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Death to the cruiser/Sci and T5s
armax
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Timers have completely destroyed the usefulness of cruisers and sci vessels (especially anything in T5), hell even the Odyssey for that matter. Seems like the Dreadnought Cruiser can still hang but that is about it on the cruiser line. Sure it is okay to get 1 cruiser/sci/T5 (unless it is an escort) but that is about it. Get any more cruisers in there and you won't beat the timer with normal players. Timers seriously need to be looked at. The last match I was in there were 2 Odyssey's, 1 sov and 2 escorts and we still couldn't beat the timer. This was on Federation Fleet Alert. The match before last same issue except there were two Sovereigns and 1 Sci, two escorts and we didn't win it. Got back in my escorted, dropped into a match that ended up with 3 escorts, 1 Odyssey and 1 Dreadnought, we still only beat the timer by 45 seconds. Yesterday 4 escorts ruled it missing 1 player who dropped when we started. I have been noticing this more and more, when I see more then 1 cruiser I am betting we can't win since 2 seem to be pushing it. Any more then 2 and it is almost 100% assured it is going to be a fail. Not sure if the cruiser just needs it's dps upped or if the timer needs to be pushed out longer but something needs to be done.
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And a well setup science vessel is invaluable, though having 4 or 5 might be a bit off. But having 4 or 5 of any one type is a bit unbalanced.
Now if it was to get a Fleet Version... Hint Hint... With an extra slot that comes with the Saucer/ Shotgun Lance? Can you say ownage? Make it for T5 Starbase? I will pay the price of 5 Oddies for that. Or just an upgraded Version of the Dread...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1) Teamwork and timing is #1
2) You cannot "Kirk It" in every ship
3) You are going to die, just get back up
What is a good cruiser?
Sci vessels are useless, seems carriers are the new Sci vessels. I never see a need for them in Elite and above.
3 cruisers and 2 escorts should be more then enough to finish an Elite STF or Federation Fleet Alert. Right now timers are forcing 3 or more escorts into every match. With 4 escorts and 1 cruiser you can dominate any Elite STF or Fleet Starbase mission. 5 Escorts can dominate most things. My fleet is now telling newer players to go Escort at T5 or they won't be getting into many of our fleet events since 2 cruisers in an event is a waist of time. Only exception to the escort rule is if you go carrier. Most players want to play a cruiser and they are not able to. Cruisers should be the mainstay of a Fed fleet but they no longer are.
Now I am not in a fleet cruiser yet but it looks like they are ramping up the Elite STF's and Fleet events to get ready for the fleet ships. Ramp up what you have now that way you don't have to make new STF's or missions. Not saying that is what they are doing but if I wanted to go cheap that is how I would do it....
Anectodal evidence to illustrate: 'been flying around on my fresh VA Eng today, in a MAC (nice ship, and supercheap on exchange, 'allowed me to spent my RA token on a RSV instead, basically 120k dil saved at less than 1M EC), still with pretty much all green Mk X items that I got her from exhange at level 40. No borg console yet, no active duty DOffs, just the basic BOff-layout. As I wanted to see how well my build worked and how far I am from STF-readiness, I had DPS-meter running.
'Got three Borg Red Alerts on my tour. Perfect opportunities to test. Each time, there was an Oddy in there, too, last one even a Tac in Tac Oddy.
Result: I out-dps'ed the first two Oddys by 50%, and the Tac by 20%. And of course tanked everything just fine, as that's what the ship is build for.
Right, I out-dps'ed THEM! In a crappy geared simple T5 ship. Versus geared C-Store ships. 20-50%!
In fact, I out-dps'ed everyone in all three encounters, even two VA Escorts.
That simply should not happen.
But it tells you what's really wrong with cruisers.
As for Science Vessels ... you're kiddin me, right? SVs, if build well, deal nearly as much damage as a cruiser, and they can buff the whole group's dps by a huge amounts with a well-placed Grav-well (setting up for AoE) or Tiken's (draining shields to non-existence).
But, again: this takes a bit of skill. If done wrong, you're indeed useless - a well played SV though can keep itself alive forever in PvE, carry its share of dps AND boost group dps.
Everything, but not useless!
It's just a lot harder to totally TRIBBLE up a Tac/Escort build - but, as already mentioned above, far from impossible.
'Doesn't mean that having more than one SV and Cruiser each is optimal, though. One cruiser that tanks is better than another Escort ... the second cruiser though WILL result in a loss of group effiency. The first SV buffs group dps further than you'd get by having another escort ... the second though reduces the damage to be buffed by more than the second set of debuffs makes up for.
... though that doesn't mean either that this makes PvE content impossible. Even 2 Cruisers and 3 SV can breeze through content, if they're played right. In fact, they'll still beat 5 Escorts that chain-explode as they lack a tank, which is quite a common sight, too.
My last pug was 5 escorts, and there was no need for a 10% rule on ISE, We blew everything in record time and it was over ridiculously fast. 1 Patrol escort, 1 MVAE, 2 Defiants, and a Raptor.
Take the same situation only make it 5 cruisers, which Ive done before in a pug, and forget making the optional, just pray you'll actually finish sometime that day. lol
That is the problem. An escort makes the difference no matter what group your with, no matter the number in the group, 1,2,3,4,5.
A cruiser or Sci ship. not the same can be said.
I see STO's current state as being ruled by Escorts and Carriers. The Armitage is the perfect Hybrid, that I have yet to buy, but will soon. I run 3 toons and wanted them all to play diferrently, but thats just adding to the grind by sticking them in a ship other then a EScort or Carrier.
True to a degree, but I would still take a skilled cruiser over a noob escort.
Case in point: I did a pug Infected Space Elite run. My pug teammates were 4 tactical officers. 3 escorts, and 1 cruiser. I asked we go for 10%. They didn't listen, but I wasn't too concerned - we should have plenty of dps, and at worst, we just fail the optional, right?
So 25 minutes later, it turns out I was the only one able to kill things (science/escort). The others were so badly built their dps was low in the first place, and they were dying before they could kill anything (naturally, the tac/cruiser didn't do any outside healing). With that kind of performance, by the time I was able to clear out most of the probes, with the others maybe helping out with 1 of them, the next group had already spawned and had already flew up to us. Eventually everyone just left.
A noob escort will do more damage than a noob cruiser (assuming they don't die too fast). But a skilled cruiser will do much more than that - more than enough even for elite STFs.
That is the same issue I am running into. Cruisers do not matter where as Escorts and Carriers do. If I see a SCI ship I just see waisted dps generally. A carrier can snare but still has great DPS and can take hits. Take a carrier over SCI anyday. Rather have escorts though. Problem with a SCI ship is you have to count on that SCI knowing exactly how to build and setup his ship. Not only that but when to use his skills. SCI ships take insane amount of skill to use. If you do a random elite STF generally you can assume that sci isn't going to be very good.
We did do a test to see if changing out the eng/cruiser to tac/cruiser made a difference and 3 of those cruisers with tac officers made a huge difference. Enough so we could beat Federation Fleet Alert with 3 cruisers. Put 3 Engineers in cruisers though and forget it. 2 eng/escorts and 3 tacs/cruisers can pull it off with about 40 seconds to spare. Now change that to 2 cruisers of any officer and 3 escorts.....NP! 4 escorts and a cruiser NP, 5 Escorts and it was soo easy it wasn't even funny.
Engineers are better in tac ships
Tactical are better in cruisers
SCI goes good in any ship but a SCI vessel. Great in carriers
This seems to be how it is going.
Gravity well a group of mobs, cruisers fly and warp plasma it, escorts CSV / torpedo spread it to death -> Repeat.
2 multivector escorts w/ engineers, 3 other escorts of any kind can dominate and beat any STF or event. No SCI ships needed, no cruisers needed.
I have run into that myself....there are some teams that are soooo freaking bad it doesn't matter what class/ships they are in.
Engineers are better in tac ships
Tactical are better in cruisers
SCI goes good in any ship but a SCI wessel. Great in carriers
This seems to be the way it is going.
count DPE
Cruisers get the job done
Did you read the post? the entire complaint is cruisers don't get the job done. I don't agree but you'll need more than five words to counter him.
What's DPE? I get DPS, DPV but not DPE. Damage Per Encounter? Irrelevant if the lack of damage extends the Encounter.
I've been in CSE with all Cruisers, walk in the park 5 minutes left on the clock, no deaths. Oh btw I stopped randomly PUGing ages ago. ISE and KASE are the same. Did a PUG recently on Normal... wow it's gotten so much worse.
Cruisers in Fleet Alert, awesome they can agro and survive the whole team allowing the escorts to hunt.
Escorts in Blockade on the other hand are near useless unless they can heal and knock back or slow the pursuers. But most are more interested in shooting down ships than protecting the Freighter.
While I agree this game could use a little more balancing, I don't think Cruisers and Sci ships are dead weight, the problem must be between keyboard and seat.
That being said Escorts are easy mode, and are still plagued with a glitch somewhere between the keyboard and seat.
If I ask you a question it is not an insult but a genuine attempt to understand why.
When I insult you I won't be discreet about it, I will be precise and to the point stupid.
An escort with an AVERAGE pilot is on target for 15 seconds per minute
An escort with a World class (pve master) pilot might manage 45 seconds
A cruiser can be on target for the full minute
You are so wrong, man i run every instance a dps parser and as a example im going to tell you that a average tactical captain in a escort can deal a impresive amount of damage that goes up of 5 mill while a average engineer in a cruiser can deal a modest amount of damage of over 2mill and of course in a cruiser with 3 tacts consoles and an average sci in a sci vessel can deal over 1.7mill and this is damage not dps during a infected space elite, the numbers speak themself, the more escorts you have the faster you do the job and biger chance of hit optional.
And if that engineer and sci captain where in an escort instead of a class ship they will improve the damage almost a 20% giving the group extra chance to hit the optional
As a conclusion damage is winer in pve enviroment due that fact groups of 5 escorts are going to be always on top of succesfully pve enviroment.
your total damage in an escort is totally unimportant
its always going to be less than the same captain would do in a cruiser
Cubes exploding after 12 seconds because it never had shields, groups of enemyships CCed in a small package for torpfun etc.
Same goes for cruisers.
A well played tankoptimized cruiser helps any damagedealer doing damage without needing to take care for defensive stuff.
In the end it comes down to this:
Any onesided groups usually lack performance, but 5 well players can handle anything with any ship in time.
Kyle
Kyle
This deserves a big LOL, so basically a tac officer is going to do more damage in a cruiser,
this is the most unreasonable affirmation i heard in a while, after that other of a World class officer can only sustain damage for 45 sec on his target, your the kind of people that even confronting them with the numbers still believe in fairy tales.
Btw a world class pilot is not found in pve enviroment, a world class pilot is a pvper with lots of experience in the matter that prolly put his ship in every combat in the most extreme situations that no exist in pve.
Fact is, I have been in great PVE actions with any mix of Sci, Cruiser, Escort... The current goal of most Elite STF'ers, is to see how quickly you can complete the optional.
The issue as I see it, is that the Borg's Dental Implants have been removed. They really have no real teeth anymore, so yes it is possible to just go 5 escorts, and record insanely low times to optional completion. (Best time on ISE, 9:46 left on optional -- https://dl.dropbox.com/u/48806442/ISE3.jpg)
To me that is too easy... there was a time, in this game, when you looked for a balanced team, and EACH had a role to play... Sci for crowd control/heal, Eng for tanking, and escorts for DPS. There was a time, when it was almost required. But, thanks to the constant nerfing, this isnt the case any longer.
Heck Khito Space used to spawn spheres with EACH probe wave from both sides... that took a balanced team to defeat... now 1 player can handle probes solo, leaving 4 to blow up 4 cubes, 16 generators, 2 transformers, and 2 gateways... without any additional attacking spawns until one of the gateways drops... and even then its only 2 spheres. Maybe 1 person has to help on probe duty then off to gateway destruction until 2 additional probe only spawns pass, then the next 2 spheres come out. Like I said, no teeth anymore.
I would like a return to the days where EACH class had a purpose, and you SOUGHT to have a balanced team... the days when you entered a match saw 5 escorts and immediately thought uh oh... instead of now... oh good, we'll complete faster (or worse when there arent a heavy escort load (like the OP says here), oh great, no optional.
Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....
if bad players fly escorts and can't tank...or take down a tactical cube in a reasonable amount of time thats not the mistake of the escort itself.
Many above average pilots can tank...or atleast stay at 9.9 km to keep aggro without dying, in an escort. I do, and i know atleast 10 more people that can.
My MVAE has 4 heals +2 tac teams...the tac teams alone make my shields nearly unpenetrateable. Also i have a repulsor for CC if nanite probes get too close (deals also a hell of dmg). my engi in the cruiser has 4 heals+2 tactical teams, and tanks any PVE content with eyes closed.
so my point is, that the pilot is the key factor, not the ship. But the fact is also, that current PVE content can be tanked even by escorts, ofcourse you need a PVP setup that is focused on suvival, or an engi pilot)
another fact is: cruisers have their place in this game, and so do sci vessels. But in my opinion it is much harder to be of use in a sci vessel than in a cruiser or escort, especially if the content is focused on timers that demand a heavily DPS oriented setup.
the new blockade event is a perfect example where sci vessels or cruisers perform excellent, if they use CC or tank incoming dmg on the freighters. (have to admit, it is a good designed event)
PS: don't answer to trollvax's posts...you are just feeding the troll.
That's been true for a very long time, and the worst example of it is STFs for sure.
I think the devs have pushed in the right direction with some of the new fleet events that let the other ship types shine (blockade for example doesn't actually require killing the enemy ships at all)
Or the teeth are too big and they way overshoot the mark like with Isometric charge.
Sure, you had to post one I wasn't there for. :P
I think Sci ships and Cruisers need a better position on STFs - but at the same time don't mistake the times we and other teams like us run for what constitutes an STF.
We've easily run those missions what, 1K times per STF possibly?
As I mentioned the fleet events have pushed in the right direction, they're a good start.
The truth, I think, is the balance point.
In order for them to have a PUG Queue that is completely balanced around 5 total strangers in any ship with any captain actually being able to complete the mission - the missions themselves can't overstress any specific role like tanking/healing/debuffs/cc.
In a game environment that does not stress those things for completion, you end up with what we have.
A lot hybrid ships and ultimately with damage being king.
That being said 1 really good sci ship can dominate half of blockade solo while the rest of the team either splits off or plays a support/clean up role (yes, even the escorts).
The sad reality of the game is that ever since it went to F2P all the complexity of science and engineering went down the toilet as the devs made the game into a stupid dps-centric experience.
Before F2P a science ship could kill with science as well as an escort did with weapons. Cruisers were masters of engineering skills and were incredible tanks and damage dealers. Escorts were the burst damage/positional damage ships... they did nowhere the amount of damage they do now but instead had the speed and maneuverability to attack a shield facing and keep hitting it hard and kill.
Now... with the DPS-centric changes... escorts rule over everything. They get the absolute best defenses, best damage, best speed, best everything except shield and hull stats...which is neigh since death means very little and escorts who keep up their speed and tac abilities active simply don't die.
The game will not go back to having a clear role for science ships and cruisers. Its a F2P game and the only thing they care about is selling garbage on the zen store. Garbage is easier sold to dps-centric players.
That said, there's so much wearing down of huge, dumb (or in some cases, completely passive) targets that damage output is still the most valuable thing to have in STFs. Because of that, the more Escorts you have, the more capacity you'll generally have to cover a weak player. It's also a lot easier to build and fly a good DPS-spec Escort than a good tank or good Science vessel (at least in my opinion anyway). So nearly any eejit should be able to throw a decent Escort together and fly it more or less correctly once they've been enlightened about weapon selection and rainbow beams.
The only thing that'd fix this is an NPC redesign, imo. All the Borg can come up with at the moment to seriously threaten a player (unless some's done a Leeroy Jenkins and is totally overwhlemed by Borg ships) is ridiculous critical hits, which, quite correctly, btw, had to be toned down because they were such obnoxious 1 hit kills. So now there's not a whole lot, which means doing a mission with 5 ships of the theoretically least durable class is a non issue, even with the extended respawn timer. What the NPCs need is more abilities and more sustained (not spike) DPS so it's harder to hang in a fight with them without some help.
As for the Fleet missions, imho, Starbase Blockade is the only real improvement in terms of non-DPS ship viability. I find a Sci ship a superior choice to an Escort on Blockade, although both still work fine. Yeah, a Carrier is better, but not everyone is a Klingon or has 20 quid for an Atrox. Haven't got around to trying my Cruiser in it yet.
Fleet Alert and Fleet Defense seem set up for DPS-centric ships to me. I've not tried NWS since it went live.
It is not a change, it is just the base of STO combat system like you can see it in all the MMO.
When a target have the same potentiel in combat with 100 % of his HP (or structure points or other things like this) and 1 % of his HP : the only way that count is DPS. You have to kill it quick, absolutly no interest to have a target exhausted or something like that cause it can deal 100 % of his potential damage.
Scientists are useless cause :
- a team of 4 tactics and 1 scientist dont deliver more DPS than a team of 5 tactics (in fact the first team deliver less).
- 4 tactics in a team dont survive more with the help of 1 scientist cause tactics can survive by themselve.
Cruiser are useless cause :
- the system is based on DPS and a cruiser dont play in that register.
- an escort is actualy better to survive in a fight than a cruiser cause of defense stat that rules the game and the movement capacities and escape capacities of the escort.
If you want to see some change you have to think a new game where :
- the better escort never survive longer that the worst cruiser. In fact it is harder to sink a carrier than a zodiac except in STO world.
- make cruiser what they are : a weapon plateform who can be adapted in combat to their target and can supportb a long fight.
- make escort what they are : little ship who can deliver good damage if they are in number (not alone or in duo) ; not adaptative and unable to support a long fight.
every single point you brought up is absolutely right. Excellent comment. But i highlighted the ones most important for everybody to see.
Kyle
Kyle
there are maybe a couple of dozen out there
and none of them wants to fly a pug