Horrible pun intended.
I just wanted to submit my feedback, and say thank you for the Threat Generation Consoles.
Whoever's idea that was, and to whom ever else green lighted said idea, thank you.
My main is an Engineering Captain, and ever since the Oddyessy 3 pack came out last year, my primary ship has been the Oddy. And my gameplan is tanking and healing.
There is as much enjoyment for me in the game to be able to take ANY hit, and survive it and let my teammates vanquish the opposition as blowing the stuff up myself as a tac.
Never before this moment, have I felt like I do my job as good as I can right now. I grab aggro from Escorts, and hold it. Take all the hits and everything blows up. It's glorious.
And the defining moment when I realized the magnitude of how well I could now make this strategy work, is in Cure Space Elite, where 4 Tacs and my lone Engy Cruiser managed to get through the whole mission without a single warp core breach and I took multiple times more damage than anyone else combined.
inb4 my Fleet has done that before blah blah blah
This is the first time I experienced such flawless gameplay, especially with a partial pug team.
Here is a screencap of the combat parser output from that STF:
http://i49.tinypic.com/1ekhfk.png
Tanking has never been more fun.
That's my two dilthium on the matter.
Comments
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
I see the benefits of the -th.... but the fact my escort still seems to hold agro makes me think most cruisers aren't bothering with threat control at all. Be aware, the +th from the console is not the same as maxing out the threat control skill. can't recall what % it is, but its not nearly enough to replace speccing into the skill completely.
I do both personally. I have max points in threat on a tank toon I have (my main toon at that: Fed engineer)
I use 2 + threat consoles, the Emitter Array ones, with the shield heal. So I have my 9 points in Threat Control, plus the two consoles, and larger shield heals on top of that, with the innate shield heal as well.
It takes a LOT for me to lose aggro at that point, and I'm planning on grabbing a third (Field Generators don't really help that much IMO) soon. I'm good without em, but even better with em.
I like them because they can help you keep aggro even on a huge spike damage from a tac-escort. It can really make a difference IMO.
If the escort player got first aggro it was hard to make it let go.
Also Escorts using [-Th] Consoles now also helps.
Matthew@Matthew486DX -> Eng Lvl 60
FAW/Tank: Tactical Oddyessy T5-U, Tank/Heal Science Oddyessy T5-U, DPS Cruiser: A2B Battlecruiser T5-U, DPS/Debuff Tholian Recluse T5-U
Fleet Admiral: Angry Tribbles
Holding aggro however is rather wonky. Even with threat control 9 and constantly hitting a target you lose aggro to high damage ships. Once its gone you aint getting it back.
The damage a ship puts out is higher threat than skill points and lower damage output of the threat control spec ship.
Ive not purchased these +th consoles yet but I plan to for my tank voquv.
Would be quite nice if they included a large bonus to healing on the useless +power consoles too... +2 power to shields ? who gives a TRIBBLE! But OH! +2 power to shields AND 20% chance to proc +15% resist to shields for 8 seconds? GLORIOUS.
There is also a new DOFF called "Adak'Ukan" that inreases your threat generation by 100% when you use Attack Pattern Delta.
You can actually slot 3 of these, but I can't imagine needing that many.
Currently they are very inexpensive, around 400k to 500k EC on the exchange.
Borticus called it "Delta Taunt", but personally I like to think of it as "Attack Pattern Ultimatum". :P
I tried using one of those guys and it didn't really seem to help. Enemy AI seems very reluctant to change targets, leading to cubes intent on chasing down people 20km away while everybody else beats on it until dead.
Though, my fleet does not yet have threat consoles so maybe they work really well together.
A lot of people are against STO having the "trinity" of MMOs (Tank/Healer/DPS), and maybe they are right to a extent, but the trinity allows for more interesting boss mechanics and fun gameplay, if only Cryptic will take advantage of it for future STFs.
Agreed. It is easy to test it. One player with 0 threat generation, equip only a white mk1 phaser beam.
Let him go at the borg cube first.
Then you go in with your threat control 9 + 1 mk12 phaser beam
It will take you a long , long while to get the aggro from the first guy that shot the cube.
Its sad that sensor abilities do not trigger behavior changes too... it'd be great if jam sensors actually makes the enemy ships reset their hate list and scramble sensors actually make them fight each other for the duration of the effect (not until a random 1pnt damage beam from a player vanquishes the scramble effect).
This really depends on several factors so it's hard to give a single standard answer.
To sum up:
> Tank really wants to be the first to engage.
> Proximity is important in threat calculation, I have no data for this but in my personal experience this is true. So being closer is better. (You also need to be close for maximum damage output, which is part of threat).
> Threat alone is not enough, you do need to be doing at least a modicum of damage.
> You will need the threat control skill.
If you have all of that, and the threat clicky/APD while attacking (you need to be attacking to create threat) - then the DOFF is either not working or someone else has threat control or perhaps truly massive spike damage (it's possible for Escorts and even more so if they have threat control skill ranks).
I haven't touched my Eng in a while, but I plan to rework his build/layout to try the new APD doff.
Ironically enough, I can enter an ISE/KASE, and engage with my Odyssey, no points in TC, and I can hold aggro over even FTER and JAS for at least long enough to heavily damage the tac cube. That thing has fkin tunnel vision like nuts. It takes a lot to convince it to stop shooting at me. Same goes for the Borg patrol in ISE. I run in with BFAW2 and APO1, and I NEVER drop aggro from the ships. My team can then focus fire them down one at a time while I keep the other ships occupied. It works pretty well.
But yeah, the threat recognition/generation algorithm is messed up.
Not going to happen. Threat control is specific to tanking, it costs a lot, and I'm not going to spend 500 zen to respec any time I want to use a different ship.
I salute you, sir! Well done!
Actually, people are less against the trinity system and more against the improper implementation currently in STO.
What should happen (for example):
1. A glass cannon does double the DPS of a tank, but has to retreat/die half the time. So his damage over time curve has high peaks and low valleys.
2. A tank does half the DPS of a glass cannon, but he never has to retreat. So his damage over time curve is fairly linear.
What this means is that they are balanced, and will get through content at the same pace. Different playstyles, not different effectiveness.
3. Putting both together results in more than the sum of its parts - they won't double their damage when working together properly, instead they will triple their damage. The tank holds aggro and deals his part, while the glass cannon no longer has to worry about dying and can consistently deal double the damage of the tank.
THAT is how it's supposed to work, but currently the "glass cannons" of STO really don't worry about dying or retreating much, which skews the trinity system.
Well at least you know why the cubes are running away from you.
Switch to a healing support build then, if tanking isn't your thing for STFs.
Yup, if it was a level 1 skill then I'd take it. Not sure why Cryptic put some of those powers so high up the tree. The +threat console is a better way to go, if only they'd put that buff on actual tankie consoles.
Time to invest in -Th!