I've noticed that Klingons often have more healing than the Federation - even if we're all BoP's.
I want to mention that there are many excellent Federation players that are healing masters. I'd go so far as to say that a good Fed healer is *exceptionally* good. I'm more talking about on a consistent basis with PuGs made up of random average Fed players.
Not to brag but especially with myself - I frequently get more healing than any player on the Fed team and I'm a Tac captain in a BoP. I never see you guys heal your teammates (with the obvious occasional exception). I think it's fair to say that the majority of Feds are cruisers and science vessels - why the lack of healing? I would think Federation would have better healing while Klingons just went pew pew - but even our escorts heal our allies. It's just common sense.
Can Feds give me reasons why their team never heals?
Thoughts? Flames?
*edit* Some consolidated points based on posts in this thread:
1) Feds don't have a team mindset. They're used to self-reliance in PvE and often don't change their BO's for PvP. (Honorable mention - Feds want to be heroes like Captain Kirk and try to solo multiple Klingons. Some Klingons do this to Feds too, though)
2) With reference to #1, Feds often have to use their cooldowns on themselves to survive extremely high dps alpha strikes from cloaked Klingons (however this would still count for overall healing score).
3) People play how they want to play and that's fine. But, many cruisers try to out-dps escorts and don't pay attention to healing because they're worried about the damage charts. To be fair, sometimes it's satisfying to just pew pew the other side no matter what ship you're in.
4) Escorts that need healing will often run out of healing range because they don't expect heals.
5) This was also mentioned a few times...Shield healing does not count for healing scores. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remember that they added shield healing to the final score. Is it still in testing? Can we get a confirmation on this please?
6) BoPs have universal slots to allow for more healing skills so Klingon escorts can pump out more healing. (I personally have disagreements with this one but I'm trying to include everything).
7) Healing makes you a target for crowd control and focus fire. Ideally your teammates would reciprocate with their own healing but they don't.
8) It is more difficult to form a team as Fed for several posted reasons. Feds are more familiar with healing people on the team list (as are many Klingons).
There were other good posts to explain why Feds lose despite trying to heal but I only put the direct healing-related points up.
Did I misinterpret anything? Do these points satisfy the Fed players? Let me know if I am incorrect in anything and I'll edit again.
Most Feds don't know how to heal others, or that cruisers are amazing healers.
Heck, for fun I will sometimes jump into an escort to pew pew and end up having more healing using eng team 1 than 90% of the people there.
So why Feds can't heal :
1) They don't play in a team, usually solo play even in PvP
2) They don't heal others, just themselves even when in a team
3) Cruisers don't know their role and try to out-dps escorts instead of heal
4) Too much self-reliance, wrong BOFF builds for PvP
5) Too much reliance on shields to protect them against damage (shield heals not counted in healing total)
Maybe other reasons, but that's my top 5 in no particular order.
I try to heal with my Engineer Team on a regular basis, but there are other things to consider. More often than not, before I can get into range of the team member needing the repair, I am hit with VM or SNB. Other times the player I target with 75% hull dies just as I hit the repair button. Also, Extend Shields currently does not count as repair nor does Feds have cloaking devices that would allow them to escape an unfavorable battle, regroup far away and start tossing repair teams to each other.
Also, not sure if self heal is considered in healing, but I'm royally getting tired of fighting a BoP, click Engineer Team to repair up only to notice that a Sensor Scramble hit me just as I hit the button and my engineer team went to the BoP.
Interesting to note, but during a lot of the DSEs, I get a lot of heals from others, but only post-battle. I think it's the whole Fed=solo, Klingon=team mentality that gets to be a habit. Post PvE battle is the time to "heal up" from a Fed POV.
Thus, I'd wager it is in the tactic habits. When you've got one BoP out as "bait", and it gets the focus, it's easy for teammates to heal that target as they pummel from behind the Feds.
But, from the Feb POV, each person is pointed towards the bait target, desperately trying to recover from that initial decloak/attack by using the heals on themselves, and anything leftover needs to be targeted first (and I'd wager most casual Fed PvPers don't use/know the team hot-keys, if they're teamed at all). Then once blown back to the respawn point, there's not a lot of chances to heal a teammate because of the distance. You could zerg in to try to apply some healing, but by then the one that needs it is back at the respawn point. That cycling keeps the team spread out and unable to assist.
It'd be really interesting to see a good Klingon PvP team burn a character slot to make a Fed PvP team. See if the same holds.
I try to heal with my Engineer Team on a regular basis, but there are other things to consider. More often than not, before I can get into range of the team member needing the repair, I am hit with VM or SNB. Other times the player I target with 75% hull dies just as I hit the repair button. Also, Extend Shields currently does not count as repair nor does Feds have cloaking devices that would allow them to escape an unfavorable battle, regroup far away and start tossing repair teams to each other.
Also, not sure if self heal is considered in healing, but I'm royally getting tired of fighting a BoP, click Engineer Team to repair up only to notice that a Sensor Scramble hit me just as I hit the button and my engineer team went to the BoP.
You make very good points Cursix. The most debatable one is cloaking. If we cloak we drop shields and need healing to stay alive during the 3 second activation. Granted I always use Evasive Maneuvers when battle cloaking - but that often isn't enough. Especially after having taken an alpha strike from an escort. The BoP's that battle cloak can just as easily go 75% to 0% instantly especially without shields. Just food for thought.
It'd be really interesting to see a good Klingon PvP team burn a character slot to make a Fed PvP team. See if the same holds.
Indeed it would be interesting. The times I've encountered Fed premade teams they've destroyed the Klingon PuGs in healing - by huge amounts. It must be a Fed PuG vs Klingon PuG thing.
Indeed it would be interesting. The times I've encountered Fed premade teams they've destroyed the Klingon PuGs in healing - by huge amounts. It must be a Fed PuG vs Klingon PuG thing.
This is usually how the charts break down when doing a 5v5 in cracked planetoid against a good team:
2x Escorts : each 300-350K Damage , below 15K healing
2x Cruisers : each 150-200K Damage, 150-200K Healing
1x Science : 50-100K Damage, 50-100K Healing (But a ton of CC and Debuffs)
That is however, against a good team that we would consider better than your average PuG.
But, from the Feb POV, each person is pointed towards the bait target, desperately trying to recover from that initial decloak/attack by using the heals on themselves, and anything leftover needs to be targeted first (and I'd wager most casual Fed PvPers don't use/know the team hot-keys, if they're teamed at all).
I'll bite on this one; what are these hot keys because it would be far more useful to use them on my team members.
Team hotkeys are the "F" buttons I think but I have those keys mapped to other things. My entire F-row is filled with skill hotkeys. They're just too useful to me for customization of other hotkeys. I assume you can map them to anything though right?
1. It's harder for PUG Feds to join a team than for Klingons. Usually someone is late to join, and someone else takes off solo, both of which make it harder to invite those players. If the Klingons are fast, it's not unusual to get attacked while I'm looking up the report to /invite anyone I might have missed. Since the Klingons get to start the fight whenever they please, they never have to start without everyone on the team.
2. Shield heals don't count.
3. Hulls are very fragile.
4. Cloaking allows better focus fire, which combined with #2 and #3 means that fed ships either stop damage with shield healing (and get no points) or they take hull damage and die.
5. Klingon ships are more often in a position to escape combat with a damaged hull. Superior turning means Klingons take fewer torpedo hits (which you can't heal a hull through). Attacking from cloak means that while Klingons are more able to focus fire against fed ships, the fed ships are likely to divide their fire depending on who they see first.
I do think that player skill is a big part of it, but if both factions were able to form teams equally then that would take care of some of the difference. If alpha strikes become less dominant, that will take care of a *lot* of the difference -- right now burst DPS is king, shields pop in under 5 seconds if left untended, and hulls are to fragile to heal them through torpedo crits, so when the fight opens with one side focussing down a single target there really isn't a chance for healing to make a difference.
@ inktomi19d You make good rational points. Just thought I'd offer my two cents - please rebuttal.
1) I don't agree. Klingons have late to join as well. It's fairly common for us but I'm not sure if it's as common as Feds? I usually see a decent Fed team when I start so I haven't noticed it being lopsided either way.
2) I was under the impression that they added shield healing already. Or is it still in testing? If I'm mistaken then you've got me on that one. Do you guys really do that much more shield healing? Obviously you do on yourself with RSP but what about your teammates? I don't see you guys exchanging science teams or extend shields as often as is necessary (which is part of my main point - and trust me I'm watching for it).
3) Hulls are not as fragile as shields (except if you pop RSP) but I agree with you in the case of my own experience - I loaded my Tac slots with +damage to torpedoes so I go for the hull. Federation need more hull to counter cloak but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't heal it either. Escorts die no matter what though, which I'd expect, unless you were referring to escorts in your post.
4) Contrary to popular belief our Klingon PuGs don't actually plan our focus fire - with possible exception when we do actually get a full team at the start and we focus the first target (but nothing planned after that).
5) See #4. You win on the turn rate though but is it a significant difference?
They are not close enough to heal each other capt. kirking in one at a time LOL. The few groups Ive come accross that does heal usually comes out on top.
Most Feds don't know how to heal others, or that cruisers are amazing healers.
Heck, for fun I will sometimes jump into an escort to pew pew and end up having more healing using eng team 1 than 90% of the people there.
So why Feds can't heal :
1) They don't play in a team, usually solo play even in PvP
2) They don't heal others, just themselves even when in a team
3) Cruisers don't know their role and try to out-dps escorts instead of heal
4) Too much self-reliance, wrong BOFF builds for PvP
5) Too much reliance on shields to protect them against damage (shield heals not counted in healing total)
Maybe other reasons, but that's my top 5 in no particular order.
I agree. I thought there was disparity in Fed/Kling healing till a couple days ago when I got into a group with some guys that knew what they were doing. A Sci and a Cruiser devoted the bulk of them efforts to keeping my Escort alive. Every time I down below about 30% they'd hit with heal and top everything up.We plowed through everything.
i think the point he was making with #1 was that for klingons, specially all bops, you have a fairly more leisurely time on getting people invited into the same team, since theres nothing preventing you from doing /invite while cloaked and in transit. for feds, theyd need to get everyone grouped in as soon as they can because they aren't exactly sure if klingons will be sporting enough to wait until both sides have an equal team, or if theyre already en route to where the feds currently are, or if they have enough time to discuss who does what.
i think the point he was making with #1 was that for klingons, specially all bops, you have a fairly more leisurely time on getting people invited into the same team, since theres nothing preventing you from doing /invite while cloaked and in transit. for feds, theyd need to get everyone grouped in as soon as they can because they aren't exactly sure if klingons will be sporting enough to wait until both sides have an equal team, or if theyre already en route to where the feds currently are, or if they have enough time to discuss who does what.
Oh that's definitely true NinJarate. Good call. My bad.
Since I'm a tac, in a cruiser, I can't use the more powerful engineer heals. For me at least, I have the option of either engineer 2, or extend shields/RSP. I use a lot of extend shields, which doesn't get counted for healing, but is literally a hundred times better than any heal. It's like throwing an RSP on an ally but for 30 seconds instead of 15. Only problem is, you put your life in the hands of your teammates when you do use it.
@ inktomi19d You make good rational points. Just thought I'd offer my two cents - please rebuttal.
1) I don't agree. Klingons have late to join as well. It's fairly common for us but I'm not sure if it's as common as Feds? I usually see a decent Fed team when I start so I haven't noticed it being lopsided either way.
Klingons don't have to organize under fire. I'm on a lot of Klingon PUGs that just don't team up for one reason or another, but it's still a lot easier.
Look at it this way: if you come into a match late, is it easier to "request to join" while you are cloaked and approaching the battle, or while you are actively defending yourself against one or more ships?
Personally I put priority on organizing the team. I'll "request to join" first and target enemies second, or continue throwing out invites while I'm under attack. But most players don't do that, and so it's pretty common for space PUGs to only have teams of 3 or 4.
2) I was under the impression that they added shield healing already. Or is it still in testing? If I'm mistaken then you've got me on that one. Do you guys really do that much more shield healing? Obviously you do on yourself with RSP but what about your teammates? I don't see you guys exchanging science teams or extend shields as often as is necessary (which is part of my main point - and trust me I'm watching for it).
I might be wrong about shield healing not being counted yet.
I don't usually see science teams being exchanged, but I see a *lot* of extend shields. I use it on my cruiser, and on my escort I benefit from it constantly. When I'm not getting vaporized by the alpha-strike that is.
3) Hulls are not as fragile as shields (except if you pop RSP) but I agree with you in the case of my own experience - I loaded my Tac slots with +damage to torpedoes so I go for the hull. Federation need more hull to counter cloak but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't heal it either. Escorts die no matter what though, which I'd expect, unless you were referring to escorts in your post.
On either my escort or cruiser I can hang on pretty well as long as the shields stay up, but once I start taking hull hits I'm pretty much done. Engineering team doesn't make much difference because torpedo damage is so high.
4) Contrary to popular belief our Klingon PuGs don't actually plan our focus fire - with possible exception when we do actually get a full team at the start and we focus the first target (but nothing planned after that).
The first target is almost always planned, and that makes a big difference. I know this because most fights start with 5 ships firing on my escort, and when I play Klingon we almost always pick the first target.
After that, Klingon fire is still going to tend to be more focussed because Klingons tend to start the fight all facing the same direction. When you're all faced the same way, you tend to all pick up the same target whether it's planned or not. The fedball is pointed every which-way, so players naturally pick up different targets as they bring their weapons to bear.
5) See #4. You win on the turn rate though but is it a significant difference?
For torpedoes, yes, it's huge. My battlecruiser feels more like my escort than my cruiser, and can bring torpedoes or even dual cannons to bear pretty reliably. The cruiser isn't as bad as it used to be, but it's not hard to stay out of the front arc of a cruiser.
I really think that it's just damage in general which deters healing right now. I think the feds tend to come out on the worse side of the extreme damage for a couple of reasons, which probably has a lot to do with why they heal less often. I try to heal a bit in PUGs but I'm very often watching people blow up in 5 seconds while I'm trying to get into range. Extend shields from my cruiser is a big help, but my escort only has science team for healing, and that's not going to save someone that's under fire from more than one enemy.
I'm not saying that players don't make a difference, but I just don't think players make the whole difference. Many of us play both sides, so it's not as if I suddenly become more team oriented when I play my Klingon, or suck any less than I do on my Fed. Playing Fed feels a whole lot more like whack-a-mole though, even when I'm on an organized team.
Too many wordy responses. The real answer is the same as all others: Klingons are OP and the devs need to nerf them... a good start would be to remove all healing abilities from klinks and double it for feds.
Why is Fed healing so low? It's part of the culture of the playerbase that predominantly (or only) plays the Federation [+1 to generalizations, please ]
You have alot of PvE oriented guys that may dabble in PvP here and there. Their builds are dedicated to PvE and total self reliance. PvE oriented builds or game experience mostly in that style of play usually doesn't translate well for PvP in most cases (IMO).
There is this awful... AWFUL mindset in many Feds that they wouldn't bother healing / repairing / support a fellow team member. It gets better at Fed T5, but along the way, don't expect help, even if you are the guy attracting the attention of the entire KDF team.
Feds are more prone to venture off by themselves to get blasted. KDF players tend to roam in groups, at least pairs. Nothing like seeing the Fed team scattered about the entire Salvage Ops map, isolated. They get ripped apart by small, detached groups, one by one. Can't support each other if the nearest ally is 20k away.
Why is Fed healing so low? It's part of the culture of the playerbase that predominantly (or only) plays the Federation [+1 to generalizations, please ]
You have alot of PvE oriented guys that may dabble in PvP here and there. Their builds are dedicated to PvE and total self reliance. PvE oriented builds or game experience mostly in that style of play usually doesn't translate well for PvP in most cases (IMO).
There is this awful... AWFUL mindset in many Feds that they wouldn't bother healing / repairing / support a fellow team member. It gets better at Fed T5, but along the way, don't expect help, even if you are the guy attracting the attention of the entire KDF team.
Feds are more prone to venture off by themselves to get blasted. KDF players tend to roam in groups, at least pairs. Nothing like seeing the Fed team scattered about the entire Salvage Ops map, isolated. They get ripped apart by small, detached groups, one by one. Can't support each other if the nearest ally is 20k away.
It is true that alot of feds run off and get smoked like there fighting npcs.... my newest tactic has been to join late on purpose. My fed buds have just started off... but havn't gotten far as their scared. (no offense) As long as there mostly all with in 10k I pop an aux battary hit dampening field as I'm a sci in a cruiser and then my scanner. Funny when 2 or 3 klinks show up. Mostly there still waiting on things too. Makes them pour it on for a come back when they take the first loss. I find I can hit a sheild extend on the closest escort and hope polarize hull will get me through the first anti suprize party.
Any way its worked twice now.... not so much another.
totally agree with that my healing should be ten times better then any klink simply because thats what feds are supposed to focus on. i dont mean ship heals i mean ground. my nanites hardly do a qtr of what they should and yes folks i have max points all throughout the healing trees on ground. everything is maxed. doesn't it make more sense to have the feds have bigger heals then the klinks or any other race for that matter because we are a federation of multiple planets and we are mainly scientists. weird.
I regularly try to look around in combat - including PVE with teams or just other allies (Enemy Sensor Contact missions). But that's typically in my Science Cruiser, and I do mostly have shield heals. (Science Team II and III)
I've not done enough PvP to say how I'd fare there.
I regularly try to look around in combat - including PVE with teams or just other allies (Enemy Sensor Contact missions). But that's typically in my Science Cruiser, and I do mostly have shield heals. (Science Team II and III)
I've not done enough PvP to say how I'd fare there.
You might do pretty good if your "team" would stay within range of your heals.
i always throw out shields at anyone that needs it. for the simple fact, because i can and i want everyone to know just how good i am. flying around in my escort i try to get more hull heals than cruisers (wich actualy seems to succeed) so in my escort is tend to be top (or at least up there) damage and high heals (around 30-40k, yes it only takes me that amount to be around the top healers)
now on my commander level cruiser (hes an engineer) i just love healing to much. keep my self up with my personal buffs, keep my team alive with my engi crews and hazzard systems. again im top damage or up there (mostly around 200k damage) and serious top healing (around 150k)
conclusion: feds can heal massivly, people just dont seem to understand its what u have to do to win.
Q:
they think: why should i heal with an engi team for 5k hitpoints when some bop can come in and hit 20k damage in 2-3 sec?
A:
because your heals grant a stacked resistance: that 20k damage can be brought down to 2k damage with multiple kind of heals/resistances.
feds just dont seem to grasp this lillte but oh so improtant fact. klinks do
I've PvP'd on both sides of the fence, though only up through T4 (mostly T2 and T3). I've found that on both the Fed and Klingon sides, you're more likely to wind up grouped with folks that don't have a single BOff slotted with at least an Eng Team 1. I'll admit I don't often have a Sci Team 1 BOff slotted, depending on what ship/character I'm in. This doesn't tend to hold true for pre-mades, or PuGs that stay together to become pre-mades.
A point I've yet to see made is that the BoPs are more versatile than any other ship. Their Bridge stations can be used for a BOff from any career field. If they wanted to slot 3 Eng Team BOffs, they could do it (granted, crippling themselves in the Tac and Sci arenas).
I've PvP'd on both sides of the fence, though only up through T4 (mostly T2 and T3). I've found that on both the Fed and Klingon sides, you're more likely to wind up grouped with folks that don't have a single BOff slotted with at least an Eng Team 1. I'll admit I don't often have a Sci Team 1 BOff slotted, depending on what ship/character I'm in. This doesn't tend to hold true for pre-mades, or PuGs that stay together to become pre-mades.
A point I've yet to see made is that the BoPs are more versatile than any other ship. Their Bridge stations can be used for a BOff from any career field. If they wanted to slot 3 Eng Team BOffs, they could do it (granted, crippling themselves in the Tac and Sci arenas).
why would u use 3 engi teams, u will at most be able to use 2. switch one around with a science team, that way you have the option of buffing shields instead of hull wich depending on the situation could prove more usefull.. also hazard emitters people. thats a science skill wich grant hull heal. this one has to be in your loadout if u wanne be a healer.
i dont think there are a whole lot of bops running multiple hull heals because thats not the way they should go (their heals will always be smaller than when comming from cruisers.) bops use science cc and tac damage, at least they should be backed with some lower engi skills. but thats just my opinion
I'm one of the Feds who over time came to realize that throwing around healing makes you a target and leaves you open for attack. Eventually, when you see that you don't have the same support in a group it's hard to not be a bit greedy with your own survivability. I know that's NOT the way it should be but I don't want to be the guy with the biggest loss score all the time.
I PVPed as a Fed a lot until I switched to give Klingon a try and that is where just yesterday I saw some of the best healing and support ever. Funny thing is, it was on both sides and it was amazing to see how much of a difference it makes just in terms of fun to see people supporting one another. After seeing some of that I'm really excited to get back to playing my Fed for a bit.
why would u use 3 engi teams, u will at most be able to use 2. switch one around with a science team, that way you have the option of buffing shields instead of hull wich depending on the situation could prove more usefull.. also hazard emitters people. thats a science skill wich grant hull heal. this one has to be in your loadout if u wanne be a healer.
I was simply stating that it would be a possibility, not that it was optimal.
I've PvP'd on both sides of the fence, though only up through T4 (mostly T2 and T3). I've found that on both the Fed and Klingon sides, you're more likely to wind up grouped with folks that don't have a single BOff slotted with at least an Eng Team 1. I'll admit I don't often have a Sci Team 1 BOff slotted, depending on what ship/character I'm in. This doesn't tend to hold true for pre-mades, or PuGs that stay together to become pre-mades.
A point I've yet to see made is that the BoPs are more versatile than any other ship. Their Bridge stations can be used for a BOff from any career field. If they wanted to slot 3 Eng Team BOffs, they could do it (granted, crippling themselves in the Tac and Sci arenas).
actually as a tac captain in a bop i have cmdr tac, ltcmdr eng, lt sci, lt sci and i have never found myself to be crippled damage wise, i do decent damage and i throw out some decent heals, i can get 30-70k in fast games, and have topped 250k in longer games. I tend not to use extend as it leaves me obviously vulnerable and with only 24k hull that can be a problem.
I am not saying that i can out heal cruisers who make an effort to heal, but i can contribute in a meaningful way without sacrificing my primary role
Comments
Heck, for fun I will sometimes jump into an escort to pew pew and end up having more healing using eng team 1 than 90% of the people there.
So why Feds can't heal :
1) They don't play in a team, usually solo play even in PvP
2) They don't heal others, just themselves even when in a team
3) Cruisers don't know their role and try to out-dps escorts instead of heal
4) Too much self-reliance, wrong BOFF builds for PvP
5) Too much reliance on shields to protect them against damage (shield heals not counted in healing total)
Maybe other reasons, but that's my top 5 in no particular order.
Also, not sure if self heal is considered in healing, but I'm royally getting tired of fighting a BoP, click Engineer Team to repair up only to notice that a Sensor Scramble hit me just as I hit the button and my engineer team went to the BoP.
Thus, I'd wager it is in the tactic habits. When you've got one BoP out as "bait", and it gets the focus, it's easy for teammates to heal that target as they pummel from behind the Feds.
But, from the Feb POV, each person is pointed towards the bait target, desperately trying to recover from that initial decloak/attack by using the heals on themselves, and anything leftover needs to be targeted first (and I'd wager most casual Fed PvPers don't use/know the team hot-keys, if they're teamed at all). Then once blown back to the respawn point, there's not a lot of chances to heal a teammate because of the distance. You could zerg in to try to apply some healing, but by then the one that needs it is back at the respawn point. That cycling keeps the team spread out and unable to assist.
It'd be really interesting to see a good Klingon PvP team burn a character slot to make a Fed PvP team. See if the same holds.
You make very good points Cursix. The most debatable one is cloaking. If we cloak we drop shields and need healing to stay alive during the 3 second activation. Granted I always use Evasive Maneuvers when battle cloaking - but that often isn't enough. Especially after having taken an alpha strike from an escort. The BoP's that battle cloak can just as easily go 75% to 0% instantly especially without shields. Just food for thought.
Indeed it would be interesting. The times I've encountered Fed premade teams they've destroyed the Klingon PuGs in healing - by huge amounts. It must be a Fed PuG vs Klingon PuG thing.
This is usually how the charts break down when doing a 5v5 in cracked planetoid against a good team:
2x Escorts : each 300-350K Damage , below 15K healing
2x Cruisers : each 150-200K Damage, 150-200K Healing
1x Science : 50-100K Damage, 50-100K Healing (But a ton of CC and Debuffs)
That is however, against a good team that we would consider better than your average PuG.
I'll bite on this one; what are these hot keys because it would be far more useful to use them on my team members.
Maybe if the Klingons concentrated on shooting me and not helping their mates they might start to win a few encounters with me.
2. Shield heals don't count.
3. Hulls are very fragile.
4. Cloaking allows better focus fire, which combined with #2 and #3 means that fed ships either stop damage with shield healing (and get no points) or they take hull damage and die.
5. Klingon ships are more often in a position to escape combat with a damaged hull. Superior turning means Klingons take fewer torpedo hits (which you can't heal a hull through). Attacking from cloak means that while Klingons are more able to focus fire against fed ships, the fed ships are likely to divide their fire depending on who they see first.
I do think that player skill is a big part of it, but if both factions were able to form teams equally then that would take care of some of the difference. If alpha strikes become less dominant, that will take care of a *lot* of the difference -- right now burst DPS is king, shields pop in under 5 seconds if left untended, and hulls are to fragile to heal them through torpedo crits, so when the fight opens with one side focussing down a single target there really isn't a chance for healing to make a difference.
1) I don't agree. Klingons have late to join as well. It's fairly common for us but I'm not sure if it's as common as Feds? I usually see a decent Fed team when I start so I haven't noticed it being lopsided either way.
2) I was under the impression that they added shield healing already. Or is it still in testing? If I'm mistaken then you've got me on that one. Do you guys really do that much more shield healing? Obviously you do on yourself with RSP but what about your teammates? I don't see you guys exchanging science teams or extend shields as often as is necessary (which is part of my main point - and trust me I'm watching for it).
3) Hulls are not as fragile as shields (except if you pop RSP) but I agree with you in the case of my own experience - I loaded my Tac slots with +damage to torpedoes so I go for the hull. Federation need more hull to counter cloak but that doesn't necessarily mean they can't heal it either. Escorts die no matter what though, which I'd expect, unless you were referring to escorts in your post.
4) Contrary to popular belief our Klingon PuGs don't actually plan our focus fire - with possible exception when we do actually get a full team at the start and we focus the first target (but nothing planned after that).
5) See #4. You win on the turn rate though but is it a significant difference?
I agree. I thought there was disparity in Fed/Kling healing till a couple days ago when I got into a group with some guys that knew what they were doing. A Sci and a Cruiser devoted the bulk of them efforts to keeping my Escort alive. Every time I down below about 30% they'd hit with heal and top everything up.We plowed through everything.
Oh that's definitely true NinJarate. Good call. My bad.
Since I'm a tac, in a cruiser, I can't use the more powerful engineer heals. For me at least, I have the option of either engineer 2, or extend shields/RSP. I use a lot of extend shields, which doesn't get counted for healing, but is literally a hundred times better than any heal. It's like throwing an RSP on an ally but for 30 seconds instead of 15. Only problem is, you put your life in the hands of your teammates when you do use it.
Look at it this way: if you come into a match late, is it easier to "request to join" while you are cloaked and approaching the battle, or while you are actively defending yourself against one or more ships?
Personally I put priority on organizing the team. I'll "request to join" first and target enemies second, or continue throwing out invites while I'm under attack. But most players don't do that, and so it's pretty common for space PUGs to only have teams of 3 or 4.
I might be wrong about shield healing not being counted yet.
I don't usually see science teams being exchanged, but I see a *lot* of extend shields. I use it on my cruiser, and on my escort I benefit from it constantly. When I'm not getting vaporized by the alpha-strike that is.
On either my escort or cruiser I can hang on pretty well as long as the shields stay up, but once I start taking hull hits I'm pretty much done. Engineering team doesn't make much difference because torpedo damage is so high.
The first target is almost always planned, and that makes a big difference. I know this because most fights start with 5 ships firing on my escort, and when I play Klingon we almost always pick the first target.
After that, Klingon fire is still going to tend to be more focussed because Klingons tend to start the fight all facing the same direction. When you're all faced the same way, you tend to all pick up the same target whether it's planned or not. The fedball is pointed every which-way, so players naturally pick up different targets as they bring their weapons to bear.
For torpedoes, yes, it's huge. My battlecruiser feels more like my escort than my cruiser, and can bring torpedoes or even dual cannons to bear pretty reliably. The cruiser isn't as bad as it used to be, but it's not hard to stay out of the front arc of a cruiser.
I really think that it's just damage in general which deters healing right now. I think the feds tend to come out on the worse side of the extreme damage for a couple of reasons, which probably has a lot to do with why they heal less often. I try to heal a bit in PUGs but I'm very often watching people blow up in 5 seconds while I'm trying to get into range. Extend shields from my cruiser is a big help, but my escort only has science team for healing, and that's not going to save someone that's under fire from more than one enemy.
I'm not saying that players don't make a difference, but I just don't think players make the whole difference. Many of us play both sides, so it's not as if I suddenly become more team oriented when I play my Klingon, or suck any less than I do on my Fed. Playing Fed feels a whole lot more like whack-a-mole though, even when I'm on an organized team.
Too many wordy responses. The real answer is the same as all others: Klingons are OP and the devs need to nerf them... a good start would be to remove all healing abilities from klinks and double it for feds.
You have alot of PvE oriented guys that may dabble in PvP here and there. Their builds are dedicated to PvE and total self reliance. PvE oriented builds or game experience mostly in that style of play usually doesn't translate well for PvP in most cases (IMO).
There is this awful... AWFUL mindset in many Feds that they wouldn't bother healing / repairing / support a fellow team member. It gets better at Fed T5, but along the way, don't expect help, even if you are the guy attracting the attention of the entire KDF team.
Feds are more prone to venture off by themselves to get blasted. KDF players tend to roam in groups, at least pairs. Nothing like seeing the Fed team scattered about the entire Salvage Ops map, isolated. They get ripped apart by small, detached groups, one by one. Can't support each other if the nearest ally is 20k away.
It is true that alot of feds run off and get smoked like there fighting npcs.... my newest tactic has been to join late on purpose. My fed buds have just started off... but havn't gotten far as their scared. (no offense) As long as there mostly all with in 10k I pop an aux battary hit dampening field as I'm a sci in a cruiser and then my scanner. Funny when 2 or 3 klinks show up. Mostly there still waiting on things too. Makes them pour it on for a come back when they take the first loss.
Any way its worked twice now.... not so much another.
I've not done enough PvP to say how I'd fare there.
You might do pretty good if your "team" would stay within range of your heals.
i always throw out shields at anyone that needs it. for the simple fact, because i can and i want everyone to know just how good i am. flying around in my escort i try to get more hull heals than cruisers (wich actualy seems to succeed) so in my escort is tend to be top (or at least up there) damage and high heals (around 30-40k, yes it only takes me that amount to be around the top healers)
now on my commander level cruiser (hes an engineer) i just love healing to much. keep my self up with my personal buffs, keep my team alive with my engi crews and hazzard systems. again im top damage or up there (mostly around 200k damage) and serious top healing (around 150k)
conclusion: feds can heal massivly, people just dont seem to understand its what u have to do to win.
Q:
they think: why should i heal with an engi team for 5k hitpoints when some bop can come in and hit 20k damage in 2-3 sec?
A:
because your heals grant a stacked resistance: that 20k damage can be brought down to 2k damage with multiple kind of heals/resistances.
feds just dont seem to grasp this lillte but oh so improtant fact. klinks do
RA5 tac escort
com 10 engi cruiser
A point I've yet to see made is that the BoPs are more versatile than any other ship. Their Bridge stations can be used for a BOff from any career field. If they wanted to slot 3 Eng Team BOffs, they could do it (granted, crippling themselves in the Tac and Sci arenas).
why would u use 3 engi teams, u will at most be able to use 2. switch one around with a science team, that way you have the option of buffing shields instead of hull wich depending on the situation could prove more usefull.. also hazard emitters people. thats a science skill wich grant hull heal. this one has to be in your loadout if u wanne be a healer.
i dont think there are a whole lot of bops running multiple hull heals because thats not the way they should go (their heals will always be smaller than when comming from cruisers.) bops use science cc and tac damage, at least they should be backed with some lower engi skills. but thats just my opinion
I PVPed as a Fed a lot until I switched to give Klingon a try and that is where just yesterday I saw some of the best healing and support ever. Funny thing is, it was on both sides and it was amazing to see how much of a difference it makes just in terms of fun to see people supporting one another. After seeing some of that I'm really excited to get back to playing my Fed for a bit.
I was simply stating that it would be a possibility, not that it was optimal.
actually as a tac captain in a bop i have cmdr tac, ltcmdr eng, lt sci, lt sci and i have never found myself to be crippled damage wise, i do decent damage and i throw out some decent heals, i can get 30-70k in fast games, and have topped 250k in longer games. I tend not to use extend as it leaves me obviously vulnerable and with only 24k hull that can be a problem.
I am not saying that i can out heal cruisers who make an effort to heal, but i can contribute in a meaningful way without sacrificing my primary role