Did they just buff the base shields or did they buff the base shield modifier?
They fixed the modifiers so they are same for all ships now. No extra hps. Currently, those retrofits got "bonus hps" but had regen based on their gimped shield modifier.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
They fixed the modifiers so they are same for all ships now. No extra hps. Currently, those retrofits got "bonus hps" but had regen based on their gimped shield modifier.
So with the "corrected" modifiers - they're getting the additional shield strength as well as the increased regen?
to Nerf an escorts hull would be stupid i am an engineer i have sci and tact characters
and i have many ships the escort is the lowest hull ship why make it lower escorts rely on fire power so there defense is weak compared to engineers ships cruisers and the likes
until you have had a escort and worked with one you can't judge it .
So with the "corrected" modifiers - they're getting the additional shield strength as well as the increased regen?
Yes, the hps increase in like +-100 for what I checked, the regen goes up for the old retrofits. Most dramatically for the fleet nova.
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
to Nerf an escorts hull would be stupid i am an engineer i have sci and tact characters
and i have many ships the escort is the lowest hull ship why make it lower escorts rely on fire power so there defense is weak compared to engineers ships cruisers and the likes
until you have had a escort and worked with one you can't judge it .
Um, Escorts don't have the lowest hull. Science Vessels do.
Escorts have the lowest shields.
Well on fed side it affects mostly only the Nova and Saber, and how many of these do you actually see around ? Steamrunner is still superior passive tank (at least mine is lol). My steamrunner has same shields as my dreadnought and almost same hull regen
"Cryptic Studio’s Jack Emmert (2010): Microtransactions are the biggest bunch of nonsense. I like paying one fee and not worrying about it – like my cellphone. The world’s biggest MMO isn’t item based, even though the black market item GDP is bigger than Russia … microtransactions make me want to die.”
i started back at launch in 2010. tacs were dominant then and still are now
the ONLY reason played or took an engineer to their stf's was for the ground based abilities and the ability to tank tac cubes. the only reason anyone took sci was for the ground healing and the fact you actually needed one to tank one of the bosses for you. with a bat'leth.
tacs were dominant. they still are dominant. that's never going to change
i will say that i have given some tacs a run for their money as an engineer in the jem'hadar dreadnought, with 6 beams and a 180 degree torp all hitting the target 100% of the time while i circled at full speed (getting full defense). 8k in one ise, and i have only just now unlocked tier 2 of the various reps. can't wait to get elite scorpions.
but you know what? you don't need to do 8k to finish ise with bonus objectives.
I agree with the OP in this thread, but I'd rather see Cruisers get more hull as unless Cryptic change the way all the current Elite STFs work Escorts actually need some decent hull to avoid being one-shotted all the time.
Personally I'd propose two changes:
1. Increase cruiser hull by around 10-30% depending on current situation, that is to say that some ships in between an escort and a cruiser may need a smaller buff while proper cruisers need a larger one, but it's not true of them all. It's not quite as simple as a ship being a cruiser automatically meaning +X hull.
2. Greatly increase the effect of crew on hull and subsystem repair rates. One of the things that (most) cruisers have in abundance is crew, but currently they hardly do anything, and there isn't a great incentive for cruisers to even consider taking crew damage consoles.
It's worth remembering that hull doesn't count for a lot; once a ship's shields are down hull is stripped very quickly regardless of what type of ship you are. The main thing these changes do is mean that cruisers have a larger buffer between shields going down and their warp core breaching; if their shield buff abilities are all on cool-down then it's not likely to make much of a difference, but if they're ready to bring their shields back then it just gives them that little extra breathing room. It also helps with bleed-through effects such as Plasma DoT and Transphasics, but again, shields are the real deciding factor.
I mean come on, a cruiser getting +4000 or even +8000 hull is hardly anything, as that's one good volley from an escort, easy. A single escort may find cruisers suddenly more difficult to take down alone though, which I think is a good thing, as it should take at least two to crush a cruiser, or one with a science ship backing it up.
I agree with the OP in this thread, but I'd rather see Cruisers get more hull as unless Cryptic change the way all the current Elite STFs work Escorts actually need some decent hull to avoid being one-shotted all the time.
Personally I'd propose two changes:
1. Increase cruiser hull by around 10-30% depending on current situation, that is to say that some ships in between an escort and a cruiser may need a smaller buff while proper cruisers need a larger one, but it's not true of them all. It's not quite as simple as a ship being a cruiser automatically meaning +X hull.
2. Greatly increase the effect of crew on hull and subsystem repair rates. One of the things that (most) cruisers have in abundance is crew, but currently they hardly do anything, and there isn't a great incentive for cruisers to even consider taking crew damage consoles.
It's worth remembering that hull doesn't count for a lot; once a ship's shields are down hull is stripped very quickly regardless of what type of ship you are. The main thing these changes do is mean that cruisers have a larger buffer between shields going down and their warp core breaching; if their shield buff abilities are all on cool-down then it's not likely to make much of a difference, but if they're ready to bring their shields back then it just gives them that little extra breathing room. It also helps with bleed-through effects such as Plasma DoT and Transphasics, but again, shields are the real deciding factor.
I mean come on, a cruiser getting +4000 or even +8000 hull is hardly anything, as that's one good volley from an escort, easy. A single escort may find cruisers suddenly more difficult to take down alone though, which I think is a good thing, as it should take at least two to crush a cruiser, or one with a science ship backing it up.
Yes you are right. I believe a Hull INCREASE to crusiers + a reduction in beam weapon power drain would make up for a lot of the "crusiers are useless" threads. Right now with high DPS, low powerdrain, increasing hull strength and all sorts of new passives - escorts are becoming the 1 stop shop - they game is getting heavily unbalanced and will soon mean decreasing sales of ship classes for Cryptic.
If you asked 100 Cruiser captions if they liked the role cryptic wants them to play
Maybe 1 would say yes
Thats the problem
Well, people need to not fly cruisers if they don't want to fill the role. Don't pick a tank and then complain you can't deal damage, when said tank is never meant to deal damage. This isn't a new concept in MMO's.
So do you Nerf it or buff up the Entire game and the other 2 character classes to match it
or
Allow it to continue until everyone is flying a escort with a
TaC , thats the question
Maybe a slight nerf to escort hulls, and the only buff that could be possibly needed would be the power drain on beam weapons. Outside of that, the only reason for "nerf escorts" of "buff cruiser" threads is, again, people picking a tank while wanting to be superman. I have no problems tanking when I occasionally fly my cruiser, and I don't expect to deal uber amounts of damage.
People need to stop trying to shoehorn this game into episdoes of TNG or DS9. This is a MMO and it follows certain principles of an MMO.
If anything, people need to start reading the class descriptions on the character creation screen.
I'll say this for SWTOR; the people didn't complain their Bounty Hunter tank couldn't do damage. Not sure why people expect tanks in this game to be any different than any other tank in any other MMO.
How the Devs see Star Trek, apparently:
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Yes you are right. I believe a Hull INCREASE to crusiers + a reduction in beam weapon power drain would make up for a lot of the "crusiers are useless" threads. Right now with high DPS, low powerdrain, increasing hull strength and all sorts of new passives - escorts are becoming the 1 stop shop - they game is getting heavily unbalanced and will soon mean decreasing sales of ship classes for Cryptic.
Except, this does nothing to address why escorts are able to be so dominant: the game is simply too easy. So what if you buff cruiser hulls? Escorts are still going to be favoured because the game doesn't demand a tank to do anything. Now, if you decrease escort hull strength and increase AI competency (more skills, varied and used at random times), then it will be more worthwhile to have a good cruiser captain...and I daresay a good CC science build.
If the game is too easy, that needs addressing first. Then, if escorts are still dominating due to their stats and innate synergies with tactical officers...lower their stats so that other vessels are valuable in its place. I've flown an escort as an engi for a while, moreso than in my Nebula, and I don't think lowering the efficacy of an escort would drive people away, nor would it result in lower ship sales. Let's face it: the lack of good ship consoles in the C-Store and the overabundance of OP lockbox ships is what kills ship sales. If the other vessels were made useful again (in the truest sense, I know I do well in my Nebula), then it would make sense that other ships would then be valuable to be bought.
Tl;DR: make the game harder, and if escorts blow up like they should without proper cruiser tanking, things are fine. Oh, and for the love of god, STOP NERFING SCIENCE.
This is a MMO and it follows certain principles of an MMO.
See, that's the thing. I don't expect to do tons of damage in my cruiser, I expected to tank. Problem is though, this game started with a fairly standard trinity setup, and has now drifted and blurred the line between the damage dealer and the tank. Entirely in favor of the damage dealer.
I don't know about you, but when I played EQ or WoW I didn't expect to be able to do top level content with all rogues or monks or wizards or what have you. We needed balanced groups then. In STO you're just about better off with all DPS and TRIBBLE the tanks.
Except, this does nothing to address why escorts are able to be so dominant: the game is simply too easy. So what if you buff cruiser hulls? Escorts are still going to be favoured because the game doesn't demand a tank to do anything. Now, if you decrease escort hull strength and increase AI competency (more skills, varied and used at random times), then it will be more worthwhile to have a good cruiser captain...and I daresay a good CC science build.
If the game is too easy, that needs addressing first. Then, if escorts are still dominating due to their stats and innate synergies with tactical officers...lower their stats so that other vessels are valuable in its place. I've flown an escort as an engi for a while, moreso than in my Nebula, and I don't think lowering the efficacy of an escort would drive people away, nor would it result in lower ship sales. Let's face it: the lack of good ship consoles in the C-Store and the overabundance of OP lockbox ships is what kills ship sales. If the other vessels were made useful again (in the truest sense, I know I do well in my Nebula), then it would make sense that other ships would then be valuable to be bought.
Tl;DR: make the game harder, and if escorts blow up like they should without proper cruiser tanking, things are fine. Oh, and for the love of god, STOP NERFING SCIENCE.
The Borg were getting tough in S6 with more fire power and better AI - spheres would chase you at super max impluse speed - but then came about 10,000 threads from escort tac captains saying how they were going pop after "only" 2 min stuck to the side of a TAC cube - so Cryptic nerfed it so the escorts could blow through everything and sit there and take massive damage. In the Breen ship in a Tac captain I can basically hang around the TAC cube in ISE at point blank range until it blows. That used to be impossible for tac escorts.
Player skill has not gotten a lot better from my 2000+ hours on the game - but nowadays I am almost always finishing ISE pugs(not pre-mades) with 5-7 min left on the optional. Even 6 months ago if I finished a Pug with 5 min left on the optional it would be something I would be talking about with everyone in the fleet.
Well, people need to not fly cruisers if they don't want to fill the role. Don't pick a tank and then complain you can't deal damage, when said tank is never meant to deal damage. This isn't a new concept in MMO's.
Problem 1: This isn't a cruiser vs escort thing. There simply are not enough science captains (much less those that want to fly science ships outside the Wells) to actually muster a complaint.
I'm willing to bet more then half of any fleet out there that doesn't actively determinate is at least 5/8 tacs. 3/8 engineer 1/8 science.
Problem 2: That leaves everyone else that doesn't want to be pure DPS out in the cold with a abysmal selection of options.
Escorts DO NEED a nerf, it is obvious in both PVP and PVE. Their hulls are little high and their dmg output makes everyone want to play one, and leave cruisers in the dust and unwanted in elite STF's anymore now a days.
(
No, people end up disliking cruisers because they are damage tanks, and very few people look forward to playing anything that is a tank or a healer in any game. Cruisers make exceedingly good damage tanks, or at least some can be. But the issue remains... they are tanks in a game that doesn't "require" any particular role. SO while they can excel the fact that they are not required makes traditional tank players (delusions of herohood types usually) feel unsatisfied and cruiser fans (Kirks, nothing wrong with being a Kirk, just that cruisers aren't really suited to it) feel out of place.
You know what's worse? That a grav well 3 from a sci toon is WORSE than a grav well 2 from ANY other captain... HOW DOES ANYONE REASON THAT!?!?
I admit Science is not my specialty at all, but if attack patterns buff sci power what prevent a sci captain from using boff attack patterns to buff their sci powers as well?
This is something I don't get, why do people complain about attack patterns? Everyone can take them, they are mostly boff based.
Escorts have a significantly higher damage avoidance and the same exact amount of resistance when properly built. And yes they can use beam arrays to stay mobile they just choose not to.
Science Vessels have a significantly higher innate regeneration capacity. 1600 shield every six seconds for free is nice. Did I mention they get the same resistance rates? Or that they can just make the enemy unable to fire if their abilities even worked?
Cruisers are only best at hull tanking. Good luck with that.
In the past cruisers did deal a similar amount of DPS as escorts do now. They were not just 'tanks' they had teeth.
truthfully, nerfing or changing the ships alone isn't enough
what we really need are abilities that only work when in specific ship types
tac +dmg innate abilities only work in an escort. while in that escort, they take a -% to all shield/hull healing abilities and all science buffing/debuffing/damage abilities. an increase to all tactical boff abilities.
engineer - bonus hull and shield while in a cruiser only (i would recommend that anything that turns at 8 or slower be classified as a cruiser, whether or not it has subsystem targeting. this would include some lockbox ships). bonus to hull/shield repairing. an increase in effectiveness of all engineering boff abilities. an innate -100 system drain resistance to make 6 or 8x beam tanking feasible. with the ability to orbit in a cruiser and have 7x beams+180 degree torp all hitting the target i REALLY don't think they need a damage buff. on the flip side, no cruiser should have 3 engineering boff slots until space engineering abilities are given a pass of some sort.
science - innate target debuffing of resistances and power drain (read: always on disruptor breach and leech) while in a science vessel. +% to any equipped shields. -recharge to sci boff abilities.
stuff like this. give the classes bonuses for being in their ideal ship. make it so their class specific abilities ONLY work in their ideal ship ie. the tac officer toys don't work if in a cruiser or science ship. but you have to balance this out by giving an incentive for engineers to stay in cruisers and science to stay in science vessels - increase npc damage, lower escort hull and shields, in crease cruiser hull and shields and innate resistances, increase science shields but lower hull, remove the shared cooldown on many of the science abilities and a reliance on auxiliary power.
many things can be done besides or in lieu of just nerfing escorts, and there is more to this game than pvp.
I agree with the OP, I fly escorts 90% of the time and the hull is just too high. In an ideal STO cruisers would do the same (potentially) damage over the course of a match/STF. Cruisers would do less dps but would be able to stick in the fight longer, escorts would do much more dps but would have to get out of the targets range occasionally to avoid dying. Science would buff/debuff and heal.
Right now an escort can take care of both an escort and cruisers job. While nerfing anything is not my first choice, in this case reducing escort's hull strength to BOP levels is the simplest solution. Buffing cruisers so they could tank better would also require increasing the npc's damage (I don't mean more one-shots) to pretty much come out with the same ideal result as I said above.
To me, this sounds like a no-brainer. It would make the game more fun for everybody. More challenge for escorts, more use for cruisers, science would be needed to heal more often (therefore, more useful also).
There is a much simpler way to go about making cruisers relevant, give them passive team boosts.
Essentially give them a permanant Tactical / Engineering / Science Fleet buff to anyone in their group which as a result will also increase the threat of the cruiser significantly to the point all enemies will be gunning for them.
Increase resistances of said cruisers rather than making them hitpoint buffers so they take LESS damage per hit.
Additonally, increase their shields as well. It strikes me as really stupid that someone decided a class should be a tanker but only allow it to tank when 50% for its defences fail.
If anything this game should lower the hulls of everyone and seriously increase the power of shields. Then when a science ship comes along and drops your shields you really will be completely stuffed regardless of who you are.
And have both the Dreadnaught and frigate pilots feeling like they are making a useful contribution too, thats the real kicker of EVE when it works well.
But yea I have always said cruisers should have a strait up 10% damage reduction against everything.
You might want mention that the Escort > Cruiser > Science defense is just a mere 10% difference in defense. Everything thing else that helps any Ship defend itself is availible to all ships on one form or another, even including ApO on certain cruisers.
Escorts may not be able to match Cruisers in raw, stay-in-one-place-and-get-shot-up-from-all-angles durability, but their actual rate of survivability isn't all that different. Cruisers may be able to withstand fire that can sink an Escort, but an Escort can run from away from situations that would sink a Cruiser.
Escorts don't nearly require the same level of sacrifice that Cruisers or even Science Vessels do for their respective specializations, and the +10 to 15 weapons power that they get is arguably more beneficial than the flat power bonus that most Cruisers get. IMO, Escorts should have their weapons power bonus chopped down, or otherwise balanced between Engines and Weapons subsystems.
However, I think the most important things to look into at present are Tactical Consoles and Beam vs. Dual Cannon balance: the way that both systems work at present is idiotic, and severely limits choice in weapons all across the board.
Comments
They fixed the modifiers so they are same for all ships now. No extra hps. Currently, those retrofits got "bonus hps" but had regen based on their gimped shield modifier.
So with the "corrected" modifiers - they're getting the additional shield strength as well as the increased regen?
and i have many ships the escort is the lowest hull ship why make it lower escorts rely on fire power so there defense is weak compared to engineers ships cruisers and the likes
until you have had a escort and worked with one you can't judge it .
Yes, the hps increase in like +-100 for what I checked, the regen goes up for the old retrofits. Most dramatically for the fleet nova.
So speaking of increased tankiness...
Um, Escorts don't have the lowest hull. Science Vessels do.
Escorts have the lowest shields.
Hull: Cruisers > Escorts > Science Vessels
Shields: Science Vessels > Cruisers > Escorts
Well on fed side it affects mostly only the Nova and Saber, and how many of these do you actually see around ? Steamrunner is still superior passive tank (at least mine is lol). My steamrunner has same shields as my dreadnought and almost same hull regen
the ONLY reason played or took an engineer to their stf's was for the ground based abilities and the ability to tank tac cubes. the only reason anyone took sci was for the ground healing and the fact you actually needed one to tank one of the bosses for you. with a bat'leth.
tacs were dominant. they still are dominant. that's never going to change
i will say that i have given some tacs a run for their money as an engineer in the jem'hadar dreadnought, with 6 beams and a 180 degree torp all hitting the target 100% of the time while i circled at full speed (getting full defense). 8k in one ise, and i have only just now unlocked tier 2 of the various reps. can't wait to get elite scorpions.
but you know what? you don't need to do 8k to finish ise with bonus objectives.
Personally I'd propose two changes:
1. Increase cruiser hull by around 10-30% depending on current situation, that is to say that some ships in between an escort and a cruiser may need a smaller buff while proper cruisers need a larger one, but it's not true of them all. It's not quite as simple as a ship being a cruiser automatically meaning +X hull.
2. Greatly increase the effect of crew on hull and subsystem repair rates. One of the things that (most) cruisers have in abundance is crew, but currently they hardly do anything, and there isn't a great incentive for cruisers to even consider taking crew damage consoles.
It's worth remembering that hull doesn't count for a lot; once a ship's shields are down hull is stripped very quickly regardless of what type of ship you are. The main thing these changes do is mean that cruisers have a larger buffer between shields going down and their warp core breaching; if their shield buff abilities are all on cool-down then it's not likely to make much of a difference, but if they're ready to bring their shields back then it just gives them that little extra breathing room. It also helps with bleed-through effects such as Plasma DoT and Transphasics, but again, shields are the real deciding factor.
I mean come on, a cruiser getting +4000 or even +8000 hull is hardly anything, as that's one good volley from an escort, easy. A single escort may find cruisers suddenly more difficult to take down alone though, which I think is a good thing, as it should take at least two to crush a cruiser, or one with a science ship backing it up.
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates
think you forgot to mention defence.
Defence: Escort > Science > Cruiser.
Yes you are right. I believe a Hull INCREASE to crusiers + a reduction in beam weapon power drain would make up for a lot of the "crusiers are useless" threads. Right now with high DPS, low powerdrain, increasing hull strength and all sorts of new passives - escorts are becoming the 1 stop shop - they game is getting heavily unbalanced and will soon mean decreasing sales of ship classes for Cryptic.
Well, people need to not fly cruisers if they don't want to fill the role. Don't pick a tank and then complain you can't deal damage, when said tank is never meant to deal damage. This isn't a new concept in MMO's.
Maybe a slight nerf to escort hulls, and the only buff that could be possibly needed would be the power drain on beam weapons. Outside of that, the only reason for "nerf escorts" of "buff cruiser" threads is, again, people picking a tank while wanting to be superman. I have no problems tanking when I occasionally fly my cruiser, and I don't expect to deal uber amounts of damage.
People need to stop trying to shoehorn this game into episdoes of TNG or DS9. This is a MMO and it follows certain principles of an MMO.
If anything, people need to start reading the class descriptions on the character creation screen.
I'll say this for SWTOR; the people didn't complain their Bounty Hunter tank couldn't do damage. Not sure why people expect tanks in this game to be any different than any other tank in any other MMO.
Star Trek: The Original Grind
Star Trek: The Next Grind
Star Trek: Deep Space Grind
Star Trek: Voyage to the Grind
Except, this does nothing to address why escorts are able to be so dominant: the game is simply too easy. So what if you buff cruiser hulls? Escorts are still going to be favoured because the game doesn't demand a tank to do anything. Now, if you decrease escort hull strength and increase AI competency (more skills, varied and used at random times), then it will be more worthwhile to have a good cruiser captain...and I daresay a good CC science build.
If the game is too easy, that needs addressing first. Then, if escorts are still dominating due to their stats and innate synergies with tactical officers...lower their stats so that other vessels are valuable in its place. I've flown an escort as an engi for a while, moreso than in my Nebula, and I don't think lowering the efficacy of an escort would drive people away, nor would it result in lower ship sales. Let's face it: the lack of good ship consoles in the C-Store and the overabundance of OP lockbox ships is what kills ship sales. If the other vessels were made useful again (in the truest sense, I know I do well in my Nebula), then it would make sense that other ships would then be valuable to be bought.
Tl;DR: make the game harder, and if escorts blow up like they should without proper cruiser tanking, things are fine. Oh, and for the love of god, STOP NERFING SCIENCE.
See, that's the thing. I don't expect to do tons of damage in my cruiser, I expected to tank. Problem is though, this game started with a fairly standard trinity setup, and has now drifted and blurred the line between the damage dealer and the tank. Entirely in favor of the damage dealer.
I don't know about you, but when I played EQ or WoW I didn't expect to be able to do top level content with all rogues or monks or wizards or what have you. We needed balanced groups then. In STO you're just about better off with all DPS and TRIBBLE the tanks.
The Borg were getting tough in S6 with more fire power and better AI - spheres would chase you at super max impluse speed - but then came about 10,000 threads from escort tac captains saying how they were going pop after "only" 2 min stuck to the side of a TAC cube - so Cryptic nerfed it so the escorts could blow through everything and sit there and take massive damage. In the Breen ship in a Tac captain I can basically hang around the TAC cube in ISE at point blank range until it blows. That used to be impossible for tac escorts.
Player skill has not gotten a lot better from my 2000+ hours on the game - but nowadays I am almost always finishing ISE pugs(not pre-mades) with 5-7 min left on the optional. Even 6 months ago if I finished a Pug with 5 min left on the optional it would be something I would be talking about with everyone in the fleet.
Problem 1: This isn't a cruiser vs escort thing. There simply are not enough science captains (much less those that want to fly science ships outside the Wells) to actually muster a complaint.
I'm willing to bet more then half of any fleet out there that doesn't actively determinate is at least 5/8 tacs. 3/8 engineer 1/8 science.
Problem 2: That leaves everyone else that doesn't want to be pure DPS out in the cold with a abysmal selection of options.
No, people end up disliking cruisers because they are damage tanks, and very few people look forward to playing anything that is a tank or a healer in any game. Cruisers make exceedingly good damage tanks, or at least some can be. But the issue remains... they are tanks in a game that doesn't "require" any particular role. SO while they can excel the fact that they are not required makes traditional tank players (delusions of herohood types usually) feel unsatisfied and cruiser fans (Kirks, nothing wrong with being a Kirk, just that cruisers aren't really suited to it) feel out of place.
I admit Science is not my specialty at all, but if attack patterns buff sci power what prevent a sci captain from using boff attack patterns to buff their sci powers as well?
This is something I don't get, why do people complain about attack patterns? Everyone can take them, they are mostly boff based.
Except it's not. A GW2 from a tac captain does more damage. A LOT more.
That's the point I just made! Re-read the quote...
Cruisers are the worst tanks in this game
Escorts have a significantly higher damage avoidance and the same exact amount of resistance when properly built. And yes they can use beam arrays to stay mobile they just choose not to.
Science Vessels have a significantly higher innate regeneration capacity. 1600 shield every six seconds for free is nice. Did I mention they get the same resistance rates? Or that they can just make the enemy unable to fire if their abilities even worked?
Cruisers are only best at hull tanking. Good luck with that.
In the past cruisers did deal a similar amount of DPS as escorts do now. They were not just 'tanks' they had teeth.
what we really need are abilities that only work when in specific ship types
tac +dmg innate abilities only work in an escort. while in that escort, they take a -% to all shield/hull healing abilities and all science buffing/debuffing/damage abilities. an increase to all tactical boff abilities.
engineer - bonus hull and shield while in a cruiser only (i would recommend that anything that turns at 8 or slower be classified as a cruiser, whether or not it has subsystem targeting. this would include some lockbox ships). bonus to hull/shield repairing. an increase in effectiveness of all engineering boff abilities. an innate -100 system drain resistance to make 6 or 8x beam tanking feasible. with the ability to orbit in a cruiser and have 7x beams+180 degree torp all hitting the target i REALLY don't think they need a damage buff. on the flip side, no cruiser should have 3 engineering boff slots until space engineering abilities are given a pass of some sort.
science - innate target debuffing of resistances and power drain (read: always on disruptor breach and leech) while in a science vessel. +% to any equipped shields. -recharge to sci boff abilities.
stuff like this. give the classes bonuses for being in their ideal ship. make it so their class specific abilities ONLY work in their ideal ship ie. the tac officer toys don't work if in a cruiser or science ship. but you have to balance this out by giving an incentive for engineers to stay in cruisers and science to stay in science vessels - increase npc damage, lower escort hull and shields, in crease cruiser hull and shields and innate resistances, increase science shields but lower hull, remove the shared cooldown on many of the science abilities and a reliance on auxiliary power.
many things can be done besides or in lieu of just nerfing escorts, and there is more to this game than pvp.
Right now an escort can take care of both an escort and cruisers job. While nerfing anything is not my first choice, in this case reducing escort's hull strength to BOP levels is the simplest solution. Buffing cruisers so they could tank better would also require increasing the npc's damage (I don't mean more one-shots) to pretty much come out with the same ideal result as I said above.
To me, this sounds like a no-brainer. It would make the game more fun for everybody. More challenge for escorts, more use for cruisers, science would be needed to heal more often (therefore, more useful also).
Essentially give them a permanant Tactical / Engineering / Science Fleet buff to anyone in their group which as a result will also increase the threat of the cruiser significantly to the point all enemies will be gunning for them.
Increase resistances of said cruisers rather than making them hitpoint buffers so they take LESS damage per hit.
Additonally, increase their shields as well. It strikes me as really stupid that someone decided a class should be a tanker but only allow it to tank when 50% for its defences fail.
If anything this game should lower the hulls of everyone and seriously increase the power of shields. Then when a science ship comes along and drops your shields you really will be completely stuffed regardless of who you are.
However, if anyone is expecting a semi-decent ship combat system with complexity then your better off going to EVE Online.
Let me know when Star Trek Online can have a 2,800 person battle ranging from Dreadnaughts to frigates.
And have both the Dreadnaught and frigate pilots feeling like they are making a useful contribution too, thats the real kicker of EVE when it works well.
But yea I have always said cruisers should have a strait up 10% damage reduction against everything.
You might want mention that the Escort > Cruiser > Science defense is just a mere 10% difference in defense. Everything thing else that helps any Ship defend itself is availible to all ships on one form or another, even including ApO on certain cruisers.
R.I.P
escorts are squishy enough, thank you.
Joined - 9/2011
"You Best Make Peace With Your Dear & Fluffy Lord" - Malcolm Reynolds
Escorts don't nearly require the same level of sacrifice that Cruisers or even Science Vessels do for their respective specializations, and the +10 to 15 weapons power that they get is arguably more beneficial than the flat power bonus that most Cruisers get. IMO, Escorts should have their weapons power bonus chopped down, or otherwise balanced between Engines and Weapons subsystems.
However, I think the most important things to look into at present are Tactical Consoles and Beam vs. Dual Cannon balance: the way that both systems work at present is idiotic, and severely limits choice in weapons all across the board.