There are some players that don't cease to amaze me. Through the weekend I did a few cycles of STFs and was fortunate to be in good PuG teams (got all 3 spaces' optional in a single cycle).
It was yesterday - KASE. Patrol Escort, MVAE and 2 cruisers and my Fleet Advanced Escort - not a bad setup at all. The first sign something was off was when we were shooting at the Tactical cube - it went a little too slow...ok, it happens, not a big deal. I rush to the right, and an Assault cruiser takes the defending role. I took out the Cube on the side closer to the time portal and left the transformer for the cruiser guy to shoot at while waiting for the next wave of probes. I wait for my Red Alert to go off and I full-impulse to the other side. Something made me turn my camera to the other side - and I see passing 13km off a Cube (remember I'm on the right and there's no one else except of me and the cruiser guy). OK, not a big deal - I kicked the cube which had wandered off to my side and then did the second cube on my side and the transformer. i went back to finish off the other transformer on the right. Then I left the cruiser-guardian alone and went to the left side (the 2 transformers were still there)....and...I find that the cube hasn't been invoked at all. A little annoying, but I killed it and the transformer after that. The rainbow MVAE was of a little help there. I gave a shoulder to the player punching the other side's transformer (he had it at 20%, which was nice). Then I go back to the right and started to work on the gate. At around 50% of it and 1:40 to the end of the optional, someone shouts "Quickly, kill the gates!!!" (on the sidenote, that same player was giving some orders from time to time). That's when something inside of me broke. "Sorry, but killing 4 cubes and 2 and 1/2 transformers, and a gate is about all I can do. Sorry I couldn't do the optional for you." was what I typed. I don't think it's a big deal to set-up properly your BOFF layout and ship weapons. And I'm Sci captain, not purposely build Tac - it's my build and my build alone - without looking at forums and so on (I spec-ed it some 6 months ago) - with their help even a monkey could do a pretty decent build.
Well, I see a lot of peoples in ESTF's who aren't able to kill, as a Tac in an Escor,t 2 BoP in CSE or 4 probes in KSE. Worst I saw was an Tac in an Science Ship who did only 90.000 damage against the Assimilated Carrier.
The Neg'Vhars are still a problem for me in my advanced escort. To often they kill me with an Iso -.- My engie in the cruiser doesn't have a problem with that, but he needs to long kill them xD
The key to avoiding ISO death in my experience is to make sure no one else is anywhere near you. If you get agro slowly pull away from any friendlies and if someone else has agro get away from 'em!!
Also I have noticed that sometimes it seems to just 'miss' not sure if its because of defense or a glitch but high defense can't hurt There are times though that it just esplodes you no matter what sadly.
I joined a KSN a couple days ago. I haven't done a lot of KSN but I understand how it's done.
The first cube went ok, nobody chatted or said hi except me.
When the cube went, two of the group went left and two went right. I flew center to kill probes. Things were going really slow and probes were thick from each side. Nobody was killing any probes as they transported in. I watched a couple of the other guys die while I was killing the probes.
I said, "What's taking everybody so long. Join up on one side and get it done."
One of the other guys told me to get over and help, they can kill the probes without a guard.
I said, "0k whatever."
So I head over to the left and start doing what they can't. I watch the probes, one - two - three as they go through the gate. Four - five - six get through.
I say, "Hmmmmm you guys are doing a great job killing probes."
Nobody says anything, nobody kills probes and we loose.
Then the noob insults start piling up from the same guy that says we didn't need a guard.
The new (season 7) method of obtaining STF gear seems to have prompted the appearance of some pretty poor players/setups in STF's. Probably players desperate to obtain as many EDC's etc as possible before S7.
well, I think after S7 release this topic is just going to shine as a beacon through the madness of PUGs
God ... some PvEers are just awful are the gamemode they should excel at.
How can some of you people have such fail builds? Learn to build a ship. Use the info from my siglink to learn how not to make garbage builds.
Anyway...
I was on CSE and these worthless grubs couldn't even handle Raptors or Bops.
I kept blowing up all spawns and Negs and I went to down a cube and when I come back, we're all overwhelmed. I foolishly assumed that 4 ships could have handled what 1 ship was doing eariler. :P
EliteSTFs are the pathetically easy with the right builds. They require almost no strategy beyond don't let the probes enter the vortex and protect the kang.
If you require any specialised strategies to beat Elite STFs, then you have an absolutely awful build.
You can power right through Infected Elite without even stopping other than to mop up the nanites.
Yesterday I was destroying the CSE spawns with a freaking plasma torpboat ffs! If a Sci Torpboat is outdamaging your Escort, something is drastically wrong with your build!
The only times I died were from overpowered Borg one shots, btw.
So I go in, and these loonies are getting their rear ends handed to them by the Borg. There's this one guy that keeps screaming "protect the kang" even though we're all at the Kang. And he just calls us newbs. After the Kang was destroyed by a swarm of Raptors they let loose at the end, he spat some more bad words and left. I said "I believe the word you are looking to call me is noob." But I didn't get it off before he left.
Got home from work, did officer reports then queued into a cure space elite. Immediately upon entering the Kang died. When I left my cooldown on cure space elite was 59 min.
You just know that there'll be rainbow-Vesta's all over the place for a start....
I think I just threw up a little in the back of my mouth when I read this, because it's absobloodylutely true. As I said, it will be Vesta's Online for a few weeks. I am probably going to get sick of idiot noobs in those ships who think that anything and everything they do will work on the borg just because the original vesta could beat them XD.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
Finding out that PWE is destroying STO with Season 7. The Rep system is going to cause more problems than good. Season 7 in reality is probably going to cause alot of issues to say the least. But what is worst of all is the fact that PWE says we will listen to feedback of the players so that changes can be made accordingly. Honestly that is the worst moment for me considering i hate being lied to. PWE has no intention of changing much of anything to do with Season 7. Everyone already knows they dont listen nor care about the players. Its all about how many revamped ways we can come out with old things to make the players spend more money to go in our pockets.
If they make something idiot proof. They will come out with better idiots
The Odyssey used to be the most dreaded ship in the STF's, at least by me. I called them 'Boom Boats". They were most likely to be set up with Rainbow/Technicolor beams or Skittles Cannons and blew up at the sight of an incoming torpedo.
The Rainbow/Technicolor oddys have been dropping off for more realistic builds and they've not been exploading quite as easy. That's a good thing, right?
Two of my regular fleet/team members have built oddys with my help and help from the forums that are very hard to kill and have excellent DPS. So that just proves that it can be done.
I would imagine the new Vestas as with any new ship will be just as poorly built as the oddys use to be.
Here's just a hypothetical STF in the days immediately following S7:
I start a new CSE pug with four other people, and enter to realize they're all tacs except for one engineer and all are using the Vesta but me. So I say hi as usual and then the oddest thing happens: one Vesta stays at the Kang and the others almost coordinatedly fly each to one of the cubes. I head to the middle probes and start blasting away at them, as the rainbowskittle Vesta is doing almost nonexistant dps (not to mention he's shooting at a top probe with the bottom one still intact). I blow the one below him for amusement, and get it when it takes him two minutes to take down 50% of the probe's health. Meanwhile, I notice the optional has just failed five minutes into the STF and turn around to see the Kang swarmed and the three very colorful Vestas popping like popcorn... against BoPs. As I fly back there to try and save the Kang, I hear an explosion behind me and then see that the guy shooting the probes just got destroyed in three seconds by the Negh'var he spawned. He then says "what happened this ships supposed to be indestructable" and I facepalm.
So while these loonies are in respawn oblivion, I manage to clean up after them at the Kang. I fly off back to the middle probes and start destroying them as one person says "hey lets all guard kang". The four Vetsafails all join together at the Kang and I decide to have a little fun with them. I blow all the probes in the center then quickly run to the right and let the Negh'var fly to the Kang. As I'm destroying the right probes, I see wave after wave of BoP go past me, then all four of these guys' pictures on the team status go gray within a few seconds. I figure the Negh'vars must have chugged on over there and isometric charged them. I fly back to the Kang and again clean up the mess they left. One of them says "hey vaporak why dont you help out". I decided to 'help out'
First, I destroy all bottom probes on the left and right, then charge all my buffs for the top ones (you can see where this is going). In quick succession, I blow all six of the top probes, blow a cube, and let Raptors and Negh'vars swarm the Kang. These rainbow and skittle boats didn't stand a chance. They explode, the Kang's destroyed, and then the funniest line of the entire match...
"oh my gosh there must be a bug in these ships well just have to wait for cryptic to fix them in a patch"
:rolleyes:
I hope you enjoyed my theoretical post-S7 CSE story.
It still does - hardly unusual - had an instance last night where there was a rainbow-Regent in an otherwise good team. It's almost a pity when this happens, as the rest of the team being good probably results in the rainbow-boat player thinking that his build is effective.
Yeah, but one lesser useful player in 5 is a good quote for a PUG. Even in the usual premade group I'm flying with there is one worthless player with a TRIBBLE and laggy PC ;-) But it is a fun guy on Skype :-P (And only a game)
More annoying than rainbow warriors are the player who like to stay 10km away from generators, cubes, spheres etc. I mean trolling the gate at 9km is ok when you are on probe duty. But not when you should shoot it down. Or when the target doesn't have any weapons xD Or the ADHD escorts who must shoot at every nanite transformer with tricobalt devices and mines -.-
Here's just a hypothetical STF in the days immediately following S7:
I start a new CSE pug with four other people, and enter to realize they're all tacs except for one engineer and all are using the Vesta but me. So I say hi as usual and then the oddest thing happens: one Vesta stays at the Kang and the others almost coordinatedly fly each to one of the cubes. I head to the middle probes and start blasting away at them, as the rainbowskittle Vesta is doing almost nonexistant dps (not to mention he's shooting at a top probe with the bottom one still intact). I blow the one below him for amusement, and get it when it takes him two minutes to take down 50% of the probe's health. Meanwhile, I notice the optional has just failed five minutes into the STF and turn around to see the Kang swarmed and the three very colorful Vestas popping like popcorn... against BoPs. As I fly back there to try and save the Kang, I hear an explosion behind me and then see that the guy shooting the probes just got destroyed in three seconds by the Negh'var he spawned. He then says "what happened this ships supposed to be indestructable" and I facepalm.
So while these loonies are in respawn oblivion, I manage to clean up after them at the Kang. I fly off back to the middle probes and start destroying them as one person says "hey lets all guard kang". The four Vetsafails all join together at the Kang and I decide to have a little fun with them. I blow all the probes in the center then quickly run to the right and let the Negh'var fly to the Kang. As I'm destroying the right probes, I see wave after wave of BoP go past me, then all four of these guys' pictures on the team status go gray within a few seconds. I figure the Negh'vars must have chugged on over there and isometric charged them. I fly back to the Kang and again clean up the mess they left. One of them says "hey vaporak why dont you help out". I decided to 'help out'
First, I destroy all bottom probes on the left and right, then charge all my buffs for the top ones (you can see where this is going). In quick succession, I blow all six of the top probes, blow a cube, and let Raptors and Negh'vars swarm the Kang. These rainbow and skittle boats didn't stand a chance. They explode, the Kang's destroyed, and then the funniest line of the entire match...
"oh my gosh there must be a bug in these ships well just have to wait for cryptic to fix them in a patch"
:rolleyes:
I hope you enjoyed my theoretical post-S7 CSE story.
And now the conclusion.
(Again, these events did not actually happen (yet))
So after that horrendous CSE, I decide to go for a KASE. Bad idea, in the extreme...
I enter with the four other people, and look around to see two Vestas (one is a tac captain, the other is a sci), a Vo'quv (engineer), and a Recluse (tac). We all go up to the tactical cube and no sooner had we than (let's just call him Da Troll) rears his ugly head. Da Troll happens to be the tac in the Recluse. He starts spouting about how we have to listen to his orders if we want to win, meanwhile he's spamming his fighters and doing nothing with his beam arrays. As he shouts what to do at us, I notice a heavy plasma torpedo creeping up behind him and I quietly laugh. I say, "Excuse me, does your plan include watching out for heavy plasmas?" Da Troll says something bleeped and tells me he'll take care of the cube all by himself. He flies up to it again after respawning as I break away, and is promtply destroyed by a heavy plasma at point blank range. This time, I say "buddy, I really don't think you should be telling us what to do."
We eventually destroy the tactical cube, with Da Troll waiting to respawn again. As his timer is counting down, he's flipping out as I kindly explain to the other players that the Atrox and the sci with the Vesta should work on one group of generators while the tac Vesta guards the left probes and I get the right. Da Troll finally gets out of respawn oblivion and screams how we're doing it all wrong. I ask him what's the problem, and he says "we have to get rid of all the cubes first!" Just like with the Negh'vars in my CSE I have some fun with him.
After telling the other Vesta to guard the right probes for me (which he goes to do), I proceed to spawn all four cubes and drag them right up to Da Troll. I say "ok, I got the cubes for you. Now since you obviously run this strategy on a regular basis, get rid of them." I hit evasive manuvers and fly back to relieve the sci Vesta which is doing poorly at guarding (we already lost the optional by the timer). As I settle back into destroying the probes, Da Troll's team status icon goes gray. He makes like an airhorn and starts yelling his lungs out, "voporak your such a noob whydid you get all four cubes" and one of the other players finally speaks up "Hey you shouldn't talk like that, it was your idea"
I somehow convince Da Troll to guard my right probes and I'll take care of the cubes. One cube goes boom, followed in a few minutes by three more. Then I tear through the generators and transformers on both sides and mop up Da Troll's probes (he has let three go thorugh already) and then with the help of the two people not guarding probes, we blow the left gate and then I tell the tac Vesta to help out Da Troll with the oncoming spheres. And we blow through the right gate, without failing the mission. Da Troll has been screaming all this time how he can't believe he has to do our noob work for us since we can't even do the mission without him.
Donatra appears, Da Troll can't wait to get his grubby little paws within 5km of her. I stop shooting so that he can get the aggro and make Donatra cloak. Da Troll says "stupid noobs you made her cloak". As he fires his keyboard off like a cannon, Donatra decloaks directly behind his space whale. He rails on one more time about how we are such noobs and we'll never finish the mission. He respawns, making suicide runs up to Donatra (which thankfully never results in her cloaking again). After about 45 minutes into the STF with this troll, we defeat Donatra. And then he screams "ALL I GOT WAS ANOTHER STUPID BORG LOOT THINGY I CANT USE THEM ANYWERE" and finally he says "i threw it away because its useless and i got no real loot thanks to you noobs" and he warps away. Good riddance.
I do a facepalm, laugh very hard, and say "good game" into the chat, to which I get friendly "gg"s back.
I can't wait until I actually get an STF with a troll like that. They make the PUGs interesting. :rolleyes:
Couple notes. I strapped doing stf last month and came back when they announce season 7 nerfed the drops and rewards. When did people start using Melee weapons in elite stf and not use a single gun? And did the elite channel implode? I have more problems with elite channel matches. Most recently in ige at the end we get the generator down and Becky comes out. They all start shooting the drones that have respawned and ignore her. Then when the team is dead they yell we are too slow in killing the spawns. Did it change that when she comes out just nail her and get out dodging spawns and collect loot?
Couple notes. I strapped doing stf last month and came back when they announce season 7 nerfed the drops and rewards. When did people start using Melee weapons in elite stf and not use a single gun?
Melee combat got a buff a little while back and has become an effective way of dealing with Heavys and Elites in ground STFs - particularly for Sci's who can heal themselves/cure nanite attacks.
The thing is, you really only need one - at the very most, two melee players because a) they can only engage one target at a time and b) their role is more to aggro the most dangerous Borg than outright kill them.
The problem's arisen though that many Tacs are now playing melee because they get decent combat modifiers and I guess because it's 'cool' - they charge in and you end up with more than half the team attacking one (admittedly dangerous) target whilst the remainder of the Borg wander around killing teammates.
As a Sci/Tank/Healer on ground STFs, it's all becoming a bit tedious to be honest and I'm thinking of going back to my Eng or Tac simply so I'm not contributing to what's become a real problem...
You just know that there'll be rainbow-Vesta's all over the place for a start....
and that is gonna be so so so so sad. I mean I never was a fan of cruisers in stfs, but with the oddy you could make miracles happen, it is such a great cruiser, it could deal so great dmg if built well.
however whenever I see one entering to an stf, I start to feel ragequit creeping into my mind (even at start ).
and I feel (fear) that the Vesta is going to end up like this. however as it will be equipped with cannons this might make ppl use cannons (not that I have not seen my share of rainbow beam escort warriors) at least.
Been doing a ton of CSEs the past day to try and get my engines for a few toons.
Wow, just wow. Sometimes the groups are solid but their are so many horrible players. Which wouldn't bother me except...
When the baddies rage. Especially after a cube blows early. Three raptors are not that difficult to kill. And if you can't kill them atleast be able to CC them. Is that too much to ask? Or someone other than myself throwing tac team on Kang would be nice too.
I think the funniest one so far was where myself and another guy cleared out the probes under left cube killing the bops as they spawned only to turn around and realize no other probes have been kilt. So I kill three probes on right and the Neg that spawned and headed mid. At this point I was annoyed so I spawned the Neg and let it go off and kill a few fellow players which I would feel bad about except that every ship can solo a Neg or they shouldn't be in CSE to begin with aside from the occasional Iso crit atleast. I finish off the nanites under mid and pop the cube. Mash Evasive and all my abilities rushing off to the left. Smash the 3 raptors by myself then fly into the cube guns blazing. Cube dies I turn to see, 2 raptors on the Kang, one teammate on the last cube and the others defending. Sigh. So I rush over slap a tac team on kang, help kill the last raptor and the 3rd cube popped and we won with optional. And I got Engines *woot* and told everyone GG.
*Sorry just had to vent a bit lol*
I'm not that good of a player so I don't feel I have the right to rage on mah team. The only players good enough to rage can pretty much solo an STF and therefore have no reason to rage. Conclusion, STFs should be rage free IMHO.
On the subject of Raptors: The issue is distance and position when a cube goes early the odds are very high that people are too far or out of position to deal with at least ONE group of three raptors and that's more than enough to blow the optional. Even if you're in position you're risking getting the kang. Plus what were BOP's become raptors for the rest of the match. As someone playing a Cannon* fleet defiant i do usually have the DPS to deal with it but i have been out of position a few times where i couldn't get tehre before the optional was lost.
I disagree with your last statement on the grounds that STF's are a team effort. If someone knowingly nukes that effort you've got every right to rage at them. And Two of the three space STF's cant be soloed. You're doing fine but most pugs just flat out wont have the DPS/Builds required to handle it. My fleet sure as hell does but pug's get random ships and setups. Just today i had someone screaming at me because i supposedly blew a cube too early. He seemed to think that the Kang would warp out even if the cubes were there at the timer...He's in an engi setup in an oddy for the record before i go further. We get into an arugment. We're about 50 secs off the optional (by that i mean 50 secs over the timer) when the last cube goes down he's still screaming at me because the kang got some serious hits from a wave of ships no one bothered to guard.
He's in this setup...he should be tanking the carrier right? Nope. I've got nothing in agg control (intentionally) and I'm still out aggroing this guy. People like him? Plenty to rage at.
1) Vesta is season 7 locked meaning there will be no Prototype Deflectors when the Vesta rolls out in the Zen Store.2) Nobody is THAT stupid.
Whoops, forgot about that. I'll edit the story.
Read some of the far back posts in this thread, people are that stupid. There was one story about how four people in a pug ISE flew straight up to the gate at the beginning, shot at it, and warped out after they agreed that it was bugged because they weren't able to kill the gate.
My two stories were completely based on the highest level of stupidity I can imagine would actually happen.
Just had one. We all go left on Infected and this moron goes right to attack and destroy a node by himself. He triggers spawns and ruins our speed run.
I just ****ing took the ban and left that group.
Annoying as **** to miss out on the optional because of some tardo who thinks he knows better than the rest of the group.
I even flamed his TRIBBLE in zone chat too. I normally don't do that, but this prick really annoyed me.
Dumbass PvEers.
I wish this game had PvP gear and didn't force me to play lolPvE for my gear. None of this damn gear makes a damn difference in STFs anyway. Not when you're more likely to die to supercrit torps than anything else.
There was one story about how four people in a pug ISE flew straight up to the gate at the beginning, shot at it, and warped out after they agreed that it was bugged because they weren't able to kill the gate.
My two stories were completely based on the highest level of stupidity I can imagine would actually happen.
New worst: Playing on Tribble, new STF wiht a really nifty map, problem was entirely me.
the new stfs are going to be pug killers. I am myself a really good pugger, I can haz laughs at some of the stupidity, but I highly doubt that I will ever pug that new one
this isn't my worst "I've posted previously its somewhere in the archived bit" ANYWAY!
this was an Infected Normal, last one before sleep.
just killed the first cube and had two spheres left, I say in team chat "running left" my friend who'm I Q'd with replied "okie dokie". both spheres are destroyed and wham! the other three players go right.
everything is going really good with me and my friend got all 4 gens down to 10% and from what I can tell the other side has popped a gen a little too early and nanites are on the way!
"still no team chat from them"
a player leaves on the optional failing, one of the other team members realises that we're fairing better and joins us. "still no team chat from either of the two other players - not even local or zone".
anyway get both transfers down and a fresh 5th joined us. completed the run had tea and buscuits. fun, fun.
When one finds the auto fire still engaged and missing out of the rare chance for an engine Prototype and Optional is always a sad day.. after blowing the Nodes up early.
Compounded by summoning the extra spheres as a reward for silly things..
Cart before the horse and chicken before the egg..
Possibly - the Amazing Crits thee Borg cubs muster at the slightest shield weakening..
twice the HP strikes on wee ship.
Forgetting the repair parts in wrong bank account.. always grim.. cooldowns hurting team as i try to get an ALT
some of the competitive gear EDCS to buy anti-borg gear.. watching friends cascading re-spawns and the 3rd ttimes the bad charm as the optional clock winds down..
Working a great plan and having a Swarm of Raptors launch Bio-neurals at the KRang.. seconds before winning optional.
Well, the new 'Hive Onslaught' deserves further mention here - certainly the Elite version anyway.
Though was fortunate enough to find myself on one PuG which managed to complete it, I don't bother anymore - every instance before and since was a dismal failure, with team-mates either bailing without notice or simply despairing and group-agreeing that it was a waste of time and team-quitting. And I, personally, don't find sitting in respawn oblivion courtesy of one-shot kill spam, and the STUPID respawn timer, ANY fun at all.
If it remains as it is when it hits holodeck there will be a LOT of disappointed players who could end up treating it in the same way as many of us treat the Crystaline entity mission - namely 'AVOID'.
It is, to be fair, somewhat more enjoyable on normal though.
I haven't played any of the newer missions due for S7, don't like to spoil the suprises before release.
but I can understand what you mean and from my previous experiences with the original STF's and the new part 1 and 2 STF's.
I can imagine that some of the Elite STFs where held in equal regard, when I first ran an Elite Cure "the current version" I vowed to actually avoid it, but after sometime I learnt one of the few tactics to complete it.
just give it some time, there will probably be a tactic figured out by a fleet and or elite players and will eventually be common knowledge.
much like the Infected Elites 10% rule, the Khitomer blow up both gates at the same time rule, and the Cures left, middle, middle, left, right tactic.
I'm not confident enough to play elite. Yesterday I thought I'm bored and decided to play Infected space normal. It's not rocket science. The patrols die quickly dies quickly and I'm thinking this team is quite good.
However thing began to go wrong, I asked what the plan was, and they said 10%. the first set of generators get popped and the transformer blown, so far everything going to plan. But soon it all falls apart, half of the team get distracted by the normal spheres and there is combat taking place all over the map leaving me to deal with generators and transformer, nobody even bothering to shoot down the nanite vessels. My poor fleet patrol escort is trying her best even with the agro from other spheres and we fail stupidly, with some players dying at least 4 times. It got really stupid. I'm literally trying to kill the the transformer and some genius tells the team to shoot at the gate, talk about a facepalm moment there, I'm requesting some backup and no one listens. what should.ve taken maybe 10 minutes took 45 minutes and all i got it was junk.
"The meaning of victory is not to merely defeat your enemy but to destroy him, to completely eradicate him from living memory, to leave no remnant of his endeavours, to crush utterly his achievement and remove from all record his every trace of existence. From that defeat no enemy can ever recover. That is the meaning of victory."
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
Comments
It was yesterday - KASE. Patrol Escort, MVAE and 2 cruisers and my Fleet Advanced Escort - not a bad setup at all. The first sign something was off was when we were shooting at the Tactical cube - it went a little too slow...ok, it happens, not a big deal. I rush to the right, and an Assault cruiser takes the defending role. I took out the Cube on the side closer to the time portal and left the transformer for the cruiser guy to shoot at while waiting for the next wave of probes. I wait for my Red Alert to go off and I full-impulse to the other side. Something made me turn my camera to the other side - and I see passing 13km off a Cube (remember I'm on the right and there's no one else except of me and the cruiser guy). OK, not a big deal - I kicked the cube which had wandered off to my side and then did the second cube on my side and the transformer. i went back to finish off the other transformer on the right. Then I left the cruiser-guardian alone and went to the left side (the 2 transformers were still there)....and...I find that the cube hasn't been invoked at all. A little annoying, but I killed it and the transformer after that. The rainbow MVAE was of a little help there. I gave a shoulder to the player punching the other side's transformer (he had it at 20%, which was nice). Then I go back to the right and started to work on the gate. At around 50% of it and 1:40 to the end of the optional, someone shouts "Quickly, kill the gates!!!" (on the sidenote, that same player was giving some orders from time to time). That's when something inside of me broke. "Sorry, but killing 4 cubes and 2 and 1/2 transformers, and a gate is about all I can do. Sorry I couldn't do the optional for you." was what I typed. I don't think it's a big deal to set-up properly your BOFF layout and ship weapons. And I'm Sci captain, not purposely build Tac - it's my build and my build alone - without looking at forums and so on (I spec-ed it some 6 months ago) - with their help even a monkey could do a pretty decent build.
The key to avoiding ISO death in my experience is to make sure no one else is anywhere near you. If you get agro slowly pull away from any friendlies and if someone else has agro get away from 'em!!
Also I have noticed that sometimes it seems to just 'miss' not sure if its because of defense or a glitch but high defense can't hurt
The first cube went ok, nobody chatted or said hi except me.
When the cube went, two of the group went left and two went right. I flew center to kill probes. Things were going really slow and probes were thick from each side. Nobody was killing any probes as they transported in. I watched a couple of the other guys die while I was killing the probes.
I said, "What's taking everybody so long. Join up on one side and get it done."
One of the other guys told me to get over and help, they can kill the probes without a guard.
I said, "0k whatever."
So I head over to the left and start doing what they can't. I watch the probes, one - two - three as they go through the gate. Four - five - six get through.
I say, "Hmmmmm you guys are doing a great job killing probes."
Nobody says anything, nobody kills probes and we loose.
Then the noob insults start piling up from the same guy that says we didn't need a guard.
That's my story for the day. Have fun everyone.
well, I think after S7 release this topic is just going to shine as a beacon through the madness of PUGs
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
How can some of you people have such fail builds? Learn to build a ship. Use the info from my siglink to learn how not to make garbage builds.
Anyway...
I was on CSE and these worthless grubs couldn't even handle Raptors or Bops.
I kept blowing up all spawns and Negs and I went to down a cube and when I come back, we're all overwhelmed. I foolishly assumed that 4 ships could have handled what 1 ship was doing eariler. :P
EliteSTFs are the pathetically easy with the right builds. They require almost no strategy beyond don't let the probes enter the vortex and protect the kang.
If you require any specialised strategies to beat Elite STFs, then you have an absolutely awful build.
You can power right through Infected Elite without even stopping other than to mop up the nanites.
Yesterday I was destroying the CSE spawns with a freaking plasma torpboat ffs! If a Sci Torpboat is outdamaging your Escort, something is drastically wrong with your build!
The only times I died were from overpowered Borg one shots, btw.
So I go in, and these loonies are getting their rear ends handed to them by the Borg. There's this one guy that keeps screaming "protect the kang" even though we're all at the Kang. And he just calls us newbs. After the Kang was destroyed by a swarm of Raptors they let loose at the end, he spat some more bad words and left. I said "I believe the word you are looking to call me is noob." But I didn't get it off before he left.
I think I just threw up a little in the back of my mouth when I read this, because it's absobloodylutely true. As I said, it will be Vesta's Online for a few weeks. I am probably going to get sick of idiot noobs in those ships who think that anything and everything they do will work on the borg just because the original vesta could beat them XD.
The Rainbow/Technicolor oddys have been dropping off for more realistic builds and they've not been exploading quite as easy. That's a good thing, right?
Two of my regular fleet/team members have built oddys with my help and help from the forums that are very hard to kill and have excellent DPS. So that just proves that it can be done.
I would imagine the new Vestas as with any new ship will be just as poorly built as the oddys use to be.
I guess we'll see.
I start a new CSE pug with four other people, and enter to realize they're all tacs except for one engineer and all are using the Vesta but me. So I say hi as usual and then the oddest thing happens: one Vesta stays at the Kang and the others almost coordinatedly fly each to one of the cubes. I head to the middle probes and start blasting away at them, as the rainbowskittle Vesta is doing almost nonexistant dps (not to mention he's shooting at a top probe with the bottom one still intact). I blow the one below him for amusement, and get it when it takes him two minutes to take down 50% of the probe's health. Meanwhile, I notice the optional has just failed five minutes into the STF and turn around to see the Kang swarmed and the three very colorful Vestas popping like popcorn... against BoPs. As I fly back there to try and save the Kang, I hear an explosion behind me and then see that the guy shooting the probes just got destroyed in three seconds by the Negh'var he spawned. He then says "what happened this ships supposed to be indestructable" and I facepalm.
So while these loonies are in respawn oblivion, I manage to clean up after them at the Kang. I fly off back to the middle probes and start destroying them as one person says "hey lets all guard kang". The four Vetsafails all join together at the Kang and I decide to have a little fun with them. I blow all the probes in the center then quickly run to the right and let the Negh'var fly to the Kang. As I'm destroying the right probes, I see wave after wave of BoP go past me, then all four of these guys' pictures on the team status go gray within a few seconds. I figure the Negh'vars must have chugged on over there and isometric charged them. I fly back to the Kang and again clean up the mess they left. One of them says "hey vaporak why dont you help out". I decided to 'help out'
First, I destroy all bottom probes on the left and right, then charge all my buffs for the top ones (you can see where this is going). In quick succession, I blow all six of the top probes, blow a cube, and let Raptors and Negh'vars swarm the Kang. These rainbow and skittle boats didn't stand a chance. They explode, the Kang's destroyed, and then the funniest line of the entire match...
"oh my gosh there must be a bug in these ships well just have to wait for cryptic to fix them in a patch"
:rolleyes:
I hope you enjoyed my theoretical post-S7 CSE story.
Yeah, but one lesser useful player in 5 is a good quote for a PUG. Even in the usual premade group I'm flying with there is one worthless player with a TRIBBLE and laggy PC ;-) But it is a fun guy on Skype :-P (And only a game)
More annoying than rainbow warriors are the player who like to stay 10km away from generators, cubes, spheres etc. I mean trolling the gate at 9km is ok when you are on probe duty. But not when you should shoot it down. Or when the target doesn't have any weapons xD Or the ADHD escorts who must shoot at every nanite transformer with tricobalt devices and mines -.-
And now the conclusion.
(Again, these events did not actually happen (yet))
So after that horrendous CSE, I decide to go for a KASE. Bad idea, in the extreme...
I enter with the four other people, and look around to see two Vestas (one is a tac captain, the other is a sci), a Vo'quv (engineer), and a Recluse (tac). We all go up to the tactical cube and no sooner had we than (let's just call him Da Troll) rears his ugly head. Da Troll happens to be the tac in the Recluse. He starts spouting about how we have to listen to his orders if we want to win, meanwhile he's spamming his fighters and doing nothing with his beam arrays. As he shouts what to do at us, I notice a heavy plasma torpedo creeping up behind him and I quietly laugh. I say, "Excuse me, does your plan include watching out for heavy plasmas?" Da Troll says something bleeped and tells me he'll take care of the cube all by himself. He flies up to it again after respawning as I break away, and is promtply destroyed by a heavy plasma at point blank range. This time, I say "buddy, I really don't think you should be telling us what to do."
We eventually destroy the tactical cube, with Da Troll waiting to respawn again. As his timer is counting down, he's flipping out as I kindly explain to the other players that the Atrox and the sci with the Vesta should work on one group of generators while the tac Vesta guards the left probes and I get the right. Da Troll finally gets out of respawn oblivion and screams how we're doing it all wrong. I ask him what's the problem, and he says "we have to get rid of all the cubes first!" Just like with the Negh'vars in my CSE I have some fun with him.
After telling the other Vesta to guard the right probes for me (which he goes to do), I proceed to spawn all four cubes and drag them right up to Da Troll. I say "ok, I got the cubes for you. Now since you obviously run this strategy on a regular basis, get rid of them." I hit evasive manuvers and fly back to relieve the sci Vesta which is doing poorly at guarding (we already lost the optional by the timer). As I settle back into destroying the probes, Da Troll's team status icon goes gray. He makes like an airhorn and starts yelling his lungs out, "voporak your such a noob whydid you get all four cubes" and one of the other players finally speaks up "Hey you shouldn't talk like that, it was your idea"
I somehow convince Da Troll to guard my right probes and I'll take care of the cubes. One cube goes boom, followed in a few minutes by three more. Then I tear through the generators and transformers on both sides and mop up Da Troll's probes (he has let three go thorugh already) and then with the help of the two people not guarding probes, we blow the left gate and then I tell the tac Vesta to help out Da Troll with the oncoming spheres. And we blow through the right gate, without failing the mission. Da Troll has been screaming all this time how he can't believe he has to do our noob work for us since we can't even do the mission without him.
Donatra appears, Da Troll can't wait to get his grubby little paws within 5km of her. I stop shooting so that he can get the aggro and make Donatra cloak. Da Troll says "stupid noobs you made her cloak". As he fires his keyboard off like a cannon, Donatra decloaks directly behind his space whale. He rails on one more time about how we are such noobs and we'll never finish the mission. He respawns, making suicide runs up to Donatra (which thankfully never results in her cloaking again). After about 45 minutes into the STF with this troll, we defeat Donatra. And then he screams "ALL I GOT WAS ANOTHER STUPID BORG LOOT THINGY I CANT USE THEM ANYWERE" and finally he says "i threw it away because its useless and i got no real loot thanks to you noobs" and he warps away. Good riddance.
I do a facepalm, laugh very hard, and say "good game" into the chat, to which I get friendly "gg"s back.
I can't wait until I actually get an STF with a troll like that. They make the PUGs interesting. :rolleyes:
Melee combat got a buff a little while back and has become an effective way of dealing with Heavys and Elites in ground STFs - particularly for Sci's who can heal themselves/cure nanite attacks.
The thing is, you really only need one - at the very most, two melee players because a) they can only engage one target at a time and b) their role is more to aggro the most dangerous Borg than outright kill them.
The problem's arisen though that many Tacs are now playing melee because they get decent combat modifiers and I guess because it's 'cool' - they charge in and you end up with more than half the team attacking one (admittedly dangerous) target whilst the remainder of the Borg wander around killing teammates.
As a Sci/Tank/Healer on ground STFs, it's all becoming a bit tedious to be honest and I'm thinking of going back to my Eng or Tac simply so I'm not contributing to what's become a real problem...
I said 'HI' as usual.
CSN
I flew over to the right and once again, four ships flew to the Kang.
I typed "Oh Goody"
I start killing probes.
I chase down a BOP real quick and see that all four of the other ships have Technicolor/Rainbow beams so I kill all the BOPS that they can't.
I fly back and kill the first cube.
Optional goes Bye Bye.
I get mad and type 'Lose those technicolor/rainbow beams'
Somebody says 'We're out shooting you!' :eek:
I say 'ROFLMAO'
Kang goes boom.
That's the story of my day today.
and that is gonna be so so so so sad. I mean I never was a fan of cruisers in stfs, but with the oddy you could make miracles happen, it is such a great cruiser, it could deal so great dmg if built well.
however whenever I see one entering to an stf, I start to feel ragequit creeping into my mind (even at start
and I feel (fear) that the Vesta is going to end up like this. however as it will be equipped with cannons this might make ppl use cannons (not that I have not seen my share of rainbow beam escort warriors) at least.
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
you underestimate the power of pugs!
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
On the subject of Raptors: The issue is distance and position when a cube goes early the odds are very high that people are too far or out of position to deal with at least ONE group of three raptors and that's more than enough to blow the optional. Even if you're in position you're risking getting the kang. Plus what were BOP's become raptors for the rest of the match. As someone playing a Cannon* fleet defiant i do usually have the DPS to deal with it but i have been out of position a few times where i couldn't get tehre before the optional was lost.
I disagree with your last statement on the grounds that STF's are a team effort. If someone knowingly nukes that effort you've got every right to rage at them. And Two of the three space STF's cant be soloed. You're doing fine but most pugs just flat out wont have the DPS/Builds required to handle it. My fleet sure as hell does but pug's get random ships and setups. Just today i had someone screaming at me because i supposedly blew a cube too early. He seemed to think that the Kang would warp out even if the cubes were there at the timer...He's in an engi setup in an oddy for the record before i go further. We get into an arugment. We're about 50 secs off the optional (by that i mean 50 secs over the timer) when the last cube goes down he's still screaming at me because the kang got some serious hits from a wave of ships no one bothered to guard.
He's in this setup...he should be tanking the carrier right? Nope. I've got nothing in agg control (intentionally) and I'm still out aggroing this guy. People like him? Plenty to rage at.
Whoops, forgot about that. I'll edit the story.
Read some of the far back posts in this thread, people are that stupid. There was one story about how four people in a pug ISE flew straight up to the gate at the beginning, shot at it, and warped out after they agreed that it was bugged because they weren't able to kill the gate.
My two stories were completely based on the highest level of stupidity I can imagine would actually happen.
I just ****ing took the ban and left that group.
Annoying as **** to miss out on the optional because of some tardo who thinks he knows better than the rest of the group.
I even flamed his TRIBBLE in zone chat too. I normally don't do that, but this prick really annoyed me.
Dumbass PvEers.
I wish this game had PvP gear and didn't force me to play lolPvE for my gear. None of this damn gear makes a damn difference in STFs anyway. Not when you're more likely to die to supercrit torps than anything else.
it probably was bugged. it should have been destroyed like this
the new stfs are going to be pug killers. I am myself a really good pugger, I can haz laughs at some of the stupidity, but I highly doubt that I will ever pug that new one
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
this was an Infected Normal, last one before sleep.
just killed the first cube and had two spheres left, I say in team chat "running left" my friend who'm I Q'd with replied "okie dokie". both spheres are destroyed and wham! the other three players go right.
everything is going really good with me and my friend got all 4 gens down to 10% and from what I can tell the other side has popped a gen a little too early and nanites are on the way!
"still no team chat from them"
a player leaves on the optional failing, one of the other team members realises that we're fairing better and joins us. "still no team chat from either of the two other players - not even local or zone".
anyway get both transfers down and a fresh 5th joined us. completed the run had tea and buscuits. fun, fun.
RachelJ88
Compounded by summoning the extra spheres as a reward for silly things..
Cart before the horse and chicken before the egg..
Possibly - the Amazing Crits thee Borg cubs muster at the slightest shield weakening..
twice the HP strikes on wee ship.
Forgetting the repair parts in wrong bank account.. always grim.. cooldowns hurting team as i try to get an ALT
some of the competitive gear EDCS to buy anti-borg gear.. watching friends cascading re-spawns and the 3rd ttimes the bad charm as the optional clock winds down..
Working a great plan and having a Swarm of Raptors launch Bio-neurals at the KRang.. seconds before winning optional.
Tsuki ni Kawatte Oshioki Yo
I haven't played any of the newer missions due for S7, don't like to spoil the suprises before release.
but I can understand what you mean and from my previous experiences with the original STF's and the new part 1 and 2 STF's.
I can imagine that some of the Elite STFs where held in equal regard, when I first ran an Elite Cure "the current version" I vowed to actually avoid it, but after sometime I learnt one of the few tactics to complete it.
just give it some time, there will probably be a tactic figured out by a fleet and or elite players and will eventually be common knowledge.
much like the Infected Elites 10% rule, the Khitomer blow up both gates at the same time rule, and the Cures left, middle, middle, left, right tactic.
RachelJ88
However thing began to go wrong, I asked what the plan was, and they said 10%. the first set of generators get popped and the transformer blown, so far everything going to plan. But soon it all falls apart, half of the team get distracted by the normal spheres and there is combat taking place all over the map leaving me to deal with generators and transformer, nobody even bothering to shoot down the nanite vessels. My poor fleet patrol escort is trying her best even with the agro from other spheres and we fail stupidly, with some players dying at least 4 times. It got really stupid. I'm literally trying to kill the the transformer and some genius tells the team to shoot at the gate, talk about a facepalm moment there, I'm requesting some backup and no one listens. what should.ve taken maybe 10 minutes took 45 minutes and all i got it was junk.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius