cooldowns on BOFF skills has also been commented on as a welcome buff from some friends.

I know lots of people still love their MW ships, but I think we ought to give Command some love again.

peterconnorfirst

What I have seen so far two of the changes are good.

Call Emergency Artillery 3 feels a bit OP. I have seen parses of around 50kish in regular and above 100kish in strong ISE runs. Would not surprise me to see 200k from it in high end teams. I’d say leave it as it is now though! We have lots of OP stuff in game and if cryptic wanted command ships to catch on, they succeeded here for a change. If you have access to the power then slot it and be happy.

The taunt of Subspace Interception is interesting for tanks for sure. It would still take the removal of any restrictions as in hull level and distance of teammates for me to slot it. Reason is that you don’t really need it as Tank if you do your job properly and your team goes for it. Removing the range distraction at least would be great to bring players in line that don’t play along when a tank is in team.

saurializard

Subspace Interception and Call Emergency Artillery still didn't work well for me.

The two times I used SI after the changes, the two times my ship didn't move and wasted it. I don't know if it was because the ally moved away or something else, but it still wasted the ability, so it still needs some fixing.

I tried Emergency Artillery on a group of ships trapped in a GW and GW itself did more damage. In fact, I don't even know if EA actually did damage them. This one may have been a fluke for some reason and maybe it won't happen next time, but the thing is it did happen. And after being told it was fixed, it's not a good thing my first try was a miss.

The buildup thankfully IS faster but even then, in your usual TFO run, you'll at best get to use the 100% ability tray just once or not even.

Maybe my Vedcrid is bugged, or I need to switch to non-command BOffs first to have all the changes work (since Overwhelm Emitters did work without issues) or something else, but the changes weren't significant for me.

So, no, IMO, still far from being on par with MW abilities. It's a step in the right direction, but a small step.

tom61sto

Interesting mix of responses, thanks for sharing.

Anyone doing anything with Reroute Power from Life Support?

duasyn

Unless you can target a ship on the far side of a pack of ships, Call Emergency Artillery is silly, imo.
I'd rework it to either target the area when called with some radius or just give it a fixed distance the ships travel while bombing.