Look, I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is. My handle in-game is Hunter@ProjectOctober. I'm a member of TRIBBLE. fleet, and I'm more than happy to implement any of the "solutions" we come up with. At the risk of sounding like a carebear, I really do think if we work together we can revive PvP.
So here's a shout out to anyone reading: if you're a newb, noob, failboat, I don't care. Send me a tell, I'll PuG with you and offer any advice I have. And if you're already an experienced PvPer? Let's team up! Because while getting curbstomped 15-0 against a fleet premade is one thing, but you can learn a lot if you are on the same team as a few good PvPers, as long as you're willing to watch and learn.
One thing's for sure. It's one thing to ***** and moan on a forum about this. It's another to actually do something about it. I intend to start. Who's with me?
Welcome to the fleet. Sorry I am not in game to greet you in person, but one can only put up with so much development failsauce before giving up. That's an excellent offer you propose. I hope some people take you up on it.
I definitely agree with the overall theme of you post, but have to say this:
Nerf to taking abilities? really? lol
Since the addition of DOFFs and the Buff to RSP, tanking in this game has become so OP it's ridiculous. I sat in Ker'rat the other night, cloaked, and watched an escort pilot tank 4 or 5 other ships while still managing to pick them off 1 by 1. It was hilariously disheartening.
Also, to address P2W. There are some universal consoles that can be annoying, but that's the limit really, annoying. They become an issue when they are stacked and chained by coordinated players. Those players are trading skill for easy I-Win buttons and are flabbergasted when they run up against skilled players who still take them down with just standard BOFF/Captain abilities. P2W is not skill, it's a crutch and those that use it will almost always fail when you force them to use real skill to beat you.
For the escort tanking 4 ships in K, I would imagine that has to be doffs and I would be interested in what the other ships were. And they're in the C-Store as well. I know I can't do that with an excel but my doffs are less than prime, to be honest, when I got got fed up the last time and took my gametime and money elsewhere. But, to be honest, my P2W fleet patrol escort tanks just as well as the excel does, has 3 times more DPS, and has that inherent "get the flock outta dodge" key that works much better in the escort than the crusier. So, to be honest, I say "good for the guy who figured out tanking". As far as I'm concerned, it now takes some stratgy to take this guy out, rather than just focus fire and melt. This is what STO needs more of, not so much in an escort as all that does is add to "Escorts Online", but it really should take some thought to knocking out a crusier or even a sci.
But now, lets put those P2W ships in the hands of a skilled player. Do you even remotely believe that the regular Def-R (not the P2W fleet version) could stand even a chance against a bug? All things being equal on the "skill" level, the bug will win every time. This is not new and it's been in STO ever since the excel was introed. The same was true with the sov v excel.
i think its actually been about 6 months since i saw a kdf premade, que up with the kdf if you want to avoid premades. oh, but you will run into a lot of players who simply know what their doing, and might even be paying enough attention to throw heals back and forth. if you lose to these unorganized kdf teams, its simply because their team has higher average skill then yours.
they are not killing pvp, if your not enjoying getting rolled, ask questions in the forums, OPVP, panda cubs, or send a tell asking how you rolled me so hard. they will likely help, its in their best interest for the average player to be more challenging to kill, so pvp is more fun for all.
complaining that pvp is dead or that people that know how to play are ruining it is wrong. you are ruining pvp, by complaining and not improving. clearly effectiveness far beyond yours is possible to achieve, and wile its important to have a good build and good equipment, team work will get you farthest. if every kirk out there put ES on their ships, the random pug team they are on would become 3 times more resilient, seriously.
You can still build a hell of a tacxcelsior actually. Mind you it the galor and dkora are pretty much the only fed cruisers you'll see me advocating for Damage dealing.
Otherwise, you're actually better off with CC. As far as not dealing damage goes, you should watch my healer demo on youtube
Honestly as a Premade player I can safely tell you DPS has never been king in STO. Before F2p it was all Sci Power and heals from the cruiser. Infact taking one tac scort on the field was gimping yourself completely. It still isn't now. Healing if anything is stronger now than it was before thanks to the Maint and Dev Lab scientists, now instead of an 12k heal every 30 in addition to say an ASIF2 or 3 adding another 6 to 10k every 15. You now have a 12k hull heal every Fifteen seconds in the case of ET3. ASIF3 can heal for 10k on it's own so now you have 2 super heals every 15.
Also if anything it also got another stealth buff thanks to the change in EPTA and Extend Shields graphics. It's much harder to see when the Healer is Cranking heals now thanks to those two incredibly stupid changes. Which means there is alot more room in creating errors, on the tac and sci captains parts when picking targets to neutralize.
To say nothing of the boost Sci Team got at the start of f2p with the new skill tree. Now ST3 is almost a full shield heal in it's own right, and ST2 is like a 2/3s of that. That can also be fired off every 15. There's no doff in the game that boosts DPS like the doffs have boosted heal capability.
Then there are the Hazard System doffs which boost your hull damage resistance (lol), the Shield distribution officer which basically gives you Free RSP, at times when you probably should be using BFI anyway. Then there's the god forsaken Warp Core engineer, which spikes your power levels so much that EPS power transfer almost becomes just a bonus in the bag for eng captains. Seriously with that doff on, I just start handing EPS out to other ships nearby me. Because I'm going to be pegging everything even my /25 sliders anyway without it.
There is also the Damage Control Engineer. which when stacked up by 3, basically gives you your Best EPTS up 100 percent of the time if you put your other EPTX skill to say, EPTA, EPTW or EPTE1.
All DPS has gotten was one bonus console on some escorts, sci ships, cruisers, and mk 12 purple weapons (there were already Blues on the field anyway)
Now sci has been hampered quite abit (but still quite vital). Now it's all on Cruisers. Usually 4 of them on the most boring of the standard premade loadouts.
Anyway here's the healer demo. You'll notice the ship ain't exactly a slouch in damage. That kind of score is typical for me in Arena play against Skilled players as well. (though honestly my healing #s could have been -much- higher had I actually tried that match) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmaxb3dQq2A
And you counter P2W with more P2W. Get the galor and Dkora. All of which are chance to P2W sold and not even pure P2W. Buy the chance. Ever read the gameplay forums and/or the C-Store forums? Countless threads there of "I've spent 80 dollars and can't get what I want". Only one who wins is Cryptic and now we, the players, are forced to advocate such.
And most of what you tout for crusiers are pure tanking builds with NOTHING for DPS and then mostly limited to crusiers that have sci shields, a turn rate of nothing, and only 2 boffs slots for DPS, period using 1 of them for the new Fotm, TT1. More head down to your local store and spend that money. I call that "Pay-to-live". And even then, focus fire from 4 escorts along with the inherent lag in the Cryptic engine, melts so fast that the other guy has no time to react.
We were talking about the new player who just gets 50 and decides to go hit the PVP Qs. All of these P2W consoles/store doffs/P2W ships just to be able to compete becomes a very large hurdle to climb for that new players. Much worse than the grind of the older MMOs. At least there it time and not how fat your wallet is. Much easier to just say "to heck with it" and do PVE. Kinda the same problem with TOR PVP. No1 does it anylonger either. Why? A seperate PVP stat that you have to die many, many, MANY times before you get your gear to even have that chance to learn your profession and think about competing. The hurdle becomes to large and not worth it to the average player.
I don't fault a thing you are saying. It is the nature of the game now. I'm an old beta vet that remembers how it used to be. When EVERY ship could compete, when EVERY weapon could compete, when just about EVERY min/max build could compete, and subsequently there was a boat-load of PVP going on. Remember when the PVP Q was in the main tags and not hidden under the drop down menu? There was a reason for that.
Originally Posted by brandonfl
I definitely agree with the overall theme of you post, but have to say this:
Nerf to taking abilities? really? lol
Since the addition of DOFFs and the Buff to RSP, tanking in this game has become so OP it's ridiculous. I sat in Ker'rat the other night, cloaked, and watched an escort pilot tank 4 or 5 other ships while still managing to pick them off 1 by 1. It was hilariously disheartening.
Escorts do not really TANK, as in soak up damage. They avoid or evade damage! A very well built Escort can now evade 75% of the damage being thrown at them maximum. Meaning, my cruisers beam array will only hit that Escort 1 out of 4 shots. If my Beam Array deals 1300 DPV or damage per shot and fires 4 cycles, yet I land only one shot per cycle. I have only dealt 1300 damage to the Escorts shields less resistances. So in effect, Escorts are able to, by use of Defense/Evading, reduce beyond 75% the damage potential of enemy ships firing at them. This is completely dependent on gear, traits, and skill point usage and engine power. However, Engine power is really critical to the Escorts Defense Value.
This is why really smart Escort Pilots seem to out tank Cruisers! It is NOT that they can actually take more damage. They simply are better able to prevent damage being dealt to them. This is also why the Bug ship seems so very over powered. Even though it statistically is? but that is another story.
I have found that the best way to defeat Escorts is to take away their mobility. They lack any real ability to TANK damage like a cruiser can TANK. Once they are immobilized you will see them either use RSP or do everything possible to gain mobility again. On one particular Cruiser build I have, I use Beam Target Engines III and it is seriously buffed up! When it hits an Escort, they stop moving and die rather quickly while focused.
Well, I agree in theory, but look, there isn't a thing any of us can do about it. What we can do is try to make up for it by making the PvP scene welcoming again. I've put my name out there because I think that it's high time we stop talking about it and actually do it.
Now the more cynical of you guys will probably say I'm gonna fail. Maybe I will, but at least I know I tried. What I do know is this: I've seen people using far inferior gear than me, and in far inferior ships, beat me handily in arenas. Ultimately, the key to victory in any PvP in STO is your skill as a pilot, and the viability of your build.
Skill improves with practice. And as for builds and how to use it? That's where we come in.
As for this entire Pay to Win debate: is it true that a P2W ship like the Jem'Hadar Attack Ship will defeat a Patrol Escort in a 1v1, fair fight? Assuming equal skill of the pilots, probably. But keep in mind, in PvP we don't fight to be fair, we fight to win. The whole point is NOT fight fair.
In an unfair fight, anyone can come out on top. Bugship pilots tend to be arrogant. That can be exploited. And we can teach the newbs how.
The Sad Pandas offer help and assistance via our in-game chat channel, "Sad Panda Cubs". If you need or would like help, feel free to join that channel and ask for it. You'll get it. We also sponsor a fleet by the same name that you can join to have other players available for teaming while you learn the mechanics and strategies used in STO PvP. This is not a Panda recruiting method. Our goal is to improve the abilities of new PvPers to make them competetive on the battlefield, and to make them attractive to other PvP fleets.
We are always willing to help, but willingness to be helped is also required.
People don't want to join your training/recruitment school, they don't want to join a channel made to circumvent OPVP that has far less people. I thought the Panda Cubs got shut down after the Critz took the majority?
Regardless, get people to join OPVP. Why date Meg Griffen if her hot mum is drunk beside you?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] @Aquitaine985 Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre. 2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
People don't want to join your training/recruitment school, they don't want to join a channel made to circumvent OPVP that has far less people. I thought the Panda Cubs got shut down after the Critz took the majority?
Regardless, get people to join OPVP. Why date Meg Griffen if her hot mum is drunk beside you?
If the Majority is 2 people then i guess it did get shutdown. Most of critz is made up of Old 1AQ and CDG people. Not to sure why your so mad about the Pandas tryin to help people get better, the more good players in the queues the better.
I always try to be helpful, & have often offered advice to people who are new. I mostly do this in Ker'rat. I have made many a friend that way. I've been fleet-mates with one of those people I helped for over 2 years and 4 fleets.
I get some people who rage or who throw me on ignore, but for the most part being polite & helpful pays off.
& you can always Run a Klingon cruiser if you'd like to do something other than a full support role well. I get suprising DPS with my Engi flying a Mirror Vorcha. & I can still provide decent support with ES TSS ET & HE + do crowd control with EWP3 & Theta. I have a lot of fun flying it. :cool:
Edit
I should do a post on that build.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] Time played in game. as of 9/12/12 (on my mains) Total 2907 hours.K'zoontite has been on active duty for 34 days, 3 hours, Bot Fly has been on active duty for 55 days, 4 hours, Poppa Capp has been on active duty for 4 days, 12 hours, B'zooka has been on active duty for 12 days, 22 hours,Tater(fed) has been on active duty for 14 days, 10 hours,
People don't want to join your training/recruitment school, they don't want to join a channel made to circumvent OPVP that has far less people. I thought the Panda Cubs got shut down after the Critz took the majority?
Regardless, get people to join OPVP. Why date Meg Griffen if her hot mum is drunk beside you?
Panda Cubs is still an active channel and fleet.
OPVP is just one resource, one which I've talked about here, myself. The Cubs channel has 1 purpose, not many, and that is to help new PvPers. OPVP sometimes doesn't lend itself to that purpose too well, since it is sometimes hard to tell what is genuine and what is trolling. The Cubs channel also has the advantage of always being monitored by some of the best players in the game with the intent of helping new players.
Anyway, I was just throwing it out there as a supplement to OPVP. One where your questions will always be taken seriously.
Escorts do not really TANK, as in soak up damage. They avoid or evade damage! A very well built Escort can now evade 75% of the damage being thrown at them maximum. Meaning, my cruisers beam array will only hit that Escort 1 out of 4 shots. If my Beam Array deals 1300 DPV or damage per shot and fires 4 cycles, yet I land only one shot per cycle. I have only dealt 1300 damage to the Escorts shields less resistances. So in effect, Escorts are able to, by use of Defense/Evading, reduce beyond 75% the damage potential of enemy ships firing at them. This is completely dependent on gear, traits, and skill point usage and engine power. However, Engine power is really critical to the Escorts Defense Value.
This is why really smart Escort Pilots seem to out tank Cruisers! It is NOT that they can actually take more damage. They simply are better able to prevent damage being dealt to them. This is also why the Bug ship seems so very over powered. Even though it statistically is? but that is another story.
I have found that the best way to defeat Escorts is to take away their mobility. They lack any real ability to TANK damage like a cruiser can TANK. Once they are immobilized you will see them either use RSP or do everything possible to gain mobility again. On one particular Cruiser build I have, I use Beam Target Engines III and it is seriously buffed up! When it hits an Escort, they stop moving and die rather quickly while focused.
Hope this helped some of you!
I define this as Defense tanking. So I guess it just depends on how you look at it.
opvp is pvp'ers talking about off topic things or setting up groups. the panda cub channel i never see anything but advice asked for and received. theres no reason not to subscribe to both.
I have found that the best way to defeat Escorts is to take away their mobility. They lack any real ability to TANK damage like a cruiser can TANK. Once they are immobilized you will see them either use RSP or do everything possible to gain mobility again. On one particular Cruiser build I have, I use Beam Target Engines III and it is seriously buffed up! When it hits an Escort, they stop moving and die rather quickly while focused.
Such is the weakness of the Escort. Remove thier mobility or thier ability to inflict damage and they die easily.
Escorts do not really TANK, as in soak up damage. They avoid or evade damage! A very well built Escort can now evade 75% of the damage being thrown at them maximum. Meaning, my cruisers beam array will only hit that Escort 1 out of 4 shots. If my Beam Array deals 1300 DPV or damage per shot and fires 4 cycles, yet I land only one shot per cycle. I have only dealt 1300 damage to the Escorts shields less resistances. So in effect, Escorts are able to, by use of Defense/Evading, reduce beyond 75% the damage potential of enemy ships firing at them. This is completely dependent on gear, traits, and skill point usage and engine power. However, Engine power is really critical to the Escorts Defense Value.
This is why really smart Escort Pilots seem to out tank Cruisers! It is NOT that they can actually take more damage. They simply are better able to prevent damage being dealt to them. This is also why the Bug ship seems so very over powered. Even though it statistically is? but that is another story.
I have found that the best way to defeat Escorts is to take away their mobility. They lack any real ability to TANK damage like a cruiser can TANK. Once they are immobilized you will see them either use RSP or do everything possible to gain mobility again. On one particular Cruiser build I have, I use Beam Target Engines III and it is seriously buffed up! When it hits an Escort, they stop moving and die rather quickly while focused.
Hope this helped some of you!
I believe you've hit the major problem with crusiers atm. The OVER-NERF (just like FaW/Sci et al) to beams and their inherent 95% ACC. Personaly, I droped, with my excel beam-boat, from an average of 800K damage, in the typ match, to a bit over 200K. Now, this is the extreme, tested with APs that only come in ACC X1, but I originaly chose those APS to make up for some of the damage loss of the choice of the excel. Now? APs are almost worthless as evidenced by the cost, even, of the level 10 APs (used to old borg). 15K dil for APS, 20 dil for everything else. Doesn't really help matters any that Alien Captains and Evade has become the have-to FOTM either.
I tend to disagree with you on the pure tanking of an escort tho. My fleet patrol escort runs 47% resists, almost right on down the line (really more than the excel as I don't need the power console in the escort) and more than makes up for any healing slot loss just by having an eng in it. You surely ought to see the resists when I buff all the way up on that "poor little escort", right along with all that evade, speed, and agility. I can actualy come very close to what the best tacs are throwing, DPS wise, simply due to being able to "tank" a bit more and keep my cannons to bear longer. The bug can do the same, all the while throwing more DPS, with a better turn rate. Where escorts suffer is in the healing slots, not really tanking per-se. P2W has taken care of that.
Balance will make or break PVP gameplay. Seen it a 100 times in this game and others. If a game developer choses FOTM style or P2W, PVP seems to be the gameplay that suffers 1st and formost.
I applaud the OP for this attempt and back the concept whole-heartedly. Altho Hus, and others I would imagine, will tell you it's been tried a lot before. We used to even have matches that "outlawed" P2W consoles, ships, etc. and all that meant was we had to have 2 different set ups. 1 for organized PVP, the other for non organized.
If you are tired of running into F v F premades, just pvp in Kerrat or roll a KDF character. It only takes a day or 2 to level them up since you start at 20 and can immediatley do mirror events. KDF seems to win 75% of the time in fights and there almost is never a premade on either fed or kdf side, sometimes even if there is a Fed premade we can still win or get close with a random pug. Also KDF will suit all the Fed Tac captains who don't want to get out of their crusiers, because KDF side you can actually do decent dps with them. I sometimes outdamage all the escorts on my team in my Fleet Torkaht (Fleet Vor'cha) just using [borg] weapons and die less due to being able to tank like a cruiser.
dont warp out, your wasting people's time and preventing everyone from getting thier dil in a timely manner. just get killed in the most timely manner possible and don't sweat it. also, try to get better, your getting stomped because you are below the stomper's skill level. nothings stopping you from banding together in your own group as well. if you go puging, assume your going to get rolled, there is nothing stronger or more op in game then teamwork. cryptic cant nerf the people that know how to play.
i like going against premades some times, they tend to get complacent and i can get a kill off them every once and a wile. then the chase is on they don't take kindly to that most of the time
If that's fun for you then go for it. It is not fun for me so I don't do it. I don't feel any obligation to play something unfun for other people. Cryptic is 100% responsible for the fun, not me or you.
If that's fun for you then go for it. It is not fun for me so I don't do it. I don't feel any obligation to play something unfun for other people. Cryptic is 100% responsible for the fun, not me or you.
And you counter P2W with more P2W. Get the galor and Dkora. All of which are chance to P2W sold and not even pure P2W. Buy the chance. Ever read the gameplay forums and/or the C-Store forums? Countless threads there of "I've spent 80 dollars and can't get what I want". Only one who wins is Cryptic and now we, the players, are forced to advocate such.
And most of what you tout for crusiers are pure tanking builds with NOTHING for DPS and then mostly limited to crusiers that have sci shields, a turn rate of nothing, and only 2 boffs slots for DPS, period using 1 of them for the new Fotm, TT1. More head down to your local store and spend that money. I call that "Pay-to-live". And even then, focus fire from 4 escorts along with the inherent lag in the Cryptic engine, melts so fast that the other guy has no time to react.
We were talking about the new player who just gets 50 and decides to go hit the PVP Qs. All of these P2W consoles/store doffs/P2W ships just to be able to compete becomes a very large hurdle to climb for that new players. Much worse than the grind of the older MMOs. At least there it time and not how fat your wallet is. Much easier to just say "to heck with it" and do PVE. Kinda the same problem with TOR PVP. No1 does it anylonger either. Why? A seperate PVP stat that you have to die many, many, MANY times before you get your gear to even have that chance to learn your profession and think about competing. The hurdle becomes to large and not worth it to the average player.
I don't fault a thing you are saying. It is the nature of the game now. I'm an old beta vet that remembers how it used to be. When EVERY ship could compete, when EVERY weapon could compete, when just about EVERY min/max build could compete, and subsequently there was a boat-load of PVP going on. Remember when the PVP Q was in the main tags and not hidden under the drop down menu? There was a reason for that.
I stay away from pve gameplay and genital gameplay. All it would do is TRIBBLE me off because of how utterly Failtastic most of those players are.
Actually what I tout, are Healing builds. Half of which also have Crowd Control forcefully mated to them either in the sci slot or cmdr eng level. Each build particularly the AC builds, run high OverCapped weapon power which gives them very high sustained DPS. Due to the cycle rate of beams putting DEM on anything but the Tacxcelsior/galor combo is a complete waste of time and always has been. It's more important that the pressure is applied to a given target, if for nothing else simply to completely shut down native shield regen rates. The other half, are Damage Hybrids. Particularly KDF side. There is no such thing as Tank Builds in pvp. You don't Tank. You either, Crowd Control, Do Damage, or Heal. Sitting pretty in a ship with oodles of heals and doing nothing but fixing yourself is not effective play. Never has been, never will be either (thank god)
No one should survive 4 ships shooting him for very long Period without Cross healing going on. Yes that's right sometimes you actually have to heal the healer. This is true in every game in this genre. Not just STO. However with only -minimal- effort you can turn someone, even a Scort into a nigh invulnerable Fortress with the proper application of given abilities. You really should watch my demo vid. Particularly when I was healing the bug. And then look at when I healed the sci player. The bug player did everything Right after about half way into the vid. He stayed near me so I can keep Extending him, and readily passing out heals. He moved his ship in such a manner that when he got into dog fights, I could more easily snare targets, by passing near me frequently. The sci on the other hand did Everything Wrong, not even balancing his shields. And yet I still extended his lifespan 3 fold without even really trying to keep him going, I could have fed him my Tac Team since he didn't Balance shields, I could have kept much better Hazard and TSS coverages on him. But I didn't after a while, because healing that fool would have been a waste. Especially with someone Competent right next to me on that same team, I could have kept that nearly harmless sci ship alive the whole match had I dedicated myself to it. (though I would probably have had to swap out my plas for ASIF3)
And you have more than enough time to react in this game. We've been doing Premade PvP for 2 + years now. I think we'd notice if healing was unable to keep up with DPS by now :rolleyes: Also, if you like I can whip up some truly Old School builds, that don't need the Doffs to function. It's not like I totally chucked all my old cruiser notes. Hot Builds for cheap (also if you notice, more than a few of the builds I posted are for Old Cruisers like the Starcruiser and AC)
Also the only reason it seems like more combos were viable back then (outside of sci ships) is because players back then sucked abit more on the High End Level. I remember the first time I threw down Extend shields 3 during a match against Old School SOB. I had them swearing at us, because they literally could not down their targets shields, even after 4 sub nukes. (back then it had a +50 resistance and a stronger shield heal. It had a 5km range and no Reapply) Once ES3 wore off, I'd slap ES2 on someone else, or the same target and simply chain them.
I suppose I could also add the new AC Retrofit to the viable fed tac cruiser list but meh. Lazy pvper is lazy.
*I also disagree with your definition of "Premade". A premade is a group of 5 players with ships and skills designed specifically to compliment each other. It is not 3-5 random fleetmates or friends who team up because they are the only ones online.
That friggin list should rot in hell, untill viable Eng-sci list, and viable Eng-escort list has grown to three times it's length
Eng scort has always blown TRIBBLE. I'm sorry. Eng Sci outside of the Nebula/Dkyr has never been a good idea either. Also, tac cruiser builds fedside have a -very- narrow platform they can walk and be viable on a team. Eng cruisers on the other hand? The list is quite abit larger.
The thing is, there really isn't much they can do to make the eng good at anything other than heals without it superceding tac and sci captains. Due to the sheer survivability (to the point as an eng healer in present sto you can get away with no RSP on your cruiser in all honesty) you always have at least +1 heal to give away to everyone else. (infact later on I'm probably going to drop the vestigial RSP1 on my mirrorstarcruiser for an ASIF1 or DEM1 most likely ASIF.
Engies also have by far the best healing prowess without things like Warp Core Doffs. (and at best everyone else "equals" them while the Core doff procs) seriously my eng pegs almost every subsystem he has without the Core doff. Which frees up a doff slot for stuff like a matter anti matter spec.
And don't gimme that "you only take 1 eng" line. You never took more than one eng in STO. never. Just like you often only took one Cleric/Priest in RIFT teams per five man group, unless one or both of them were also debuff carriers. Hell frankly you don't take more than one tac either in 90 percent of optimal cases. You take 4 sci, one tac save for outlier teams where you can field Eng, 2 sci, 2 tac. The eng allows you to field the second tac because of how many Give Away options they have thanks to MW and RSF. The team goes from sorta bursty with alot of debuffs thrown to. Very Dangerous with some debuffs thrown because the eng can shotgun away every heal he has if necessary to keep one of the tacs rolling. And usually that second tac still has to be a Cruiser or sci ship in order for the team to work.
This is actually an improvement over where we were, before F2P launched where the only reason you took anything but 5 sci was because of "common agreement" that 5 sci captains, in sci ships, loaded with torp spreads was kind of a **** Move.
I've only been pvping for probably the last 7-8 months and honestly when playing kdf going against premades is alot more fun than the average fed pug. If u pug and get your butt stomped go to kerrat there are alot of pvpers there that are more than happy to help u out with your build. Just a couple days ago after getting continuosly annihilated i asked Kedric from SOB for some help with my build him and Lady Felk'hr spent probably an hour helping m,e out with my timing and suggesting a new boff layout. If u want to pvp and keep getting kills just ask for help.
I stay away from pve gameplay and genital gameplay. All it would do is TRIBBLE me off because of how utterly Failtastic most of those players are.
Actually what I tout, are Healing builds. Half of which also have Crowd Control forcefully mated to them either in the sci slot or cmdr eng level. Each build particularly the AC builds, run high OverCapped weapon power which gives them very high sustained DPS. Due to the cycle rate of beams putting DEM on anything but the Tacxcelsior/galor combo is a complete waste of time and always has been. It's more important that the pressure is applied to a given target, if for nothing else simply to completely shut down native shield regen rates. The other half, are Damage Hybrids. Particularly KDF side. There is no such thing as Tank Builds in pvp. You don't Tank. You either, Crowd Control, Do Damage, or Heal. Sitting pretty in a ship with oodles of heals and doing nothing but fixing yourself is not effective play. Never has been, never will be either (thank god)
No one should survive 4 ships shooting him for very long Period without Cross healing going on. Yes that's right sometimes you actually have to heal the healer. This is true in every game in this genre. Not just STO. However with only -minimal- effort you can turn someone, even a Scort into a nigh invulnerable Fortress with the proper application of given abilities. You really should watch my demo vid. Particularly when I was healing the bug. And then look at when I healed the sci player. The bug player did everything Right after about half way into the vid. He stayed near me so I can keep Extending him, and readily passing out heals. He moved his ship in such a manner that when he got into dog fights, I could more easily snare targets, by passing near me frequently. The sci on the other hand did Everything Wrong, not even balancing his shields. And yet I still extended his lifespan 3 fold without even really trying to keep him going, I could have fed him my Tac Team since he didn't Balance shields, I could have kept much better Hazard and TSS coverages on him. But I didn't after a while, because healing that fool would have been a waste. Especially with someone Competent right next to me on that same team, I could have kept that nearly harmless sci ship alive the whole match had I dedicated myself to it. (though I would probably have had to swap out my plas for ASIF3)
And you have more than enough time to react in this game. We've been doing Premade PvP for 2 + years now. I think we'd notice if healing was unable to keep up with DPS by now :rolleyes: Also, if you like I can whip up some truly Old School builds, that don't need the Doffs to function. It's not like I totally chucked all my old cruiser notes. Hot Builds for cheap (also if you notice, more than a few of the builds I posted are for Old Cruisers like the Starcruiser and AC)
Also the only reason it seems like more combos were viable back then (outside of sci ships) is because players back then sucked abit more on the High End Level. I remember the first time I threw down Extend shields 3 during a match against Old School SOB. I had them swearing at us, because they literally could not down their targets shields, even after 4 sub nukes. (back then it had a +50 resistance and a stronger shield heal. It had a 5km range and no Reapply) Once ES3 wore off, I'd slap ES2 on someone else, or the same target and simply chain them.
I suppose I could also add the new AC Retrofit to the viable fed tac cruiser list but meh. Lazy pvper is lazy.
1st off, I'm not going to say a single point you've made is wrong, it is the way this game is now post NERFs. I, however, just don't like it and the way PVP gameplay has droped into oblivian makes me believe that the mainstay of STO players would tend to /agree.
Cryptic and STO tried to go for the "trinity". However, post all the NERFs, even this (in a very simplified 3 profession game) has gone the way of the dinosaur. DPS, tank, and healer. Remember back when Sci were called the healers? That placed crusiers in the "tank" position and was the original design criteria. However, with all the P2W DPS adds, the NERFs to healing/tanking, the adds to escorts for "tanking", crusiers can not fulfill their role anylonger. The common player responce is "there is no tank in PVP" is pure bunk as other games have done this and gotten away with it and some, as in SWG NGE even, have even done it well. I do not agree with you that no ship should be able to live thru a focus fire of 4 ships. Even in this game, I used to even with a tac in an excel. Before the dark times, before the skill box revamps.
Taking that away (the definition of the ultimate NERF) took a large percentage of the playerbase away from STO PVP and basicly removed a large choice via the playerbase. And choice seems to be what a MMO lives and thrives upon. Hardly ANY players want to be "pigeon holed" into a set role or a set build, expecialy if they have played for several years. Part of the fun is getting "out of the box" and games like TOR and STO have killed most of that player choice in favor of developers "keeping their control" and then, even that perceived balance, with all that dev control, gets thrown out of whack so much that players come to forums screaming "this is broke", this is UP, or this guy is OP.
And then when you limit a profession (as you state in the post below this one I'm commenting upon) such as Eng in a crusier, and then to nothing more than healer, stateing that it really always has been that only 1 gets in a group, the limit becomes more than most players want to endure. So, the player choice is to simply NOT take part in the PVP gameplay. And, as also is my case, I lost the passion for this game as I enjoy PVP gameplay done well and therefore it lost my going to the C-Store which affects Cryptic's bottom line. I still have 3K stipend points as they have pigeon holed STO to what it is today with no plans, and no wants, to even spend them. There is simply nothing in that store, via Cryptic's new STO design that I would want. Cryptic seems to be self-defeating with their designs/NERFs/CHANGES.
I guess I'm a little slow this week as I've just figured out that your Mav. You've been around as long as I have. You may indeed like some of these CHANGES/NERFS that have occured (believe me there were actualy some people that said the NGE was the best thing since sliced bread on the forums also), however the mainstay thought a little different. In SWG's case, 2/3rd of them didn't like it. Cryptic has gone past that voting with your feet (unsubbing) aspect with F2P, but it actualy ends up being even worse is you have a player, like me, who hangs around, eating up good bandwidth, and doesn't bother spending the money to justify their own existance.
The best case senerio? Balance the game, get rid of "Escorts Online" (it's just as bad as Cruisers Online of yesteryear), then PVP will return, they'll have more interest from the masses, and when the passion is renewed, people will spend more money.
1st off, I'm not going to say a single point you've made is wrong, it is the way this game is now post NERFs. I, however, just don't like it and the way PVP gameplay has droped into oblivian makes me believe that the mainstay of STO players would tend to /agree.
Cryptic and STO tried to go for the "trinity". However, post all the NERFs, even this (in a very simplified 3 profession game) has gone the way of the dinosaur. DPS, tank, and healer. Remember back when Sci were called the healers? That placed crusiers in the "tank" position and was the original design criteria. However, with all the P2W DPS adds, the NERFs to healing/tanking, the adds to escorts for "tanking", crusiers can not fulfill their role anylonger. The common player responce is "there is no tank in PVP" is pure bunk as other games have done this and gotten away with it and some, as in SWG NGE even, have even done it well. I do not agree with you that no ship should be able to live thru a focus fire of 4 ships. Even in this game, I used to even with a tac in an excel. Before the dark times, before the skill box revamps.
Taking that away (the definition of the ultimate NERF) took a large percentage of the playerbase away from STO PVP and basicly removed a large choice via the playerbase. And choice seems to be what a MMO lives and thrives upon. Hardly ANY players want to be "pigeon holed" into a set role or a set build, expecialy if they have played for several years. Part of the fun is getting "out of the box" and games like TOR and STO have killed most of that player choice in favor of developers "keeping their control" and then, even that perceived balance, with all that dev control, gets thrown out of whack so much that players come to forums screaming "this is broke", this is UP, or this guy is OP.
And then when you limit a profession (as you state in the post below this one I'm commenting upon) such as Eng in a crusier, and then to nothing more than healer, stateing that it really always has been that only 1 gets in a group, the limit becomes more than most players want to endure. So, the player choice is to simply NOT take part in the PVP gameplay. And, as also is my case, I lost the passion for this game as I enjoy PVP gameplay done well and therefore it lost my going to the C-Store which affects Cryptic's bottom line. I still have 3K stipend points as they have pigeon holed STO to what it is today with no plans, and no wants, to even spend them. There is simply nothing in that store, via Cryptic's new STO design that I would want. Cryptic seems to be self-defeating with their designs/NERFs/CHANGES.
I guess I'm a little slow this week as I've just figured out that your Mav. You've been around as long as I have. You may indeed like some of these CHANGES/NERFS that have occured (believe me there were actualy some people that said the NGE was the best thing since sliced bread on the forums also), however the mainstay thought a little different. In SWG's case, 2/3rd of them didn't like it. Cryptic has gone past that voting with your feet (unsubbing) aspect with F2P, but it actualy ends up being even worse is you have a player, like me, who hangs around, eating up good bandwidth, and doesn't bother spending the money to justify their own existance.
The best case senerio? Balance the game, get rid of "Escorts Online" (it's just as bad as Cruisers Online of yesteryear), then PVP will return, they'll have more interest from the masses, and when the passion is renewed, people will spend more money.
What nerfs? healing is even more ludicrous than it was pre f2p thanks to the stupid doffs. (actually most of STO's problem, sci skills aside come straight from that Stupid Minigame) If anything it's even Harder to breach defenses now than it was before. Almost every ship in the game is now running more aggressive setups either in CC or Damage in an attempt to breach the walls of Healing that are capable of being thrown around at will. Cruisers are more agile, they have more shield points, they have more hull. Everyone has more consoles and the same above. the Doffs have doubled ET and STs effectiveness, the skill tree change boosted STs output significantly. (to say nothing of the serious kick to the Nuts sci ships have gotten. CC has always been the counter to healing in this game or should have been when things were working better than they are now)
Our sci were never healers. Our sci were always Murderers. Be it through doubled up Tykens 3s (back when TR could suck 110 power away on it's lonesome), CPB and Tachyon Beam3s, or CC monsters with the borked scramble that caused target jumps so bad that it was almost impossible to Clear with ST.
There haven't been any p2w dps adders save for the Point Defense turret and torpedo consoles. And those are mediocre on a good day. Defensive and crowd control on the other hand, oh my god there's so many I can't even start to list them all. As far as tanking 4 ships go, there were alot more Chumps back then than we have now that fly Escort. Either you get good or you quit, as an Escort. The lamepilot phenomina seems pretty much a Cruiser thing these days. I think it has to do with the fact that Rpers think "omg I'm kirk I deserve a cruiser!" and there they go running to the cruisers.
That's because players back then weren't running Maximum Aggression setups due to the over proliferation of Healing and lack of CC. Some of us were, and that's why we cut through myriads of people like a scythe to wheat. Back then almost every ship had some mix of heals along with dps, while the sci (of which only 2 sci ships were needed) brought monstrously effective CC to bear to wipe targets out for the scorts. If you look at most of my Escorts these days for example you'd find both of my mvams roll loaded for Elephants even when I'm just hunting Deer. What back then would have left me dangerously vulnerable, is now just a shoulder shrug, because I'm still as durable now as back when I ran a mix of heals and damage.
Now I keep TSS1 on there just as a token effort that gets rotated out with PH. The Reapply for Extends, the SDO doffs, Warpcore Engineers, Aux to batt builds etc have all taken care of the major need for heals. I just rely on my BFI, and externals anymore.
And that's all just to get the Results we had before F2P. Because, as I mentioned previously healings effectiveness has been essentially Doubled on the field. It takes every scrap of DPS I can conjure up to smite down an enemy if they are cross healing and are any good at it.
Eng has never been a more than one. It's always been a liability to a teams output, especially when that came at the cost of Sci Abilities. Now it's a liability because it can't pump the damage necessary. (see above regarding just what it takes to bring someone down now)
What used to be, the result of perfect synergy and cross heal timing in STO, is now on a much lower bar for a given team to out stripe DPS completely. Now healing is so monstrous, you'd be amazed at just how sloppy you can be with throwing your healing weight around and keeping people alive. Before it took some serious dedication to learn the Healing Trade, especially if you were like me and ran (and still do) run CC in your heal build. My abilities as a healer, and CC specialist when I roll my Eng Cruiser have diminished somewhat. Not because I've always preferred my Escorts and Sci ships, but because frankly, it's too easy now to keep people going. I don't have to run the 30 second clock in my head around my ET3s. I don't have to make that choice between having an RSP or ASIF on my ship. Now that clock is 15 seconds, and I know that in most cases I should be carrying my ASIF instead of RSP. Because frankly the SDOs will save me just as good as RSP can, and my other doffs kicked ET3 down to it's innate shared CD time anyway.
It actually drives Bat**** crazy because it's almost Boring.
What nerfs? healing is even more ludicrous than it was pre f2p thanks to the stupid doffs. (actually most of STO's problem, sci skills aside come straight from that Stupid Minigame) If anything it's even Harder to breach defenses now than it was before. Almost every ship in the game is now running more aggressive setups either in CC or Damage in an attempt to breach the walls of Healing that are capable of being thrown around at will. Cruisers are more agile, they have more shield points, they have more hull. Everyone has more consoles and the same above. the Doffs have doubled ET and STs effectiveness, the skill tree change boosted STs output significantly. (to say nothing of the serious kick to the Nuts sci ships have gotten. CC has always been the counter to healing in this game or should have been when things were working better than they are now)
Our sci were never healers. Our sci were always Murderers. Be it through doubled up Tykens 3s (back when TR could suck 110 power away on it's lonesome), CPB and Tachyon Beam3s, or CC monsters with the borked scramble that caused target jumps so bad that it was almost impossible to Clear with ST.
There haven't been any p2w dps adders save for the Point Defense turret and torpedo consoles. And those are mediocre on a good day. Defensive and crowd control on the other hand, oh my god there's so many I can't even start to list them all. As far as tanking 4 ships go, there were alot more Chumps back then than we have now that fly Escort. Either you get good or you quit, as an Escort. The lamepilot phenomina seems pretty much a Cruiser thing these days. I think it has to do with the fact that Rpers think "omg I'm kirk I deserve a cruiser!" and there they go running to the cruisers.
That's because players back then weren't running Maximum Aggression setups due to the over proliferation of Healing and lack of CC. Some of us were, and that's why we cut through myriads of people like a scythe to wheat. Back then almost every ship had some mix of heals along with dps, while the sci (of which only 2 sci ships were needed) brought monstrously effective CC to bear to wipe targets out for the scorts. If you look at most of my Escorts these days for example you'd find both of my mvams roll loaded for Elephants even when I'm just hunting Deer. What back then would have left me dangerously vulnerable, is now just a shoulder shrug, because I'm still as durable now as back when I ran a mix of heals and damage.
Now I keep TSS1 on there just as a token effort that gets rotated out with PH. The Reapply for Extends, the SDO doffs, Warpcore Engineers, Aux to batt builds etc have all taken care of the major need for heals. I just rely on my BFI, and externals anymore.
And that's all just to get the Results we had before F2P. Because, as I mentioned previously healings effectiveness has been essentially Doubled on the field. It takes every scrap of DPS I can conjure up to smite down an enemy if they are cross healing and are any good at it.
Eng has never been a more than one. It's always been a liability to a teams output, especially when that came at the cost of Sci Abilities. Now it's a liability because it can't pump the damage necessary. (see above regarding just what it takes to bring someone down now)
What used to be, the result of perfect synergy and cross heal timing in STO, is now on a much lower bar for a given team to out stripe DPS completely. Now healing is so monstrous, you'd be amazed at just how sloppy you can be with throwing your healing weight around and keeping people alive. Before it took some serious dedication to learn the Healing Trade, especially if you were like me and ran (and still do) run CC in your heal build. My abilities as a healer, and CC specialist when I roll my Eng Cruiser have diminished somewhat. Not because I've always preferred my Escorts and Sci ships, but because frankly, it's too easy now to keep people going. I don't have to run the 30 second clock in my head around my ET3s. I don't have to make that choice between having an RSP or ASIF on my ship. Now that clock is 15 seconds, and I know that in most cases I should be carrying my ASIF instead of RSP. Because frankly the SDOs will save me just as good as RSP can, and my other doffs kicked ET3 down to it's innate shared CD time anyway.
It actually drives Bat**** crazy because it's almost Boring.
/agree on 85% anyway. Altho I really believe we had some very good players back then as well. Kash in 12th (in fact, several in 12th), Cypher (rek) with his hardened shield build on his Def-R, Ras, Hus, BRJ, you, and many others just to name a few. I really doubt that we, as players, just got that good since the skillbox revamps. Even the revamps added DPS, as long as you speced for it.
I guess my real want and wish list is now a dead player. I just seen that other thread where Dstahl was quoted in saying "STO doesn't need a DPS crusier, and neither" did he and was reminded that threads popped up daily wanting this. Seems that decision is already made, final, and this goes along with the design of the new sov. Perfect chance to fill the bill and missed. Oh well, it is what it is. The NGE additive, take it or leave it.
Now, I would imagine that it's up to me to finaly do away with my old excel beam-boat and fly that fleet patrol escort for any PVP urges I possibly get in the future.
/agree on 85% anyway. Altho I really believe we had some very good players back then as well. Kash in 12th (in fact, several in 12th), Cypher (rek) with his hardened shield build on his Def-R, Ras, Hus, BRJ, you, and many others just to name a few. I really doubt that we, as players, just got that good since the skillbox revamps. Even the revamps added DPS, as long as you speced for it.
I guess my real want and wish list is now a dead player. I just seen that other thread where Dstahl was quoted in saying "STO doesn't need a DPS crusier, and neither" did he and was reminded that threads popped up daily wanting this. Seems that decision is already made, final, and this goes along with the design of the new sov. Perfect chance to fill the bill and missed. Oh well, it is what it is. The NGE additive, take it or leave it.
Now, I would imagine that it's up to me to finaly do away with my old excel beam-boat and fly that fleet patrol escort for any PVP urges I possibly get in the future.
Nah, we got That Damn good over the course of pre f2p. (season 3 to 4 really was the highwater mark of Skilled players in all of STOs respective Trades imo) F2P, just made it that much easier for us to do what we do best to the point where we have hit the wall of Peak Heals. Especially with the introduction of cruisers that had LTC cmdr Sci capabilities (bortas, Oddy), and then the quick swift and painful kick to the Nuts, the Cryptic gave to Sci after f2p. It took an already scary situation and amplified it, then the doffs came. And have pushed it even farther into Obscene levels. Now we have the Recluse ontop of all this mess too. Which is capable of reliably generating 6 million in healing at the end of a typical arena, single handedly. (vs the 2 to 3 million of a heal oddy)
You want DPS cruisers? click on my cruiser thread. DPS is plenty alive and well my friend. I just recently sorted the Table of Contents as well so you can find your chosen role more quickly and easily. Trust me the Beam TacXelsior is still hot ****. Either in Death Blossom or Deadly Broadside formats. Infact now it's made even better with the broad side torp, Glider, or you can go Cannon Crazy, aux to batt hot and bothered. SO many hax.
And don't gimme that "you only take 1 eng" line. You never took more than one eng in STO. never. Just like you often only took one Cleric/Priest in RIFT teams per five man group, unless one or both of them were also debuff carriers. Hell frankly you don't take more than one tac either in 90 percent of optimal cases. You take 4 sci, one tac save for outlier teams where you can field Eng, 2 sci, 2 tac.
Basically speaking, if you want a valid team comp you need to follow three rules:
No more than one engineer captain
No more than two tactical captains
No less than two science captains
If you violate any of these rules your team is already messed. If you obey these three rules then your team, at least as far as career ratios goes, is valid. Of course, you can always mess things up in other ways.
Eng scort has always blown TRIBBLE. I'm sorry. Eng Sci outside of the Nebula/Dkyr has never been a good idea either. Also, tac cruiser builds fedside have a -very- narrow platform they can walk and be viable on a team. Eng cruisers on the other hand? The list is quite abit larger.
these magical eng cruisers are a myth, should engs be gratefull that there still is a "narrow" platform for their native ship class? NObody has any use for the in NWS, or most parts of PvP. The only thing eng cruisers are good for, is denying the other team and end of the arena, if they turn up with 5x eng/cruiser, waiting for the other team to either fall asleep or warp out.
Since the sci nerf, there is nothing an eng/nebbie offers that a cruiser doesn't do better (except they look about 500x better then any FED cruiser ever will. But boy, what do you know, there still is some narrow platform for Tac/Sci which trump eng/nebbie every single time.
All escorts are for tacs, no narrow band here, none are for engs,
Cruisers have a narrow platform for tacs, ok, but the platform for viable cruisers build for eng is just as narrow.
I really don't think we are that far apart, in what we're saying, maybe i just feel it more since my main were engs which have all been relegated to doff storage space now.
Comments
Welcome to the fleet. Sorry I am not in game to greet you in person, but one can only put up with so much development failsauce before giving up. That's an excellent offer you propose. I hope some people take you up on it.
OP *is* the new balance, whether you know it or not! Gecko says so.
Season 7 - Exodus, available online. U buy nao!
http://seekingalpha.com/article/738221-monetizing-perfect-world-s-latest-update
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
For the escort tanking 4 ships in K, I would imagine that has to be doffs and I would be interested in what the other ships were. And they're in the C-Store as well. I know I can't do that with an excel but my doffs are less than prime, to be honest, when I got got fed up the last time and took my gametime and money elsewhere. But, to be honest, my P2W fleet patrol escort tanks just as well as the excel does, has 3 times more DPS, and has that inherent "get the flock outta dodge" key that works much better in the escort than the crusier. So, to be honest, I say "good for the guy who figured out tanking". As far as I'm concerned, it now takes some stratgy to take this guy out, rather than just focus fire and melt. This is what STO needs more of, not so much in an escort as all that does is add to "Escorts Online", but it really should take some thought to knocking out a crusier or even a sci.
But now, lets put those P2W ships in the hands of a skilled player. Do you even remotely believe that the regular Def-R (not the P2W fleet version) could stand even a chance against a bug? All things being equal on the "skill" level, the bug will win every time. This is not new and it's been in STO ever since the excel was introed. The same was true with the sov v excel.
they are not killing pvp, if your not enjoying getting rolled, ask questions in the forums, OPVP, panda cubs, or send a tell asking how you rolled me so hard. they will likely help, its in their best interest for the average player to be more challenging to kill, so pvp is more fun for all.
complaining that pvp is dead or that people that know how to play are ruining it is wrong. you are ruining pvp, by complaining and not improving. clearly effectiveness far beyond yours is possible to achieve, and wile its important to have a good build and good equipment, team work will get you farthest. if every kirk out there put ES on their ships, the random pug team they are on would become 3 times more resilient, seriously.
And you counter P2W with more P2W. Get the galor and Dkora. All of which are chance to P2W sold and not even pure P2W. Buy the chance. Ever read the gameplay forums and/or the C-Store forums? Countless threads there of "I've spent 80 dollars and can't get what I want". Only one who wins is Cryptic and now we, the players, are forced to advocate such.
And most of what you tout for crusiers are pure tanking builds with NOTHING for DPS and then mostly limited to crusiers that have sci shields, a turn rate of nothing, and only 2 boffs slots for DPS, period using 1 of them for the new Fotm, TT1. More head down to your local store and spend that money. I call that "Pay-to-live". And even then, focus fire from 4 escorts along with the inherent lag in the Cryptic engine, melts so fast that the other guy has no time to react.
We were talking about the new player who just gets 50 and decides to go hit the PVP Qs. All of these P2W consoles/store doffs/P2W ships just to be able to compete becomes a very large hurdle to climb for that new players. Much worse than the grind of the older MMOs. At least there it time and not how fat your wallet is. Much easier to just say "to heck with it" and do PVE. Kinda the same problem with TOR PVP. No1 does it anylonger either. Why? A seperate PVP stat that you have to die many, many, MANY times before you get your gear to even have that chance to learn your profession and think about competing. The hurdle becomes to large and not worth it to the average player.
I don't fault a thing you are saying. It is the nature of the game now. I'm an old beta vet that remembers how it used to be. When EVERY ship could compete, when EVERY weapon could compete, when just about EVERY min/max build could compete, and subsequently there was a boat-load of PVP going on. Remember when the PVP Q was in the main tags and not hidden under the drop down menu? There was a reason for that.
Escorts do not really TANK, as in soak up damage. They avoid or evade damage! A very well built Escort can now evade 75% of the damage being thrown at them maximum. Meaning, my cruisers beam array will only hit that Escort 1 out of 4 shots. If my Beam Array deals 1300 DPV or damage per shot and fires 4 cycles, yet I land only one shot per cycle. I have only dealt 1300 damage to the Escorts shields less resistances. So in effect, Escorts are able to, by use of Defense/Evading, reduce beyond 75% the damage potential of enemy ships firing at them. This is completely dependent on gear, traits, and skill point usage and engine power. However, Engine power is really critical to the Escorts Defense Value.
This is why really smart Escort Pilots seem to out tank Cruisers! It is NOT that they can actually take more damage. They simply are better able to prevent damage being dealt to them. This is also why the Bug ship seems so very over powered. Even though it statistically is? but that is another story.
I have found that the best way to defeat Escorts is to take away their mobility. They lack any real ability to TANK damage like a cruiser can TANK. Once they are immobilized you will see them either use RSP or do everything possible to gain mobility again. On one particular Cruiser build I have, I use Beam Target Engines III and it is seriously buffed up! When it hits an Escort, they stop moving and die rather quickly while focused.
Hope this helped some of you!
Now the more cynical of you guys will probably say I'm gonna fail. Maybe I will, but at least I know I tried. What I do know is this: I've seen people using far inferior gear than me, and in far inferior ships, beat me handily in arenas. Ultimately, the key to victory in any PvP in STO is your skill as a pilot, and the viability of your build.
Skill improves with practice. And as for builds and how to use it? That's where we come in.
As for this entire Pay to Win debate: is it true that a P2W ship like the Jem'Hadar Attack Ship will defeat a Patrol Escort in a 1v1, fair fight? Assuming equal skill of the pilots, probably. But keep in mind, in PvP we don't fight to be fair, we fight to win. The whole point is NOT fight fair.
In an unfair fight, anyone can come out on top. Bugship pilots tend to be arrogant. That can be exploited. And we can teach the newbs how.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies . ~Bluegeek
People don't want to join your training/recruitment school, they don't want to join a channel made to circumvent OPVP that has far less people. I thought the Panda Cubs got shut down after the Critz took the majority?
Regardless, get people to join OPVP. Why date Meg Griffen if her hot mum is drunk beside you?
@Aquitaine985
Lag Industries STO PvP Fleet - Executive
A Sad Panda of Industrial calibre.
2010: This is Cryptic PvP. Please hold the line, your call is very important to us...
If the Majority is 2 people then i guess it did get shutdown. Most of critz is made up of Old 1AQ and CDG people. Not to sure why your so mad about the Pandas tryin to help people get better, the more good players in the queues the better.
Quote of the week:
I get some people who rage or who throw me on ignore, but for the most part being polite & helpful pays off.
& you can always Run a Klingon cruiser if you'd like to do something other than a full support role well. I get suprising DPS with my Engi flying a Mirror Vorcha. & I can still provide decent support with ES TSS ET & HE + do crowd control with EWP3 & Theta. I have a lot of fun flying it. :cool:
Edit
I should do a post on that build.
Panda Cubs is still an active channel and fleet.
OPVP is just one resource, one which I've talked about here, myself. The Cubs channel has 1 purpose, not many, and that is to help new PvPers. OPVP sometimes doesn't lend itself to that purpose too well, since it is sometimes hard to tell what is genuine and what is trolling. The Cubs channel also has the advantage of always being monitored by some of the best players in the game with the intent of helping new players.
Anyway, I was just throwing it out there as a supplement to OPVP. One where your questions will always be taken seriously.
I define this as Defense tanking. So I guess it just depends on how you look at it.
Such is the weakness of the Escort. Remove thier mobility or thier ability to inflict damage and they die easily.
R.I.P
I believe you've hit the major problem with crusiers atm. The OVER-NERF (just like FaW/Sci et al) to beams and their inherent 95% ACC. Personaly, I droped, with my excel beam-boat, from an average of 800K damage, in the typ match, to a bit over 200K. Now, this is the extreme, tested with APs that only come in ACC X1, but I originaly chose those APS to make up for some of the damage loss of the choice of the excel. Now? APs are almost worthless as evidenced by the cost, even, of the level 10 APs (used to old borg). 15K dil for APS, 20 dil for everything else. Doesn't really help matters any that Alien Captains and Evade has become the have-to FOTM either.
I tend to disagree with you on the pure tanking of an escort tho. My fleet patrol escort runs 47% resists, almost right on down the line (really more than the excel as I don't need the power console in the escort) and more than makes up for any healing slot loss just by having an eng in it. You surely ought to see the resists when I buff all the way up on that "poor little escort", right along with all that evade, speed, and agility. I can actualy come very close to what the best tacs are throwing, DPS wise, simply due to being able to "tank" a bit more and keep my cannons to bear longer. The bug can do the same, all the while throwing more DPS, with a better turn rate. Where escorts suffer is in the healing slots, not really tanking per-se. P2W has taken care of that.
Balance will make or break PVP gameplay. Seen it a 100 times in this game and others. If a game developer choses FOTM style or P2W, PVP seems to be the gameplay that suffers 1st and formost.
I applaud the OP for this attempt and back the concept whole-heartedly. Altho Hus, and others I would imagine, will tell you it's been tried a lot before. We used to even have matches that "outlawed" P2W consoles, ships, etc. and all that meant was we had to have 2 different set ups. 1 for organized PVP, the other for non organized.
2: my engineer cruiser sucks up 1000% more damage than any escort i have ever flown.
3: my engineer cruiser does regularly out perform all of my other toons when it comes to pure numbers production.
4: and i have a tac bug ship that is damn hard to take down when i equip it to be so.
5: and i mean, the engie cruiser will get more kills, die less, and do more damage, and do more healing.
just how are you guys building and flying your cruisers?
also, i wish i could do premades more often. its the real fun of pvp.
have fun kill bad guys
For STFs obviously.
If that's fun for you then go for it. It is not fun for me so I don't do it. I don't feel any obligation to play something unfun for other people. Cryptic is 100% responsible for the fun, not me or you.
you are responsible for your own fun.
i have fun by killing bad guys.
I stay away from pve gameplay and genital gameplay. All it would do is TRIBBLE me off because of how utterly Failtastic most of those players are.
Actually what I tout, are Healing builds. Half of which also have Crowd Control forcefully mated to them either in the sci slot or cmdr eng level. Each build particularly the AC builds, run high OverCapped weapon power which gives them very high sustained DPS. Due to the cycle rate of beams putting DEM on anything but the Tacxcelsior/galor combo is a complete waste of time and always has been. It's more important that the pressure is applied to a given target, if for nothing else simply to completely shut down native shield regen rates. The other half, are Damage Hybrids. Particularly KDF side. There is no such thing as Tank Builds in pvp. You don't Tank. You either, Crowd Control, Do Damage, or Heal. Sitting pretty in a ship with oodles of heals and doing nothing but fixing yourself is not effective play. Never has been, never will be either (thank god)
No one should survive 4 ships shooting him for very long Period without Cross healing going on. Yes that's right sometimes you actually have to heal the healer. This is true in every game in this genre. Not just STO. However with only -minimal- effort you can turn someone, even a Scort into a nigh invulnerable Fortress with the proper application of given abilities. You really should watch my demo vid. Particularly when I was healing the bug. And then look at when I healed the sci player. The bug player did everything Right after about half way into the vid. He stayed near me so I can keep Extending him, and readily passing out heals. He moved his ship in such a manner that when he got into dog fights, I could more easily snare targets, by passing near me frequently. The sci on the other hand did Everything Wrong, not even balancing his shields. And yet I still extended his lifespan 3 fold without even really trying to keep him going, I could have fed him my Tac Team since he didn't Balance shields, I could have kept much better Hazard and TSS coverages on him. But I didn't after a while, because healing that fool would have been a waste. Especially with someone Competent right next to me on that same team, I could have kept that nearly harmless sci ship alive the whole match had I dedicated myself to it. (though I would probably have had to swap out my plas for ASIF3)
And you have more than enough time to react in this game. We've been doing Premade PvP for 2 + years now. I think we'd notice if healing was unable to keep up with DPS by now :rolleyes: Also, if you like I can whip up some truly Old School builds, that don't need the Doffs to function. It's not like I totally chucked all my old cruiser notes. Hot Builds for cheap (also if you notice, more than a few of the builds I posted are for Old Cruisers like the Starcruiser and AC)
Also the only reason it seems like more combos were viable back then (outside of sci ships) is because players back then sucked abit more on the High End Level. I remember the first time I threw down Extend shields 3 during a match against Old School SOB. I had them swearing at us, because they literally could not down their targets shields, even after 4 sub nukes. (back then it had a +50 resistance and a stronger shield heal. It had a 5km range and no Reapply) Once ES3 wore off, I'd slap ES2 on someone else, or the same target and simply chain them.
I suppose I could also add the new AC Retrofit to the viable fed tac cruiser list but meh. Lazy pvper is lazy.
This is right..
That friggin list should rot in hell, untill viable Eng-sci list, and viable Eng-escort list has grown to three times it's length
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
Eng scort has always blown TRIBBLE. I'm sorry. Eng Sci outside of the Nebula/Dkyr has never been a good idea either. Also, tac cruiser builds fedside have a -very- narrow platform they can walk and be viable on a team. Eng cruisers on the other hand? The list is quite abit larger.
The thing is, there really isn't much they can do to make the eng good at anything other than heals without it superceding tac and sci captains. Due to the sheer survivability (to the point as an eng healer in present sto you can get away with no RSP on your cruiser in all honesty) you always have at least +1 heal to give away to everyone else. (infact later on I'm probably going to drop the vestigial RSP1 on my mirrorstarcruiser for an ASIF1 or DEM1 most likely ASIF.
Engies also have by far the best healing prowess without things like Warp Core Doffs. (and at best everyone else "equals" them while the Core doff procs) seriously my eng pegs almost every subsystem he has without the Core doff. Which frees up a doff slot for stuff like a matter anti matter spec.
And don't gimme that "you only take 1 eng" line. You never took more than one eng in STO. never. Just like you often only took one Cleric/Priest in RIFT teams per five man group, unless one or both of them were also debuff carriers. Hell frankly you don't take more than one tac either in 90 percent of optimal cases. You take 4 sci, one tac save for outlier teams where you can field Eng, 2 sci, 2 tac. The eng allows you to field the second tac because of how many Give Away options they have thanks to MW and RSF. The team goes from sorta bursty with alot of debuffs thrown to. Very Dangerous with some debuffs thrown because the eng can shotgun away every heal he has if necessary to keep one of the tacs rolling. And usually that second tac still has to be a Cruiser or sci ship in order for the team to work.
This is actually an improvement over where we were, before F2P launched where the only reason you took anything but 5 sci was because of "common agreement" that 5 sci captains, in sci ships, loaded with torp spreads was kind of a **** Move.
1st off, I'm not going to say a single point you've made is wrong, it is the way this game is now post NERFs. I, however, just don't like it and the way PVP gameplay has droped into oblivian makes me believe that the mainstay of STO players would tend to /agree.
Cryptic and STO tried to go for the "trinity". However, post all the NERFs, even this (in a very simplified 3 profession game) has gone the way of the dinosaur. DPS, tank, and healer. Remember back when Sci were called the healers? That placed crusiers in the "tank" position and was the original design criteria. However, with all the P2W DPS adds, the NERFs to healing/tanking, the adds to escorts for "tanking", crusiers can not fulfill their role anylonger. The common player responce is "there is no tank in PVP" is pure bunk as other games have done this and gotten away with it and some, as in SWG NGE even, have even done it well. I do not agree with you that no ship should be able to live thru a focus fire of 4 ships. Even in this game, I used to even with a tac in an excel. Before the dark times, before the skill box revamps.
Taking that away (the definition of the ultimate NERF) took a large percentage of the playerbase away from STO PVP and basicly removed a large choice via the playerbase. And choice seems to be what a MMO lives and thrives upon. Hardly ANY players want to be "pigeon holed" into a set role or a set build, expecialy if they have played for several years. Part of the fun is getting "out of the box" and games like TOR and STO have killed most of that player choice in favor of developers "keeping their control" and then, even that perceived balance, with all that dev control, gets thrown out of whack so much that players come to forums screaming "this is broke", this is UP, or this guy is OP.
And then when you limit a profession (as you state in the post below this one I'm commenting upon) such as Eng in a crusier, and then to nothing more than healer, stateing that it really always has been that only 1 gets in a group, the limit becomes more than most players want to endure. So, the player choice is to simply NOT take part in the PVP gameplay. And, as also is my case, I lost the passion for this game as I enjoy PVP gameplay done well and therefore it lost my going to the C-Store which affects Cryptic's bottom line. I still have 3K stipend points as they have pigeon holed STO to what it is today with no plans, and no wants, to even spend them. There is simply nothing in that store, via Cryptic's new STO design that I would want. Cryptic seems to be self-defeating with their designs/NERFs/CHANGES.
I guess I'm a little slow this week as I've just figured out that your Mav. You've been around as long as I have. You may indeed like some of these CHANGES/NERFS that have occured (believe me there were actualy some people that said the NGE was the best thing since sliced bread on the forums also), however the mainstay thought a little different. In SWG's case, 2/3rd of them didn't like it. Cryptic has gone past that voting with your feet (unsubbing) aspect with F2P, but it actualy ends up being even worse is you have a player, like me, who hangs around, eating up good bandwidth, and doesn't bother spending the money to justify their own existance.
The best case senerio? Balance the game, get rid of "Escorts Online" (it's just as bad as Cruisers Online of yesteryear), then PVP will return, they'll have more interest from the masses, and when the passion is renewed, people will spend more money.
What nerfs? healing is even more ludicrous than it was pre f2p thanks to the stupid doffs. (actually most of STO's problem, sci skills aside come straight from that Stupid Minigame) If anything it's even Harder to breach defenses now than it was before. Almost every ship in the game is now running more aggressive setups either in CC or Damage in an attempt to breach the walls of Healing that are capable of being thrown around at will. Cruisers are more agile, they have more shield points, they have more hull. Everyone has more consoles and the same above. the Doffs have doubled ET and STs effectiveness, the skill tree change boosted STs output significantly. (to say nothing of the serious kick to the Nuts sci ships have gotten. CC has always been the counter to healing in this game or should have been when things were working better than they are now)
Our sci were never healers. Our sci were always Murderers. Be it through doubled up Tykens 3s (back when TR could suck 110 power away on it's lonesome), CPB and Tachyon Beam3s, or CC monsters with the borked scramble that caused target jumps so bad that it was almost impossible to Clear with ST.
There haven't been any p2w dps adders save for the Point Defense turret and torpedo consoles. And those are mediocre on a good day. Defensive and crowd control on the other hand, oh my god there's so many I can't even start to list them all. As far as tanking 4 ships go, there were alot more Chumps back then than we have now that fly Escort. Either you get good or you quit, as an Escort. The lamepilot phenomina seems pretty much a Cruiser thing these days. I think it has to do with the fact that Rpers think "omg I'm kirk I deserve a cruiser!" and there they go running to the cruisers.
That's because players back then weren't running Maximum Aggression setups due to the over proliferation of Healing and lack of CC. Some of us were, and that's why we cut through myriads of people like a scythe to wheat. Back then almost every ship had some mix of heals along with dps, while the sci (of which only 2 sci ships were needed) brought monstrously effective CC to bear to wipe targets out for the scorts. If you look at most of my Escorts these days for example you'd find both of my mvams roll loaded for Elephants even when I'm just hunting Deer. What back then would have left me dangerously vulnerable, is now just a shoulder shrug, because I'm still as durable now as back when I ran a mix of heals and damage.
Now I keep TSS1 on there just as a token effort that gets rotated out with PH. The Reapply for Extends, the SDO doffs, Warpcore Engineers, Aux to batt builds etc have all taken care of the major need for heals. I just rely on my BFI, and externals anymore.
And that's all just to get the Results we had before F2P. Because, as I mentioned previously healings effectiveness has been essentially Doubled on the field. It takes every scrap of DPS I can conjure up to smite down an enemy if they are cross healing and are any good at it.
Eng has never been a more than one. It's always been a liability to a teams output, especially when that came at the cost of Sci Abilities. Now it's a liability because it can't pump the damage necessary. (see above regarding just what it takes to bring someone down now)
What used to be, the result of perfect synergy and cross heal timing in STO, is now on a much lower bar for a given team to out stripe DPS completely. Now healing is so monstrous, you'd be amazed at just how sloppy you can be with throwing your healing weight around and keeping people alive. Before it took some serious dedication to learn the Healing Trade, especially if you were like me and ran (and still do) run CC in your heal build. My abilities as a healer, and CC specialist when I roll my Eng Cruiser have diminished somewhat. Not because I've always preferred my Escorts and Sci ships, but because frankly, it's too easy now to keep people going. I don't have to run the 30 second clock in my head around my ET3s. I don't have to make that choice between having an RSP or ASIF on my ship. Now that clock is 15 seconds, and I know that in most cases I should be carrying my ASIF instead of RSP. Because frankly the SDOs will save me just as good as RSP can, and my other doffs kicked ET3 down to it's innate shared CD time anyway.
It actually drives Bat**** crazy because it's almost Boring.
/agree on 85% anyway. Altho I really believe we had some very good players back then as well. Kash in 12th (in fact, several in 12th), Cypher (rek) with his hardened shield build on his Def-R, Ras, Hus, BRJ, you, and many others just to name a few. I really doubt that we, as players, just got that good since the skillbox revamps. Even the revamps added DPS, as long as you speced for it.
I guess my real want and wish list is now a dead player. I just seen that other thread where Dstahl was quoted in saying "STO doesn't need a DPS crusier, and neither" did he and was reminded that threads popped up daily wanting this. Seems that decision is already made, final, and this goes along with the design of the new sov. Perfect chance to fill the bill and missed. Oh well, it is what it is. The NGE additive, take it or leave it.
Now, I would imagine that it's up to me to finaly do away with my old excel beam-boat and fly that fleet patrol escort for any PVP urges I possibly get in the future.
Nah, we got That Damn good over the course of pre f2p. (season 3 to 4 really was the highwater mark of Skilled players in all of STOs respective Trades imo) F2P, just made it that much easier for us to do what we do best to the point where we have hit the wall of Peak Heals. Especially with the introduction of cruisers that had LTC cmdr Sci capabilities (bortas, Oddy), and then the quick swift and painful kick to the Nuts, the Cryptic gave to Sci after f2p. It took an already scary situation and amplified it, then the doffs came. And have pushed it even farther into Obscene levels. Now we have the Recluse ontop of all this mess too. Which is capable of reliably generating 6 million in healing at the end of a typical arena, single handedly. (vs the 2 to 3 million of a heal oddy)
You want DPS cruisers? click on my cruiser thread. DPS is plenty alive and well my friend. I just recently sorted the Table of Contents as well so you can find your chosen role more quickly and easily. Trust me the Beam TacXelsior is still hot ****. Either in Death Blossom or Deadly Broadside formats. Infact now it's made even better with the broad side torp, Glider, or you can go Cannon Crazy, aux to batt hot and bothered. SO many hax.
Basically speaking, if you want a valid team comp you need to follow three rules:
If you violate any of these rules your team is already messed. If you obey these three rules then your team, at least as far as career ratios goes, is valid. Of course, you can always mess things up in other ways.
these magical eng cruisers are a myth, should engs be gratefull that there still is a "narrow" platform for their native ship class? NObody has any use for the in NWS, or most parts of PvP. The only thing eng cruisers are good for, is denying the other team and end of the arena, if they turn up with 5x eng/cruiser, waiting for the other team to either fall asleep or warp out.
Since the sci nerf, there is nothing an eng/nebbie offers that a cruiser doesn't do better (except they look about 500x better then any FED cruiser ever will. But boy, what do you know, there still is some narrow platform for Tac/Sci which trump eng/nebbie every single time.
All escorts are for tacs, no narrow band here, none are for engs,
Cruisers have a narrow platform for tacs, ok, but the platform for viable cruisers build for eng is just as narrow.
I really don't think we are that far apart, in what we're saying, maybe i just feel it more since my main were engs which have all been relegated to doff storage space now.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013