I'm not asking for Tactical to be Nerf'd. I'm asking for Tactical to not Buff Science.
It's THAT simple. It's not a nerf. It's a bugfix.
Tactical should not buff Science.
Wouldn't it be bull TRIBBLE if spec'ing into Attack Patterns suddenly doubled the damage of Tyken's Rift? It just doesn't make any more sense than Attack Pattern Alpha making Photonic Shockwave death and destruction to anything that comes near.
Ok. So, Subnuke now only works on SVs.
Sensor Scan? Only buffs CPB/PSW damage, nothing else.
Dampening Field? Yep, only buffs SVs.
Miracle Worker, Nadion Investion, Rotate Shields,...? Cruiser only.
wow, now were talking about limiting ship and captain choice? what a terrible thread.
1 more thing about tac/sci, why shouldn't a tactical captain be able to buff sci skills? he ranked the skill on the skill tree to buff them too. seriously, from an in universe standpoint, he's done as much research as the sci has in how to apply advanced theory to have the ship create anomalies etc efficiently and effectively. Now why wouldn't he also know how to best apply those same theories, in the most damaging way possible?
i cant believe what a big deal it is to you that tac captains buff more then just weapons damage, but also energy and knetic damage from other sources too. theres no reason for them not to. wile they are built to maximize damage they are built to NOT CC, NOT heal, and kirk around and earn personal glory at the expense of the team. its a joke build for the lulz that has no place and no effectiveness outside puging.
another issue is the skill tree leaving the non pure offense sci skills severely gimped. to low skill pugers tac/sci might seem the only choice. but again its the sci captain skills with a cc build in a sci ship that creates the circumstances that make getting kills possible.
the 3rd issue is engineers plainly suck at everything and are terrible. a tac captain even focusing more on healing instead of damage can do the same amount of healing, and more damage.
nothing needs to be nerfed, sci skills need to be buffed by the skill tree more, eng captains need a buff, and L2P.
So we all know that Sci powers have gotten nerf'd so many times in so many ways.
Most recently, Photonic shockwave. Someone was talking about tens of thousands of damage being done by a min/maxed build in Photonic Shockwave III, with a Tactical Captain at the helm of a ship with a Cmdr Sci boff slot.
So, TPTB, have nerf'd sci skills into being completely useless, for Sci class Captains.
I think we're not getting to the root of the problem. Tactical Captain buffs.
Attack Pattern Alpha, Tactical Fleet and especially, Going Down Fighting, which deals more damage the lower the hull, and if you shield tank, and keep your hull below 50, this is a massive percentage boost
They buff *ALL* damage done by your ship and your powers. Including Sci powers. So all those over powered Sci ships, were probably flown by Tactical captains. I know I've done it.
I've flown an Atrox as a Tactical Captain, I used Feedback Pulse III in PvP. With buffs active, and my skill and consoles in particle generators, Aux power to max, My FBP III was sending back 2.2 damage to the attacker. And 50% of that, bypassed shields. So, 1.1 of the attackers damage, is going straight to their hull. Even if it was an escort, with RSP I active, they would be dead in a matter of moments.
Forgive the quality of this video, it was a quick test I did to show my Fleet what I had done.
I've since learned new settings to improve rendering and fix the temporary blackout that happens.
People keep saying that Tactical is better than the other three classes. This is why.
Tactical Captain buffs, should only buff damage done by WEAPONS.
What does a tactical officer know about improving the damage done by particles and other crazy science magic like Gravity Well? It's not canon. It's not game balance. This is what should be fixed.
If tac buffs, buff only weapons and not Damage Dealing Sci powers, then sci powers could be rebuffed and be more effective for Engineers, or Sci captains in Science ships.
And Tactical captains in science ships wouldn't be so OP.
To further your idea: Why not let Engineers make all Engineering BOFF powers stronger and Science Captains make all Science BOFF powers stronger?
However, leave Go Down Fighting alone. You need to have a very specific setup to use it correctly (any Escort trying this is going to be dead before it becomes worthwhile) and it has a long cooldown.
the 3rd issue is engineers plainly suck at everything and are terrible. a tac captain even focusing more on healing instead of damage can do the same amount of healing, and more damage.
Sorry, which is that Tac healing ability?
APA? Nope, I don't think that's a heal.
Go Down Fighting? Could've sworn it wasn't a heal.
Tactical Fleet? Pretty sure that's no heal.
Fire on my Mark, then? Oops, no.
Well, it has to be Tactical Initiative, then. Good, finally a use for that ability!
Seriously, what did facts and logic do to you guys? It's 100% factual that Tac captains cannot equal Eng captains in healing ability.
And yet, someone managed to strawman even that...
so you want to destroy an interesting synergy, and make a captain/ship combo worthless? i have thought about this a lot and its been debated at length in the pvp forum. its a tactical captain's job to deal damage first and foremost, thats all there is too him. he doesn't have self heals or debuffs to fall back on. arbitrarily taking that ability away, making exceptions, its a slippery slope.
the real problem is a lack of synergy with science captains and science ships, they should have a way to buff the non knetic damage abilities in ways the tactical captains cant, that way sci ships can get the buff they need, shield striping abilities that deal drain damage and not energy or kinetic damage would be viable again, and taci wouldn't be the only really effective captain type to put in a sci ship like it is right now.
engineering captains are terrible, and science captains are only good in a premade. both are overdue for a buff, thats why you are all coming to the conclusion that tac/sci is overpowered. really, a tac captain in absolutely everything works best right now. the other 2 captain types need to be brought to a tac's level. a tac is perfect as is, and is the only interesting type to play right now imo, nerfing it like that would destroy what i and many others enjoy, buffing the other types up to a tacs level would just make them fun too.
Absolutely agree with this post. Don't nerf Tacs, just fix Engineers and Sci!
wow, now were talking about limiting ship and captain choice? what a terrible thread.
1 more thing about tac/sci, why shouldn't a tactical captain be able to buff sci skills? he ranked the skill on the skill tree to buff them too. seriously, from an in universe standpoint, he's done as much research as the sci has in how to apply advanced theory to have the ship create anomalies etc efficiently and effectively. Now why wouldn't he also know how to best apply those same theories, in the most damaging way possible?
How dense can you be? Seriously. You completely ignore (conveniently) the fact that the tac captain buffs the sci damage AND the ship weapon damage all at once. It is why it is so ridiculous.
It is not about limiting captain-ship choice, its about ONE captain type not having an extremely unfair advantage over other captain types when he is using their ships.
But hey, lets be fair. According to you then, a sci captain that specs in the atk pattern tree and weapon trees should receive atk pattern alpha (because there is no other way to buff the weapon damage directly with sci captain abilities). That way sci captain can be on EQUAL terms with the tac captain in a sci ship by being able to buff his weapons and sci abilities all at once.
Deal? Or will you pull another excuse from your hat to justify keeping this flaw in the game mechanics?
another issue is the skill tree leaving the non pure offense sci skills severely gimped. to low skill pugers tac/sci might seem the only choice. but again its the sci captain skills with a cc build in a sci ship that creates the circumstances that make getting kills possible.
It was gimped because tac captains were tossing insane damage grav wells when flying sci ships.
CC build? really? sci captain has ZERO crowd control skills. Its only captain ability is the sensor scan which is a debuff. The SHIP has the slot for grav well 1... which any captain type, even those with zero science skill training (graviton/particle) can toss and slow targets down by sucking them into the well at least once. zero skill grav well = max skill grav well when it comes to crowd control.
the 3rd issue is engineers plainly suck at everything and are terrible. a tac captain even focusing more on healing instead of damage can do the same amount of healing, and more damage.
I get the feeling that for you 'everything' means damage output. Engineer skills do allow for good damage boost and for tanking. Its the engineer's role. Just because you dont like that engineers dont have tac-like spike damage doesnt mean it sucks. Try playing engineer for a bit with that role in mind.
nothing needs to be nerfed, sci skills need to be buffed by the skill tree more, eng captains need a buff, and L2P.
Not nerfed. Corrected. Once tac captains dont buff non-weapon damage they fall back into THEIR role and permit sci captains to perform THEIRS (well, once the tac-captain induced science nerfs are reversed)
You mentioned to give each captain type an innate 99 bonus or so to their role skills. You do realize that it still does not compensate for a tac captain's ability to buff science skills... because those points are not % based like tac captain buffs are.
To use simple numbers, if the max capt skill in particle is 100 and his gravity well does 1000 per tick ...and you gave them an extra 100 points.. the gravity well will NOT double in damage. It will be increased by about 200 damage tops. Those skill number modifiers work in the same way as armor modifiers: diminishing returns.
You can try it easily. Now. Find a high +particle skill tachyon deflector and pump your sci slots with particle consoles. That alone gives you almost the same amount of points in the skill as the captain trained box. At the easy to acquires +26 pnt console, 4 consoles = 104. + deflector its 130'ish.
The grav well damage with those extra points does not increase more than 200 points.
So, even with both your extra sci capt skill and hard-focusing on particle skill, the gravity well damage is increased by an insignifcant amount.
Tac captain abilities buff damage in a percentage. So that 1000 base points buffed by atk pattern alpha of 60% gives it 1600 damage. And thats just IF the tac captain uses only that buff. Go down fighting adds an extra 20 to 40 percent. Poof its up to nearly 2000 damage... while sci captain with all his nifty boosts cries silently in the corner.
Making the particle skill points 'count more' towards the grav well damage would not compensate either since as you so correctly point out, the tac captain can ALSO train in particle skills and put the same consoles. All he'd miss out is a measly ~200 dmg increase... but with his tac skills and his increased particle skill bonus.. his grav wells will outperform sci captain no matter what.
Sorry, which is that Tac healing ability?
APA? Nope, I don't think that's a heal.
Go Down Fighting? Could've sworn it wasn't a heal.
Tactical Fleet? Pretty sure that's no heal.
Fire on my Mark, then? Oops, no.
Well, it has to be Tactical Initiative, then. Good, finally a use for that ability!
Seriously, what did facts and logic do to you guys? It's 100% factual that Tac captains cannot equal Eng captains in healing ability.
And yet, someone managed to strawman even that...
so let me get this strait, you think 2 self heals are what makes an eng captain the best at supporting team mates? 2 skills that you cant use on the team mates? that are completely redundant in the face of the borg set and distro doffs?
you think those 2 worthless energy skills do anything to buff an eng capains damage? your looking at maybe 10% if your lucky, manipulating energy levels only goes so far to improve damage, especially when your already caped out at 125. wile tac buffs multiply your damage by large percentages, the result being an order of magnitude more damage dealing without any leveling out of an energy curve. the 1 you can give to teammates your better off casting on a tac captain, its wasted on yourself.
that all being the case, what does an eng captain contribute to the team better then a tac, who can issue the same heals to team mates that an eng captain can? all the wile having twice the damage dealing ability? the exact same ET, ES, A2S, TSS, HE, ST, that can be cast by an eng can be cast by a tac. and the tac pewpews harder. theres nothing to dispute, there is no man made of straw.
sci should deal most damage in a sci ship even though thats wrong
until you realize that its not a sci/sci's job to deal damage what so ever, you are not worth debating. its a tacs job to deal the most damage in every situation. its a sci's job to debuff in every situation, not debuff and do the most damage in a sci ship
Let me ask a simple question to all those who say tac abilities should be able to buff sci boff ability damage.
Show me how you would make it balanced for both a tac and a sci to use the ability so that it was not too weak for the sci nor too strong with the tac. I want to see your proposed formula for how it should work.
We will use the current Photonic Shockwave for example.
Rank 3 does 2k damage with 0 skill, gains about a 50% from particle generators.
lets just assume we can push our particle generator skill up to 250, or 125% boost.
So max dmg for a sci cap would be 2,000 * 2.25 = 4,500 dmg
And for tac 4,500 * 1.75 (pattern and go down fighting full hull) = 7,875
*yes, tac captian buffs are a final multiplier that effect everything including skill bonuses and consoles.
So how on earth can this be balanced out? It can't be.
Lets say you boost the base damage to 4,000 for shockwave, then sci with skill deals 9k and tac deals a disturbing 15.5k. If you double the skill modifier same exact effect. The only logicial solution is to stop tac abilities from boosting it and then modify the base. And it can be worse with AP:O, low hull, and tac fleet giving it a sick multiplier of 1.3 or for the current way of a base 2k photonic shockwave becoming over a 10k damage shockwave.
Or how about the much easier solution that would slightly nerf tacs and buff sci.
Step 1) do not allow tac buffs to effect sci boff abilities
Step 2) nearly double all sci boff ability damage
End result?
Tacs deal slightly less burst damage in sci vessels than they used to, but likely nearly the same over time. Meanwhile Sci/Sci becomes viable.
The entire give sci caps bonus skill points and increase skill modifiers and all that jazz will have nearly the same result it would just take twice as many changes. Everything is relative.
so let me get this strait, you think 2 self heals are what makes an eng captain the best at supporting team mates? 2 skills that you cant use on the team mates? that are completely redundant in the face of the borg set and distro doffs?
Strawman #1. You asserted that a Tac Captain could Heal as well as an Eng Captain, such is quite obviously not the case.
I made no claims of what distance there is.
Nonsequitur #1: the existence of teh Borg set and Shield Distribution officers are not exclusive with any native Captain abilities.
you think those 2 worthless energy skills do anything to buff an eng capains damage?
No. Where did I assert that?
Strawman #2.
all the wile having twice the damage dealing ability? the exact same ET, ES, A2S, TSS, HE, ST, that can be cast by an eng can be cast by a tac. and the tac pewpews harder. theres nothing to dispute, there is no man made of straw.
Nonsequitur #2: those BOFF abilities are as neutral as the aforementioned Borg set and Shield Distribution officer.
Mathematical flaw/overexagerated asspulled number #1: No Tac Captain ability (or combination thereof) will allow one to double an Eng Captain's damage.
Tac captain abilities buff damage in a percentage. So that 1000 base points buffed by atk pattern alpha of 60% gives it 1600 damage. And thats just IF the tac captain uses only that buff. Go down fighting adds an extra 20 to 40 percent. Poof its up to nearly 2000 damage... while sci captain with all his nifty boosts cries silently in the corner.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A TAC CAPTAIN.
Damn, it shouldn't be that hard to understand. Tacs get damage-related abilities (well, mostly APA), ENG survivability-related abilities and SCI debuffs/heals.
Obviously a Tac Captain outdamages the other 2; if he didn't the career would be quite pointless (and tbh, that case can actually be made).
i also think sci/sci should deal the approximately the same damage as a tac/sci because in some version of the game that would mater.
if any of you happen to find yourself in a match with good healers on your team, you will quickly find that all the focus fire, all the tac buffs, and all the rapid fire DHC shots in the world are nothing compared to the amount of heals that can be thrown on you. the only thing that can break that stale mate is hard core sci/sci debuffing, disabling and controlling.
the sci skills like PSW, GW, TBR in the hands of a sci captain could deal 0 damage and it wouldn't mater. the other effects are what maters, and what gets kills.
I think a captain should have the command only of ship based on his specific career... es a sci captain should only command a sci (or science oriented) vessell... think about " it is a waste of knowledge assigning a tactical ship to a sci captain and it's a waste of knowledge assigning a sci vessel to a tactical captain" because a sci captain has a poor knowledge about tactics and a tact captain has a poor knowledge about physical phenomena...
We should change that... and I think this change will improve a good mixing of players both in pvp and pve.
I've seen some horrible ideas on this forum but that's right up there with the worst of them. For this particular player, the day that character and ship class mixing is limited or removed is the day STO is uninstalled from my computer and never touched again as that's a huge chunk of variety removed for no reason at all. It's bad enough Grav Well was nerfed because it wasn't canon looking, this just goes several steps further along that road.
________________________
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this
5 pages! 5 pages of the mantra "if you only look at offensive potential, the class focusing solely on offensive potential is the strongest! It's unfair!" being chanted in a language ressembling english less and less with each iteration is enough.
Want to make the case that Tactical Captains are OP? Fine, make it!
Want to make the case that Science Captains are UP? Fine, make it!
Think Tactical Initiative is the ender of all things and Subnucleonic Beam is a worthless fireworks display? Fine, make that case!
This unholy, writhing mess of a conversation is blocking any chance of any debate/discussion on Captain balance, despite it being its whole premise.
Strawman #1. You asserted that a Tac Captain could Heal as well as an Eng Captain, such is quite obviously not the case.
I made no claims of what distance there is.
Nonsequitur #1: the existence of teh Borg set and Shield Distribution officers are not exclusive with any native Captain abilities.
No. Where did I assert that?
Strawman #2.
Nonsequitur #2: those BOFF abilities are as neutral as the aforementioned Borg set and Shield Distribution officer.
Mathematical flaw/overexagerated asspulled number #1: No Tac Captain ability (or combination thereof) will allow one to double an Eng Captain's damage.
you can try to pick apart the realities of an eng captain in game all you want. ask any premade team and they will say what i said is 100% correct. you could only disagree with this if you have little or no experience, or just want to argue and look all smart.
i have yet to see a single solid reason to every use an eng over a tac to make a dedicated healer. the overall contribution of a tac/healer is far greater then an eng/healer. since any decent team will have multiple healers, the self heals are made further redundant by the overwhelming amount of cross healing that will be present, canceling out any possible damage dealing by a wide margin. the enhanced tac/healers pressure damage will cause heals to be thrown more often, and can help disrupt the healing timing of the other team and keep them more on the ropes. the tac/healer drooping all its tac buffs and pumping up weapons power when a sci/sci strikes at someone can mean the difference between a kill and a missed opportunity. but you can keep calling what really happens in game a straw man if you like.
you think a tac cant deal double the damage of an eng? thats hilarious. sure, the parced log dps at the end of a half hour long match wont be twice as high, but for ~30 second periods of focus fire alpha strikes, its double the damage at least. thats when kills happen, thats the only time damage maters, you can damage over time for eternity and it wont do anything. i cant wait for you to call that some argument fallacy.
pugs are different of course, theres no cross healing there, only kirking. im sure none of you can tell were im coming from with any of this
you can try to pick apart the realities of an eng captain in game all you want. ask any premade team and they will say what i said is 100% correct. you could only disagree with this if you have little or no experience, or just want to argue and look all smart.
Argument from authority #1. I really hate those. They're the paroxism of arrogance.
Strawman #3: you're still arguing against statements I did not make.
The only thing I'm "disagreeing" with is your eyesight: those ability lists aren't very hard to read.
i have yet to see a single solid reason to every use an eng over a tac to make a dedicated healer. the overall contribution of a tac/healer is far greater then an eng/healer.
We can call this strawman #4 or a continuation of 3, you decide.
but you can keep calling what really happens in game a straw man if you like.
I'm sorry, we're going to have to call nonsequitur #3. You don't seem to understand what a strawman is: a strawman means you're arguing against something your vis-a-vis never said, so you see, your sentence/paragraph makes no sense in that context.
In itself, that constitutes strawman #5, but since it seems unvoluntary, we won't count it.
you think a tac cant deal double the damage of an eng?
I know so.
thats hilarious.
Really? I knew it! I've got a career in comedy!
sure, the parced log dps at the end of a half hour long match wont be twice as high
Ooooh, looks like you, too, have a career in comedy ahead of you, you made the same joke I did!
but for ~30 second periods of focus fire alpha strikes, its double the damage at least. thats when kills happen, thats the only time damage maters, you can damage over time for eternity and it wont do anything. i cant wait for you to call that some argument fallacy.
Well, only considering part of a picture (maximum performance) instead of the whole (average performance) does denote poor mathematical understanding... so if you insist, we shall call it a fallacy.
Edit: it seems this board doesn't welcome accented "a"s; how discriminatory.
Letters with accents are letters, too! Learn to accept difference, accentophobic forum!
your ability to pick apart text isn't going to help you in game, insight from someone who has been in the trenches for 2 and a half years, will.
-argument from authority yes?
i went back and looked at your original post of the subject, and you began this argument with a straw man yourself. i said a tac captain focusing on healing and not damage dealing can do the same amount of healing as a eng, and deal more damage. you then did this almost amusing little question and answer with yourself about what tac ability helps you heal. we both know tac skills don't contribute to healing, station powers do.
a strawman means you're arguing against something your vis-a-vis never said, so you see, your sentence/paragraph makes no sense in that context.
what a good description of your post. to try to respond to that excuse for a post in a way that made scene, with my knowledge on the subject from all my play time, i compared what eng healers bring to a team to what tacs healers bring to a team. i fleshed out the point i originally made. thanks to your argument fallacy, and my attempt to respond in a useful way, you got to play your little argument game, and derail the thread further.
go ahead and contribute a single 'fact' for me to call in to question or try to discredit with fancy argument speak, please. contribute substance to the debate without trying to show off your english degree. but you cant be argued with in good faith if you don't address facts and only go after the delivery of facts. aww, more authority again, darn
Well, only considering part of a picture (maximum performance) instead of the whole (average performance) does denote poor mathematical understanding... so if you insist, we shall call it a fallacy.
and this denotes poor game understanding. thats what im trying to talk about at least, the game.
5 pages! 5 pages of the mantra "if you only look at offensive potential, the class focusing solely on offensive potential is the strongest! It's unfair!" being chanted in a language ressembling english less and less with each iteration is enough.
Want to make the case that Tactical Captains are OP? Fine, make it!
Want to make the case that Science Captains are UP? Fine, make it!
Think Tactical Initiative is the ender of all things and Subnucleonic Beam is a worthless fireworks display? Fine, make that case!
This unholy, writhing mess of a conversation is blocking any chance of any debate/discussion on Captain balance, despite it being its whole premise.
Very well then. Keep in mind this is from a PvE perspective because to focus your energies on the PvP aspect of the game when only a small minority of the player base takes part in it is foolish and not in the interest of PWE nor Cryptic as shown in the past. That does not mean ignore it entirely, just mostly. Keep in mind boff abilities and ships must be looked at as well.
State of the PvE game in my view:
Tac: Deals the most damage. Damage is what matters. In addition his abilities bypass the normal methods and multiply all damage including bonus damage and boff ability damage unlike the vast majority of in game abilities and items.
Eng: His abilities are kind of sad other than as 'o TRIBBLE' buttons and once every three minutes getting a minor damage buff. The ability buffing his energy levels is nearly pointless as everyone tends to run 125 weapons and 100+ shields anyway with gear and abilities.
Sci: They are actually in a pretty good place overall. Damage ability is solid when it doesn't bug, sensor scan is a sweet team debuff, and his buff stripper is even situationally pretty useful.
Tac Boffs: The more you got, the better your ship is considered (beyond a 3rd Ensign anwho).
Eng Boffs: Solid buffs both in healing, damage, cc, and oddball things. Only real issue is just how low tier so many solid tank buffs and heals are.
Sci Boffs: Solid heals, most abilities are pretty silly situational or buggy odd at times. Scramble Sensors that works for only a second, energy drains that at times rock other times seem to do nothing etc. Damage abilities are pathetic though.
Escorts: For being the offensive powerhouse it doesn't really sacrifice much survivability. Any well built escort can tank everything an elite STF can throw at it with any cap. type thanks to EPTS, HE, doffs, etc.
Cruisers: As long as you build it to deal damage your solid, although not as good as an escort typically.
Sci Vessel: Sad damage potential unless running a torp boat but the cc and debuffs can be surprisingly useful.
How would I like to see it fixed?
1) Do not allow attack patterns(cap & boff) to effect boff ability damage
2) Increase boff abiity damage to EQUAL what it did with said buff up
2.5) Re-evaluate NPC resistance levels against cc abilities
3) Decrease cooldown on nadion inversion
4) Allow the +Energy level ability on Engi to 'break the cap' on power levels
5) Add a 'resistance skill' debuff to sensor scan and/or sub nuke
6) Increase the effectiveness of a high 'defense' modifier in PvE
7) Bump EPTS up a single tier
8) Add one new ensign level boff ability that does not share cooldowns with existing ensign abilities to each.
I can't wait to hear everyone tell me i'm a moron for suggestions #1, #7 but they would really help the state of the pve game IMHO.
your ability to pick apart text isn't going to help you in game, insight from someone who has been in the trenches for 2 and a half years, will.
-argument from authority yes?
Hey, you're learning! My efforts haven't been in vain!
Well, you're learning words. Understanding the concepts behind them would be better.
Still, words are a start.
What makes you think I need your help? I do mighty fine in game, thank you. Should I require assistance, I would ask for it (though I'd choose someone with better intellectual and social skills than you).
Besides, what connection could this possibly have with the thread? Sounds more like an implied ad hominem than an insight on Captain balance to me.
i went back and looked at your original post of the subject, and you began this argument with a straw man yourself. i said a tac captain focusing on healing and not damage dealing can do the same amount of healing as a eng, and deal more damage. you then did this almost amusing little question and answer with yourself about what tac ability helps you heal. we both know tac skills don't contribute to healing, station powers do.
Now, now, let us not undo the progress made: you're confusing sarcasm and strawmanning, they are very different things, I assure you.
Still, you seem to be grasping the enormity of your initial statement, finally: indeed, no Tac Captain ability provide healing, while some Eng Captain abilities do.
I wouldn't want to be accused of "showing off my maths degree", but X+k>X for all non-0 natural values of k => the healing abilities of both are not strictly equal.
Feel free to decree k (Miracle Worker & Rotate Shield Freq) to be of little to negligible value, they are still non-0.
Now, you tried to steer the context towards "healing teammates in PvP" to save face, but your initial statement had no such specific (and atypical) scenario specified.
contribute substance to the debate without trying to show off your english degree. but you cant be argued with in good faith if you don't address facts and only go after the delivery of facts. aww, more authority again, darn
No, actually that's not an argument from authority. It's nonsense, but it's not an argument from authority.
By the way, I have no english degree. English isn't my native language and even if it were, my degrees are in vastly different (more technical) fields.
Ability to distinguish "your" and "you're" does not require such long study: average (or, as it turns out, above average) human cognitive capacity suffices. Shocking, I know.
Look, I don't even know what stance you assume I'm taking, but I've taken none thus far.
This thread (and its duplicate) has been such an incoherent mess, I merely tried to put some order into it before any progress could be made.
Hey, you're learning! My efforts haven't been in vain!
Well, you're learning words. Understanding the concepts behind them would be better.
Still, words are a start.
What makes you think I need your help? I do mighty fine in game, thank you. Should I require assistance, I would ask for it (though I'd choose someone with better intellectual and social skills than you).
Besides, what connection could this possibly have with the thread? Sounds more like an implied ad hominem than an insight on Captain balance to me.
here it is, what i get for trying to be helpful, trying to save others years of trial and error. i get mister smartypants picking apart everything i say because there is no recognized accreditation in pvp to add clout to what i say.
Now, now, let us not undo the progress made: you're confusing sarcasm and strawmanning, they are very different things, I assure you.
Still, you seem to be grasping the enormity of your initial statement, finally: indeed, no Tac Captain ability provide healing, while some Eng Captain abilities do.
I wouldn't want to be accused of "showing off my maths degree", but X+k>X for all non-0 natural values of k => the healing abilities of both are not strictly equal.
Feel free to decree k (Miracle Worker & Rotate Shield Freq) to be of little to negligible value, they are still non-0.
Now, you tried to steer the context towards "healing teammates in PvP" to save face, but your initial statement had no such specific (and atypical) scenario specified.
every time you post, you prove 1 of 2 things more and more. ether you love playing devils advocate and derailing threads, or your one of the thousands of hopelessly bad players that wouldn't last 5 seconds against anyone who knows how to play.
the last few times time i played my eng healer, i finally noticed several thing. i never had to use MW or RSF because of the many new healing additions in game like the borg set, distro doffs, doffs that speed up the cooldown on team skills, all that stuff. i also noticed that i couldn't deal helpful damage ever, no mater what. all my shots did was triger the borg and distro doff healing proc, they have a negative value. i, and MANY others now see no value in running eng at all in a team were there is already abundant cross healing, because those heals you can only use on yourself are redundant (k=0), wile the potential for adding additional damage at the right time to help get a kill had a very high value. i don't have a math degree ether, the equation for coming up with the distilled value of that extra damage at the right time would be tricky to make.
talking about healing team mates to save face? HA. what the hell else could i possibly been talking about? all my posts have been in the context of team support. im leaning toward you just being hopelessly inexperienced, it couldn't be more obvious what i was talking about. healers support others, its interchangeable with suporters. atypical? jesus christ. a healer that just heals himself would be... theres no words for it.
No, actually that's not an argument from authority. It's nonsense, but it's not an argument from authority.
By the way, I have no english degree. English isn't my native language and even if it were, my degrees are in vastly different (more technical) fields.
Ability to distinguish "your" and "you're" does not require such long study: average (or, as it turns out, above average) human cognitive capacity suffices. Shocking, I know.
your is for owner ship, and you're means you are last time i checked, you think i did wrong when i said your english degree? likely just a random example i take it. i don't know if you noticed, but i don't even bother capitalizing a single thing in any of my posts, and correct use of your, there and all that is very low on my lists of concerns on an internet forum. the minutes of my life i would lose editing for perfection on each long post is hardly worth it.
Look, I don't even know what stance you assume I'm taking, but I've taken none thus far.
This thread (and its duplicate) has been such an incoherent mess, I merely tried to put some order into it before any progress could be made.
and thats why everyone of your posts have been worthless, you're just showing off your e-peen as the best forum pvper. i perceive your stance is that with you limited understanding of actual game play conditions, you think an eng is a beneficial captain type to have as a healer on your team. or you know it isn't, just like me and everyone else that knows how to play and your doing that devils advocate thread derailing thing on purpose because you so enjoy poking holes in things people say. to many it may seem like those self heals (k) that cant be used on teammates are a valid and beneficial quality of the eng captain. up to the level of puging, maybe, but its not beyond that.
Okay... Before we continue this argument, can we at least agree on which method of balance we're trying to attain here?
1. The "we're all equal" style. Fly all 9 captain/ship combos around a super-tac cube for 5 minutes, throwing the kitchen sink at the cube. Add up all damage inflicted and evaded/healed. Tweak until all 9 combos are 100% equal.
2. The "specialized role" style. Tacs and escorts being the Kings of DPS. Sciences being the kings of crowd control. Engies / cruisers being the kings of survivability / healing. Readjust situations so that a Tac/Escort can't blow up a group faster than a sci, and will most likely get blown up by said group, while it chews up big targets. Sci/Sci can barely solo a large target, but chews through groups of small mobs. Engies/Cruisers can hold up to anything that gets shot at it, but only delays the target(s) while the specialists come in (or a group of cruisers start focusing fire, very canon IIRC...) Combinations will show signs of both contributors, an engie in an science ship can survive soloing big targets, tacs increase cruiser DPS to "acceptable" levels, and sciences turn escorts into the ultimate "glass cannon", whie the sci-scort can quickly blow up anything it sees- big or small, but as soon as it gets even looked at it blows up, and can't survive extended engagements even with a dedicated healer.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Dontdrunkimshoot is an accomplished PvPer, and as such, knows much more about the inner workings of this game's mechanics than 95% of people who play it.
Talk of doing away with Tactical's innate ability to buff damage powers is insane, people. If your "Healer" can't do as much damage as the "DPS" class, then that's too *boohoo* bad. What's the point of having classes in a MMO? Go PvP every day for a year; then check back.
Dontdrunkimshoot is an accomplished PvPer, and as such, knows much more about the inner workings of this game's mechanics than 95% of people who play it.
Talk of doing away with Tactical's innate ability to buff damage powers is insane, people. If your "Healer" can't do as much damage as the "DPS" class, then that's too *boohoo* bad. What's the point of having classes in a MMO? Go PvP every day for a year; then check back.
L2P
In the OPs defense:
What's the sense of having classes when the "DPS class" does more damage with crowd control powers than a dedicated crowd controller?
Per observations noted in this thread, Tactical's innate damage buffs makes their gravity well do more damage (at least 50% more) than the equivalent well thrown by a Sci, and with the "appropriate" skill / console would hold just as well as the Science's GW, maybe even without the appropriate skill as borked as the power is right now. On top of this, the Tactical also enjoys enhanced weapons damage via the same buff that boosted the well.
So yeah, I feel a bit slighted as a Luna-piloting Sci captain, that my job in KA, probe duty, can be done better by a Tac in a Advanced Escort (Promethius) with their buffs and GW I. Heck, it sounds like the Tac could take my Luna, and do both probe duty and take out the occasional extra spawn that comes from said Tac/Luna blasting generators in his "off time" without breaking a sweat, while I'm afraid to do so because I'd need to distract a player once the spheres / cube spawns.
Let me take this a step further. Outside of subnuc, everything DDIS mentioned that a science brings to the PvP table a tac in a sci ship, with my skill build, does better with his buffs on. So, why should I even bring a Sci toon into PvP? Instead of waiting for subnuc to cycle, have a Tac in "my" Luna, and just wait for AP:A and GDF to cycle, and count on enhanced damage to pop the target before the buffs really do a lot of damage back...
Not discounting all of PvP's observations here. Just trying to help find a reason for other classes to exist. I'd rather "buff" rather than "nerf", but this is getting dangerously close to "buffing" all classes to be, essentially, tacticals (balance by homogeny) instead of (slightly) nerfing Tacticals so that Science and Engineering are able to withstand a tactical assault and bring their unique abilities to the fight. Abilities that they should, theoretically at least, do better than a tactical officer would.
Detecting big-time "anti-old-school" bias here. NX? Lobi. TOS/TMP Connie? Super-promotion-box. (aka the two hardest ways to get ships) Excelsior & all 3 TNG "big hero" ships? C-Store. Please Equalize...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Dontdrunkimshoot is an accomplished PvPer, and as such, knows much more about the inner workings of this game's mechanics than 95% of people who play it.
Talk of doing away with Tactical's innate ability to buff damage powers is insane, people. If your "Healer" can't do as much damage as the "DPS" class, then that's too *boohoo* bad. What's the point of having classes in a MMO? Go PvP every day for a year; then check back.
L2P
Science wasn't meant to be a dedicated healer. Science was meant to be debuff and control.
But it can't even do that thanks to the changes. And a mass of sci/sci, can't finish a match together, when 5 tac/tac or eng/eng can. That is the problem.
I'm not saying Sci should have the same DPS as Tac. And I'm not saying Tac should lose general DPS. But I think Sci should have equal DPS to what an engineer can do. Right now it is less than that.
They broke Sci/Sci because of Tac/Sci.
I also don't believe cross/hybrid builds should be disallowed. But they shouldn't completely break sci/sci because tac/sci was OP. Like many have agreed, that has made Sci/sci useless. And Tac/sci is just barely acceptable now.
It takes all the fun out of playing Sci/sci. I had two Level 50 Sci characters. I deleted one and rolled another tac. I regret my purchase of the Intrepid Retrofit. I wanted to fly a 'Voyager' and have my fun with subsystem targeting and such, but it's not fun. I hold the team back. Me and a friend of mine both played a Fleet Alert with our Sci/Sci builds, and we are no idiots, despite what you may think. But our DPS was so pitiful, and even our respec'd and min/maxxed skills into all sci powers, didn't do TRIBBLE.
Our team failed the mission. When sci/sci can't complete content, min/maxed with good gear, that's just a sin.
Allow me to throw my hat into the ring and ill keep it simple. 18 of my 20 characters are tactical for a reason, because they make any class of ship fun to fly because the tac powers buff alot of the science and engineering skills (DEM Warp Plasma) I dont use Sci or Engineering characters because alot of their inherent powers have been pretty much made an after though thanks to Doffs helping with tanking and offensive trickory. So instead of taking away something that makes playing a tactical character fun I would just assume the developers go back to the drawing board with Engineering and Science and do something with them that makes them compelling to play even more so than a tactical. Tacticals have always been able to buff sci kinetic damage and no one made a big deal of it until now. That tells me the root of the problem lies somewhere else and not with tactical captains. I love tacs I love the limitless things they can do with different ship class.
Dontdrunkimshoot is an accomplished PvPer, and as such, knows much more about the inner workings of this game's mechanics than 95% of people who play it.
Talk of doing away with Tactical's innate ability to buff damage powers is insane, people. If your "Healer" can't do as much damage as the "DPS" class, then that's too *boohoo* bad. What's the point of having classes in a MMO? Go PvP every day for a year; then check back.
Okay... Before we continue this argument, can we at least agree on which method of balance we're trying to attain here?
1. The "we're all equal" style. Fly all 9 captain/ship combos around a super-tac cube for 5 minutes, throwing the kitchen sink at the cube. Add up all damage inflicted and evaded/healed. Tweak until all 9 combos are 100% equal.
2. The "specialized role" style. Tacs and escorts being the Kings of DPS. Sciences being the kings of crowd control. Engies / cruisers being the kings of survivability / healing. Readjust situations so that a Tac/Escort can't blow up a group faster than a sci, and will most likely get blown up by said group, while it chews up big targets. Sci/Sci can barely solo a large target, but chews through groups of small mobs. Engies/Cruisers can hold up to anything that gets shot at it, but only delays the target(s) while the specialists come in (or a group of cruisers start focusing fire, very canon IIRC...) Combinations will show signs of both contributors, an engie in an science ship can survive soloing big targets, tacs increase cruiser DPS to "acceptable" levels, and sciences turn escorts into the ultimate "glass cannon", whie the sci-scort can quickly blow up anything it sees- big or small, but as soon as it gets even looked at it blows up, and can't survive extended engagements even with a dedicated healer.
your thinking way to hard at this. there doesn't need to be some paragon shift or grand rebuild from scratch, with this role blueprint. there are far to many variable that can effect everything for that. the current frame work is good, very good, the entries and multipliers that make these skills do what they do need adjusting though, and the most major thing i would propose is a reordering of the sci part of the skill tree.
the role each captain type has in each ship type will work itself out. to each ship a tac will add damage dealing, an eng survivability and support, and a sci befuddling and cursing.
tac officer- working as intended
eng officer- no redeeming value in almost any situation, pve easy mode, needs to be best at healing others. actually... making the self heals it has castable would maybe fix them
sci officer- working as intended
tac powers- simple and functional, aside from accuracy not correctly being applied to BO and FAW they are all fine
eng powers- bottleneck of abilities at the ENS level all on the same system cooldown, or team cooldown. a few completely worthless like boarding party and aceton beam.
sci powers- many crippled by the new skill tree change over, the ones that deal kinetic and energy damage work fine though. the relationship between flow cap buffed energy drain and drain resistant insulators is in shambles, it ether does nothing or cancels it out completely with no middle ground. same with holds and inertial dampeners, except TBR pushes.
past nerfs to the holds of anomalies take a way their usefulness, the stun from shockwave and tric explosions barely last a second and are meaningless. the average duration of scramble sensors being 5 seconds with nothing into its resistance makes them useless, combined with the immunity right after. one or the other seriously, and AMS is about 100 times better and thats dumb. jam sensors, the ultimate noob power, should be made to do something useful, like debuff accuracy.
after correcting this there wouldn't be anything to complain about, unless you want your captain to be something he is not.
Allow me to throw my hat into the ring and ill keep it simple. 18 of my 20 characters are tactical for a reason, because they make any class of ship fun to fly because the tac powers buff alot of the science and engineering skills (DEM Warp Plasma) I dont use Sci or Engineering characters because alot of their inherent powers have been pretty much made an after though thanks to Doffs helping with tanking and offensive trickory. So instead of taking away something that makes playing a tactical character fun I would just assume the developers go back to the drawing board with Engineering and Science and do something with them that makes them compelling to play even more so than a tactical. Tacticals have always been able to buff sci kinetic damage and no one made a big deal of it until now. That tells me the root of the problem lies somewhere else and not with tactical captains. I love tacs I love the limitless things they can do with different ship class.
So because you've been enjoying the broken-ness it shouldn't be fixed?
Some people enjoyed the Voldemort exploit.
Like someone else said, no matter how much you buff science abilities, Tactical will be able to double it or worse with how things are now. Which I guarantee you, Crytpic would say that's not working as intended.
Unless they simply rework the Sci powers, so they don't receive the buff from Tactical. Or Fix tactical do it doesn't buff it. It's all the same in the end.
So you say the majority of your characters are tactical for a reason. Because it isn't fun to play Sci?
Well what if it was made to be fun to play Sci? Why would you be against that?
So because you've been enjoying the broken-ness it shouldn't be fixed?
Some people enjoyed the Voldemort exploit.
Like someone else said, no matter how much you buff science abilities, Tactical will be able to double it or worse with how things are now. Which I guarantee you, Crytpic would say that's not working as intended.
Unless they simply rework the Sci powers, so they don't receive the buff from Tactical. Or Fix tactical do it doesn't buff it. It's all the same in the end.
So you say the majority of your characters are tactical for a reason. Because it isn't fun to play Sci?
Well what if it was made to be fun to play Sci? Why would you be against that?
Lets play the "so your saying" game.
So your saying since I play tactical in a sci ship im automatically a cheater? Difference between Voldemort and Tactical buffing sci is that Cryptic said Voldemort was an exploit. And why is it broken? Condisidering tactical powers have long been able to buff sci damage since this game came out suggests it is working as intended.
I believe the point i was trying to make was that Cryptic would do well to make Sci and Engineers as compelling to play as tacticals and nothing more. I would invest time and character slots into sci and possibly an engineer if Cryptic did find some way to resolve issues the community has with them. Reworking tactical wont fix the sci issues
Quote:
Originally Posted by cmdrskyfaller
sci should deal most damage in a sci ship even though thats wrong
until you realize that its not a sci/sci's job to deal damage what so ever, you are not worth debating. its a tacs job to deal the most damage in every situation. its a sci's job to debuff in every situation, not debuff and do the most damage in a sci ship
so, figure that out and we can go from there.
Excuse me but.. where did you pull this 'quote' from?
I couldn't figure out how to quote your post while showing my alleged quote so I snipped it up there.
In that post there is a tiny link next to who you're quoting that jumps you to that person's post so you can see the original text. The post it points to does not have that text
I never said that. Verbatim or in statement. Even went back to every page in this thread and searched for that sentence... it doesn't exist other than in your own post.
Are you making up stuff now?
You are incorrect in saying that science is not the damage dealer what so ever. The top damage dealer? absolutely not! But saying it should not do decent damage is preposterous. Gravity well IS decent damage and crowd control all in one. Well, it used to be at least. When tactical captain buffs made the well insufferably powerful it screwed the pooch for everyone.
Science debuffs, crowd controls and adds damage to the team effort. Cruisers tank, add sustained long term damage and hold the aggro. Escorts use their superior speed and maneuverability to strike the weak shield (or focus on it) with high damage burst attacks... with weapons.
If you look at each captain's abilities they reflect that design. The ability for a captain to fly other ships other than his own type always meant that their primary role abilities would not synergize with other ship classes but instead their secondary abilities would.
Tac capt in a sci ship was not to boost the damage of the ship but rather boost the debuff and crowd control abilities it had via the timer-reduction skill and fire on my mark. The weapon debuffs helped in a minor way as it was limited to the science ship's weaponry and boff slots.
Tac capt in a cruiser made good use of his damage buffing abilities to have the 8 weapon slots (beam arrays by default) pump out great damage..and the timer reduction ability helped him with the tank boff abilities ..but he suffered in those ships. So much that 'tactical' cruisers were introduced in the game to give the tac captains a workable cruiser.
Sci capt in an escort made use of sensor scan and his own aoe+def field to be more survivable but his damage output in an escort was always markedly lower than a tac captain.
Sci capt in a cruiser got a minor tanking bonus from +def field and minor damage boost from the sensor scan... but he could not tank anywhere as well as an engineer in the cruiser.
engineer in an escort did not make use of his healing abilities but did make darn good use of the power control abilities to push an escort's firepower somewhat close to tac capt level.
Engineer in a sci ship could make an incredible tank with a whole bag of sci tricks the ship allowed but it was limited to tanking and crowd control ..kind of a mix of engineer and sci. They made use of all their abilities but still they could not tank as well as in a cruiser (due to sci much lower hull) nor could they debuff even close to what a sci capt in a sci ship could.
Today... all the above apply except for tac capt in sci ship. He does far more damage using ship weapons and damaging sci abilities, crowd controls equally effectively and debuffs much better (fire on my mark/atk pattern delta or beta = much higher debuffs than sensor scan) ..than a sci captain ever could.
Perhaps that is why you find engineer to be 'worthless and broken' .. there are no damage abilities in engineering that can be ridiculously boosted by tac captain buffs. You cannot exploit that and since in your world it seems damage is everything then you assume engineers are broken and worthless.
past nerfs to the holds of anomalies take a way their usefulness, the stun from shockwave and tric explosions barely last a second and are meaningless. the average duration of scramble sensors being 5 seconds with nothing into its resistance makes them useless, combined with the immunity right after. one or the other seriously, and AMS is about 100 times better and thats dumb. jam sensors, the ultimate noob power, should be made to do something useful, like debuff accuracy.
after correcting this there wouldn't be anything to complain about, unless you want your captain to be something he is not.
Indeed many of the things there need to be fixed. But wont. Why? Because tac captain buffs make them ridiculously unbalanced and the devs are lazy people that prefer to break and nerf than fix things. Anomalies and now photonic shockwave were nerfed because of tac captain boosting them to TRIBBLE levels. My particle+graviton+subspace decompliler spec science ship tried photonic shockwave before it was changed in live (due to the whining in forum of the upcoming nerf as seen in tribble)... I did not see it do damage beyond that of a regular torpedo hit to the hull even at max aux with multiple particle and graviton consoles. But in my multi-vector escort tac capt... LOL.. omega + alpha buff on shockwave 1 tore ships to shreds after the cannons removed the shields.
Gravity well, photonic shockwave, repulsors... do you see a pattern emerging here as to why and when they were nerfed? Right after tac captains took them and abused the heck out them. All of this after the change to tac capt. getting access to boost their damage. Sure as heck were not nerfed because of science captain or engineers suddenly were being too effective with them.
Let me correct you in some things as well.. since you apparently are ignorant of the basic mechanics of sci stats and skills.
Disable effect from shockwave/tricobalt/etc : You need to spec in subspace decompiler. It is a specialization skill box found in the right side column of your skill tree. With 6 points in this skill the disable effects nearly double in duration.
Scramble sensors and Antimatter Spread: Scramble sensors works as intended. Its duration can be as long as over 20 seconds if you use high aux and have spent skill points in countermeasures. Now, the difference between AMS and Scramble is simple: AMS works on 'self' while scramble works on a target. The target, if hit by damage, will 'consume' the remaining time of the scramble sensor effect. AMS on the other hand does not have that issue.
It is why one is a cstore console and the other is a free boff ability.
Oh and immunity from disable/jamming/etc .... its less than 10 seconds and your timers to use another disable or jam ability are still ticking down. Matter of fact the immunity was put in place very early in the game after launch because EVERYONE was using jam sensor and scramble sensors to shoot at targets and remain immune. Being an ensign and lt ability access allowed escorts and cruisers and sci ships to exploit it for a little bit.
Jam sensors is fine as it is. Single target targeting ability denial. If it was an accuracy lowering ability it would only make escorts incredibly hard to hit if they used it in pvp and it would be be rather ineffective in PVE. If anything, jam sensors should surround the player that fired it with a 'static buzz' in a 5km sphere around it (from the victim's view of course) so that he is also visually blocked from the other player's view (but nice enough to not fill his screen with static..after all its only blocking the sensor readings coming from one ship).
What's the sense of having classes when the "DPS class" does more damage with crowd control powers than a dedicated crowd controller?
Per observations noted in this thread, Tactical's innate damage buffs makes their gravity well do more damage (at least 50% more) than the equivalent well thrown by a Sci, and with the "appropriate" skill / console would hold just as well as the Science's GW, maybe even without the appropriate skill as borked as the power is right now. On top of this, the Tactical also enjoys enhanced weapons damage via the same buff that boosted the well.
So yeah, I feel a bit slighted as a Luna-piloting Sci captain, that my job in KA, probe duty, can be done better by a Tac in a Advanced Escort (Promethius) with their buffs and GW I. Heck, it sounds like the Tac could take my Luna, and do both probe duty and take out the occasional extra spawn that comes from said Tac/Luna blasting generators in his "off time" without breaking a sweat, while I'm afraid to do so because I'd need to distract a player once the spheres / cube spawns.
Let me take this a step further. Outside of subnuc, everything DDIS mentioned that a science brings to the PvP table a tac in a sci ship, with my skill build, does better with his buffs on. So, why should I even bring a Sci toon into PvP? Instead of waiting for subnuc to cycle, have a Tac in "my" Luna, and just wait for AP:A and GDF to cycle, and count on enhanced damage to pop the target before the buffs really do a lot of damage back...
Not discounting all of PvP's observations here. Just trying to help find a reason for other classes to exist. I'd rather "buff" rather than "nerf", but this is getting dangerously close to "buffing" all classes to be, essentially, tacticals (balance by homogeny) instead of (slightly) nerfing Tacticals so that Science and Engineering are able to withstand a tactical assault and bring their unique abilities to the fight. Abilities that they should, theoretically at least, do better than a tactical officer would.
the crowd controlling doesn't take place when the dps class uses the crowd controlling ship. spacing into grav contradictions specing into partial as far as dealing damage is concerned. you cant deal damage when your target is pushed 10 k away. the tac sci cant cc and damage at the same time, not effectively enough to get that kill during a healing controlled match.
can a tac sci kill probes with gravity well better in stfs? sure i guess, they can also harass pubs but are useless to a dedicated team. if you are a sci in a sci ship, you have a role, and its in pvp, thats it. put him in an escort if you want to pve. everything about the sci captain revolves around disrupting player ships, they have almost no effect on npcs because every single npc is a joke and has almost nothing in common with a player ship. they work in compleatly different ways. stop trying to make your sci a tac when you pve, thats not its role in the game.
making shield striping viable again, and making npcs especially week to it actually could make a sci/sci at least fun to pve in, theres a way to appease pve without breaking pvp. tac powers don't do anything to drain damage who's only resistance is power insulators, so this wouldn't benefit tac more then benifit sci. tac sci specializes in shield bypassing damage anyway, it has no need for striping.
Comments
Ok. So, Subnuke now only works on SVs.
Sensor Scan? Only buffs CPB/PSW damage, nothing else.
Dampening Field? Yep, only buffs SVs.
Miracle Worker, Nadion Investion, Rotate Shields,...? Cruiser only.
It's not a nerf, it's a bugfix.
1 more thing about tac/sci, why shouldn't a tactical captain be able to buff sci skills? he ranked the skill on the skill tree to buff them too. seriously, from an in universe standpoint, he's done as much research as the sci has in how to apply advanced theory to have the ship create anomalies etc efficiently and effectively. Now why wouldn't he also know how to best apply those same theories, in the most damaging way possible?
i cant believe what a big deal it is to you that tac captains buff more then just weapons damage, but also energy and knetic damage from other sources too. theres no reason for them not to. wile they are built to maximize damage they are built to NOT CC, NOT heal, and kirk around and earn personal glory at the expense of the team. its a joke build for the lulz that has no place and no effectiveness outside puging.
another issue is the skill tree leaving the non pure offense sci skills severely gimped. to low skill pugers tac/sci might seem the only choice. but again its the sci captain skills with a cc build in a sci ship that creates the circumstances that make getting kills possible.
the 3rd issue is engineers plainly suck at everything and are terrible. a tac captain even focusing more on healing instead of damage can do the same amount of healing, and more damage.
nothing needs to be nerfed, sci skills need to be buffed by the skill tree more, eng captains need a buff, and L2P.
To further your idea: Why not let Engineers make all Engineering BOFF powers stronger and Science Captains make all Science BOFF powers stronger?
However, leave Go Down Fighting alone. You need to have a very specific setup to use it correctly (any Escort trying this is going to be dead before it becomes worthwhile) and it has a long cooldown.
Sorry, which is that Tac healing ability?
APA? Nope, I don't think that's a heal.
Go Down Fighting? Could've sworn it wasn't a heal.
Tactical Fleet? Pretty sure that's no heal.
Fire on my Mark, then? Oops, no.
Well, it has to be Tactical Initiative, then. Good, finally a use for that ability!
Seriously, what did facts and logic do to you guys? It's 100% factual that Tac captains cannot equal Eng captains in healing ability.
And yet, someone managed to strawman even that...
Absolutely agree with this post. Don't nerf Tacs, just fix Engineers and Sci!
but it is based in trickery and survivablity and team seeing what your up to
and when you pug that may or may not happen
you cqan win in a shuttles in pvp with the same tricks , and a decent team
How dense can you be? Seriously. You completely ignore (conveniently) the fact that the tac captain buffs the sci damage AND the ship weapon damage all at once. It is why it is so ridiculous.
It is not about limiting captain-ship choice, its about ONE captain type not having an extremely unfair advantage over other captain types when he is using their ships.
But hey, lets be fair. According to you then, a sci captain that specs in the atk pattern tree and weapon trees should receive atk pattern alpha (because there is no other way to buff the weapon damage directly with sci captain abilities). That way sci captain can be on EQUAL terms with the tac captain in a sci ship by being able to buff his weapons and sci abilities all at once.
Deal? Or will you pull another excuse from your hat to justify keeping this flaw in the game mechanics?
It was gimped because tac captains were tossing insane damage grav wells when flying sci ships.
CC build? really? sci captain has ZERO crowd control skills. Its only captain ability is the sensor scan which is a debuff. The SHIP has the slot for grav well 1... which any captain type, even those with zero science skill training (graviton/particle) can toss and slow targets down by sucking them into the well at least once. zero skill grav well = max skill grav well when it comes to crowd control.
I get the feeling that for you 'everything' means damage output. Engineer skills do allow for good damage boost and for tanking. Its the engineer's role. Just because you dont like that engineers dont have tac-like spike damage doesnt mean it sucks. Try playing engineer for a bit with that role in mind.
Not nerfed. Corrected. Once tac captains dont buff non-weapon damage they fall back into THEIR role and permit sci captains to perform THEIRS (well, once the tac-captain induced science nerfs are reversed)
You mentioned to give each captain type an innate 99 bonus or so to their role skills. You do realize that it still does not compensate for a tac captain's ability to buff science skills... because those points are not % based like tac captain buffs are.
To use simple numbers, if the max capt skill in particle is 100 and his gravity well does 1000 per tick ...and you gave them an extra 100 points.. the gravity well will NOT double in damage. It will be increased by about 200 damage tops. Those skill number modifiers work in the same way as armor modifiers: diminishing returns.
You can try it easily. Now. Find a high +particle skill tachyon deflector and pump your sci slots with particle consoles. That alone gives you almost the same amount of points in the skill as the captain trained box. At the easy to acquires +26 pnt console, 4 consoles = 104. + deflector its 130'ish.
The grav well damage with those extra points does not increase more than 200 points.
So, even with both your extra sci capt skill and hard-focusing on particle skill, the gravity well damage is increased by an insignifcant amount.
Tac captain abilities buff damage in a percentage. So that 1000 base points buffed by atk pattern alpha of 60% gives it 1600 damage. And thats just IF the tac captain uses only that buff. Go down fighting adds an extra 20 to 40 percent. Poof its up to nearly 2000 damage... while sci captain with all his nifty boosts cries silently in the corner.
Making the particle skill points 'count more' towards the grav well damage would not compensate either since as you so correctly point out, the tac captain can ALSO train in particle skills and put the same consoles. All he'd miss out is a measly ~200 dmg increase... but with his tac skills and his increased particle skill bonus.. his grav wells will outperform sci captain no matter what.
so let me get this strait, you think 2 self heals are what makes an eng captain the best at supporting team mates? 2 skills that you cant use on the team mates? that are completely redundant in the face of the borg set and distro doffs?
you think those 2 worthless energy skills do anything to buff an eng capains damage? your looking at maybe 10% if your lucky, manipulating energy levels only goes so far to improve damage, especially when your already caped out at 125. wile tac buffs multiply your damage by large percentages, the result being an order of magnitude more damage dealing without any leveling out of an energy curve. the 1 you can give to teammates your better off casting on a tac captain, its wasted on yourself.
that all being the case, what does an eng captain contribute to the team better then a tac, who can issue the same heals to team mates that an eng captain can? all the wile having twice the damage dealing ability? the exact same ET, ES, A2S, TSS, HE, ST, that can be cast by an eng can be cast by a tac. and the tac pewpews harder. theres nothing to dispute, there is no man made of straw.
until you realize that its not a sci/sci's job to deal damage what so ever, you are not worth debating. its a tacs job to deal the most damage in every situation. its a sci's job to debuff in every situation, not debuff and do the most damage in a sci ship
so, figure that out and we can go from there.
Show me how you would make it balanced for both a tac and a sci to use the ability so that it was not too weak for the sci nor too strong with the tac. I want to see your proposed formula for how it should work.
We will use the current Photonic Shockwave for example.
Rank 3 does 2k damage with 0 skill, gains about a 50% from particle generators.
lets just assume we can push our particle generator skill up to 250, or 125% boost.
So max dmg for a sci cap would be 2,000 * 2.25 = 4,500 dmg
And for tac 4,500 * 1.75 (pattern and go down fighting full hull) = 7,875
*yes, tac captian buffs are a final multiplier that effect everything including skill bonuses and consoles.
So how on earth can this be balanced out? It can't be.
Lets say you boost the base damage to 4,000 for shockwave, then sci with skill deals 9k and tac deals a disturbing 15.5k. If you double the skill modifier same exact effect. The only logicial solution is to stop tac abilities from boosting it and then modify the base. And it can be worse with AP:O, low hull, and tac fleet giving it a sick multiplier of 1.3 or for the current way of a base 2k photonic shockwave becoming over a 10k damage shockwave.
Or how about the much easier solution that would slightly nerf tacs and buff sci.
Step 1) do not allow tac buffs to effect sci boff abilities
Step 2) nearly double all sci boff ability damage
End result?
Tacs deal slightly less burst damage in sci vessels than they used to, but likely nearly the same over time. Meanwhile Sci/Sci becomes viable.
The entire give sci caps bonus skill points and increase skill modifiers and all that jazz will have nearly the same result it would just take twice as many changes. Everything is relative.
Strawman #1. You asserted that a Tac Captain could Heal as well as an Eng Captain, such is quite obviously not the case.
I made no claims of what distance there is.
Nonsequitur #1: the existence of teh Borg set and Shield Distribution officers are not exclusive with any native Captain abilities.
No. Where did I assert that?
Strawman #2.
Nonsequitur #2: those BOFF abilities are as neutral as the aforementioned Borg set and Shield Distribution officer.
Mathematical flaw/overexagerated asspulled number #1: No Tac Captain ability (or combination thereof) will allow one to double an Eng Captain's damage.
Are you being intentionally obtuse? THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF A TAC CAPTAIN.
Damn, it shouldn't be that hard to understand. Tacs get damage-related abilities (well, mostly APA), ENG survivability-related abilities and SCI debuffs/heals.
Obviously a Tac Captain outdamages the other 2; if he didn't the career would be quite pointless (and tbh, that case can actually be made).
x% buff on any sci skill means up to (x^2)% buff on that skill when a tac is using it
if u have a way of getting around that plz share it with our beloved (NOT) nerf loving balance team... they seem to be drawing blanks...
if any of you happen to find yourself in a match with good healers on your team, you will quickly find that all the focus fire, all the tac buffs, and all the rapid fire DHC shots in the world are nothing compared to the amount of heals that can be thrown on you. the only thing that can break that stale mate is hard core sci/sci debuffing, disabling and controlling.
the sci skills like PSW, GW, TBR in the hands of a sci captain could deal 0 damage and it wouldn't mater. the other effects are what maters, and what gets kills.
I've seen some horrible ideas on this forum but that's right up there with the worst of them. For this particular player, the day that character and ship class mixing is limited or removed is the day STO is uninstalled from my computer and never touched again as that's a huge chunk of variety removed for no reason at all. It's bad enough Grav Well was nerfed because it wasn't canon looking, this just goes several steps further along that road.
I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this
5 pages! 5 pages of the mantra "if you only look at offensive potential, the class focusing solely on offensive potential is the strongest! It's unfair!" being chanted in a language ressembling english less and less with each iteration is enough.
Want to make the case that Tactical Captains are OP? Fine, make it!
Want to make the case that Science Captains are UP? Fine, make it!
Think Tactical Initiative is the ender of all things and Subnucleonic Beam is a worthless fireworks display? Fine, make that case!
This unholy, writhing mess of a conversation is blocking any chance of any debate/discussion on Captain balance, despite it being its whole premise.
you can try to pick apart the realities of an eng captain in game all you want. ask any premade team and they will say what i said is 100% correct. you could only disagree with this if you have little or no experience, or just want to argue and look all smart.
i have yet to see a single solid reason to every use an eng over a tac to make a dedicated healer. the overall contribution of a tac/healer is far greater then an eng/healer. since any decent team will have multiple healers, the self heals are made further redundant by the overwhelming amount of cross healing that will be present, canceling out any possible damage dealing by a wide margin. the enhanced tac/healers pressure damage will cause heals to be thrown more often, and can help disrupt the healing timing of the other team and keep them more on the ropes. the tac/healer drooping all its tac buffs and pumping up weapons power when a sci/sci strikes at someone can mean the difference between a kill and a missed opportunity. but you can keep calling what really happens in game a straw man if you like.
you think a tac cant deal double the damage of an eng? thats hilarious. sure, the parced log dps at the end of a half hour long match wont be twice as high, but for ~30 second periods of focus fire alpha strikes, its double the damage at least. thats when kills happen, thats the only time damage maters, you can damage over time for eternity and it wont do anything. i cant wait for you to call that some argument fallacy.
pugs are different of course, theres no cross healing there, only kirking. im sure none of you can tell were im coming from with any of this
Argument from authority #1. I really hate those. They're the paroxism of arrogance.
Strawman #3: you're still arguing against statements I did not make.
The only thing I'm "disagreeing" with is your eyesight: those ability lists aren't very hard to read.
We can call this strawman #4 or a continuation of 3, you decide.
I'm sorry, we're going to have to call nonsequitur #3. You don't seem to understand what a strawman is: a strawman means you're arguing against something your vis-a-vis never said, so you see, your sentence/paragraph makes no sense in that context.
In itself, that constitutes strawman #5, but since it seems unvoluntary, we won't count it.
I know so.
Really? I knew it! I've got a career in comedy!
Ooooh, looks like you, too, have a career in comedy ahead of you, you made the same joke I did!
Well, only considering part of a picture (maximum performance) instead of the whole (average performance) does denote poor mathematical understanding... so if you insist, we shall call it a fallacy.
Edit: it seems this board doesn't welcome accented "a"s; how discriminatory.
Letters with accents are letters, too! Learn to accept difference, accentophobic forum!
-argument from authority yes?
i went back and looked at your original post of the subject, and you began this argument with a straw man yourself. i said a tac captain focusing on healing and not damage dealing can do the same amount of healing as a eng, and deal more damage. you then did this almost amusing little question and answer with yourself about what tac ability helps you heal. we both know tac skills don't contribute to healing, station powers do.
what a good description of your post. to try to respond to that excuse for a post in a way that made scene, with my knowledge on the subject from all my play time, i compared what eng healers bring to a team to what tacs healers bring to a team. i fleshed out the point i originally made. thanks to your argument fallacy, and my attempt to respond in a useful way, you got to play your little argument game, and derail the thread further.
go ahead and contribute a single 'fact' for me to call in to question or try to discredit with fancy argument speak, please. contribute substance to the debate without trying to show off your english degree. but you cant be argued with in good faith if you don't address facts and only go after the delivery of facts. aww, more authority again, darn
and this denotes poor game understanding. thats what im trying to talk about at least, the game.
Very well then. Keep in mind this is from a PvE perspective because to focus your energies on the PvP aspect of the game when only a small minority of the player base takes part in it is foolish and not in the interest of PWE nor Cryptic as shown in the past. That does not mean ignore it entirely, just mostly. Keep in mind boff abilities and ships must be looked at as well.
State of the PvE game in my view:
Tac: Deals the most damage. Damage is what matters. In addition his abilities bypass the normal methods and multiply all damage including bonus damage and boff ability damage unlike the vast majority of in game abilities and items.
Eng: His abilities are kind of sad other than as 'o TRIBBLE' buttons and once every three minutes getting a minor damage buff. The ability buffing his energy levels is nearly pointless as everyone tends to run 125 weapons and 100+ shields anyway with gear and abilities.
Sci: They are actually in a pretty good place overall. Damage ability is solid when it doesn't bug, sensor scan is a sweet team debuff, and his buff stripper is even situationally pretty useful.
Tac Boffs: The more you got, the better your ship is considered (beyond a 3rd Ensign anwho).
Eng Boffs: Solid buffs both in healing, damage, cc, and oddball things. Only real issue is just how low tier so many solid tank buffs and heals are.
Sci Boffs: Solid heals, most abilities are pretty silly situational or buggy odd at times. Scramble Sensors that works for only a second, energy drains that at times rock other times seem to do nothing etc. Damage abilities are pathetic though.
Escorts: For being the offensive powerhouse it doesn't really sacrifice much survivability. Any well built escort can tank everything an elite STF can throw at it with any cap. type thanks to EPTS, HE, doffs, etc.
Cruisers: As long as you build it to deal damage your solid, although not as good as an escort typically.
Sci Vessel: Sad damage potential unless running a torp boat but the cc and debuffs can be surprisingly useful.
How would I like to see it fixed?
1) Do not allow attack patterns(cap & boff) to effect boff ability damage
2) Increase boff abiity damage to EQUAL what it did with said buff up
2.5) Re-evaluate NPC resistance levels against cc abilities
3) Decrease cooldown on nadion inversion
4) Allow the +Energy level ability on Engi to 'break the cap' on power levels
5) Add a 'resistance skill' debuff to sensor scan and/or sub nuke
6) Increase the effectiveness of a high 'defense' modifier in PvE
7) Bump EPTS up a single tier
8) Add one new ensign level boff ability that does not share cooldowns with existing ensign abilities to each.
I can't wait to hear everyone tell me i'm a moron for suggestions #1, #7 but they would really help the state of the pve game IMHO.
Well, you're learning words. Understanding the concepts behind them would be better.
Still, words are a start.
What makes you think I need your help? I do mighty fine in game, thank you. Should I require assistance, I would ask for it (though I'd choose someone with better intellectual and social skills than you).
Besides, what connection could this possibly have with the thread? Sounds more like an implied ad hominem than an insight on Captain balance to me.
Now, now, let us not undo the progress made: you're confusing sarcasm and strawmanning, they are very different things, I assure you.
Still, you seem to be grasping the enormity of your initial statement, finally: indeed, no Tac Captain ability provide healing, while some Eng Captain abilities do.
I wouldn't want to be accused of "showing off my maths degree", but X+k>X for all non-0 natural values of k => the healing abilities of both are not strictly equal.
Feel free to decree k (Miracle Worker & Rotate Shield Freq) to be of little to negligible value, they are still non-0.
Now, you tried to steer the context towards "healing teammates in PvP" to save face, but your initial statement had no such specific (and atypical) scenario specified.
No, actually that's not an argument from authority. It's nonsense, but it's not an argument from authority.
By the way, I have no english degree. English isn't my native language and even if it were, my degrees are in vastly different (more technical) fields.
Ability to distinguish "your" and "you're" does not require such long study: average (or, as it turns out, above average) human cognitive capacity suffices. Shocking, I know.
Look, I don't even know what stance you assume I'm taking, but I've taken none thus far.
This thread (and its duplicate) has been such an incoherent mess, I merely tried to put some order into it before any progress could be made.
here it is, what i get for trying to be helpful, trying to save others years of trial and error. i get mister smartypants picking apart everything i say because there is no recognized accreditation in pvp to add clout to what i say.
every time you post, you prove 1 of 2 things more and more. ether you love playing devils advocate and derailing threads, or your one of the thousands of hopelessly bad players that wouldn't last 5 seconds against anyone who knows how to play.
the last few times time i played my eng healer, i finally noticed several thing. i never had to use MW or RSF because of the many new healing additions in game like the borg set, distro doffs, doffs that speed up the cooldown on team skills, all that stuff. i also noticed that i couldn't deal helpful damage ever, no mater what. all my shots did was triger the borg and distro doff healing proc, they have a negative value. i, and MANY others now see no value in running eng at all in a team were there is already abundant cross healing, because those heals you can only use on yourself are redundant (k=0), wile the potential for adding additional damage at the right time to help get a kill had a very high value. i don't have a math degree ether, the equation for coming up with the distilled value of that extra damage at the right time would be tricky to make.
talking about healing team mates to save face? HA. what the hell else could i possibly been talking about? all my posts have been in the context of team support. im leaning toward you just being hopelessly inexperienced, it couldn't be more obvious what i was talking about. healers support others, its interchangeable with suporters. atypical? jesus christ. a healer that just heals himself would be... theres no words for it.
your is for owner ship, and you're means you are last time i checked, you think i did wrong when i said your english degree? likely just a random example i take it. i don't know if you noticed, but i don't even bother capitalizing a single thing in any of my posts, and correct use of your, there and all that is very low on my lists of concerns on an internet forum. the minutes of my life i would lose editing for perfection on each long post is hardly worth it.
and thats why everyone of your posts have been worthless, you're just showing off your e-peen as the best forum pvper. i perceive your stance is that with you limited understanding of actual game play conditions, you think an eng is a beneficial captain type to have as a healer on your team. or you know it isn't, just like me and everyone else that knows how to play and your doing that devils advocate thread derailing thing on purpose because you so enjoy poking holes in things people say. to many it may seem like those self heals (k) that cant be used on teammates are a valid and beneficial quality of the eng captain. up to the level of puging, maybe, but its not beyond that.
1. The "we're all equal" style. Fly all 9 captain/ship combos around a super-tac cube for 5 minutes, throwing the kitchen sink at the cube. Add up all damage inflicted and evaded/healed. Tweak until all 9 combos are 100% equal.
2. The "specialized role" style. Tacs and escorts being the Kings of DPS. Sciences being the kings of crowd control. Engies / cruisers being the kings of survivability / healing. Readjust situations so that a Tac/Escort can't blow up a group faster than a sci, and will most likely get blown up by said group, while it chews up big targets. Sci/Sci can barely solo a large target, but chews through groups of small mobs. Engies/Cruisers can hold up to anything that gets shot at it, but only delays the target(s) while the specialists come in (or a group of cruisers start focusing fire, very canon IIRC...) Combinations will show signs of both contributors, an engie in an science ship can survive soloing big targets, tacs increase cruiser DPS to "acceptable" levels, and sciences turn escorts into the ultimate "glass cannon", whie the sci-scort can quickly blow up anything it sees- big or small, but as soon as it gets even looked at it blows up, and can't survive extended engagements even with a dedicated healer.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Talk of doing away with Tactical's innate ability to buff damage powers is insane, people. If your "Healer" can't do as much damage as the "DPS" class, then that's too *boohoo* bad. What's the point of having classes in a MMO? Go PvP every day for a year; then check back.
L2P
In the OPs defense:
What's the sense of having classes when the "DPS class" does more damage with crowd control powers than a dedicated crowd controller?
Per observations noted in this thread, Tactical's innate damage buffs makes their gravity well do more damage (at least 50% more) than the equivalent well thrown by a Sci, and with the "appropriate" skill / console would hold just as well as the Science's GW, maybe even without the appropriate skill as borked as the power is right now. On top of this, the Tactical also enjoys enhanced weapons damage via the same buff that boosted the well.
So yeah, I feel a bit slighted as a Luna-piloting Sci captain, that my job in KA, probe duty, can be done better by a Tac in a Advanced Escort (Promethius) with their buffs and GW I. Heck, it sounds like the Tac could take my Luna, and do both probe duty and take out the occasional extra spawn that comes from said Tac/Luna blasting generators in his "off time" without breaking a sweat, while I'm afraid to do so because I'd need to distract a player once the spheres / cube spawns.
Let me take this a step further. Outside of subnuc, everything DDIS mentioned that a science brings to the PvP table a tac in a sci ship, with my skill build, does better with his buffs on. So, why should I even bring a Sci toon into PvP? Instead of waiting for subnuc to cycle, have a Tac in "my" Luna, and just wait for AP:A and GDF to cycle, and count on enhanced damage to pop the target before the buffs really do a lot of damage back...
Not discounting all of PvP's observations here. Just trying to help find a reason for other classes to exist. I'd rather "buff" rather than "nerf", but this is getting dangerously close to "buffing" all classes to be, essentially, tacticals (balance by homogeny) instead of (slightly) nerfing Tacticals so that Science and Engineering are able to withstand a tactical assault and bring their unique abilities to the fight. Abilities that they should, theoretically at least, do better than a tactical officer would.
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Science wasn't meant to be a dedicated healer. Science was meant to be debuff and control.
But it can't even do that thanks to the changes. And a mass of sci/sci, can't finish a match together, when 5 tac/tac or eng/eng can. That is the problem.
I'm not saying Sci should have the same DPS as Tac. And I'm not saying Tac should lose general DPS. But I think Sci should have equal DPS to what an engineer can do. Right now it is less than that.
They broke Sci/Sci because of Tac/Sci.
I also don't believe cross/hybrid builds should be disallowed. But they shouldn't completely break sci/sci because tac/sci was OP. Like many have agreed, that has made Sci/sci useless. And Tac/sci is just barely acceptable now.
It takes all the fun out of playing Sci/sci. I had two Level 50 Sci characters. I deleted one and rolled another tac. I regret my purchase of the Intrepid Retrofit. I wanted to fly a 'Voyager' and have my fun with subsystem targeting and such, but it's not fun. I hold the team back. Me and a friend of mine both played a Fleet Alert with our Sci/Sci builds, and we are no idiots, despite what you may think. But our DPS was so pitiful, and even our respec'd and min/maxxed skills into all sci powers, didn't do TRIBBLE.
Our team failed the mission. When sci/sci can't complete content, min/maxed with good gear, that's just a sin.
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
thank you and well said
your thinking way to hard at this. there doesn't need to be some paragon shift or grand rebuild from scratch, with this role blueprint. there are far to many variable that can effect everything for that. the current frame work is good, very good, the entries and multipliers that make these skills do what they do need adjusting though, and the most major thing i would propose is a reordering of the sci part of the skill tree.
the role each captain type has in each ship type will work itself out. to each ship a tac will add damage dealing, an eng survivability and support, and a sci befuddling and cursing.
tac officer- working as intended
eng officer- no redeeming value in almost any situation, pve easy mode, needs to be best at healing others. actually... making the self heals it has castable would maybe fix them
sci officer- working as intended
tac powers- simple and functional, aside from accuracy not correctly being applied to BO and FAW they are all fine
eng powers- bottleneck of abilities at the ENS level all on the same system cooldown, or team cooldown. a few completely worthless like boarding party and aceton beam.
sci powers- many crippled by the new skill tree change over, the ones that deal kinetic and energy damage work fine though. the relationship between flow cap buffed energy drain and drain resistant insulators is in shambles, it ether does nothing or cancels it out completely with no middle ground. same with holds and inertial dampeners, except TBR pushes.
past nerfs to the holds of anomalies take a way their usefulness, the stun from shockwave and tric explosions barely last a second and are meaningless. the average duration of scramble sensors being 5 seconds with nothing into its resistance makes them useless, combined with the immunity right after. one or the other seriously, and AMS is about 100 times better and thats dumb. jam sensors, the ultimate noob power, should be made to do something useful, like debuff accuracy.
after correcting this there wouldn't be anything to complain about, unless you want your captain to be something he is not.
So because you've been enjoying the broken-ness it shouldn't be fixed?
Some people enjoyed the Voldemort exploit.
Like someone else said, no matter how much you buff science abilities, Tactical will be able to double it or worse with how things are now. Which I guarantee you, Crytpic would say that's not working as intended.
Unless they simply rework the Sci powers, so they don't receive the buff from Tactical. Or Fix tactical do it doesn't buff it. It's all the same in the end.
So you say the majority of your characters are tactical for a reason. Because it isn't fun to play Sci?
Well what if it was made to be fun to play Sci? Why would you be against that?
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
Lets play the "so your saying" game.
So your saying since I play tactical in a sci ship im automatically a cheater? Difference between Voldemort and Tactical buffing sci is that Cryptic said Voldemort was an exploit. And why is it broken? Condisidering tactical powers have long been able to buff sci damage since this game came out suggests it is working as intended.
I believe the point i was trying to make was that Cryptic would do well to make Sci and Engineers as compelling to play as tacticals and nothing more. I would invest time and character slots into sci and possibly an engineer if Cryptic did find some way to resolve issues the community has with them. Reworking tactical wont fix the sci issues
Excuse me but.. where did you pull this 'quote' from?
I couldn't figure out how to quote your post while showing my alleged quote so I snipped it up there.
In that post there is a tiny link next to who you're quoting that jumps you to that person's post so you can see the original text. The post it points to does not have that text
I never said that. Verbatim or in statement. Even went back to every page in this thread and searched for that sentence... it doesn't exist other than in your own post.
Are you making up stuff now?
You are incorrect in saying that science is not the damage dealer what so ever. The top damage dealer? absolutely not! But saying it should not do decent damage is preposterous. Gravity well IS decent damage and crowd control all in one. Well, it used to be at least. When tactical captain buffs made the well insufferably powerful it screwed the pooch for everyone.
Science debuffs, crowd controls and adds damage to the team effort. Cruisers tank, add sustained long term damage and hold the aggro. Escorts use their superior speed and maneuverability to strike the weak shield (or focus on it) with high damage burst attacks... with weapons.
If you look at each captain's abilities they reflect that design. The ability for a captain to fly other ships other than his own type always meant that their primary role abilities would not synergize with other ship classes but instead their secondary abilities would.
Tac capt in a sci ship was not to boost the damage of the ship but rather boost the debuff and crowd control abilities it had via the timer-reduction skill and fire on my mark. The weapon debuffs helped in a minor way as it was limited to the science ship's weaponry and boff slots.
Tac capt in a cruiser made good use of his damage buffing abilities to have the 8 weapon slots (beam arrays by default) pump out great damage..and the timer reduction ability helped him with the tank boff abilities ..but he suffered in those ships. So much that 'tactical' cruisers were introduced in the game to give the tac captains a workable cruiser.
Sci capt in an escort made use of sensor scan and his own aoe+def field to be more survivable but his damage output in an escort was always markedly lower than a tac captain.
Sci capt in a cruiser got a minor tanking bonus from +def field and minor damage boost from the sensor scan... but he could not tank anywhere as well as an engineer in the cruiser.
engineer in an escort did not make use of his healing abilities but did make darn good use of the power control abilities to push an escort's firepower somewhat close to tac capt level.
Engineer in a sci ship could make an incredible tank with a whole bag of sci tricks the ship allowed but it was limited to tanking and crowd control ..kind of a mix of engineer and sci. They made use of all their abilities but still they could not tank as well as in a cruiser (due to sci much lower hull) nor could they debuff even close to what a sci capt in a sci ship could.
Today... all the above apply except for tac capt in sci ship. He does far more damage using ship weapons and damaging sci abilities, crowd controls equally effectively and debuffs much better (fire on my mark/atk pattern delta or beta = much higher debuffs than sensor scan) ..than a sci captain ever could.
Perhaps that is why you find engineer to be 'worthless and broken' .. there are no damage abilities in engineering that can be ridiculously boosted by tac captain buffs. You cannot exploit that and since in your world it seems damage is everything then you assume engineers are broken and worthless.
Indeed many of the things there need to be fixed. But wont. Why? Because tac captain buffs make them ridiculously unbalanced and the devs are lazy people that prefer to break and nerf than fix things. Anomalies and now photonic shockwave were nerfed because of tac captain boosting them to TRIBBLE levels. My particle+graviton+subspace decompliler spec science ship tried photonic shockwave before it was changed in live (due to the whining in forum of the upcoming nerf as seen in tribble)... I did not see it do damage beyond that of a regular torpedo hit to the hull even at max aux with multiple particle and graviton consoles. But in my multi-vector escort tac capt... LOL.. omega + alpha buff on shockwave 1 tore ships to shreds after the cannons removed the shields.
Gravity well, photonic shockwave, repulsors... do you see a pattern emerging here as to why and when they were nerfed? Right after tac captains took them and abused the heck out them. All of this after the change to tac capt. getting access to boost their damage. Sure as heck were not nerfed because of science captain or engineers suddenly were being too effective with them.
Let me correct you in some things as well.. since you apparently are ignorant of the basic mechanics of sci stats and skills.
Disable effect from shockwave/tricobalt/etc : You need to spec in subspace decompiler. It is a specialization skill box found in the right side column of your skill tree. With 6 points in this skill the disable effects nearly double in duration.
Scramble sensors and Antimatter Spread: Scramble sensors works as intended. Its duration can be as long as over 20 seconds if you use high aux and have spent skill points in countermeasures. Now, the difference between AMS and Scramble is simple: AMS works on 'self' while scramble works on a target. The target, if hit by damage, will 'consume' the remaining time of the scramble sensor effect. AMS on the other hand does not have that issue.
It is why one is a cstore console and the other is a free boff ability.
Oh and immunity from disable/jamming/etc .... its less than 10 seconds and your timers to use another disable or jam ability are still ticking down. Matter of fact the immunity was put in place very early in the game after launch because EVERYONE was using jam sensor and scramble sensors to shoot at targets and remain immune. Being an ensign and lt ability access allowed escorts and cruisers and sci ships to exploit it for a little bit.
Jam sensors is fine as it is. Single target targeting ability denial. If it was an accuracy lowering ability it would only make escorts incredibly hard to hit if they used it in pvp and it would be be rather ineffective in PVE. If anything, jam sensors should surround the player that fired it with a 'static buzz' in a 5km sphere around it (from the victim's view of course) so that he is also visually blocked from the other player's view (but nice enough to not fill his screen with static..after all its only blocking the sensor readings coming from one ship).
the crowd controlling doesn't take place when the dps class uses the crowd controlling ship. spacing into grav contradictions specing into partial as far as dealing damage is concerned. you cant deal damage when your target is pushed 10 k away. the tac sci cant cc and damage at the same time, not effectively enough to get that kill during a healing controlled match.
can a tac sci kill probes with gravity well better in stfs? sure i guess, they can also harass pubs but are useless to a dedicated team. if you are a sci in a sci ship, you have a role, and its in pvp, thats it. put him in an escort if you want to pve. everything about the sci captain revolves around disrupting player ships, they have almost no effect on npcs because every single npc is a joke and has almost nothing in common with a player ship. they work in compleatly different ways. stop trying to make your sci a tac when you pve, thats not its role in the game.
making shield striping viable again, and making npcs especially week to it actually could make a sci/sci at least fun to pve in, theres a way to appease pve without breaking pvp. tac powers don't do anything to drain damage who's only resistance is power insulators, so this wouldn't benefit tac more then benifit sci. tac sci specializes in shield bypassing damage anyway, it has no need for striping.