I just suffered a ground exploration mission on advanced, and ended up with
15 injuries, 5 of them major and 1 critical. It was only a "scan the crappy bits of metal" mission, and there were only two enemy encounters. In the last one, after the fifth attempt, I just sent my away team to their deaths to distract the mob long enough for me to scan, and then ran away so I could beam out. There wasn't even any decent reward, and it cost me ~6000 credits to heal myself.
I note the enemies in question (the Crimto?) were equipped with dual pistols, meaning they could tear through my purple Mk X shields [Cap]x3 in
a single shot, and kill me with a second. How the hell is ANYONE supposed to be able to withstand that kind of damage? I refuse to believe this is right.
I'm not really enjoying this much 
Edit: Many people are telling me to stop QQing and switch to normal. I dont want to play on normal, as space combat is
way too easy even on advanced.
Others claim that they are able to deal with ground combat on Advanced

... please share your secrets! It seems impossible to me that anyone could manage this, no matter what tactics are used.
My Tactics
I will always buff myself a moment before starting. Usually tribble, nanite health monitor, vascular regenerator, triage (5s 50% damage resistance).
I usually pick a squishy target with their back to me, start with a tricorder scan, make a sniper shot, then focus my away team until they are down. I do this to try to reduce their numbers ASAP. I then move on to a target that could heal others, if applicable (e.g. Romulan Sublieutenant Medic), and then work my way up to the toughest ones.
On normal mode, if there was something with very high DPS I used to draw aggro for that onto myself, and let my BOffs concentrate on something they can handle.
I can sometimes survive a little longer if I draw aggro then strafe wildly while healing, to bring an enemy's flank to bear on my away team, but this is really hit-and-miss.
My BuildRA5 Fed Vulcan Science Officer
Very Rare Medic Kit Mk X
Very Rare Personal Shield Mk X [Cap]x3
Very Rare Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Very Rare Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Uncommon Phaser Stun Pistol Mk X
100+x Large Shield Changes and Hypos
My only ground skills are...
Scientific Practice - 7pts
Doctor - 9pts
BOffsCmdr Tactical
Personal Shield Mk IX [Cap]x2
Polyalloy Weave Armour Mk X
Uncommon Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Photon Grenade 1
Leg Sweep 2
Suppressing Fire 2
Overwatch 2
Cmdr Tactical
Personal Shield Mk X [Cap]
Energy Harness Armour Mk X
Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Leg Sweep 1
Focus Fire 2
Fire on my Mark 1
Motion Accelerator1
Cmdr Engineering
Personal Shield Mk X
Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Phaser Full Auto Assault Mk X
Weapons Malfunction 1
Quick Fix 2
Phaser Turret 2
Quantum Mortar 2
Cmdr Science
Personal Shield Mk X
Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Phaser Stun Pistol Mk X
Tachyon Harmonic 1
Statis Field 1
Tricorder Scan 2
Hyperonic Radiation 2
If anyone has tips, they would be greatly appreciated.
Comments
You cant just go in "PEW PEW PEW". To survive Advanced and Elite you have to think, make strategies, get to know your enemy and take advantage of the enviroment. Sometimes you may even have to retreat to survive...
After this: Barely no deaths.
I might suggest starting here, mainly because it is the most recent.
Basically, you will need to learn new tactics, and try different strategies, because even aside from the overpowered AOE damage of non-canon enemy groups, your days of coasting through ground missions (on advanced) are over.
I had to completely re-think my away team skills and equipment before I could run higher difficulties on the ground. And you can't just wade in anymore.
Are you sure because all other ground missions on elite where not even close like this one was they literaly took out my entire team in like 6 seconds flat cover shield was melted down even as fast lol. every other ground mission on elite was not like this at all and I and my BO's actually had time to react this one however was nuts soon as I noticed I was getting hit I was dead lol no time to react to anything.
Die less. or go back down to Normal.
A lot of people say I should change tactics, but to what???? What exactly are you doing to survive these insane attacks?
Personaly, Id like a setting for space combat, and one for ground combat. That way I could have my really hard space combat, and my really easy, quick ground combat.
There are some enemies with insane damage from bolt spray type attacks, who probably still need to be fixed. But the basics of handling them are the same: lure them into a kill zone piecemeal instead of letting them all shoot at you.
Well, it's a single (special) attack but it comes in the form of multiple high damaging shots that are rapidly fired in sequence and can hit multiple clustered targets at once. Each shot in the sequence tears away a significant portion of your shield and eventually your health.
You can survive those attacks with the proper precautions, but they definitely seem excessive to any other attack in ground combat. I have difficulty believing they are intentional.
Here's an example from a combat log I have:
Captain T'Vala deals 52 (229) Antiproton Damage to you with Antiproton Bolt Spray.
Captain T'Vala deals 215 (260) Antiproton Damage to you with Antiproton Bolt Spray.
Captain T'Vala deals 199 (241) Antiproton Damage to you with Antiproton Bolt Spray.
Captain T'Vala's Guardian deals 12 Toxic Damage to you with Claw.
The range of damage numbers there do seem to be off. Keep in mind the above snippet takes place over one or two seconds. That's a lot of damage from the bolt spray attack in a very short amount of time.
well what are your tactics going in?
I've noticed a couple of things that have helped so far.
Focusing your BOFF's fire on 1 target isn't always the best, spread out the aggro between all of your guys and then focus fire if you want. Also you're weapons selection plays in here, for instance split beams = a lot of aggro = dead quickly.
Try using the pause more, flanking damage works well. Station your BOFF's around the group rather then just running right in.
Shield / Hypo charges are a LOT more useful now. If you're getting hit hard give yourself a boost so that your officers have time to help you out.
Work out your weapon/ability choices a bit, try to get the MOB's into the exposed state thru weapons or abilities so that you can follow up with your exploit attack. The damage get's increased by quite a bit, even if you don't get to vaporize them.
Also is this the only time you've run into this issue since the patch? If you're only having a problem with the MOB's on 1 specific ground map while you're able to get thru the MOB's on other ground maps ok it's possible it's a bug or not working as intended. If that's the case bug it so they can be reviewed. Keep in mind the final group in some cases does seem to be intentionally harder.
Honestly I like the added challenge and it's actually getting me to use more of the items/abilities then i have before. I'm actually enjoying ground combat more.
And one should not complain about optional features. Its your choice to set it to advanced.
All I have to tell you is run away from a ground mission with Remans. Reman Captains on elite are like trying to stop a run away freight train with a kitten. They are do able. It took me 1 critical, 2 major and 4 minor injuries on myself and my Liberated Borg BOFF had a major injury affecting hand to hand.
And Reman Captains dont encourage strategy. Just spawn point zerging and throwing yourself at them until their shields are down. Nothing you can do with 5 other photonic captains shooting at you with mind bullets (begins singing Wonder Boy by Tenacious D). It seems like you are one shotted by the captains but its actually being shot by 6 sets of mind bullets which ignore the majority of your personal shields.
Advanced is way to easy now. And Im noticing the rewards. After doing nothing but missions and dailies on elite for 2 days I have made around 1.2 mil in energy credits. Which made up for the Reman Captain violating my soul and my poor defenseless Liberated Borg Bridge officer. She was down first being the only engineer on my away team. I wouldnt even have a chance to heal her.
Note that this is not an "It's fine, learn 2 play," post. I am only saying that the two difficulty levels above Normal are not going to be easy, will have penalties for dying, and will require different tactics from Normal. Work on those tactics, practice them on Normal, then head into Advanced and see how they go. Then when you're comfortable, take a deep breath, hold it... and kick the slider to Elite.
Because there are some glitched insane damaging enemies that are 100% unbeatable no matter what tactics you use and no matter how good your equipment is, they just cant be killed without being 1-shotted.
And those need to be looked over.
You need to tell us:
What career is your captain?
How is he spec'd for ground? (Which skills and at what ranks.)
What kit(s) is he using?
What weapons?
Which BOffs are you taking with you? Which careers are they? What skills do they have and at what ranks?
How are your BOffs equipped?
I keep seeing threads about how someone can't solo an Advanced or Elite ground mission, but they (like you) don't ever give any information about their character. If you're spec'd solely for space, then you're going to eat dirt on the ground. A lot.
I think they just encourage a different type of strategy. I stopped participating in the "my ranged attack versus your ranged attack" contest with Reman Captains long ago. The easiest way (for me) to deal with them is to not allow them to use their psionic attacks by forcing them into melee. I literally mug/beat them into a corner and don't let up on the knockdowns until they stay down for good. It seems to work much better than engaging them at range.
I agree additional information is important, but some questions can be asked (and answered) with very basic details. And in a way, this is one of them.. because the question is very simple:
Is Cryptic comfortable with NPC bolt spray attacks firing three consecutive shots that EACH do 10 TIMES the average damage of standard elite mode attacks, while also being able to apply that extensive level of damage to multiple targets at once depending on how many fall within the AOE cone?
It only requires a "yes" or "no" answer. Even if you have enough skills/buffs/debuffs/resistances running at the moment that the average attack on elite mode does 20 damage, the bolt spray attack is still doing 200, 200, and 200 (600 damage total to everyone it hits). If your tactics/skills/resistances stink and the average attack on elite mode does 50 damage to you, the bolt spray attack is doing 500, 500, 500 (15000 damage total to everyone it hits).
Either way, it's still 10x the normal damage being done on elite mode regardless of the precautions you take. Whether that's acceptable or not is the question being asked. I will say that my bolt spray attack only does somewhere between 1.5 - 2 times the amount of damage as my normal attack. The fact the NPC's bolt spray attack does, in comparison, 10 times the amount of their normal attack strikes me as odd.
This one sounds like a maths error. Cryptic hates maths!
1) I have trained all my BOFFs to their max level and chosen ground skills that will be beneficial.
2) I made sure to have atleast 4.5 full ground skill boxes filled in my talent tree (This helps a lot if you have a few BOFFs who are the same class as you)
3) All my BOFFs have atleast blue MkX weapons and gear (Most have Mk X Purples)
As for changing Tactics
1) Fight the enemy where you want to fight them (I.E. pull them into a trap using the hold ground function of your BOFFs as to lead the enemy into an ambush). Make sure to arrange your BOFFs so they will be in flanking position when the enemies are lured in.
2) Make use of Holds, Stuns, and all other DeBuffs.
3) Have your BOFFs focus on one target at a time. I tend to focus on units that can spawn other units or Hold/Sleep my units. I then tend to work my way down from hardest to easiest.
4) In the case of Borg, make sure that your BOFFs are not all using the same weapons. (I may be wrong about this, but it seems when the Borg put up a personal shield, it is resistant to the type of damage they were being hit with before the shield went up.)
And most importantly, remember that Elite was designed so that at least one person can win on that setting... sometimes one may not be that person.
The other thing you can do is set your healer to passive so that they spend their entire time healing rather than trying to fight, and stay with you rather than running off.
When you turn the difficult slider back down to "Normal", it'll be fixed instantly.
i had the same problem, until I change how I played. I'm more careful in what I do now.
PLAY SMARTER IT WILL DO YOU SOME GOOD. that or go back to normal.
He's a tactical officer.
He's fully focused with his traits for ground combat (I mean come on, how could I not take Soldier and Sturdy to go with Dumb Luck! lol)
And I'm taking skills for ground combat (only a Lt, so you know, tactical team and the two in tacitcal tree).
I got smoked. It was funny. I had no idea that the klingons respawned. (I'd never been killed on this mission). The trip back after my first death was quickly turned into a second death because wow, there were a lot of angry klingons in the hallway that I did not expect! So on the one hand I was able to save six scientists by saving the same two three times. That was silly. But yeah, I definitely felt the difference on live. Most of my testing on elite on test was at the captain and RA5 level. So this was new for me.
I got through it.
But wow, my repair bill was huge. I had 2 crit injuries on me. And every single member of my crew had at least 1 major injury. My poor Pakled tactical BO that I had added most recently to my crew had two stacks of combat fatigue and a critical injury. I felt bad for him. And the hospital bill was pretty huge.
This guy's an alt. So I just mailed myself another Mk IX common deflector I got from a B'Tran explore on my main. No worries on money.
Just thought I'd share my experiences with one of the first ground away missions you get to taste at Lt levels.
I may eventually reach a saturation point with my Pakled that I switch down to Advanced. Or I may not.
The experience on elite is certainly different in terms of gameplay. I may be doing the same missions again, but this time they play out very differently. So I feel like I'm on a different levelling path.
I bet this will get even more interesting this month with sidekicking and replayability functions.
My tactics...
I will always buff myself a moment before starting. Usually tribble, nanite health monitor, vascular regenerator, triage (5s 50% damage resistance).
I usually pick a squishy target with their back to me, start with a tricorder scan, make a sniper shot, then focus my away team until they are down. I do this to try to reduce their numbers ASAP. I then move on to a target that could heal others, if applicable (e.g. Romulan Sublieutenant Medic), and then work my way up to the toughest ones.
On normal mode, if there was something with very high DPS I used to draw aggro for that onto myself, and let my BOffs concentrate on something they can handle.
My details...
RA5 Fed Vulcan Science Officer
Very Rare Medic Kit Mk X
Very Rare Personal Shield Mk X [Cap]x3
Very Rare Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Very Rare Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Uncommon Phaser Stun Pistol Mk X
100+x Large Shield Changes and Hypos
My only ground skills are...
Scientific Practice - 7pts
Doctor - 9pts
BOffs
Cmdr Tactical
Personal Shield Mk IX [Cap]x2
Polyalloy Weave Armour Mk X
Uncommon Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Photon Grenade 1
Leg Sweep 2
Suppressing Fire 2
Overwatch 2
Cmdr Tactical
Personal Shield Mk X [Cap]
Energy Harness Armour Mk X
Phaser Sniper Rifle Mk X
Leg Sweep 1
Focus Fire 2
Fire on my Mark 1
Motion Accelerator1
Cmdr Engineering
Personal Shield Mk X
Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Phaser Full Auto Assault Mk X
Weapons Malfunction 1
Quick Fix 2
Phaser Turret 2
Quantum Mortar 2
Cmdr Science
Personal Shield Mk X
Energy Dampening Armour Mk X
Phaser Stun Pistol Mk X
Tachyon Harmonic 1
Statis Field 1
Tricorder Scan 2
Hyperonic Radiation 2
If anyone has tips, they would be greatly appreciated.
Heal your injuries, instead of letting them stack.
:rolleyes: I'm not THAT stupid. Yes I do.
Edit: I dont have critical regenerators on me though.
Space dock you can buy some, stock up before missions. ( you can only get minor and major. i have not check DS9 yet. )
If you just stand there and slug it out, yeah, you can expect this to happen.
Also, don't bring tetryon weapons to an Undine fight.
The impossible one was against Starlians(?). Something called a 'Starlian Commander' one shot killed my BOs. Combat log shows 500-900 damage from 'Unknown Ability' and 'Bolt Setting'. On that mission, I had to resort to sneak scanning the objectives.
The difficult one was against Borg, who were killing my BOs with the magic whip of doom.
Did we somehow get back to super-impossible mode when they did the last patch?
PS: I still want separate ground and space sliders!