I might amend my reason with a additional cause, but I basically stick by it. (Also honestly, the reason you give redricky are another issue I'll ignore for now. :P One problem at a time...)
Why is it the least useful thing? I'm sticking by because a third tactical team doesn't directly or indirectly (by blowing up attackers faster) add to survivability. Why? Beam or torpedoes are clearly "about the least useful thing that could possibly be given to a ship". I'm mostly sure that wasn't OP original sentiment, but you can't make the statement he did without first deeming beams and torpedoes utterly useless.
I'm no professional doctor of logicology (an expert in logic I just made up) but your argument seems to imply that the tactical stations are being added on top of what's already there instead of taking the place of more useful sci and eng stations. The bolded statement is such an incredible stretch...
You are saying that you know a third tac team is useless, right? If you can use some logic to deduce that he's not attacking tac team, why can't you extend that to deduce that he's not going after beams and torps but the lack of other professions?
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
They designed the tactical version specifically to be a glass cannon, with a whole lot of glass, and a whole lot of CANNON.
Maybe all escort class ships should have their defensive abilities gutted, so they'll stop being the end-all-be-all ship to fly for every bit of content in the game, and actually require support from other types of ships to help them survive in combat?
You could easily use high yield torp 1 and 2 in that Lt Tac station to add a significant increase to your offensive capability. It's disingenuous to say that a third tactical station is worthless, because it absolutely has value, specifically in the case of an offensive monster like this ship is meant to be.
Would you rather have a Lt Eng or Lt Sci station instead of that Lt Tac station? Good news, everybody! YOU CAN! Just use the other variants of the ship instead.
What about the JHAS? It has no weaknesses whatsoever...
Rather than say, "I fly a bug ship and I KNOW it has weaknesses.", I am going to ask why do you think that way? What's your reasoning? Give me examples...
Rather than say, "I fly a bug ship and I KNOW it has weaknesses.", I am going to ask why do you think that way? What's your reasoning? Give me examples...
They see it as having no weaknesses due to the follwing:
- Almost Cruiser level base hull
- Cruiser level shield modifier
- Highest turn rate of any Non-BoP
- Tough (durable) console layout (5 tac, 4 engi, 1 sci <--- only weakness I see so far)
- Very powerful/versatile BOff Layout (Cmdr Tac, LtCmdr Tac, Ensign Engi, Universal Lt x2)
- Very high impulse modifier (again, I think only BoPs surpass it there)
- High inertia rating
- Small sprite in game (so can turn even faster)
- Dead center turn axis (can get guns on target even more easily)
That's just the ship. You put on the equipment and a properly specced and practiced escort pilot, and it becomes a monster.
I am almost inclined to agree with them. But I see the following as weaknesses:
- Only ONE science console slot
- No high level science or engineering BOff powers (means far less utility and tankiness in many cases)
Other than that, it's hard to find a weakness on that bugger.
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.
You are saying that you know a third tac team is useless, right? If you can use some logic to deduce that he's not attacking tac team, why can't you extend that to deduce that he's not going after beams and torps but the lack of other professions?
I'm being half sarcastic, and I shouldn't be, sorry.
Throwing MOAR TAC at a ship doesn't make it MOAR effective.
It makes it less effective, and to be frank it just looks ridiculous.
It's claimed to be the least useful. It's basically a free sub-system targeting of your choice, torpedo HY, or torpedo spread. The only way it could be "less" is:
A) You get little or no use out of it is to ignore torpedoes or beams, leaving you with three tac teams.
Torpedo or beams are junk and should be ignored.
Why don't I read the line "Dear mods: This post was a thread created about the issue of too many tactical stations on ALL escorts and is not specifically about the Kumari. This post does not belong here." and think "Ge, maybe he wants trade some of those tac slots for engineering or science?"
Because the only know difference in the BOff layouts is the a each one has a Lt. slot in their flavour. If the only issue was that, he could freely trade those slots for another type and have nothing to complain about. The issue seems to me then that he doesn't want the extra third tac station, he wants the existing two to be greater.
The only reason I can work out is? The ensign and lt. slots are useless to him. Why are they useless to him? He ignores beam arrays and torpedoes. I tell you what though, it's rude to talk about him like he's not here.
Its called balance. No one is going to give you 5 tac consoles and 5 fore weapons without taking something other than 0.09 shields and 1 degree turn back.
If you want a more defensive layout, you can get any of the other 2 ships depending on your preference, slot the ensign you prefer, skin the ship into the tac ship (I prefer the science one, reminds me of the Material Defender ship from Descent) and you have a cool looker.
Better yet, pick the sci Andorian, load-up on plasma, and burn everything.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Its called balance. No one is going to give you 5 tac consoles and 5 fore weapons without taking something other than 0.09 shields and 1 degree turn back.
If you want a more defensive layout, you can get any of the other 2 ships depending on your preference, slot the ensign you prefer, skin the ship into the tac ship (I prefer the science one, reminds me of the Material Defender ship from Descent) and you have a cool looker.
Better yet, pick the sci Andorian, load-up on plasma, and burn everything.
Strange... Cryptic has already demonstrated that balance need not apply given the JHAS's current stats -- its combination of best turn rate, best escort hull, best BOFF offense layout, etc., with no observable drawbacks still makes it the pinnacle of STO escorts. A 5-tac console + 5 forward weapon slot Andorian escort with a balanced BOFF layout could have given the JHAS a run for its money, but this idea was decimated even before the ship went live since such a release would have threatened the price of future JHAS sales.
And we thought Ferengi were profiteers... They have nothing on Cryptic!
They designed the tactical version specifically to be a glass cannon, with a whole lot of glass, and a whole lot of CANNON.
Your statement has a lot of irony.
In order to make use of the ship that is the "glass cannon" with "a whole lot of of glass, and a whole lot of CANNON" - you actually have to lose (dual heavy) cannons.
I know you meant it figuratively, but quite literally you do in fact have to lose cannons or just have a bunch of empty boff stations.
It's claimed to be the least useful. It's basically a free sub-system targeting of your choice, torpedo HY, or torpedo spread. The only way it could be "less" is:
Nothing is free.
Subsystem Targeting is mostly a bad power in pvp against a properly specd player for an Escort to take - maybe its useful in PvE for a Sci ship - but I've never, even once, ever wished I had TGT Subsys on any Escort I have ever run on ESTFs, Fleet Events or other PvE.
Except now you had to slot a DBB (reduces DPS compared to DHC), and you also used target subsystem in PvE when you could have just used a better power instead (or just melted with the firepower of 5 DHCs as the Eng/Sci versions will do)
Why don't I read the line "Dear mods: This post was a thread created about the issue of too many tactical stations on ALL escorts and is not specifically about the Kumari. This post does not belong here." and think "Ge, maybe he wants trade some of those tac slots for engineering or science?"
That line was inserted because my thread was merged with the Threadnought on the Kumari and I wanted it back in General Feedback to discuss the issue with too many tac stations (Defiant, MVAE, HEC, Kumari).
The only reason I can work out is? The ensign and lt. slots are useless to him. Why are they useless to him?
Although this is kind of a detour, to me personally they are useless because my build is already heavily optimized.
For the average player who is not heavily optimized it's because the extra Tac Lt forces you to lose (survivability or utility or team focused abilities, also the ability to run an all cannon build, or the ability to run 4 DHCs + 1 Kumari Special Cannon) more than you gain (one extra tactical console, and nothing else - you don't gain a 5th fore weapon in comparison to the Sci/Eng versions)
Its called balance. No one is going to give you 5 tac consoles and 5 fore weapons without taking something other than 0.09 shields and 1 degree turn back.
See response to kevlintallfellow as to why this design concept is flawed.
Boiled down to a somewhat absolutist statement, you must give up the best DPS potential in order to use the most tactical consoles which exist to provide the most DPS potential.
And a big thanks to RedRicky for stepping in and helping translate some of the things I was going on about. Thanks bud.
What? Cruisers are absolutely supposed to do damage; not as much as escorts or other tactical oriented ships, but they have to do some damage. Besides which I think you've completely missed the point; this new escort is all about damage, yet we have some people lamenting the fact that three tactical stations is apparently useless and whining that they want five tactical consoles, along with two high level tactical stations and more engineering or science stations than an escort of this type has any right to have give the fact that it's supposed to be all about damage at the cost of survivability (not that that matters at all in this game).
Simple fact is that the tactical variant of this escort is a pure damage dealer, so it has five tactical consoles and three tactical stations accordingly; that is an extremely powerful combination and yet some people are miraculously unhappy anyway, and purely because they're so unimaginative they can't see a build that has something other than all cannons slotted. If that's what you want then fine; just waste the third slot, it's not a huge deal as you'll still have more than enough space for all the cannon abilities you could want, plus two tactical teams and some attack patterns on what will be a raw DPS monster.
But apparently that's not good enough, people want to somehow replace that third tactical ensign power with more engineering or science powers. Hell, why not just have an all new "magic" tactical station that can slot 10 rank III tactical abilities in any combination so you don't have to take any ensign level abilities because they're simply beneath you?
This set is easily going to be one of the best escorts in the game, so escort players should stop whining about minor disadvantages that are ultimately meaningless; there are far more broken and uncompetitive ships out there.
What? Cruisers are absolutely supposed to do damage; not as much as escorts or other tactical oriented ships, but they have to do some damage. Besides which I think you've completely missed the point; this new escort is all about damage, yet we have some people lamenting the fact that three tactical stations is apparently useless and whining that they want five tactical consoles, along with two high level tactical stations and more engineering or science stations than an escort of this type has any right to have give the fact that it's supposed to be all about damage at the cost of survivability (not that that matters at all in this game).
Simple fact is that the tactical variant of this escort is a pure damage dealer, so it has five tactical consoles and three tactical stations accordingly; that is an extremely powerful combination and yet some people are miraculously unhappy anyway, and purely because they're so unimaginative they can't see a build that has something other than all cannons slotted. If that's what you want then fine; just waste the third slot, it's not a huge deal as you'll still have more than enough space for all the cannon abilities you could want, plus two tactical teams and some attack patterns on what will be a raw DPS monster.
But apparently that's not good enough, people want to somehow replace that third tactical ensign power with more engineering or science powers. Hell, why not just have an all new "magic" tactical station that can slot 10 rank III tactical abilities in any combination so you don't have to take any ensign level abilities because they're simply beneath you?
This set is easily going to be one of the best escorts in the game, so escort players should stop whining about minor disadvantages that are ultimately meaningless; there are far more broken and uncompetitive ships out there.
Yeah, I'm unimaginative. Either that or I actually understand how to do damage in this game. You apparently can't see anything other than "More tac slots = more dps."
Here's me using my imagination to find a way that the sci and eng versions will out dps the tac version despite having 1 less tac console:
EPTS1, DEM1
EPTW1
PH, TB
1. It's alive. The tac version will see the respawn more often due to a lack of defensive abilities.
2. It's shooting at a held target because it has room for a tractor beam. Related to #1, it's alive to do this because it slotted PH to cover the gaps in APO. No matter how many Tac slots you have you cannot have 100% TB immunity without PH.
3. It's firing all 5 DHCs at 125 weapon power for 8 seconds and overall higher constant weapon power because it can slot Marion and DEM plus 100% uptime on EPTW.
Let me explain who some of us are: we're called min/maxxers. You may think this is all about looking for extremes, and in some cases that's true. But the real goal is to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. This ship hit the point where the strength can be maximized and then it kept going. The lack of eng and sci is pants on head stupid from a Z-Store ship, especially considering how sturdy the fleet retro and AE can be.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
They see it as having no weaknesses due to the follwing:
- Almost Cruiser level base hull
- Cruiser level shield modifier
- Highest turn rate of any Non-BoP
- Tough (durable) console layout (5 tac, 4 engi, 1 sci <--- only weakness I see so far)
- Very powerful/versatile BOff Layout (Cmdr Tac, LtCmdr Tac, Ensign Engi, Universal Lt x2)
- Very high impulse modifier (again, I think only BoPs surpass it there)
- High inertia rating
- Small sprite in game (so can turn even faster)
- Dead center turn axis (can get guns on target even more easily)
That's just the ship. You put on the equipment and a properly specced and practiced escort pilot, and it becomes a monster.
I am almost inclined to agree with them. But I see the following as weaknesses:
- Only ONE science console slot
- No high level science or engineering BOff powers (means far less utility and tankiness in many cases)
Other than that, it's hard to find a weakness on that bugger.
you forgot highest base innate hull heal rating of any escort in game.
Let me explain who some of us are: we're called min/maxxers. You may think this is all about looking for extremes, and in some cases that's true. But the real goal is to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. This ship hit the point where the strength can be maximized and then it kept going. The lack of eng and sci is pants on head stupid from a Z-Store ship, especially considering how sturdy the fleet retro and AE can be.
1. It's alive. The tac version will see the respawn more often due to a lack of defensive abilities.
1) And? It's what a tactical captain signed on for.
2) In spite of that, you do realise that I still keep a log of my STF runs. A bad 4 or 5 person tac teams bane isn't they can't still get the job done with room to spare in spite of half to the whole team being on a respawn timer more then once. It's they always dig in to "This is my role, and it's the other guys role do <x>."
What I think your missing here isn't that respawn = fail. It's that even with the 30second-3min. downtime they still do enough in the time they were still breathing to make up the difference.
Part of me wonders if the Devs think this as well.
Part of me wonders if they think "More Eng" = "More Tanky" and we will see a terrible Cruiser one day with CMD / LTC / LT Eng.
You say that, but the engineering and sciences trees are a great deal more diverse. I think your problem is -as you said- specialized in a path that doesn't agree with the setup.
I think the question you should be ask two questions:
1) Was it just dumb luck, or was it specially set up so you could not specialize that heavily?
2) Do the devs consider the weapons specialized enough that further specialization would be game breaking?
My motives are not sugar, spice and everything nice, but I'd love to work out a suggestion for a more diverse tactical tree.
I really didn't think I'd see a day when the Defiant and MVAE, and Armitage dreaded three tactical ensign slots would ever be outdone.
I was wrong.
Now we have a ship, that has
CMD Tac
Ltc Tac
Lt Tac
Really? Lt Tac also?
Let's forget all the rest of the things going on with the ship in question, and just zero in on the main issue:
Adding "MOAR" low level tactical stations is about the least useful thing that could possibly be given to a ship - and yet, here we have it!
Cryptic has basically outdone themselves.
Fleet Defiant? Still haven't purchased it.
Fleet MVAE? Nope, no sale here.
Fleet HEC? Refuse to buy a ship with 3 tactical Ensigns.
Tactical Kumari: See the above, but now actually even more hilariously bad.
Throwing MOAR TAC at a ship doesn't make it MOAR effective.
It makes it less effective, and to be frank it just looks ridiculous.
Maybe there is some super special ensign boff power revamp on the horizon I'm aware of, or maybe yet another escort has been saddled with an atrocious BOFF layout.
At least we have the Sci and Eng variants I guess?
Dear mods: This post was a thread created about the issue of too many tactical stations on ALL escorts and is not specifically about the Kumari. This post does not belong here.
i'm of the opinion this inefficient layout was done intentionally
the overwhelming majority of a ships defense after you take into consideration hull and shield are in defensive and/or cc boff abilities
if this 5 forward, 5 tac console ship was able to run too many defensive or engineer/sci abilities that further augment offensive ability like dem or aux2batt it would be far too much. as it is the base damage on that wing cannon is nearly 1100, 2600 with 5 30% tac consoles then you add in skills. yes it's dps is lower, but the last thing this game needs is more overwhelming burst.
overwhelming burst is why abilities were given shared cd's not long after launch and probably why you cant use crf or scatter volley with those andorian consoles.
Mind the 5-weapon slot thing. Considering the extra weapon drain, it might well be worth it to run a torp in the fifth slot, meaning you can start adding torp skills in your "redundant" tac slots.
I look at that a little different. I haven't bought any of them or the pack and I don't plan on it either. However, thoe extra tac slot could be used for a mine dispersal pattern if you wanted to stuff a couple of mines on the rear or even double up on either CRF1 or CSV1 while still having one of the other. The ensign slot though is basically useless.
if this 5 forward, 5 tac console ship was able to run too many...
Sorry to cut you off here, but this 5 Forward / 5 Tac console ship is underperforming no matter how you slice it.
Put an Eng or Sci in it to help it stay alive?
You are no longer using it to its full potential.
Slotting a bunch of diverse fore weapons to get more use out of the tac slots?
You are no longer using it to its full potential.
Basically there is no way to use the Tac kumari at it's full potential, unlike the Eng or Sci Kumari.
The "loss" of a 5th Tac console in comparison to potential boff layouts for the other two ship versions is a complete win for the 2 other versions and a complete loss for the Tac version - it goes beyond "give and take" balance.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread that in order to get more cannon (5th Tac console) out of your glass cannon you have to remove...cannons (literally, fore mounted cannons).
Funny you're complaining about that. Try being a cruiser flyer and having so many fricken useless ensign engineers. Emergancy Power to WE NEED MORE ENSIGN ABILITIES.
No doubt. It is sad three years into it and still a crappy list of options for Tac. Plus the untrainable!
If you are looking for an excellent PvE fleet consider: Omega Combat Division today.
Former member of the Cryptic Family & FriendsTesting Team. Sadly, one day, it simply vanished - without a word or trace...
In all 5 pages of this thread I still have not seen anyone look at this ship as if it is part of an MMO, regardless of what side of the argument this "OP/Underperforming" argument people sit on.
I just dawned on me that almost everyone in STO thinks they are playing "Unreal Tournament" or "BF2142" or something. I am almost under the realization that I am one of the VERY few PvE players left, and that STO is mainly a PvP community.
I think what I based my opinion on with the first page of this thread was the silly assumption that some folks still play as a team in this game. When you look at it, people say this ship is "overpowered" because it can do a high amount of damage. But then the other side comes in and argues "no, it's not, because you take away from it's power to ad SCI, etc. and keep her alive". I have not yet seen the outlook that this ship MIGHT just fit good in a TEAM environment.
At least half of you are looking at this now with some glazed over look in your eyes, so please let me explain . . .
Forget the SCI/ENG TRIBBLE. Slot this thing out for damage, and join a TEAM. Have friends that are SCI and ENG join you in team actions, such as STFs, etc. Or better yet . . . team vs. team PvP. If everyone is actually playing their role well, and acting as a FLEET . . . you know . . . Star"fleet"? . . . and working together . . . then this ship would reach it's potential.
The summary here is that the devs have it right for this ship. It's built to be best in a team. Not everyone HAS to solo all classes and builds and ships in this game. The thing that has a lot of folks upset apparently is that they can;t buy this ship and solo everything right out of the box. Maybe a good player can, but I see this ship being best in a team setting.
Please stop getting upset that this ship does not meet your personal needs. If the ship does not fit what you want for a ship in your personal solo fleet, then pass it up and enjoy the ships you already have that ARE meant for solo play, and let others decide firsthand that they might enjoy a ship that works better in a team environment.
I apologize if I sound a bit short, but I have been shaking my head at this argument since the thread started and waited until now just to see if anyone could even utter the word "team" when discussing a ship build. It is an MMO . . . expect there to be some ships or items that are aimed at cooperative game-play.
Yeah, I'm unimaginative. Either that or I actually understand how to do damage in this game. You apparently can't see anything other than "More tac slots = more dps."
Here's me using my imagination to find a way that the sci and eng versions will out dps the tac version despite having 1 less tac console:
EPTS1, DEM1
EPTW1
PH, TB
1. It's alive. The tac version will see the respawn more often due to a lack of defensive abilities.
2. It's shooting at a held target because it has room for a tractor beam. Related to #1, it's alive to do this because it slotted PH to cover the gaps in APO. No matter how many Tac slots you have you cannot have 100% TB immunity without PH.
3. It's firing all 5 DHCs at 125 weapon power for 8 seconds and overall higher constant weapon power because it can slot Marion and DEM plus 100% uptime on EPTW.
Let me explain who some of us are: we're called min/maxxers. You may think this is all about looking for extremes, and in some cases that's true. But the real goal is to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. This ship hit the point where the strength can be maximized and then it kept going. The lack of eng and sci is pants on head stupid from a Z-Store ship, especially considering how sturdy the fleet retro and AE can be.
lol, you wouldn't even need any sort of non cannon closer, the cannon opener would do the job in that circumstance. everything else though, except the bug, has to work a bit harder though.
on these ships with the 3rd tac ensigns, if your not using a torp your doing it wrong. BO1 is pretty crappy for 50 drain, and you need an EPS console to keep it from nuking your dps for ~10 seconds. a console slot is more costly then specing into a tier 2 skill on the skill tree for projectile weapons imo.
HY1, i kill contently with that on even a kdf cruiser, getting 6k to 27k hits with just photon torpedoes, 10K to 33k with quantums. you must of course buff like hell, debuff like hell, and control movement if you want to do that. trying to shoot someone to death with just DHCs with as much up time as possible is a waited effort, only a bug can do that well. everything else at this point should go for single strike kills. the bug is just another ship if you can start doing that reliably.
i recommend HY2 on other escorts though, hy3 isn't better enough to give up 2 CRF2 or an APO1. use plenty of key binds too, stop binding everything to space bar.
I like having torps on my ships. The fleet qin raptor also has 3 ensign slots, the 3rd ensign was always a torp HY. I guess a kumari build could be something like:
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, APO 3
TT, CRF 1, DPB 2,
HY 1, HY2.
Let's say you use the omega set with the cutting beam, the torp, and plasma mines on the rear of the ship it should work quite well with such a build. I've not tested it and don't intend to (the next escort i'll buy will be a new kdf c-store pack and nothing else) but it should be ok.
My mom told me "don't say it's disgusting, say you don't like it instead" about food when i ws a child. I guess you sould say such a ship isn't to your taste but in no way it is useless. You don't want to make the choices such ships involve.
the Tac Version ends up in the Underperforming part of the scale.
Compared to what, exactly?
As I mentioned earlier in the thread that in order to get more cannon (5th Tac console) out of your glass cannon you have to remove...cannons (literally, fore mounted cannons).
There have been thing that are best described as a "glass cannon", but there hasn't been a true glass cannon in this game for a very long time. Your complaining you hit a glass ceiling, but have you wondered what would happen if that ceiling wasn't there?
I just dawned on me that almost everyone in STO thinks they are playing "Unreal Tournament" or "BF2142" or something. I am almost under the realization that I am one of the VERY few PvE players left, and that STO is mainly a PvP community.
Um... what? The PvP community is TINY compared to the massive PvE playerbase. I know of a vast majority of players who refuse to PvP in this game, and just do it for PvE, whereas the vice versa (hard-core PvP players) are a tiny TINY minority.
In fact it is commonplace to see complaints from the PvP community about how they are either 1) overlooked by developers (something that has started to change only very recently), or 2) not being taken into account when changes/updates are made/added. STO is almost exclusively a PvE based game, and as such, most of it's updates/patches/additions reflect 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.
It will likely be flown by an Eng captain so the survivability gap is covered for my PvE purposes even if I take the tac version. And it just seems silly to me not to get the 5 consoles to match the five guns.
Thinking something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, APB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
Target(engine/shield), BO 2
TSS, HE 2
EPTS 1
4x DHC, Wing Cannon
Rom Beam, Cutting Beam
Should do just fine in eSTFs and farming me thinks. And really with 5 forward guns turrets have such little power they are borderline worthless. Was thinking of dropping a mine launcher in but not sure. Perhaps something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, DPB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
HY 1, APB 1
- A Romulan beam on an escort. WTF? :eek:
- 3 attack patterns and an APB without scatter volley. WTF?
APB isn't interesting if you don't hit several targets. It's better to use it with a scatter volley build. If you hit only one target, and since NPCs are just huge stack of brainless hull points then you'll get more damage from a torp and torps HY. APB is a cool ability, but not without an aoe build.
A romulan beam on an escort is really a bad choice. The romulan set make sense only if you use plasma and obviously you don't since you didin't mention the torp or the console. On an escort you should always restrict yourself to the plasma torp and the console. Makes more sense. :P
You will also likely get more dps from a torp. The romulan beam is a single one, what a waste. So you would burn all your weapon power every 30 seconds for a small 10-20k shot at most on a ship with limited eng abilities.
I'm not going to troll you but please don't complain on ship stats now, if you can't make a 100% optimal build (if you know what i mean).
It will likely be flown by an Eng captain so the survivability gap is covered for my PvE purposes even if I take the tac version. And it just seems silly to me not to get the 5 consoles to match the five guns.
Thinking something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, APB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
Target(engine/shield), BO 2
TSS, HE 2
EPTS 1
4x DHC, Wing Cannon
Rom Beam, Cutting Beam
Should do just fine in eSTFs and farming me thinks. And really with 5 forward guns turrets have such little power they are borderline worthless. Was thinking of dropping a mine launcher in but not sure. Perhaps something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, DPB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
HY 1, APB 1
Swap rear to a mine and torp. Hmm.
Romulan beam... and u thinking about rear mine and torpedo????!
U need to get a cruiser and stop committing blasphemy against this escort.
Comments
You are saying that you know a third tac team is useless, right? If you can use some logic to deduce that he's not attacking tac team, why can't you extend that to deduce that he's not going after beams and torps but the lack of other professions?
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
holy TRIBBLE. Nu-gundam reference.
but in all honesty they do look, and pretty much act like them, except they arent controlled mentally.
Maybe all escort class ships should have their defensive abilities gutted, so they'll stop being the end-all-be-all ship to fly for every bit of content in the game, and actually require support from other types of ships to help them survive in combat?
You could easily use high yield torp 1 and 2 in that Lt Tac station to add a significant increase to your offensive capability. It's disingenuous to say that a third tactical station is worthless, because it absolutely has value, specifically in the case of an offensive monster like this ship is meant to be.
Would you rather have a Lt Eng or Lt Sci station instead of that Lt Tac station? Good news, everybody! YOU CAN! Just use the other variants of the ship instead.
Rather than say, "I fly a bug ship and I KNOW it has weaknesses.", I am going to ask why do you think that way? What's your reasoning? Give me examples...
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Original Handle: the_orig_jean_luc_picard
They see it as having no weaknesses due to the follwing:
- Almost Cruiser level base hull
- Cruiser level shield modifier
- Highest turn rate of any Non-BoP
- Tough (durable) console layout (5 tac, 4 engi, 1 sci <--- only weakness I see so far)
- Very powerful/versatile BOff Layout (Cmdr Tac, LtCmdr Tac, Ensign Engi, Universal Lt x2)
- Very high impulse modifier (again, I think only BoPs surpass it there)
- High inertia rating
- Small sprite in game (so can turn even faster)
- Dead center turn axis (can get guns on target even more easily)
That's just the ship. You put on the equipment and a properly specced and practiced escort pilot, and it becomes a monster.
I am almost inclined to agree with them. But I see the following as weaknesses:
- Only ONE science console slot
- No high level science or engineering BOff powers (means far less utility and tankiness in many cases)
Other than that, it's hard to find a weakness on that bugger.
I'm being half sarcastic, and I shouldn't be, sorry.
It's claimed to be the least useful. It's basically a free sub-system targeting of your choice, torpedo HY, or torpedo spread. The only way it could be "less" is:
A) You get little or no use out of it is to ignore torpedoes or beams, leaving you with three tac teams.
Why don't I read the line "Dear mods: This post was a thread created about the issue of too many tactical stations on ALL escorts and is not specifically about the Kumari. This post does not belong here." and think "Ge, maybe he wants trade some of those tac slots for engineering or science?"
Because the only know difference in the BOff layouts is the a each one has a Lt. slot in their flavour. If the only issue was that, he could freely trade those slots for another type and have nothing to complain about. The issue seems to me then that he doesn't want the extra third tac station, he wants the existing two to be greater.
The only reason I can work out is? The ensign and lt. slots are useless to him. Why are they useless to him? He ignores beam arrays and torpedoes. I tell you what though, it's rude to talk about him like he's not here.
What say you, ussultimatum?
If you want a more defensive layout, you can get any of the other 2 ships depending on your preference, slot the ensign you prefer, skin the ship into the tac ship (I prefer the science one, reminds me of the Material Defender ship from Descent) and you have a cool looker.
Better yet, pick the sci Andorian, load-up on plasma, and burn everything.
"Last Engage! Magical Girl Origami-san" is in print! Now with three times more rainbows.
Support the "Armored Unicorn" vehicle initiative today!
Thanks for Harajuku. Now let's get a real "Magical Girl" costume!
Strange... Cryptic has already demonstrated that balance need not apply given the JHAS's current stats -- its combination of best turn rate, best escort hull, best BOFF offense layout, etc., with no observable drawbacks still makes it the pinnacle of STO escorts. A 5-tac console + 5 forward weapon slot Andorian escort with a balanced BOFF layout could have given the JHAS a run for its money, but this idea was decimated even before the ship went live since such a release would have threatened the price of future JHAS sales.
And we thought Ferengi were profiteers... They have nothing on Cryptic!
There were a few that were borderline trolling, so I'm just going to ignore those (with one exception, can you guess who you are?).
Your statement has a lot of irony.
In order to make use of the ship that is the "glass cannon" with "a whole lot of of glass, and a whole lot of CANNON" - you actually have to lose (dual heavy) cannons.
I know you meant it figuratively, but quite literally you do in fact have to lose cannons or just have a bunch of empty boff stations.
Nothing is free.
Subsystem Targeting is mostly a bad power in pvp against a properly specd player for an Escort to take - maybe its useful in PvE for a Sci ship - but I've never, even once, ever wished I had TGT Subsys on any Escort I have ever run on ESTFs, Fleet Events or other PvE.
Except now you had to slot a DBB (reduces DPS compared to DHC), and you also used target subsystem in PvE when you could have just used a better power instead (or just melted with the firepower of 5 DHCs as the Eng/Sci versions will do)
That line was inserted because my thread was merged with the Threadnought on the Kumari and I wanted it back in General Feedback to discuss the issue with too many tac stations (Defiant, MVAE, HEC, Kumari).
Although this is kind of a detour, to me personally they are useless because my build is already heavily optimized.
For the average player who is not heavily optimized it's because the extra Tac Lt forces you to lose (survivability or utility or team focused abilities, also the ability to run an all cannon build, or the ability to run 4 DHCs + 1 Kumari Special Cannon) more than you gain (one extra tactical console, and nothing else - you don't gain a 5th fore weapon in comparison to the Sci/Eng versions)
See response to kevlintallfellow as to why this design concept is flawed.
Boiled down to a somewhat absolutist statement, you must give up the best DPS potential in order to use the most tactical consoles which exist to provide the most DPS potential.
And a big thanks to RedRicky for stepping in and helping translate some of the things I was going on about. Thanks bud.
Simple fact is that the tactical variant of this escort is a pure damage dealer, so it has five tactical consoles and three tactical stations accordingly; that is an extremely powerful combination and yet some people are miraculously unhappy anyway, and purely because they're so unimaginative they can't see a build that has something other than all cannons slotted. If that's what you want then fine; just waste the third slot, it's not a huge deal as you'll still have more than enough space for all the cannon abilities you could want, plus two tactical teams and some attack patterns on what will be a raw DPS monster.
But apparently that's not good enough, people want to somehow replace that third tactical ensign power with more engineering or science powers. Hell, why not just have an all new "magic" tactical station that can slot 10 rank III tactical abilities in any combination so you don't have to take any ensign level abilities because they're simply beneath you?
This set is easily going to be one of the best escorts in the game, so escort players should stop whining about minor disadvantages that are ultimately meaningless; there are far more broken and uncompetitive ships out there.
Game Balance - Ship Size and Wingmates
Here's me using my imagination to find a way that the sci and eng versions will out dps the tac version despite having 1 less tac console:
EPTS1, DEM1
EPTW1
PH, TB
1. It's alive. The tac version will see the respawn more often due to a lack of defensive abilities.
2. It's shooting at a held target because it has room for a tractor beam. Related to #1, it's alive to do this because it slotted PH to cover the gaps in APO. No matter how many Tac slots you have you cannot have 100% TB immunity without PH.
3. It's firing all 5 DHCs at 125 weapon power for 8 seconds and overall higher constant weapon power because it can slot Marion and DEM plus 100% uptime on EPTW.
Let me explain who some of us are: we're called min/maxxers. You may think this is all about looking for extremes, and in some cases that's true. But the real goal is to maximize strengths and minimize weaknesses. This ship hit the point where the strength can be maximized and then it kept going. The lack of eng and sci is pants on head stupid from a Z-Store ship, especially considering how sturdy the fleet retro and AE can be.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
you forgot highest base innate hull heal rating of any escort in game.
Part of me wonders if the Devs think this as well.
Part of me wonders if they think "More Eng" = "More Tanky" and we will see a terrible Cruiser one day with CMD / LTC / LT Eng.
Great post.
1) And? It's what a tactical captain signed on for.
2) In spite of that, you do realise that I still keep a log of my STF runs. A bad 4 or 5 person tac teams bane isn't they can't still get the job done with room to spare in spite of half to the whole team being on a respawn timer more then once. It's they always dig in to "This is my role, and it's the other guys role do <x>."
What I think your missing here isn't that respawn = fail. It's that even with the 30second-3min. downtime they still do enough in the time they were still breathing to make up the difference.
You say that, but the engineering and sciences trees are a great deal more diverse. I think your problem is -as you said- specialized in a path that doesn't agree with the setup.
I think the question you should be ask two questions:
1) Was it just dumb luck, or was it specially set up so you could not specialize that heavily?
2) Do the devs consider the weapons specialized enough that further specialization would be game breaking?
My motives are not sugar, spice and everything nice, but I'd love to work out a suggestion for a more diverse tactical tree.
i'm of the opinion this inefficient layout was done intentionally
the overwhelming majority of a ships defense after you take into consideration hull and shield are in defensive and/or cc boff abilities
if this 5 forward, 5 tac console ship was able to run too many defensive or engineer/sci abilities that further augment offensive ability like dem or aux2batt it would be far too much. as it is the base damage on that wing cannon is nearly 1100, 2600 with 5 30% tac consoles then you add in skills. yes it's dps is lower, but the last thing this game needs is more overwhelming burst.
overwhelming burst is why abilities were given shared cd's not long after launch and probably why you cant use crf or scatter volley with those andorian consoles.
I wonder if it would be Son'a battlecruiser or something... maybe the Scimitar?
I look at that a little different. I haven't bought any of them or the pack and I don't plan on it either. However, thoe extra tac slot could be used for a mine dispersal pattern if you wanted to stuff a couple of mines on the rear or even double up on either CRF1 or CSV1 while still having one of the other. The ensign slot though is basically useless.
Of course it was!
That doesn't make it a good idea.
Plenty of MMO developers over the years have done things intentionally that ended up not working out right.
The devs most likely did it with good intentions in mind (balance concerns) - but they just missed the mark and on the scale of
OP > Well Designed > Underperforming
the Tac Version ends up in the Underperforming part of the scale.
Sorry to cut you off here, but this 5 Forward / 5 Tac console ship is underperforming no matter how you slice it.
Put an Eng or Sci in it to help it stay alive?
You are no longer using it to its full potential.
Slotting a bunch of diverse fore weapons to get more use out of the tac slots?
You are no longer using it to its full potential.
Basically there is no way to use the Tac kumari at it's full potential, unlike the Eng or Sci Kumari.
The "loss" of a 5th Tac console in comparison to potential boff layouts for the other two ship versions is a complete win for the 2 other versions and a complete loss for the Tac version - it goes beyond "give and take" balance.
As I mentioned earlier in the thread that in order to get more cannon (5th Tac console) out of your glass cannon you have to remove...cannons (literally, fore mounted cannons).
No doubt. It is sad three years into it and still a crappy list of options for Tac. Plus the untrainable!
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
In all 5 pages of this thread I still have not seen anyone look at this ship as if it is part of an MMO, regardless of what side of the argument this "OP/Underperforming" argument people sit on.
I just dawned on me that almost everyone in STO thinks they are playing "Unreal Tournament" or "BF2142" or something. I am almost under the realization that I am one of the VERY few PvE players left, and that STO is mainly a PvP community.
I think what I based my opinion on with the first page of this thread was the silly assumption that some folks still play as a team in this game. When you look at it, people say this ship is "overpowered" because it can do a high amount of damage. But then the other side comes in and argues "no, it's not, because you take away from it's power to ad SCI, etc. and keep her alive". I have not yet seen the outlook that this ship MIGHT just fit good in a TEAM environment.
At least half of you are looking at this now with some glazed over look in your eyes, so please let me explain . . .
Forget the SCI/ENG TRIBBLE. Slot this thing out for damage, and join a TEAM. Have friends that are SCI and ENG join you in team actions, such as STFs, etc. Or better yet . . . team vs. team PvP. If everyone is actually playing their role well, and acting as a FLEET . . . you know . . . Star"fleet"? . . . and working together . . . then this ship would reach it's potential.
The summary here is that the devs have it right for this ship. It's built to be best in a team. Not everyone HAS to solo all classes and builds and ships in this game. The thing that has a lot of folks upset apparently is that they can;t buy this ship and solo everything right out of the box. Maybe a good player can, but I see this ship being best in a team setting.
Please stop getting upset that this ship does not meet your personal needs. If the ship does not fit what you want for a ship in your personal solo fleet, then pass it up and enjoy the ships you already have that ARE meant for solo play, and let others decide firsthand that they might enjoy a ship that works better in a team environment.
I apologize if I sound a bit short, but I have been shaking my head at this argument since the thread started and waited until now just to see if anyone could even utter the word "team" when discussing a ship build. It is an MMO . . . expect there to be some ships or items that are aimed at cooperative game-play.
/unsubscribe
lol, you wouldn't even need any sort of non cannon closer, the cannon opener would do the job in that circumstance. everything else though, except the bug, has to work a bit harder though.
on these ships with the 3rd tac ensigns, if your not using a torp your doing it wrong. BO1 is pretty crappy for 50 drain, and you need an EPS console to keep it from nuking your dps for ~10 seconds. a console slot is more costly then specing into a tier 2 skill on the skill tree for projectile weapons imo.
HY1, i kill contently with that on even a kdf cruiser, getting 6k to 27k hits with just photon torpedoes, 10K to 33k with quantums. you must of course buff like hell, debuff like hell, and control movement if you want to do that. trying to shoot someone to death with just DHCs with as much up time as possible is a waited effort, only a bug can do that well. everything else at this point should go for single strike kills. the bug is just another ship if you can start doing that reliably.
i recommend HY2 on other escorts though, hy3 isn't better enough to give up 2 CRF2 or an APO1. use plenty of key binds too, stop binding everything to space bar.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, APO 3
TT, CRF 1, DPB 2,
HY 1, HY2.
Let's say you use the omega set with the cutting beam, the torp, and plasma mines on the rear of the ship it should work quite well with such a build. I've not tested it and don't intend to (the next escort i'll buy will be a new kdf c-store pack and nothing else) but it should be ok.
My mom told me "don't say it's disgusting, say you don't like it instead" about food when i ws a child. I guess you sould say such a ship isn't to your taste but in no way it is useless. You don't want to make the choices such ships involve.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Compared to what, exactly?
There have been thing that are best described as a "glass cannon", but there hasn't been a true glass cannon in this game for a very long time. Your complaining you hit a glass ceiling, but have you wondered what would happen if that ceiling wasn't there?
You'd be wrong. PvP's been so dead in this game for so long. They haven't released anything new or engaging in PvP since Shantytown.
Um... what? The PvP community is TINY compared to the massive PvE playerbase. I know of a vast majority of players who refuse to PvP in this game, and just do it for PvE, whereas the vice versa (hard-core PvP players) are a tiny TINY minority.
In fact it is commonplace to see complaints from the PvP community about how they are either 1) overlooked by developers (something that has started to change only very recently), or 2) not being taken into account when changes/updates are made/added. STO is almost exclusively a PvE based game, and as such, most of it's updates/patches/additions reflect this.
It will likely be flown by an Eng captain so the survivability gap is covered for my PvE purposes even if I take the tac version. And it just seems silly to me not to get the 5 consoles to match the five guns.
Thinking something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, APB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
Target(engine/shield), BO 2
TSS, HE 2
EPTS 1
4x DHC, Wing Cannon
Rom Beam, Cutting Beam
Should do just fine in eSTFs and farming me thinks. And really with 5 forward guns turrets have such little power they are borderline worthless. Was thinking of dropping a mine launcher in but not sure. Perhaps something like this.
TT, CRF 1, APO 1, DPB 3
TT, CRF 1, APO 1
HY 1, APB 1
Swap rear to a mine and torp. Hmm.
I see 2 major build flaws in your post:
- A Romulan beam on an escort. WTF? :eek:
- 3 attack patterns and an APB without scatter volley. WTF?
APB isn't interesting if you don't hit several targets. It's better to use it with a scatter volley build. If you hit only one target, and since NPCs are just huge stack of brainless hull points then you'll get more damage from a torp and torps HY. APB is a cool ability, but not without an aoe build.
A romulan beam on an escort is really a bad choice. The romulan set make sense only if you use plasma and obviously you don't since you didin't mention the torp or the console. On an escort you should always restrict yourself to the plasma torp and the console. Makes more sense. :P
You will also likely get more dps from a torp. The romulan beam is a single one, what a waste. So you would burn all your weapon power every 30 seconds for a small 10-20k shot at most on a ship with limited eng abilities.
I'm not going to troll you but please don't complain on ship stats now, if you can't make a 100% optimal build (if you know what i mean).
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
Romulan beam... and u thinking about rear mine and torpedo????!
U need to get a cruiser and stop committing blasphemy against this escort.