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flickerstat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
And not just builds... I am talking about understanding the systems and how items and powers interact with eachother. Starting out with space combat. Right now I have the combat log parser and trying to get that down (no idea MPS means, btw). Also looking at the item bonuses and their definitions.
Any tutorials I can go through or really awesome documentation to get me out and running? Words of advice? I plan on being more of a fixture in here and learn from the best!
Any tutorials I can go through or really awesome documentation to get me out and running? Words of advice? I plan on being more of a fixture in here and learn from the best!
Post edited by flickerstat on
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Well there's a few threads to start with. You could watch some pvp videos as well to help give you an idea of how things work.
Ultimately though you have to get your feet wet.
When Mavairo comes back from his vacation, he is planning on writing a Basics Article, explaining things like Shield Power, Defense score, etc.
So much to learn.
Personally I prefer back and forward buttons on the throttle, very handy and you don't have to occupy your index click/middle finger with another button ;p
| Join Date: January 2009 | Computer | Fleet: Broken Wings |
I can find the defs and I have a good idea of what the skills will aid for the most part (specing out anything that is related to speed, turn, shield, hull, then weapons). What I am super interested in is the math behind those skills. Like by how much do they affect my character.
I will hit 50 soon enough. But on the way, might as well prep for PVPs.
He has a hot link to what each skill point actually does for your character, and bridge officer abilties in the table of contents of each thread. Should be titled something like "what each skill actually does for your character".
on a lot of things the best strategy is to just go for broke on what ever you want buffed. want EWP3 to give mad DOT? spec particle generators to 9 and slot as many particle consoles as you can. want your tet or polaron weapons proc buffed? do the same with flow cap. get as much mileage out of skill points as you can, the tet glider, leach and other draining skills are buffed by it along with those 2 weapon types. why not use as much as you can? focusing on to may things splits your skills and console space ip too much and makes you less effective at everything. its why i wouldn't be caught dead using torps.
links
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0Asu87Jb5VCBgdHFKbmdpZjlEMHk3YUhfNGRTbllNY0E&output=html - maxing energy weapons damage
http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm - the math you were wondering about
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/ - the respec saver
Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin
Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!"
/channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
A few tips:
- expect the level of your opponents to skyrocket at level 50
- trying to understand the math is one of the great STO sports! After every patch there is a chance some math got thrown off balance, and repeating a test of a skill is always interresting. So far, the pvp players appear to have a better grasp of sto math than the devs have!
- experience-experience-experience
- learn to love getting defeated
- learn to find out how you were defeated
- learn to accept being roflstomped by premades...
- always keep an open mind, never hold anything to be true. Last months dung can be flowers this month! (or maggots)
Yes. I've been running mousebutton 4-5 forever for speed changes. Works great! (and the same buttons for strafing on ground... I'll be at a loss if we ever get latteral thrusters...)
Euuu, Join OrganizedPVP instead. Sad Panda Cubs channel has bad advice and is deader than a dead panda. :P
Most of the pvp community rarely looks at the Cubs channel unfortunately so new and experienced info rarely shows up.
Aytanhi of TSI, TSI fleet founder and leader OrganizedPVP channel Admin
Feel free to ask me about PVP or starship strategies. "No, I am not Borg!"
/channel_join OrganizedPVP If you are interested in learning PVP, looking for a team, or a private match
Nah, you want OPVP, it's got a much bigger volume of people and it's impratial. I spent a few days watching the Panda Cub channel and it was dead. OPVP gives you a network of people that know what they're talking about AND take everything with a pinch of salt. Everyone in it knows what it feels like to win, but also how it feels to get roflstomped too.
@Aquitaine985
Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre.
2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
Pretty excited how cool everyone is on the PVP side of the forums. I think I'll be here for quite a while.
But yea, correct me if this plan doesn't sound good:
-Start queuing for PVP everytime I play
-Get basic equations down (we'll start with getting DPS numbers based on upgraded skills)
-Continue to read the forums for the latest consoles and weapons in use
-Copy at least one beam boat build to test out (I enjoy being a glass cannon but always enjoy being a support character)
-Continue researching all abbreviations and terminology
-Level up through Mirror and story missions
Simple enough for starters.
Sounds good, just want to add one thing:
- Learn how to make keybinds!
It is essential in pvp too free up as much of your attention as possible. You need it for your situational awareness. This means that any and all abilities that should be spammed ought to be activated by one key. Then you spam this key all the time. This is especially important for new players, so bind as much as possible; and then, as you get better control, you can start micromanaging.
Example of keybind, to be entered in chat window:
/bind 4 "+power_exec Distribute_Shields$$+trayexec 2 3$$+trayexec 2 4$$+trayexec 2 5$$+trayexec 2 6$$+trayexec 2 7$$+trayexec 2 8$$+trayexec 2 9"
This is a fairly large bind, that ties the following to your [4] key:
- Distribute shields
- Skill tray row 3, buttons 4-10
Then on row 3, buttons 4-10, you place your spammables. EPtoS, 2xTT, HYT, CRF and so on.
Bah you don't need complex keybinds. Especially in a game that has the reflex requirement of a brain dead sloth. The CDs in this game are LOOONG. All you need is efficient key placement for your bridge officer and captain skills.
Anytime everyone says "you need bind" I scoff abit inside. Cause I'm pure Manual Control. Practice, with skills on alternate placements. Instead of putting say apa on 1, put it on Q. Or Put Cannon Rapid Fire there. That way your hands never leave WASD. Which leaves your hand centered.
Binding leads to lazyness, which really hurts when people throw off your standard game plan. Just spamming the keys that have multi binds to them will not get you out of a tight spot, since it leaves you running the same old plan. Regardless of circumstance.
What do you people do when you play street fighter for cripes sake? Faceroll the controller and hope you get a combo?
Here I'll fetch a link to a post Mavairo made called Row Through.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=4364091&postcount=7
But there are lots of abilities wich will cost you nothing to bind, that should be fired as soon as they're off CD. Like your 2 copies of EPtoS and TT, and distribute. I'm not suggesting you throw TB, GW or SNB into the bind
And you can not have too much time for situational awareness. Following the buffs of your teammates and targets etc. There is more data to take in there for 10 people. One person can only pick up a small portion of it, and every split second he uses to check his own CDs is am opportunity lost to check someone elses buffs.
Also, trying to get the correct sequence of cycling 4 emp skills (such as 2 empts and 2 emptw) is nigh on impossible without binds, you'd have to literally do nothing but click the powers precisely every 15s while in combat.
This is why you memorize CDs if you are that paranoid about it.
Binding EPTS is also not as good of an idea as you might think since ability activation is still randomized, it Tends to activate left to right, in the sequence but it is not guaranteed. This isn't RIFT where you type things out in the order that you need em to fire off and then they do. This is STO developed by the LOLCryptic, where they can't even get FAW to work right 2+ years into the game, let alone their UI.
TT definitely shouldn't be on the bind, as there is a distinct Five Second Gap in Coverages. That's not good, that five second gap is often all it takes to pierce someone's defenses and rip them to pieces. There are also other times when you most definitely need to be throwing Tac Team to your allies rather than yourself, to keep them from dying.
Situation awareness is something you need to work on, regardless. SA is what keeps you from dying, and being able to determine what buffs to ramp up and who to give them to when the crunch is on.
For example lets say you bound all your buffs offense and defense (lets say TT, EPTS, CRF3, and 2) all to your space bar. Along with for craps and giggles Distribute Shields.
Your jamming away at a target, keeping yourself relatively protected minus that heinous five second gap (and it WILL come up with mere EPTS1 going.. That is so not what you want to have happen) and your buddy gets Sub Nuked. He needs a Tac Team. Everyone else has already burned theirs. And yours just fired off cause you smashed space bar at least one time too many.
Your buddy, naturally dies. Horribly.
Now lets try another situation, that is almost as bad. EPTS, activates in random order that first time. And then again, at any point where you stop smashing whatever key you have bound them too. You are coming into a heavy firefight. EPTS1 and 2 are both off CD. (and this does happen regularly in pvp, particularly when all available targets are dead. or at the start of a fight) Your EPTS1 is the one that activates. The Raptor, or Defiant off your port bow decloaks, and Bo3s you right through your mere EPTS1 power boost and it's resistance, and Tac team like a hot knife through butter. You instantly lose half your hull or worse Die.
Vs, having it on full on manual control. You rotate out EPTS1 as soon as you guys come into the combat zone. Doing the full impulse not full impulse routine, by the time you know your enemy is into position, your EPTS2 is ready to go, your static power bonuses are also near their respective highs. You wait for the sound of the decloak, immediately EPTS2 and TT springs up because like a smart person you've got em bound to a key nearest to your left fingers. You jam hard to the right or left, getting the maimed facing off before the worst of it can finish, TSS2 or 1 gets fired off, you swing back around and you live.
Not being able to control, which EPTS you have up at any point in time can be very problematic. Sometimes you want 1 going, just to keep power levels up, and a decent resist. Othertimes, you know you need that big one in the bag.
Now, ghosty you say "I could just fire off EPTS2 and not my space bar" (or whatever you bound epts to) Okay, lets say you do this. Now you are juggling between your Bind and Manual. This leads to more room for errors.
Also, with Complex Binds your enemy can and eventually will Read You, based on your smashing of binds. They fire off in the same sequence, over and over and over again. You can set a stop watch, or a complex timer (such as Wifeaggro) to time when your defenses will be at their lowest, as well as project between Tac Team gaps. They can also do this then with your DPS. You are essentially an NPC that flies better and does more damage.
Not only this, but Distribute shields gets Really Error Prone when bound to a space bar. It gets lost in the translation which gives your shield tanking even more gaps that are exploitable.
I routinely cycle through my entire teams buffs, and enemies buffs during a fight. I know 60 to 70 percent of the time, on my own when the Bad Stuff Is coming, or when the enemy defenses are going to be raised. The other percentages of the time my team mates can cover for me.
For my own buffs 90 percent of the time I know what is on CD, long before I even use the ability, I don't even look at my tray to see what is ready anymore. I know when my next major damage cycles are going ot be ready, and I can still adjust them on the fly in real time.
Now about the above with 2x EPTX skills. What exactly do you do with your CRFs and overloads? Just let them collect dust 15 second at a time? Also, you don't need 4 eptX skills. 3 is more than enough at this point to do the job admirably. freeing up an Ens, or Lt Spot easy for more heals, or more damage.
This is all stuff that a complex bind will not teach you in this game.
Now if this were RIFT, which has a true global cooldown system, and a myriad of very short cooldowns, and combo abilities, I would be championing the ingame macro system like you would not believe (particularly for Warriors), in RIFT, I use 7 different Macros and 4 independent abilities. I have enough macros to change for changing battlefield conditions and to 1-2 punch someone with combo abilities at the same time. This game on the other hand? is more than slow enough for you to be able to full on manual control it.
My best advice is get one mentor, listen to him and no one else for a while. Absorb all you can off him/her and then start to experiment or else you'll turn out like the captain of USS Tolerance (we all know who that is) who is famous for some of the most half baked self proclaimed superior build.
Also, what type of pvp are you after? 1 v 1 or my favourite, full blown premade 5 v 5 matches where the most skill is required. Where your true metal is shown an where legends are born
Reference getting a mentor of sorts, ask around for advice and i'm sure you'll be pointed in the right direction.
Usually thats why the Panda cubs channel is dead. Most of them are now in other pvp fleets or being mentored 1 to 1. Its a place to make first contact for help on pvp. OPVP can be daunting to new comers so the sad panda cubs channel is a type of safe zone for new starters where no question is a noob question.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
EPtoS: Well, I use RSP on most my builds, so if I have 2, I have two EPtos1s.
The whole thing about managing everything, memorizing to the nanosecond the timer of every buff you and your opponents are running, it's all well ang good. That's why in my original keybinds post wrote: I don't know about others, but for the first 6 months of STO, I could spend 100% of my attention managing my own buffs. When I finally started binding, my pvp performance skyrocketed. These days, I will tailor my binds with more discretion.
When I started, buff management was never an issue. I came off from playing RTS games which require the fastest reflexes of all games. (think doing 400+ actions per minute, this includes building new units, micromanaging existing ones, attacking defending, microing resource gatherers to take the most efficient path etc, researching the tech tree) And alot of fighting games at the time.
Even without that though, it's not terribly hard to keep up with an ability every 30 seconds, or every 15 seconds. heck you can count that out, or short count, and watch the timer if you had to. the game operates on, 15 second CD/15 Second Double cooldown. 30 second timer, 15 second shared cooldown. 45 second activation, 30 second shared cooldown, 1 minute activation, 45 second shared cd.
That's the bread and butter right there.
Then you have some more complexities that are easy to remember as they are all tac skills. Tac Team, 30 second cooldown, 10 second uptime. 15 second shared. See? not hard.
yeah, keeping counters running in your head for 30 abilities, no big deal? ow about also keeping track of your opponents abilities? Know how long before he can hit HE again... know when his RSF times out... etc. There are 100s of timers that are benefitial to know the status of. Personally, I may be able to keep precise track of 4-5, and a rough estimate (like a feeling) of 15-20 more. (And this is with 2-3 year of experience! At first, I could keep track of 1-2!)
EPtoS is an ability I generally want to spam as soon as it goes off CD, every second lost is lost efficiency. Why should I occupy one of the 4-5 precise slots in my memory of this, when it can be automated and the slot freed up for more constructive uses?
Any ONE ability you can remove from the equation, is one more ability you CAN keep track of.
That is what buff bars on your target is for.
You know for example HE has a 45 second timer. it has a 15 sec heal. when it's done there will be abit before he can pump it again.
You can do that with every buff and debuff in the game.
If I really want it to become foolproof I time my own buff rotation around theirs the first time to mirror it, to learn their sequence.
It takes time to learn yes. But that's time you are spending (about the same amount) learning either with complex binds or not. Complex binding though, opens up relatively large windows of complete vulnerability once people Read You. It also fails to teach you heightened SA, which leads to harder enemy buff and debuff tracking on your part.