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Recluse's unique fighters do not impress me
momaw
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
This is end-game PVE, just to provide the context. I don't care about PVP and I don't care about PVP balance. It's a mistake to try and balance the same items for PVE and PVP when the enemies engaged are completely different in capabilities and behavior.
That said, here's the first reason why the Widow does not impress me: They have quantum tubes.
The huge majority of your fighter wing's contribution in damage comes from their torpedoes. Fighters do not have high weapon power or weapon skills, which means their cannons and beam arrays do utterly negligible damage. In my last battle, I was running Peregrine fighters and literally 89% of their damage was done by their photon torpedoes.
Quantums have lower DPS than photons.
Therefore: the Recluse's unique fighters do less damage than non-unique off the shelf fighters you can buy for 3000 credits. This is not theory-crafting: I have analyzed many battle records running Peregrines and Widows, and the Peregrines always do better by a respectable margin; about the same margin by which photon DPS is higher than quantum DPS which shouldn't surprise anybody.
Now, you might argue that the Widows have a special console that benefits them and ONLY them, so, that's why they're a little weaker. It balances out right?
This is not true. Or rather, they do have a special unique console but:
The second major reason Widows do not impress me is that is that tetryon grid is rubbish. Attached to a 2 minute cooldown, this flaky and unreliable thing is a one shot attack that scatters tetryon beams across all targets. Maybe. Depending how many fighters it feels like involving. Didn't we already establish that fighters do almost no damage with their energy weapons? Using the tetryon grid increases their real-world damage output by a negligible amount. It is not worth equipping.
So you have a unique ship with unique fighters and a unique console (which is, itself, a unique situation) and they're actually worse than stuff available for peanuts. Way more style, but style points don't count for much when there's irate spheres drifting in your direction. There is no reason whatever to use this ship's "canon" hangar bays unless you like the way they look. I see this as a problem.
To that end, I would actually recommend improving the *console* rather than the fighters. Widows being slightly worse than Peregrines is fine by me, IF their power can be brought up to par by the use of the specially designed system for increasing their power i.e. you pay a console slot.
Suggestions:
0.) Forget the "reflect beam at random targets" thing. Fighter beams do nearly pointless damage, spreading it out just makes it more pointless.
1.) cause the fighters to emit a meaningful high damage pulse, like Beam Overload, aimed at your specific target. Perhaps 2000 damage per fighter.
2.) reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds instead of 120. This is not a special-purpose tactical tool, it is a general-purpose attack which this carrier was literally designed around, and needs to have a reasonable cooldown so we can actually use it.
3.) cause the player's ship to lose weapon power, as if they had used Beam Overload. Because basically they did, the energy just went into the fighters instead of out your own weapons.
The end result is a hypothetical best case scenario (all fighters alive and within range, ability used non-stop) of +400 DPS for your fighters and -N DPS for the carrier while you recover your weapon power for a few seconds every time you use it. Which would make them about as good as Peregrines, with superior anti-shield capability due to the console which you must spent a slot to equip, but reduced anti-hull capability due to the lower fire rate on their quantum torpedo.
Edited to add pictorial evidence:
Exhibit A (LINK) shows the relative damage of Peregrines versus Widows.This is a real-world test on the mission Infected Space Elite. I had 1 hangar of each fighter type and kept them both cycling every time they were off cooldown. I have verified that no other players were using these kinds of fighters.This is a direct comparison of damage output in "real" practical conditions.
Exhibit B (LINK) shows the utterly meaningless damage added by Tetryon Grid. The Widows literally did many times more damage to the enemy by exploding on them, than they did with Tetryon Grid.
That said, here's the first reason why the Widow does not impress me: They have quantum tubes.
The huge majority of your fighter wing's contribution in damage comes from their torpedoes. Fighters do not have high weapon power or weapon skills, which means their cannons and beam arrays do utterly negligible damage. In my last battle, I was running Peregrine fighters and literally 89% of their damage was done by their photon torpedoes.
Quantums have lower DPS than photons.
Therefore: the Recluse's unique fighters do less damage than non-unique off the shelf fighters you can buy for 3000 credits. This is not theory-crafting: I have analyzed many battle records running Peregrines and Widows, and the Peregrines always do better by a respectable margin; about the same margin by which photon DPS is higher than quantum DPS which shouldn't surprise anybody.
Now, you might argue that the Widows have a special console that benefits them and ONLY them, so, that's why they're a little weaker. It balances out right?
This is not true. Or rather, they do have a special unique console but:
The second major reason Widows do not impress me is that is that tetryon grid is rubbish. Attached to a 2 minute cooldown, this flaky and unreliable thing is a one shot attack that scatters tetryon beams across all targets. Maybe. Depending how many fighters it feels like involving. Didn't we already establish that fighters do almost no damage with their energy weapons? Using the tetryon grid increases their real-world damage output by a negligible amount. It is not worth equipping.
So you have a unique ship with unique fighters and a unique console (which is, itself, a unique situation) and they're actually worse than stuff available for peanuts. Way more style, but style points don't count for much when there's irate spheres drifting in your direction. There is no reason whatever to use this ship's "canon" hangar bays unless you like the way they look. I see this as a problem.
To that end, I would actually recommend improving the *console* rather than the fighters. Widows being slightly worse than Peregrines is fine by me, IF their power can be brought up to par by the use of the specially designed system for increasing their power i.e. you pay a console slot.
Suggestions:
0.) Forget the "reflect beam at random targets" thing. Fighter beams do nearly pointless damage, spreading it out just makes it more pointless.
1.) cause the fighters to emit a meaningful high damage pulse, like Beam Overload, aimed at your specific target. Perhaps 2000 damage per fighter.
2.) reduce the cooldown to 60 seconds instead of 120. This is not a special-purpose tactical tool, it is a general-purpose attack which this carrier was literally designed around, and needs to have a reasonable cooldown so we can actually use it.
3.) cause the player's ship to lose weapon power, as if they had used Beam Overload. Because basically they did, the energy just went into the fighters instead of out your own weapons.
The end result is a hypothetical best case scenario (all fighters alive and within range, ability used non-stop) of +400 DPS for your fighters and -N DPS for the carrier while you recover your weapon power for a few seconds every time you use it. Which would make them about as good as Peregrines, with superior anti-shield capability due to the console which you must spent a slot to equip, but reduced anti-hull capability due to the lower fire rate on their quantum torpedo.
Edited to add pictorial evidence:
Exhibit A (LINK) shows the relative damage of Peregrines versus Widows.This is a real-world test on the mission Infected Space Elite. I had 1 hangar of each fighter type and kept them both cycling every time they were off cooldown. I have verified that no other players were using these kinds of fighters.This is a direct comparison of damage output in "real" practical conditions.
Exhibit B (LINK) shows the utterly meaningless damage added by Tetryon Grid. The Widows literally did many times more damage to the enemy by exploding on them, than they did with Tetryon Grid.
Post edited by momaw on
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pre-breaking the AI both ToDuj and Birds of Prey (back then there was no atrox) would hit HARD on one shield facing, swing around as a group and hit that damaged shield again.
Now.. lol.. they just pile on top of the ship being stupid.
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What would improve the playability of pets would be the ability to choose the equipment the pets use, like we chose the equipment on our ships. If the widows were allowed tu use dual cannons, they would be really more interesting. Then we would choose our pets on different stats: turnrate, hull points, special abilities, etc, instead of the TRIBBLE they come with.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
1afther this patch i have notized that the pet finaly get the firepower from ~to Duj fighters, so they finally become usless, but dont forget you still have a great carrier the best ingame, and have still the option to use high end pets like slavers or interceptors so who cares on the crapy widow.;)
Combat Log Parser. It's hard to find because it's not on Sourceforge anymore but there's links around the forum if you dig.
Heh. In my testing, Advanced To'Duj do less damage than the normal ones for the same reason that Widows do: they have quantum torps instead of photon, quantum have lower DPS, and the huge majority of your fighter's damage comes from torpedoes. BOPs do way more damage than the fighters in total due to their crazy torpedo volleys but they're a bit unwieldy because of their love of flying in circles while plinking with their turret. For damage output on KDF side your real choice is between B'rolths for maximum destruction but poor control, or standard (photon) To'duj for reliably and easy to control spam.
What would you say an "improved" Widow should have? Just teaching them High Yield and Beam Overload would probably help enormously. Having variations/levels of Widows wanders into the strange situation of having your faction's scientists improving an alien ship design way beyond what the aliens could accomplish, which doesn't really feel right and takes some of the mystery and uniqueness out of the thing.
They would still be terrible? Problem #1 is that pets have minimum weapon power and skills, so any weapon they use will be running at minimum damage output. Problem #2 is that with the tiny arc of dual cannons, they'd barely ever fire the things as they buzz around. If we're going to modify the fighter itself, just triple the damage on its beam array and it'll be fine.
Which still leaves the tetryon grid console as being rubbish...
Kyle
It has more hull, shield, turns and flies faster, has more BOffs slots, and more console slots then the Atrox or Vo'Quv. The only thing The recluse doesn't have more of then those two is crew; However, crew only lasts as long as the first death unless you want to wait 2min+ for the crew to regenerate. The Vo'Quv refit comes closer to matching the Recluse, but still doesn't parody it. So in all three cases it's a moot point.
There is no real parody in the free Vo'Quv(tier 4 free), it's refit(tier 5 pay), or the Atrox (tier 5 pay). The recluse _already_ starts out in a tier above other paid for ships.
I think the fighters are not there to make you happy, they're there to make sense for a neutral ship not having faction specific fighters!
Quantums do have a lower DPS but their spike damage is much greater than Photons and if you drop the shields of your opponent they will deal a LOT more damage to them then Photons will. Quants are some vicious torps and they are preferred for a good reason.
Also you are likely failing to account for the fact that Peregrines Phaser Proc like MAD. This means they drop enemy shields all of a sudden which gives them massive damage advantage when they hit with their torps.
In general I find that while the Recluse has some nice stats as a ship, its BOFF layout is a bit iffy to me, and its inability to use more specific fighters (because a Carrier in all honesty is only as good as its fighters) like the Advanced Stalkers (You think Tachyon Drones drain shields? Pfffft!) or the Kar'Fi's beasties make it inferior on both sides. So for around $200.00 that it takes to get the thing depending on your luck, it is certainly not worth the price tag compared to the tough and reliable Atrox or the Beast of Gre'thor the Kar'Fi.
Case'n'point: I have yet to have a Recluse out perform my Atrox in any battles I have run. They deal less damage, they have a harder time stripping shields, and they just cannot seem to keep themselves alive as well. They can out turn me but that seems to make very little if any difference so far.
Preferred by players, who use maneuver and timing to get them through shields, in conjunction with torpedo tactical abilities to increase this opportunistic damage. AI pets do not aim for weak shields or wait for shields to go down, nor (in this case) do they have any tactical abilities for their torpedoes.
Except I can run Peregrines and Widows side by side, where the Widows have just as much chance of benefiting from a dropped shield, and the Peregrines still come out solidly ahead.
The point here isn't to argue about the overall power of the Recluse, I'm specifically interested discussing the fighters and their console. They are a single unit. Somebody tried to say that the unique console was a selling point: the console only works with one unique kind of fighter, and that fighter does not perform as well as ordinary ones either with or without that console. Since the Recluse can carry any kind of fighter, and since the ones it comes with are below average, they are not worth using and might as well not exist unless you really like the way they look (which is, admittedly, awesome).
Just imagine if your Atrox's Stalker fighters had half the power they do now, and came with a console that let you make them make one extra shot every two minutes... Wouldn't you feel kind of disappointed? Wouldn't you feel that one of your ship's unique features was basically pointless?
By the way, try to slot a wing of stalkers in your recluse - if you have one, and let me know the results. It might not be what you expect. A bug? Yes! You can do this since day 1 of the Recluse. So you have no reason to complain. If you love that much your (poor) stalkers, just equip your recluse with them, since when Cryptic fixes a bug, they never reverse the damages it made.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Which has stopped me buying the Naucassian ship that has the ship console, it's pretty useless now. +1 power drain/boost, oh wow! :rolleyes: Not worth the 1000 Zen anymore.
Yeah that maintenance was a huge mistake, including the no in-game warning with many people kicked right in the middle of missions, STF's etc.
Personally, I never saw the point of carriers. They seem like a nifty idea, but those small fighters always seemed to be more of a distraction than any real threat. Then again, it's a completely different play style compared to mine, so I suppose that in the right hands, fighter pets can be deadly.
I bought the playable fighter for my KDF, off the exchange mind you. It's a fairly decent ship especially considering the lack of options on the KDF side. I just wished the torpedo would follow it's targets a bit more like the other torpedoes in the game. I find it best suited at long range or against stationary targets or slow moving ones like frigates/BOP's or turrets.
Works fine in pvp, even with DHCs.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Recluse's main selling point is its Commander-level universal bridge slot, with its second selling point being the very neat Thermionic Torpedo. But the Widow fighters are a zero in the "value added" category since they are literally pointless. I don't see how making Widows equal in power to the generic fighters equal to every other carrier would become a balance or value problem.
(Also: just for trivia, you can't get your Widows back through the requisition officer like you can with Atrox's Stalkers. Once you throw them out they're gone forever. Cryptic implicitly acknowledges they are not worth having? heh)
Sounds Dirty 0.o
Don't be so quick to write off the small craft-- I've used it in the vault several times and that 2nd BOFF slot is very useful. Very few (IIRC - just the Delta, Widow, and Tal'Kyr) have a 2nd boff slot. And even the Tal'kyrs is 2 sci, so you're automatically a healer in the Vault. Up until the Widow I always used the delta almost exclusively because of that 2nd slot, but I've been using the widow alot more lately and tried kitting it with a few different things and it can be fun. For creativity, when I get bored of MACO XII and 3 borg, ill do the na'far metaphasic + the Yellowstone engines + Point Defense. and still have a tac slot and eng slot available for something else.
And as to the Recluse itself -- it IS a nice ship.. IF you want it for what it is (and that cmdr slot was what sold it to me BTW - a close 2nd being the Thermionic). The Widows to me were really just a vanity item to "have them" so to speak. The ship does just fine on it's own - but IMHO - you do already get 4 (and a half?) bonuses with it.. so one of em had to suck (I count Thermionic, Widows x2, Console, cmdr uni slot, and 10th console slot which is more than most cstore vessels)
Too bad you can only fit 1x Thermionic Torpedo. They do half the DPS of a quantum torp, though, so I'm still unsure about them for PvE.
As for the Widow fighters, personally I love em!
Hopefully they'll buff them like they did for the Spiral Waves and allow you to buy more and equip more than one to a ship.
It's pretty clear who has not yet tried High Yield with their thermionic torpedo launcher. :cool:
High yield works with any torpedo... :rolleyes:
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Fully spec'ed High YieldThermiotic Torpedeo will drain -55 Weapon and Engine Power for 12 seconds. That will pretty much shutdown any NPC ship for period of time.
Yes it does, but Thermionic is one of the ones that has a "special" heavy variant which...
...is ridiculously awesome.
Hence: people who think thermionic torpedo is weaksauce almost certainly have not tried it with High Yield.
The extra console buffs ALL pets/friends in range and therefore acts somewhat like an attack pattern beta.
Equip your Recluse with phased tetryon weapons and the tac console for tretryons and your widow pets will instantly become a lethal entity.
Its honestly the only carrier that comes close in firepower to the kar fi because of that universal commander slot.
i obviously equip a tac boff there so that i can tank and provide an amount of dps to the team.
See ya
Atrox is a POS!
Different capabilities? PvP'ers have the exact same capabilities, even more, then 1 NPC has.
Behavior? What? What behavior? There exist no behavior except for some preprogrammed movement and abilities rotating. of all the AI ive seen in game, STO must have the dumbest.
Yes I'm a PvPer, good guess.
IDC about your PVE experience either.
MT-
LTS, here since...when did this game launch again?
Key word there.
"Seem" is subjective. Tholian fighters fire bright, eye-catching blue beams and torpedoes. They look way more active and destructive than Peregrines with their dull red torpedo spam and nearly invisible plink-gun. But Combat Log Parser is an objective, impartial observer: the majority of your fighter's damage comes from torpedoes, and Peregrines pump out significantly more torpedo DPS.