So my main is a klingon science officer, I had an idea he'd be a support type, in the back healing and debuffing on my ground missions.
I equipped one tactical officer with a batleth, and gave him draw fire and some melee skills.
my second dps boff is the breen tac officer, and hes a debuff/ grenader.
lastly I have an engineer that buffs shields and a back up medic that removes debuffs.
Combat typically goes like this:
I set an enemy mob as the focus target
klingon tac officer runs in batleth swinging
mobs all target me and run at me and start beating me senseless, I run around in a circle until some of them target the rest of my crew and then melee/shoot the remaining 3 or so until they die.
If you were Betazoid (Federation) or maybe Orion, you might not draw as much attention with the healing. Let the bridge officers attack first also. And wait until they have aggro before going in. My main is a medical officer in Federation. I do not play like you are suggesting though, I attack and I worry only about healing myself. I let my doctor worry about healing and tending to the other bridge officers.
Set a rally point for one of your bridge officers, forcing one of your bridge officers to run into the enemy before you do.
If solo, press T which pauses time, select one of the weaker enemies and press Y which will have all of your bridge officers target your target, focusing fire and click on your bridge officer abilities as well as your own, then press T resuming time.
If you are in a team with other players, do the same as above, but just be careful and quicker about it.
You make sure you take out the weaker enemies first, because they are quicker to take down and that means less number to deal with in less time when it comes to taking out the tougher enemies in the mobs.
Try to anticipate when you are going to get shot at and roll out of the way, avoiding damage as much as possible while also dealing as much damage as possible to one enemy at a time.
I hate to say this but um. . .having bridge officers attack first doesn't work. One time I threw my BO's into a fight while I hid behind a rock because I wanted to change out my weapons quick. I never got a chance because instantly two mobs ran *over* the rock I was hiding behind and attacked me. I wasn't firing at them, shoot I wasn't even in range and they couldn't have seen me as I was behind a large solid object. Honestly I don't think there is any agro management at all, i think mobs tend to autofocus on any player character once fighting has started unless significant amounts of damage is applied to them by something else. Unfortunately your BO's tend to lack significant damage, One of the reasons why I loaded all of them with knockback weapons, at least half of the target mobs will be on their TRIBBLE and thus not running towards me while the BO's work up some damage.
While I appreciate the first two responses, I don't think you read my post.
I am setting up a focus target with y
I am standing far back and not doing anything at all, including trying to get out of line of sight.
when combat starts WITHOUT FAIL three or more NPCs barrell towards me an begin attacking.
I am not sure what to do, yes I play the klingon faction, but I play the alien custom race.
I decided to make all of my bridge officers klingon as an experiment, to see if they generate enough aggro to keep the enemy off of me.
Nothing seems to work and I am at a loss, I have to assume that the text on tooltips regarding aggro generation, or drawing fire are just blatantly made up, to give the illusion of tactics when the reality is there is no percievable threat mechanics running under the hood at all.
Well maybe one of the STO team could look into this, have what you are talking about looked into, after all, they are working on updating ground combat so now would be a good time.
I don't know about this game but in others i have played healing generates a lot of aggro, but healers usually have tools to reduce it just as tanks have tools to increase it. These mechanics seem to present in STO, but to a much lesser degree.
One thing i have noticed is that once i have died, if i order an officer to revive me i am usually ignored until i attack or heal again. This has allowed me to res up my team with almost 0 HP left and pull back a fight i was losing.
I have also noticed my my Sci captain "placate" skills don't seem to work very often or well.
It's been my experience that no matter where you are on the map, even if you send in your bridge crew and then run away to the other side, MOBs will run after you to attack regardless of if you were ever in range to be targeted by them.
BOFF's aren't effective as aggro catchers really, nor are they good as diversions. Hell, they are hardly effective at combat by themselves.
As Ravius said above me, you have to use Draw Fire.
It's the only way to keep aggro off of your character. I've had my character around the corner and behind an object and then ordered my BOs to attack only to have half the enemy group ignore them and run 50 meters and round two corners just so they could shoot me.
Give Draw Fire to one of your Tactical BOs. It's the only way to prevent from being focus-fired by Cryptic's stupid ground AI.
So my main is a klingon science officer, I had an idea he'd be a support type, in the back healing and debuffing on my ground missions.
I equipped one tactical officer with a batleth, and gave him draw fire and some melee skills.
my second dps boff is the breen tac officer, and hes a debuff/ grenader.
lastly I have an engineer that buffs shields and a back up medic that removes debuffs.
Combat typically goes like this:
I set an enemy mob as the focus target
klingon tac officer runs in batleth swinging
mobs all target me and run at me and start beating me senseless, I run around in a circle until some of them target the rest of my crew and then melee/shoot the remaining 3 or so until they die.
what am I doing wrong?
Bottom line is that you aren't doing anything wrong. Except for doing the focus fire to start combat. The best way to avoid aggro is to use a an ability which will put your BO's into combat stance. Shield Generator, Tricorder Scan, Support Drone, etc. or just get your BO's close enough to the spawn and they will aggro. The ideo is to spread the aggro around amound your and your BOs. If you cur loose with a snipe or run in as point man your are to be target for tonight.
Aggro is a somewhat complicated thing with a touch of randomness in Cryptic's engine. You can minimize or maximize aggro is you know a bit how it work. I have a section on Aggro in my Bridge Office Combat Guide. The link to my guide is in my sig below.
Comments
what am I doing wrong?[/QUOTE]
You are playing a Klingon.
If you were Betazoid (Federation) or maybe Orion, you might not draw as much attention with the healing. Let the bridge officers attack first also. And wait until they have aggro before going in. My main is a medical officer in Federation. I do not play like you are suggesting though, I attack and I worry only about healing myself. I let my doctor worry about healing and tending to the other bridge officers.
If solo, press T which pauses time, select one of the weaker enemies and press Y which will have all of your bridge officers target your target, focusing fire and click on your bridge officer abilities as well as your own, then press T resuming time.
If you are in a team with other players, do the same as above, but just be careful and quicker about it.
You make sure you take out the weaker enemies first, because they are quicker to take down and that means less number to deal with in less time when it comes to taking out the tougher enemies in the mobs.
Try to anticipate when you are going to get shot at and roll out of the way, avoiding damage as much as possible while also dealing as much damage as possible to one enemy at a time.
~D
I am setting up a focus target with y
I am standing far back and not doing anything at all, including trying to get out of line of sight.
when combat starts WITHOUT FAIL three or more NPCs barrell towards me an begin attacking.
I am not sure what to do, yes I play the klingon faction, but I play the alien custom race.
I decided to make all of my bridge officers klingon as an experiment, to see if they generate enough aggro to keep the enemy off of me.
Nothing seems to work and I am at a loss, I have to assume that the text on tooltips regarding aggro generation, or drawing fire are just blatantly made up, to give the illusion of tactics when the reality is there is no percievable threat mechanics running under the hood at all.
One thing i have noticed is that once i have died, if i order an officer to revive me i am usually ignored until i attack or heal again. This has allowed me to res up my team with almost 0 HP left and pull back a fight i was losing.
I have also noticed my my Sci captain "placate" skills don't seem to work very often or well.
BOFF's aren't effective as aggro catchers really, nor are they good as diversions. Hell, they are hardly effective at combat by themselves.
It seems just enough to keep the agro away, but its not 100% full proof, you just have to mitigate it with CC, Gravametric shift, Dampening Field
It's the only way to keep aggro off of your character. I've had my character around the corner and behind an object and then ordered my BOs to attack only to have half the enemy group ignore them and run 50 meters and round two corners just so they could shoot me.
Give Draw Fire to one of your Tactical BOs. It's the only way to prevent from being focus-fired by Cryptic's stupid ground AI.
Bottom line is that you aren't doing anything wrong. Except for doing the focus fire to start combat. The best way to avoid aggro is to use a an ability which will put your BO's into combat stance. Shield Generator, Tricorder Scan, Support Drone, etc. or just get your BO's close enough to the spawn and they will aggro. The ideo is to spread the aggro around amound your and your BOs. If you cur loose with a snipe or run in as point man your are to be target for tonight.
Aggro is a somewhat complicated thing with a touch of randomness in Cryptic's engine. You can minimize or maximize aggro is you know a bit how it work. I have a section on Aggro in my Bridge Office Combat Guide. The link to my guide is in my sig below.
I have also discovered that the engineer ability cover shield seems to work as a line of sight /aggro wipe.