I'd like to reiterate that the Borgs' ability to deal high-damage DOTs isn't something that recently changed, as far as I can see. It's possible there's been a Software change somewhere that I'm unable to verify, but inquiries into that have yielded no results thus far.
I suspect that the reason players are seeing more Hull Damage, may actually be attributable to the changes made to the Assimilated Ship set. Many players have chosen to try different equipment sets in light of those alterations, and may have been heavily reliant upon the 2-piece Hull Heal proc, which also cleansed Plasma Fires. If this is the case, it may mean that the Borg in general were inaccurately balanced for a specific set of equipment, and more changes will need to be made to bring them in line with other options of play style.
yes. By far the borg set is still the most survivable. It was worse when it was 3pc borg + decent shields, but the borg set completely dominates the others available for survivability. Or at least that has been my experience on Cruisers/Kar'fi/Escorts.
I discovered this because my KDF peghqu only had a borg set, and it was suddenly much more durable than my fed jem'hadar bug with a Maco set.
Hopefully they'll also address the insane kinetic damage Borg tractor beams do. I've been consistently destroyed in seconds by the Borg gate and Tac cube's Tractor Beams.
I believe that originates from the Kinetic Cutting Beam. It has an intriguing synergy with Borg tractor beams... 2000 damage if the beam's currently cutting. Not sure if it's a DoT lasting until one of the two beams is offline or a one-off damage proc though.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
It's the plasma dots there were getting me. A torp spread or what have you would hit my steamrunner, and if I was under 50% health when a plasma dot procced I was cooked. At least 1k per tick, and I 've been playing elite STFs for ages now, and that's a new one for me. I don't mind the overall damage though, but the plasma proc shouldn't be quite so severe.
seconded. I even changed up by BOFF layout to debuff the plasma, but cant keep up with it. I get one cleared and another hits.
WTF MAN!!!!! Why did you derp the NPCs??? THEY WERE PERFECTLY FINE. Fkin bunch of wimps whining that they can't faceroll the Borg anymore. Dude seriously... wtf...
Don't want bosses to crit, want npcs to be weaker... god you all are starting to sound like rodentmaster.
Yeah cause being one shotted by Borg is totally fair right?
I dont quite agree that taking away the ability to critical hit is the right move. Tone down their critical hit yes but not take it away completely.
Hopefully they'll also address the insane kinetic damage Borg tractor beams do. I've been consistently destroyed in seconds by the Borg gate and Tac cube's Tractor Beams.
This can be avoided by staying over five kilometers away from anything with a Tractor Beam. Since there's actually a viable, strategic counter to this, I wouldn't mind if this stayed.
bunch of wimps whining that they can't faceroll the Borg anymore.
I never liked facerolling borg but if I can't faceroll them what gives them the right to faceroll me? I don't like dying simply because a borg cube looked at me thank you very much, and you know what I can do.
Don't want bosses to crit, want npcs to be weaker... god you all are starting to sound like rodentmaster.
Don't mind critting bosses, don't mind strong NPCs, don't do religion :P but I also don't find it fun to die because the borg looked in my general direction.
I never liked facerolling borg but if I can't faceroll them what gives them the right to faceroll me? I don't like dying simply because a borg cube looked at me thank you very much, and you know what I can do.
Don't mind critting bosses, don't mind strong NPCs, don't do religion :P but I also don't find it fun to die because the borg looked in my general direction.
They are the Borg. You are supposed to FEAR them. I say that being able to faceroll the Borg was downright WRONG. And suddenly having to actually be careful when fighting them is a step in the right direction.
However I will back off a little and say that getting killed in one hit is a little over the top, even with an Oddy specced to survive STFs. Yes, I have been one shotted by 60k regular hits. Those are a little over the top. If I want to die in one hit, I want it to be at least by a crit or if my shields are down, in which case I deserve my death. But getting one shotted by a regular torp is a little much, even though I still say the Borg were fine.
Besides, you still see players who run in, DPB3, APA3, TT, FOMM, and then boom, cube/transformer/gateway/whatever happened to be unlucky enough to get hit by that gone by 4 tricobalt mines critting. Since we can do that to them, it's kind of fair that they can return the favor, but I would prefer it be a result of crits only.
BUT completely derping the NPCs like this is NOT a step in the right direction. It's a step in the "appease the wimps who don't want to know how to build their ships" direction. Not saying all of you are like that, but still, why nerf the NPCs when you can just adjust a few things on your ship, and then suddenly you're fine (if not fine, at least able to survive)?
My final commentary: Yeah, take away the one shots, but NOT IF IT'S AS A RESULT OF A CRIT. PLEASE. Do NOT derp the NPCs like this. I was finally starting to have fun fighting again, cuz the NPCs weren't a joke anymore...
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.
They are the Borg. You are supposed to FEAR them. I say that being able to faceroll the Borg was downright WRONG. And suddenly having to actually be careful when fighting them is a step in the right direction.
Here we agree, facerolling enemies, especially the borg is no fun
However I will back off a little and say that getting killed in one hit is a little over the top, even with an Oddy specced to survive STFs. Yes, I have been one shotted by 60k regular hits. Those are a little over the top. If I want to die in one hit, I want it to be at least by a crit or if my shields are down, in which case I deserve my death. But getting one shotted by a regular torp is a little much, even though I still say the Borg were fine.
I maintain there shouldn't be any one shots in the game full stop.
Besides, you still see players who run in, DPB3, APA3, TT, FOMM, and then boom, cube/transformer/gateway/whatever happened to be unlucky enough to get hit by that gone by 4 tricobalt mines critting. Since we can do that to them, it's kind of fair that they can return the favor, but I would prefer it be a result of crits only.
That my friend is called "learning to play", learning how to cause maximum damage in your low tanking escort before you die, I myself am contemplating such a build given how frequently my patrol escort (that you've also faced) get's 1 shotted
BUT completely derping the NPCs like this is NOT a step in the right direction. It's a step in the "appease the wimps who don't want to know how to build their ships" direction. Not saying all of you are like that, but still, why nerf the NPCs when you can just adjust a few things on your ship, and then suddenly you're fine (if not fine, at least able to survive)?
I've already fine tuned all my builds for the best balance of survival and damage output (which has cost me DPS on my escort) I'm afraid I can't do any more for my ships and I still get 1 shotted frequently, as for "derping the NPCs", they've reduced the damage on crits and (with the exception of ISOs) crits only and they have made the DoT more survivable. You can only recover from these things if you have time to do so.
My final commentary: Yeah, take away the one shots, but NOT IF IT'S AS A RESULT OF A CRIT. PLEASE. Do NOT derp the NPCs like this. I was finally starting to have fun fighting again, cuz the NPCs weren't a joke anymore...
I've already fine tuned all my builds for the best balance of survival and damage output (which has cost me DPS on my escort) I'm afraid I can't do any more for my ships and I still get 1 shotted frequently, as for "derping the NPCs", they've reduced the damage on crits and (with the exception of ISOs) crits only and they have made the DoT more survivable. You can only recover from these things if you have time to do so.
True. You can only heal if you have time to push the button. But remember, you can't have it all. I specced my Oddy for damage. Of this you are fully aware. As a direct result, I sacrificed quite a bit of survivability. But it's a decision I can live with. I can't tank as well as I should, but tbh, I find it more fun that way. I am always seconds from death, and if I TRIBBLE up even one cycle, I get nova'd. Fine by me, means I have to pay attention and actually have to think and play properly.
They also said that they are scaling back the DPS on all enemies, with the stronger enemies being nerfed more than the weaker ones. But it doesn't change the fact that they are greatly reducing the damage output of the enemies. Which will make npcs a joke again and the wimps will shut up. I cannot condone this, even if I must accept it.
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.
What's needed is another skill level above elite with a "slight" reward bonus, then everyone can be happy if they want to punish themselves. Not everyone can have top of the line stuff, especially nowadays.
True. You can only heal if you have time to push the button. But remember, you can't have it all. I specced my Oddy for damage. Of this you are fully aware. As a direct result, I sacrificed quite a bit of survivability. But it's a decision I can live with. I can't tank as well as I should, but tbh, I find it more fun that way. I am always seconds from death, and if I TRIBBLE up even one cycle, I get nova'd. Fine by me, means I have to pay attention and actually have to think and play properly.
Yeah, I know I can't have the best of everything, I accepted that when I built my first multi-purpose build but achieving the fine balance between DPS build and tank build that should count for something.
They also said that they are scaling back the DPS on all enemies, with the stronger enemies being nerfed more than the weaker ones. But it doesn't change the fact that they are greatly reducing the damage output of the enemies. Which will make npcs a joke again and the wimps will shut up. I cannot condone this, even if I must accept it.
As for this, the higher damage enemies are going to suffer most if they do it percentage based but all they have said is that they are doing it, they haven't said how much they are doing it, it may not (should not) make NPCs a low powered joke however they should not be so powerful as to make the causal player a joke either. I have a friend who effectively tells me where to stick myself at the very mention of the term "DPS" (even if it isn't me saying it) and in all fairness they have a point, I'm all for harder enemies, by which I mean enemies with abilities and an AI with a sense of self preservation playing by our rules (maybe with a few upgrades in the borg department), that would provide a challenge and would make me happy without getting facerolled.
No, something more fundamental changed. Didn't use the retro-borg set before either. And the pure numbers of kinetic from un-buffed torps have really skyrocketed.
I'd also like to submit the Borg Shield Neutralizer for investigation. It appears to be back at it's "gone in 4 seconds" mode. If I were to make a wild guess, I'd say power insulators no longer help against it.
This is ofc mostly a problem in combination with the uber-DoT, as they both require Hazards to clear them.
There is defenitly an invisible death ray/torpedo. Ive exploded many times for no reason. I tend now to sit high above the tac at around 9km firing down only breaking off using evasive when i begin to take fire. . A quick death usually follows being targetted.
Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey flings Feathered Monkey poo...
one shotted in a kar'fi (12.2k out) coming in after respawn at a unimatrix in hive stf normal not elite, but normal. by their plasma beam. KHG set. invisible something killed a bort full KHG set in normal hive.
that's gg cryptic, between, the dil, the bugs, even buying boff powers at the trainer kicked out 2 of my boffs and had to fiddle for 30 minutes before i could get them back in their stations, just /double facepalm and gg. subbed since it went f2p, and i see now that was a mistake.
Dr. Patricia Tanis ~ "Bacon is for sycophants and products of incest."
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Since these DOTs are also magnified by class tables and innate stats, Borg were managing to reliably land very high-magnitude hull DOTs on their targets. Since these ignore shields, we've decided that reducing their overall damage may improve player experience in STF content without significantly diminishing the difficulty and threat of the Borg as a whole.
I'd like to reiterate that the Borgs' ability to deal high-damage DOTs isn't something that recently changed, as far as I can see. It's possible there's been a Software change somewhere that I'm unable to verify, but inquiries into that have yielded no results thus far.
Is it possible that the plasma dot applied by their torps have higher damage than those applied by their energy weapons due to some modifier? I only ask since I see the same as others in my combat log, where the dot is referenced as damage done by 'plasma torpedo' instead of plasma fire, My log. Is this 'Just a display issue' or something more?
I suspect that the reason players are seeing more Hull Damage, may actually be attributable to the changes made to the Assimilated Ship set. Many players have chosen to try different equipment sets in light of those alterations, and may have been heavily reliant upon the 2-piece Hull Heal proc, which also cleansed Plasma Fires.
I still use 2 piece borg, not a single piece of my equipment or skills have changed, so that doesn't hold up, and i run pretty high plasma resists in STFs, around 36 before aux to struct / HE and whatever else I put in rotation.
However, even though the damage certainly seems to be higher, I like it. If the extra damage means the average pug will start to reliably throw a hazard or other heal to the guy that's been tanking the gate / cube / 6 sphere group through the entire instance instead of watching them slowly run out of oh **** buttons, then that'd be worth keeping it as is.
[6:07] [Combat (Self)] Your Dual Antiproton Banks - Overload III deals 166213 (61268) Antiproton Damage(Critical) to Gateway.
However, even though the damage certainly seems to be higher, I like it. If the extra damage means the average pug will start to reliably throw a hazard or other heal to the guy that's been tanking the gate / cube / 6 sphere group through the entire instance instead of watching them slowly run out of oh **** buttons, then that'd be worth keeping it as is.
Well as long as people realise sometimes we have our hands full like not dying because of incoming fire or weve been cut off and too far away dont get stressy if an engineer cant heal you or the block button may offend...
Monkey see, Monkey do. Monkey flings Feathered Monkey poo...
First, a quick confirmation that Battleship and Dreadnought STF ships should now be incapable of landing Critical Hits. This includes Cubes, Tac Cubes, and their Assimilated Klingon counterparts. A similar change will likely be made to ground-based Captain rank STF Borg, if it hasn't already.
Good news.
1 problem.
T4 Romulan Rep power "Emergency Secondary Healing" will be an option with extremely low value and should be re-evaluated in light of this change. (Currently it looks to have low value in PvE vs. largely low crit chance enemies (most NPCs) with high spike damage, and it looks as if it will be almost ludicrously strong in PvP (due to players hitting and critting more often than NPCs, at mostly lower damage points).
I suspect that the reason players are seeing more Hull Damage, may actually be attributable to the changes made to the Assimilated Ship set.
I can confirm that the hull procs are far out of balance at this point, and I still use 2 piece borg set for the hull proc and cleanse on nearly all of my builds because none of the other 2 piece set bonuses really have any value for STFs in comparison.
In general, I find I'm getting hit for 600-700 (per tick) with 2-3 neutroniums, and other hull resistance buffs running (I run a copy of HE and Aux to SIF on nearly all of my builds).
Sometimes, it will randomly spike up to 7000 per tick.
It also seems to have a bizarrely long duration, and I have not once til this point seen the Borg hull proc actually clear the hull plasma fire. I can't confirm if that's true, but right now on live my ship is almost constantly on fire.
Wow. Seriously? Jesus why don't you just put a bunch of too toos and ballet suits on the npcs now, cuz that's all they're worth. FFS guys, what the hell is wrong with you? You really want weak-TRIBBLE$ npcs you can just faceroll? Good god you guys are all a bunch of fkin wimps.
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.
Wow. Seriously? Jesus why don't you just put a bunch of too toos and ballet suits on the npcs now, cuz that's all they're worth. FFS guys, what the hell is wrong with you? You really want weak-TRIBBLE$ npcs you can just faceroll? Good god you guys are all a bunch of fkin wimps.
I'm all for challenging content, but there's a difference between real and artificial difficulty in game design.
Real difficulty is giving NPCs the ability to intelligently heal and buff themselves and support one another. Artificial difficulty is overpowering enemies to the point of eclipsing the player's ability to deal with them on level terms.
Artificial difficulty is often tedious and frustrating, whereas real difficulty requires thought and strategy. What we have at present is the epitome of artificial difficulty. The Borg are too powerful, easily capable of destroying a player before they have a chance to react while simultaneously ignoring the constraints of weapons range. The D'Deridex Defender NPC is a good example of real difficulty because it's capable of healing itself when needed, has strong firepower that isn't completely overwhelming, and can debuff the player's defenses. In other words, the D'Deridex Defender is on a level playing field with the player. The Borg are an uphill battle of epic proportions.
You want a challenge? Write a letter to the development team asking them to overhaul the abilities and artificial intelligence governing the Borg NPCs.
I'm all for challenging content, but there's a difference between real and artificial difficulty in game design.
Real difficulty is giving NPCs the ability to intelligently heal and buff themselves and support one another. Artificial difficulty is overpowering enemies to the point of eclipsing the player's ability to deal with them on level terms.
Artificial difficulty is often tedious and frustrating, whereas real difficulty requires thought and strategy. What we have at present is the epitome of artificial difficulty. The Borg are too powerful, easily capable of destroying a player before they have a chance to react while simultaneously ignoring the constraints of weapons range. The D'Deridex Defender NPC is a good example of real difficulty because it's capable of healing itself when needed, has strong firepower that isn't completely overwhelming, and can debuff the player's defenses. In other words, the D'Deridex Defender is on a level playing field with the player. The Borg are an uphill battle of epic proportions.
You want a challenge? Write a letter to the development team asking them to overhaul the abilities and artificial intelligence governing the Borg NPCs.
As far as the Borg go, I've always said that as a Cube gets closer to destruction its weapons should diminish and its hull regeneration should start to SKYROCKET.
This would be caused by the whole "crew" of the cube going into repair mode and the ships weapons being a secondary action.
The ship would still be fighting, but the real challenge at that point is getting the hull to KEEP dropping rather than stalemating the process.
As far as the Borg go, I've always said that as a Cube gets closer to destruction its weapons should diminish and its hull regeneration should start to SKYROCKET.
This would be caused by the whole "crew" of the cube going into repair mode and the ships weapons being a secondary action.
The ship would still be fighting, but the real challenge at that point is getting the hull to KEEP dropping rather than stalemating the process.
That actually sounds like a Borg cube. I could actually live with this.
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.
They are the Borg. You are supposed to FEAR them. I say that being able to faceroll the Borg was downright WRONG. And suddenly having to actually be careful when fighting them is a step in the right direction.
True .
I've felt that with the introduction of the New STF's , they have tried to raise the bar -- possibly to a level to which we will be raised once we complete the Omega Rep system , and in theory that all sounds good , but there are a few problems :
- ITH Space suffers from a bit too many crits and the first part just suffers from bad map making .
You can't distinguish between foreground and back ground and NPC's .
All have the same general geometric shapes , all are colored the same , all are lighted the same .
I't like fighting paper white starships with a white wall as a back ground .
- If someone leaves ITH Space , on Elite at least it turns into a 40-60 min slug fest . It's quite mind numbing .
ITH Ground on Elite is un-doable for pugs at the moment , an I have failed with a number of non-pugs as well (all Sci team last night) .
I have one last tactic in mind to try before asking for some kind of nerf there .
I would not as for a nerf if that map (the last room) was bigger (by at least 1/3) , but as is , you get sandwiched and creamed .
BUT completely derping the NPCs like this is NOT a step in the right direction. It's a step in the "appease the wimps who don't want to know how to build their ships" direction.
On one hand that is true .
On the other -- this game still suffers from the flaw it began with , and it's showing up right here in our faces (again) .
You have a single player experience All the way from Lvl 1-50 , and THEN you somehow are supposed to know/understand team/group play .
And now , on top of that , you HAVE to play missions on Elite to get your BNP .
Sure PUG's seem worse then before -- more ppl are pugging it as a number of STF dedicated communities are pretty much in chaos / not functioning .
EliteSTF chanel chat chatter has gone down by more than 1/2 .
The_Hive + TheRealSTFChanels are mostly silent .
So yeah , ppl who still want to play STF's are pugging it .
And as my (pre-s.7) sig says ... cross your fingers ... .
I suspect that the reason players are seeing more Hull Damage, may actually be attributable to the changes made to the Assimilated Ship set. Many players have chosen to try different equipment sets in light of those alterations, and may have been heavily reliant upon the 2-piece Hull Heal proc, which also cleansed Plasma Fires. If this is the case, it may mean that the Borg in general were inaccurately balanced for a specific set of equipment, and more changes will need to be made to bring them in line with other options of play style.
Just wanted to chime in here. I have never used the Assimilated Ship set beyond the Assimilated Console itself, so I never had the benefit of the hull heal or any of that stuff. I too have felt like the Borg Plasma has been hurting my hull a little more than it did before. My guess is it's something else.
Perhaps something was done to the way Resists are handled? I always equip a +35 Plasma resist but it feels kinda like I don't have much resist at all.
The other suggestion is I noticed some funkiness with Hull percentages after s7 where I would have 107% Hull or showing 47,000/43,000 HP.
I'm still pretty sure that the new craze in hull-burning plasma is due to how MANY torpedoes we're getting hit by.... The borg seem to use them a lot more freely now. The issue isn't the 350 points in plasma burn, it's getting hit by three torpedoes and having three different 350-point plasma burns going at once.
I too am being affected by the so called "invisible" torpedo. I was playing an elite STF the other day and watched in surprise as my Oddy's shields went from full to nothing and my hull go from 100% to 15%.
From my experiments last night the Aegis set actually works pretty well against the plasma burn. The Reactive shielding goes up to 5 almost instantly and then the burn simply does not hurt your hull that much at all after that
Wow. Seriously? Jesus why don't you just put a bunch of too toos and ballet suits on the npcs now, cuz that's all they're worth. FFS guys, what the hell is wrong with you? You really want weak-TRIBBLE$ npcs you can just faceroll? Good god you guys are all a bunch of fkin wimps.
True. They should give the borg something in return. Hazard emitters IV or V to spheres and aux to SIF IV or V to cubes. Otherwise it'll just be another uneeded nerf because people don't want to change their build.
. Otherwise it'll just be another uneeded nerf because people don't want to change their build.
^^^ THIS.
This is the ONLY reason why they are derping the NPCs to nothing. And yes, I mean NOTHING. The NPCs from S6, even on elite, I could faceroll in my sleep. With half my weapons not firing. The NPCs on elite from S7, now THOSE are REAL enemies. They are smarter, stronger, and meaner overall. I like it that way.
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.
This is the ONLY reason why they are derping the NPCs to nothing. And yes, I mean NOTHING. The NPCs from S6, even on elite, I could faceroll in my sleep. With half my weapons not firing. The NPCs on elite from S7, now THOSE are REAL enemies. They are smarter, stronger, and meaner overall. I like it that way.
They are no more intelligent than they were previously. Their damage has just been unintentionally increased.
Comments
yes. By far the borg set is still the most survivable. It was worse when it was 3pc borg + decent shields, but the borg set completely dominates the others available for survivability. Or at least that has been my experience on Cruisers/Kar'fi/Escorts.
I discovered this because my KDF peghqu only had a borg set, and it was suddenly much more durable than my fed jem'hadar bug with a Maco set.
I believe that originates from the Kinetic Cutting Beam. It has an intriguing synergy with Borg tractor beams... 2000 damage if the beam's currently cutting. Not sure if it's a DoT lasting until one of the two beams is offline or a one-off damage proc though.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
seconded. I even changed up by BOFF layout to debuff the plasma, but cant keep up with it. I get one cleared and another hits.
Yeah cause being one shotted by Borg is totally fair right?
I dont quite agree that taking away the ability to critical hit is the right move. Tone down their critical hit yes but not take it away completely.
This can be avoided by staying over five kilometers away from anything with a Tractor Beam. Since there's actually a viable, strategic counter to this, I wouldn't mind if this stayed.
I never liked facerolling borg but if I can't faceroll them what gives them the right to faceroll me? I don't like dying simply because a borg cube looked at me thank you very much, and you know what I can do.
Don't mind critting bosses, don't mind strong NPCs, don't do religion :P but I also don't find it fun to die because the borg looked in my general direction.
They are the Borg. You are supposed to FEAR them. I say that being able to faceroll the Borg was downright WRONG. And suddenly having to actually be careful when fighting them is a step in the right direction.
However I will back off a little and say that getting killed in one hit is a little over the top, even with an Oddy specced to survive STFs. Yes, I have been one shotted by 60k regular hits. Those are a little over the top. If I want to die in one hit, I want it to be at least by a crit or if my shields are down, in which case I deserve my death. But getting one shotted by a regular torp is a little much, even though I still say the Borg were fine.
Besides, you still see players who run in, DPB3, APA3, TT, FOMM, and then boom, cube/transformer/gateway/whatever happened to be unlucky enough to get hit by that gone by 4 tricobalt mines critting. Since we can do that to them, it's kind of fair that they can return the favor, but I would prefer it be a result of crits only.
BUT completely derping the NPCs like this is NOT a step in the right direction. It's a step in the "appease the wimps who don't want to know how to build their ships" direction. Not saying all of you are like that, but still, why nerf the NPCs when you can just adjust a few things on your ship, and then suddenly you're fine (if not fine, at least able to survive)?
My final commentary: Yeah, take away the one shots, but NOT IF IT'S AS A RESULT OF A CRIT. PLEASE. Do NOT derp the NPCs like this. I was finally starting to have fun fighting again, cuz the NPCs weren't a joke anymore...
Here we agree, facerolling enemies, especially the borg is no fun
I maintain there shouldn't be any one shots in the game full stop.
That my friend is called "learning to play", learning how to cause maximum damage in your low tanking escort before you die, I myself am contemplating such a build given how frequently my patrol escort (that you've also faced) get's 1 shotted
I've already fine tuned all my builds for the best balance of survival and damage output (which has cost me DPS on my escort) I'm afraid I can't do any more for my ships and I still get 1 shotted frequently, as for "derping the NPCs", they've reduced the damage on crits and (with the exception of ISOs) crits only and they have made the DoT more survivable. You can only recover from these things if you have time to do so.
See my last paragraph
True. You can only heal if you have time to push the button. But remember, you can't have it all. I specced my Oddy for damage. Of this you are fully aware. As a direct result, I sacrificed quite a bit of survivability. But it's a decision I can live with. I can't tank as well as I should, but tbh, I find it more fun that way. I am always seconds from death, and if I TRIBBLE up even one cycle, I get nova'd. Fine by me, means I have to pay attention and actually have to think and play properly.
They also said that they are scaling back the DPS on all enemies, with the stronger enemies being nerfed more than the weaker ones. But it doesn't change the fact that they are greatly reducing the damage output of the enemies. Which will make npcs a joke again and the wimps will shut up. I cannot condone this, even if I must accept it.
Yeah, I know I can't have the best of everything, I accepted that when I built my first multi-purpose build but achieving the fine balance between DPS build and tank build that should count for something.
As for this, the higher damage enemies are going to suffer most if they do it percentage based but all they have said is that they are doing it, they haven't said how much they are doing it, it may not (should not) make NPCs a low powered joke however they should not be so powerful as to make the causal player a joke either. I have a friend who effectively tells me where to stick myself at the very mention of the term "DPS" (even if it isn't me saying it) and in all fairness they have a point, I'm all for harder enemies, by which I mean enemies with abilities and an AI with a sense of self preservation playing by our rules (maybe with a few upgrades in the borg department), that would provide a challenge and would make me happy without getting facerolled.
(Sorry about the long paragraph)
No, something more fundamental changed. Didn't use the retro-borg set before either. And the pure numbers of kinetic from un-buffed torps have really skyrocketed.
I'd also like to submit the Borg Shield Neutralizer for investigation. It appears to be back at it's "gone in 4 seconds" mode. If I were to make a wild guess, I'd say power insulators no longer help against it.
This is ofc mostly a problem in combination with the uber-DoT, as they both require Hazards to clear them.
that's gg cryptic, between, the dil, the bugs, even buying boff powers at the trainer kicked out 2 of my boffs and had to fiddle for 30 minutes before i could get them back in their stations, just /double facepalm and gg. subbed since it went f2p, and i see now that was a mistake.
Donate Brains, zombies in Washington DC are starving.
Is it possible that the plasma dot applied by their torps have higher damage than those applied by their energy weapons due to some modifier? I only ask since I see the same as others in my combat log, where the dot is referenced as damage done by 'plasma torpedo' instead of plasma fire, My log. Is this 'Just a display issue' or something more?
I still use 2 piece borg, not a single piece of my equipment or skills have changed, so that doesn't hold up, and i run pretty high plasma resists in STFs, around 36 before aux to struct / HE and whatever else I put in rotation.
However, even though the damage certainly seems to be higher, I like it. If the extra damage means the average pug will start to reliably throw a hazard or other heal to the guy that's been tanking the gate / cube / 6 sphere group through the entire instance instead of watching them slowly run out of oh **** buttons, then that'd be worth keeping it as is.
Well as long as people realise sometimes we have our hands full like not dying because of incoming fire or weve been cut off and too far away dont get stressy if an engineer cant heal you or the block button may offend...
Good news.
1 problem.
T4 Romulan Rep power "Emergency Secondary Healing" will be an option with extremely low value and should be re-evaluated in light of this change. (Currently it looks to have low value in PvE vs. largely low crit chance enemies (most NPCs) with high spike damage, and it looks as if it will be almost ludicrously strong in PvP (due to players hitting and critting more often than NPCs, at mostly lower damage points).
Make that up to hundreds of thousands.
I can confirm that the hull procs are far out of balance at this point, and I still use 2 piece borg set for the hull proc and cleanse on nearly all of my builds because none of the other 2 piece set bonuses really have any value for STFs in comparison.
In general, I find I'm getting hit for 600-700 (per tick) with 2-3 neutroniums, and other hull resistance buffs running (I run a copy of HE and Aux to SIF on nearly all of my builds).
Sometimes, it will randomly spike up to 7000 per tick.
It also seems to have a bizarrely long duration, and I have not once til this point seen the Borg hull proc actually clear the hull plasma fire. I can't confirm if that's true, but right now on live my ship is almost constantly on fire.
Great news, thanks for keeping an eye on all of this.
I'm all for challenging content, but there's a difference between real and artificial difficulty in game design.
Real difficulty is giving NPCs the ability to intelligently heal and buff themselves and support one another.
Artificial difficulty is overpowering enemies to the point of eclipsing the player's ability to deal with them on level terms.
Artificial difficulty is often tedious and frustrating, whereas real difficulty requires thought and strategy. What we have at present is the epitome of artificial difficulty. The Borg are too powerful, easily capable of destroying a player before they have a chance to react while simultaneously ignoring the constraints of weapons range. The D'Deridex Defender NPC is a good example of real difficulty because it's capable of healing itself when needed, has strong firepower that isn't completely overwhelming, and can debuff the player's defenses. In other words, the D'Deridex Defender is on a level playing field with the player. The Borg are an uphill battle of epic proportions.
You want a challenge? Write a letter to the development team asking them to overhaul the abilities and artificial intelligence governing the Borg NPCs.
As far as the Borg go, I've always said that as a Cube gets closer to destruction its weapons should diminish and its hull regeneration should start to SKYROCKET.
This would be caused by the whole "crew" of the cube going into repair mode and the ships weapons being a secondary action.
The ship would still be fighting, but the real challenge at that point is getting the hull to KEEP dropping rather than stalemating the process.
That actually sounds like a Borg cube. I could actually live with this.
True .
I've felt that with the introduction of the New STF's , they have tried to raise the bar -- possibly to a level to which we will be raised once we complete the Omega Rep system , and in theory that all sounds good , but there are a few problems :
- ITH Space suffers from a bit too many crits and the first part just suffers from bad map making .
You can't distinguish between foreground and back ground and NPC's .
All have the same general geometric shapes , all are colored the same , all are lighted the same .
I't like fighting paper white starships with a white wall as a back ground .
- If someone leaves ITH Space , on Elite at least it turns into a 40-60 min slug fest . It's quite mind numbing .
ITH Ground on Elite is un-doable for pugs at the moment , an I have failed with a number of non-pugs as well (all Sci team last night) .
I have one last tactic in mind to try before asking for some kind of nerf there .
I would not as for a nerf if that map (the last room) was bigger (by at least 1/3) , but as is , you get sandwiched and creamed .
On one hand that is true .
On the other -- this game still suffers from the flaw it began with , and it's showing up right here in our faces (again) .
You have a single player experience All the way from Lvl 1-50 , and THEN you somehow are supposed to know/understand team/group play .
And now , on top of that , you HAVE to play missions on Elite to get your BNP .
Sure PUG's seem worse then before -- more ppl are pugging it as a number of STF dedicated communities are pretty much in chaos / not functioning .
EliteSTF chanel chat chatter has gone down by more than 1/2 .
The_Hive + TheRealSTFChanels are mostly silent .
So yeah , ppl who still want to play STF's are pugging it .
And as my (pre-s.7) sig says ... cross your fingers ... .
Just wanted to chime in here. I have never used the Assimilated Ship set beyond the Assimilated Console itself, so I never had the benefit of the hull heal or any of that stuff. I too have felt like the Borg Plasma has been hurting my hull a little more than it did before. My guess is it's something else.
Perhaps something was done to the way Resists are handled? I always equip a +35 Plasma resist but it feels kinda like I don't have much resist at all.
The other suggestion is I noticed some funkiness with Hull percentages after s7 where I would have 107% Hull or showing 47,000/43,000 HP.
I also seem mine go from 100 to 30 after getting hit with nothing or I should say a little green dots coming out of no where.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
True. They should give the borg something in return. Hazard emitters IV or V to spheres and aux to SIF IV or V to cubes. Otherwise it'll just be another uneeded nerf because people don't want to change their build.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
^^^ THIS.
This is the ONLY reason why they are derping the NPCs to nothing. And yes, I mean NOTHING. The NPCs from S6, even on elite, I could faceroll in my sleep. With half my weapons not firing. The NPCs on elite from S7, now THOSE are REAL enemies. They are smarter, stronger, and meaner overall. I like it that way.
They are no more intelligent than they were previously. Their damage has just been unintentionally increased.