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Photonic Shockwave Nerf
brokenmirror2012
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
While, yes this nerf was needed. I think it was given too much. Possibly restore maybe 40% of the nerf? Because this was a very very large drop to shockwave. (Making it useless like every other sci skill in STO) Fully setup with partical gen + Consols my shockwave 3 only gets 4k dmg down from 12k. And the disable is very short. Maybe a 40% damage boost. and Add 2 seconds to all the shockwaves disable duration.
A nerf was needed, but it wasnt needed this bad!
A nerf was needed, but it wasnt needed this bad!
Post edited by brokenmirror2012 on
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Got to agree with this. Tac is now about 3000 times better than sci. They started out about equal, but all the crying got sci nerfed to oblivion.
Amoung the other skills that need boosts.
Gravity Well
Charged Partical burst
Energy Syphon
Tkyns Rift
Photonic officer
Science Team
Scramble Sensors
That is... almost every science skill... -_-
Atleast keep science as a valid class. Youve already made sci ships impossible. they are even useless in pve, dont make me start with pvp.
Then your hull is most definitely weak, and your KDF opponent got incredibly lucky. PSW deals kinetic damage, which means if there is even 1 shield point on a face, you'll only receive 25% of the total damage. And yes, while 100k crits with PSW are possible, it can only be done by stacking every single buff a tac officer has into a single attack...and even then, it's not guaranteed. And since every single Fed ship has at least 30k hull (after even a little skill investment), I'm going to say you're full of it.
PSW III was balanced within the game. Was this due to a bug? Yes, but by fixing the bug and ignoring the resulting imbalance, they have screwed over a large amount of science captains who rely on it do deal damage. If you complain about the KDF being able to abuse it due to BoPs, then that is an issue with a subset of vessels, and NOT the skill itself. Otherwise, you may as well complain about Attack Pattern Alpha, for all the damage that allows KDF cloakers to deal.
They should have fixed the bug, and increased the base damage to keep the skill balanced. They chose not to, and now science doesn't have a damage dealing skill to slot, which means science really only has one good commander-level skill in Viral Matrix III. Just because tac captains can abuse it doesn't mean you nerf the skill for the rest of us.
I wouldn't call Viral Matrix a "good" skill, since it is countered with engineering team, a skill any self-respecting cruiser captain should have. I see a lot of sci's using gravity well, but the cooldown on that takes forever.
I don't think we have anything nice anymore.
And tact captains can effectively abuse everything in STO. High yield torpedos critting for 40k each. High yield TCDs hiting for 140k.TCD spread each TCD doing 60k dmg, CRF where Cannons can do 10k Crits. CSV where u can AOE 7k Crits, TBR where u can megaspike, Viral matrix can disable engines, open to be pwned. Directed Energy Modulation, can get it to do 500 damage a shot. And PSW is only abusable by a tact captain every 3 minutes. excuse me, was. Now it is as useless as every other sci ability
Sci abilitys iz so useless i fly my bugship with 3 engineering boffs.
Reminds me of the PvP I had yesterday, the games gone completely overboard with imbalances. Some abilities too good, others too weak. And combinations........oy vey.
Given how the games evolving, the Dev Team really need to sit down and once again reassess the game, especially if they are serious about revamping PvP. Because the way it is now, people aren't going to return.
The power had a skill multiplier that apparently was bugged, in that the bonus from skill investment was being applied twice. This meant that the skill, while balanced in terms of the game, was open to a "fix."
From what I gather, and from myself personally, no one is decrying Cryptic fixing something that is technically broken in terms of how something should be functioning within the code. However, everyone is royally pissed off because the power *was* balanced, and as such did not require the fix if the devs were not going to take the extra time required to bump the base damage levels up to compensate.
Instead, they rushed the "fix" to Tribble, where it sat for a couple days amidst a roar of disapproval from players, and then it was sent to Holodeck despite the protests of said players. So really, the entire thing could have been resolved by the devs saying "we don't have time to go back and balance this power, so we're just going to not waste our time pushing this fix."
They didn't, so now science is now an even bigger joke than it was before. Cheers, Cryptic! Proverbial straw has been struck down!
PS
Yeah its kind of an angry rambling rant, but when 2 characters have their main guns (backed by expensive purple-12 consoles) stripped of 60% of their offense, I'm allowed to be frustrated.
Viral matrix is good but its impossible to base a build around. I switched out of a bird of prey because this nerf made birds of prey useless compared to the seige destroyer. Whats a unique bird of prey build. Cdr Sci LTC tact. Only ship that can do it. Well.. Useless now!
Hay cryptic why dont u nerf whats left of viral matrix and jam sensors, that will get rid of ANY use of science skills in STO -_-
'boo hoo, i got killed by a sci. I should be able to throw attack pattern alph,m beta, cannon rapid fire three, tac fleet and melt sci in five seconds. It's not fair that sci can fight back with their holds and placates..'
So they got nerfed to the useless state they are in today. Then, one by one, the other sci powers that were useful got nerfed too. Then came the changes to ground.
Before x-fire or whatever it was called ground used to be completely different. It was built around expose and exploit. Exploits did huge damage, while normal attacks were survivable. So sci kits, with all their expose abilities were useful. Now dps is all that counts.Other than med kit, which is not that usefull anyway, sci is useless for ground too.
Sci might as well not be in the game now. They are pointless.
too true. But a good sci on ground can put out major DPS. Or tank a tact, or 2 tacts. (nothing can tank an engineer, Its impossible, Transphasic bomb will do 2k right thru ur PSG, while ur rooted for 10 seconds, and u cant e ur weapom for 24-35 seconds.) Cryptic SCIENCE USED TO BE BALANCED! Pre c-store all classes were = to eachother. Subnuke needs a nerf, (nonchainable) then every other skill needs a boost (except dampening field and Viral matrix)
For PvE using a CPB should do a lot more base damage when fully spec'd w/skill point investments and consoles and deflector. For example, CPB3 should be able to strip any NPC escort of shields when fully spec'd while resist skills could greatly reduce that and still do a decent amount w/e that line may be. If a new mega ship w/6 sci consoles gets rolled out they could then adjust the curve so it's the new top dog in just 1 place.
That said AoE Sci abilities, espcially in PvP, either need to be weak to moderate, or it needs a huge Ace Beam/RSP type cooldown and not have the cooldown reducable via doffs etc. If you want a GW where no ship can escape the event horizon of the GW for say 20 seconds, it needs a huge cooldown.
On the otherhand there should be stronger single ship drain options. Tach Beam is too weak of a skill to effect only 1 ship for example. ES is ok for gain, but could use better drain for a single target skill. Other debuffs are solod. VM is ok, though ET doesn't always seem to clear it (maybe it's a doff effect lingering). TB is ok.
But again none of that kind of balance tuning is possible until they have a proper infrastructure, so a Dev doesn't need to spend hours on what should take seconds to change.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
In the begging there were tactical captains flying escorts dealing tons of DPS with all their attack patterns. They tried to squeeze more by using skill like emergency power to weapons and direct energy modulation. Instead of giving themselves heal and debuffs they went all DPS. The science captain made the difference in being able to negate the DPS with its trick of placates, holds, and other talents. the complaint began because the the all might tac could not bring down a simple science captain of engineer. Then came Crytpics and players love of the cruiser. We can't nerf the staple of Star Trek so the ability of the cruiser captain was never nerfed. Science captains got the shaft because the DPS dealers could not handle being killed because of there poor ship build. There is alway something that is over powered it is the nature of game design. It is up to devs and player to point them out. Here is how it should be. A well built captain of any ship type should be able to handle each other, it should come down to the player and chance of crits. The cruiser should be able to tank, the escort should be able to deal the damage, and the science captain should be able to counter and do there tricks with limited healing. Now in order to stay in the game the science ship is had to become a tank because of the raw DPS in the game. If anything needs to be nerfed it is DPS. Like I said a well built ship should not be able to beat the other types as long as they are built right too. Give them there abilities back so they can do what they need to. Gear the game around the three of them working together.
Here is another foul this game has. STFs are so DPS driven. It is so easy for five escort to handle them but five science ships fail optional to much. You should be able to accomplish the optional no matter what type of team you have. This is another reason why game balance should be fixed and STFs should not be DPS driven.
When you create a character, it tells you that Science Officers are supposed to hold, disable and expose enemies. Which is what they did before all their abilities got nerfed. Except a thousand nerfs later we can't hold or disable enemies anymore. Which is why I was using PSW3 in the first place. It was a good damage skill, and as such it was better than any other skill I could have used at commander-level. I can prove it point by point:
Charged Particle Burst 3 - meager shield damage even with maxed particle generators.
Energy Siphon 3 - only useful for all-power drain builds, which are less successful now that plasmonic leech got nerfed.
Feedback Pulse 3 - ability is of minor use to a threat control build, but even then you wouldn't waste a commander-level ability slot for it.
Photonic Officer 3 - completely useless skill since the cooldown takes too long. You can't chain multiple copies of it because they all go on full cooldown when you use any one copy.
Tractor Beam Repulsors 3 - No. Just no. This skill is only useful in some very rare scenarios, and even then I wouldn't waste a commander-level ability slot on it. I don't understand why its not an Ensign/Lieutenant/Lt. Commander ranked ability.
Scramble Sensors 3 - This skill might be useful if Countermeasure Systems wasn't a 5th tier skill requiring 3000 skill points for each rank. At that tier, you have more important skills to max out, so I don't think anyone would ever use this. It's also PvE centric, since players will attack you anyway, no matter what color your targeting box looks like.
Tyken's Rift 3 - Meager damage. It would be useful for power drain builds if it didn't share a cooldown with Energy Siphon (which is stupid).
Gravity Well 2/3 - Useful in PvE, not very in PvP. The pull isn't strong enough to hold a player down. It only works in PvE because the AI always seems to move at quarter-impulse and doesn't use Evasive Maneuvers. It also shares a cooldown with Energy Siphon and Tyken's Rift, which is stupid.
Photonic Shockwave 2/3 - This used to do good damage. The "disable" is actually a stun and doesn't shut subsystems down.
Viral Matrix 2/3 - Possibly the only good skill we have left. It is great in PvE because NPC's never seem to bring Engineering Team. Players do though, but you can get around that with a Subnucleonic Beam/Viral Matrix combo. However you can only do that once every 3 minutes, so good luck with that.
We need abilities that hold, disable and expose. Sci ships don't do DPS or Tank. The entire point of our existence is to take an outside-the-box approach to combat, and interfere with our opponent's ability to fight, giving our own weaker ship an advantage. We just can't do that anymore! So as has been said, Cryptic needs to sit down and go over all our abilities and rebuild them so we can fuction properly as a Starfleet Career.
escorts and cruisers both out dps and have more hull then sci ships, that leaves shields... ever1's running 2+ field generators now so the console nerf f'ed that advantage.
since season 5 there've been science nerfes non stop while
tacs are running around with +150% from consoles now, add almost that again from skills
cruisers have like >50% hull resist and 12k shields
yes i can see how that makes total sense... if u'r planing on having only tacs and engies play the game!!!
But I remember a time, back in Season 2 or 3, when I would see a team of 5 Intrepid's destroy my cruiser without a second thought. Now I laugh them off.
Now I've been considering melting down my sci character(s) for those valuable character slots to be more tacs or engineers. Shame it is.
Matthew@Matthew486DX -> Eng Lvl 60
FAW/Tank: Tactical Oddyessy T5-U, Tank/Heal Science Oddyessy T5-U, DPS Cruiser: A2B Battlecruiser T5-U, DPS/Debuff Tholian Recluse T5-U
Fleet Admiral: Angry Tribbles
Science abilities had their own damage type. Gravity Well/Tyken/Charged Particle Burst used to have 'anomaly' and 'exotic' damage damage types. This damage could not be resisted by ship consoles or bridge officer abilities however it COULD be negated by the use of science team and in the case of the anomalies (tyken/grav well) the player could apply engine power or any speed boost and simply escape the damage source.
Feedback pulse used to bypass shields altogether.
Energy Siphon used to be somewhat stackable with itself. Siphon 3 would last for X seconds and the global timer was X-10 seconds. Thus you could have siphon 2 and 3 effects active for about 10 seconds in between cycles.
Photonic Officer has always been a FUBAR ability.
Tractor Beam Repulsors- the higher the tier the stronger the hull damage... post f2p it was nerfed so the 1 version was as damaging as the 3 version for all practical reasons. Back then you did NOT want to be repulsored by a III ...your hull would be wrecked.
Scramble Sensors- pre-F2P the scramble effect lasted longer and was not 'worn off' by the target taking damage (like jam sensor would). Post F2P it was turned into its current deplorably useless state due to the endless cries of jemhadar ship owners whining they were being permanently scramble-sensor'd and couldnt shoot... despite the fact that a single science team wouldve healed it off. Waste a boff slot for science team? NO said the bug ship owners. And so it was nerfed.
Tyken's Rift- Exotic damage, weak tractor pull, excellent drain amount.
Gravity Well- Very good damage (anomaly/radiation), very strong tractor pull (player ships literally were sucked into the center and KEPT there unless they switched full power to engines or used evasive maneuvers or aux to dampeners).
Viral Matrix- used to shut down the entire ship at once for like 15 seconds. It was that good. Imagine the whines and wenching the escort captains brought about when they would be forced to use science team to counteract it.
The dumbing down/nerf of all science abilities happened AT the F2P patch. All science abilities that did damage were idiotically changed to Kinetic. Thus, NPC's and players could just stack kinetic resists and laugh at science ships.
(oh hey.. just like today).
Sci ships also got their shields nerfed..BADLY.
I'm not kidding when I tell you that pre-F2P patch it took four escorts working together to bring down my tier 5 nebula. The shields were very strong and attacking a science ship was something to be done with great care since a sci ship could literally pull a whole bag of nasty tricks.
Cruisers used to be high damage dealers and excellent tanks.
Escorts never had anything close to the dps they have now. Back then the escort was rightfully a VERY fast and mobile ship packing almost as much firepower as a cruiser...and their job and role was to be able to attack the weak shield facing and PUNCH it hard.
I remember flying my escort in PVE and cruisers actually announcing they were about to fire a beam overload so my ship would be ready to follow up with the deathblow spike damage on that shield facing.
Today? LOL... just click a few buttons and vomit insane DPS on whatever shield facing happens to be pointed at me. The damage I do is so ridiculously high anything it hits will be torn to shreds. Today cruisers have the worst DPS and science ship in a team make you wonder WTF is this ship doing here taking up a slot better occupied by an escort.
but hey at least we have lock boxes!!!
Now and then, me and my fleet mates do some private pvp matches either to have fun or to test out builds and specs.
On ground, hell, if it weren't for stasis field or tachyon harmonic i'd never get to scratch my opponents' HP bar.
On space, god save the sci.
Before F2P i used to feel like i HAD a role in whatever team i was, but now....
Lets look at STFs. You all know donatra, right?
The fact the donatra cloaks with her HUGE scimitar, right?
Well, my fleet mate could see her with just putting the power to auxiliary and using emergency power to aixiliary.
Me? well, i couldn't see her not even with all power to auxiliary, omega deflector, sensor scan and sensor probes mk X very rare. Unless i went right into her mouth at 0km from her.
The proof of how things have changed stays in my officers:
they once used to have skills like scramble sensors, photonic shockwave, gravity well, tyken's rift, viral matix.
Now they just have science team, polarize hull, hazard emitters, transfer shield strength and on i have mask energy signature (useless, unless to hide from NPCs now and then when going afk in mission or STF)
Also, look at the recent additions.
Regent class, a ship only engineers or tacts (tho i have a standard assualt cruiser myself).
Armitage class, a ship for whiney tacts which complain about the lack of carriers on the FED side.
And then? The vesta class gotta be good, or else it will just demonstrate that PWE doesn't give a d*** about us science players.
What about the KDF also?
The only way the KDF can have REAL science ship is by buyng them, infact i got a phalanx and a varanus myself to actually feel to be a sci and not a tact while playing my gorn....