Engineers in cruisers have had to beat their head against a wall trying to be damage dealers in pvp. Most people who have stuck with Eng cruisers long enough have finally accepted the role that they are only ever going to be tank healers. Now that we have accepted that, you take away our ability to be tanks, which gets us killed, which makes unable to heal.
The deterrent of a cruiser to keep an escort away was not the cruisers ability to do damage or hold or repel them, but to make them have to waste their time trying to kill us, thus exposing them to attack. Now it is no longer a waste of time as a cruiser can be brought down quite effortlessly inside a 10 second window.
I indeed have gone to tribble and tested this in a group pvp setting. The change seemed negligible at first, until it took people roughly 5 minutes to realize they just needed to time their strikes in that gap and pop, no more cruiser. Even myself trying to time my RSF, TSS2, BFI and SFM in those gaps was not nearly enough to offset the loss of shield power level resist and EPtS3.
So if you take away the role you have pigeon-holed us into, so now what the hell are we supposed to do
exactly?
If you are going to keep this change, then you seriously need to nerf DHC or fix beam damage or something. Because this, this is the final nail in the coffin for cruisers with eng captains.
so what your saying is EXACTLY what ive been claiming would happen since the patch is EXACTLY what happens in practice? im shocked. cruisers completely ruined, and escorts just have to time their 10 second alpha with the 10 second gap? surviving your typical good alpha thats hits you out of no were already had narrow margins at 50% res. that getting cut in half to only about 25% means your taking double the damage to shields, of course your going die, its like getting subnuked every 20 seconds.
since this is the thread they are apparently watching, here is how you fix these powers for every ship and captain type
1. this 20 second nonsense ends. drop 'emergency' from the name if its that big a deal. keep all the new changes to the other EPt skills, except...
2. new EPtE on an escort is overpowered. that speed buff makes them far to zipy and good at damage avoidance. already with how it is on holodeck, their ability to use EPtE and speed tank works as good if not better then slow movers just normal tanking. this skill should just boost engine power, and increase turn rate a flat amount, like+5/10/15 across the grades so it benefits slow turners, not just already fast turners
3. cruisers with their energy sucking weapons need EPtW's power boost to deal with the drain, escorts with DHC almost have no issue with power drain. for a cruiser EPtW is actually nerfed with that 10 seconds with no boosted power, wile an escort 20 seconds is more then enough time. this is just echoing point 1, but theres more then just EPtS that needs to be 30 seconds, ALL of them need to stay at 30 seconds.
here's were further balance steps need to be taken, not necessarily having to do with EPt skills
4. cut the magnitude of the res boost on EPtS in half. also remove the resA/B mods from fleet shields and replace them with cap mods. EPtS3 and an elite shields with the right energy type shooting it hits the resistance hard cap, thats absurd
5 nerf DHCs so they are not so front loaded, but operate more like DCs with a constant stream of high pressure damage. maybe make them 3 cycle instead of 2? that might not seem like it would make that big a difference, but trust me it absolutly would. at the same time lower TT's shield distribute, and clear to 5 seconds.
the result is spike and healing and resistance levels are nerfed, both are completely over the top right now wile pressure deals a net of 0 damage. this cuts into the extremes considerably, and unmarginalizes everything that has currently been made useless.
It was even more fun with a defiant in the mix. I cannot imagine how much bops are gonna love this. Now they can be tacs again AND have a sub nuke every 20 seconds!
IF the reason for this change was to make escorts less tanky to give cruisers a chance against them, you have failed. Escorts remain just as unkillable for a cruiser as they ever were. Even one on one an escort can now mitigate the crappy damage from anything that is not a DHC, while I have lost the ability to tank even ONE target.
IF the reason for this change was to entice me to use other eptx abilities, you have failed. Cruiser were already cycling 2 different abilities. To add in more would not only not be practical, it would cut into my ability to heal my team. There is absolutely no way I could ever afford to drop epts3, so then I would have to drop eptw then? Yes and cut into my already easily mitigated damage. All for what epte? Lol. Not only can we not do damage, now we can't tank, but at least I can slot powers for running away! Thanks. Insult to injury, great.
The shared cooldown between two Emergency Power-type abilities of the same type has been reduced from 30 seconds down to 20 seconds.
*facepalm*
Great. This means one of two things:
1.) What I can do with 2 officer slots costs me 3 slots. Which means instead of most of my cruiser needing to be emergency power abilities, now all of my cruiser will need be emergency power abilities.
2.) It will be impossible to run both EPTS and EPTW chains (it doesn't mention the system cooldown being reduced to the necessary 10 seconds), meaning you either give up the notion of survivability to keep your firepower, or give up the notion of firepower to keep your survivability. I suppose with the KHG set you could become a torpedo boat...
Gotta tell you, between this and whatever the F is glitched on my Fed engineer character, my enthusiasm for this game is suffering.
I'm not an active tribble player, but this is significant enough for me to need to underscore the fact that this overhaul of emergency powers is a bad idea.
You don't even need to go to PVP to see why. In a massive pitched engagement like Starbase 24 or starbase defense, or when taking fire from a single tough enemy in elite-STF, a ship that is too slow to run away cannot be left with gaps in their protection. Cruisers and carriers are forced by the reality of their poor mobility to absorb fire, and constant protection from EPTS is the only thing that makes this practical when taking sustained, or massive, damage.
If you implement this change, engineering ships are going to be put at a massive disadvantage in the only area they currently excel at.
So I posted a similar message in another thread about this. From what I read from the thread in the PVP forums, apparently the global CD on the same type of emergency power is 20 seconds and the CD of different one is 15 seconds as soon as you use any Emergency power.
So doesn't that mean that if you want to run EPtS 100% of the time, then you don't have a chance to use another EPtX at all?
As if beamboats didn't have enough problems, now the standard dual EPTS / dual EPTW setup is a no-go. And single Aux2Bat builds just got wrecked. Are they specifically trying to TRIBBLE cruisers? (Probably a rhetorical question).
The op suggestion could be better then the current situation on tribble, but what I would prefer is just leaving things as it is right now. But I don't think there is a way to make boff abilites affect ship classes differently.
What is so wrong with all EPTX having 30 second uptime, 45 sec cooldown, 15 sec global cooldown and 30 second global cd between identical EPTX. The system is fine as it is, the only change that hsould happen is the energy damage boost lasting longer then 5 secs for EPTW.
Dropping the CD of EPtS to 20s without making any other changes has two significant consequences which may not be intended:
1) Leaving the system cooldown at 15s means that it will no longer be possible to keep two different EPtX abilities up at the same time, overlapping. Previously the following rotation was possible (using EPtW as an example):
0s - activate EPtS
15s - 15s system CD complete, activate EPtW
30s - 15s system CD and 30s power CD for EPtS complete, EPtS expires, activate EPtS
45s - 15s system CD and 30s power CD for EPtW complete, EPtW expires, activate EPtW
60s - etc
That rhythm is thrown off by the change.
0s - activate EPtS
15s - 15s system CD complete, activate EPtW
20s - 20s power CD for EPtS complete, EPtS expires, but system CD is not complete
(10 second gap without EPtS active)
30s - 15s system CD complete, can now activate EPtS
35s - 20s power CD for EPtW complete, EPtW expires, but system CD is not complete
(10 second gap without EPtW active)
45s - 15s system CD complete, can now activate EPtW
Two copies of the same power will be continuously sustainable, but trying to fit in copies of different EPtX powers will be awkward.
2) By reducing the power CD to 20s, EPtS can be used 1.5x as often as previously. That is, in one minute you will be able to use EPtS 3 times, where previously you could use it twice. This means there will be 1.5x as much shield healing from EPtS on every ship running two copies. Is that desirable?
It would certainly be nice to know what Cryptic is actually trying to accomplish. I'd like to think that "Make cruisers suck" isn't their actual goal, but who knows? Unless we know where they are trying to end up, we realistically can't give them any useful input on how to change systems to get there.
Long-term, we believe the EPtX abilities would be more interesting if their effects were yet more substantial but they had significant downtime. However, changing the lockout between two abilities of the same type down to 20 seconds results in the original downtime I had intended for abilities of 11%, rather than the 33% that the previous patch introduced.
Please, give us the wider picture that the changes to EPtX powers fall in to, otherwise they will continue to be excoriated. As they stand, these changes won't promote any kind of variety in EPtX usage and further marginalises the utility of Ensign Engineer Bridge Officer slots.
Why make these interim changes if you're planning to do more work in the long term?
EPtShields and EPtWeapons are valued greatly over EPtEngines and EPtAuxiliary because they affect the two most fundamental functions of a ship in combat -- namely, to hurt the enemy, and to survive their return fire. These functions outstrip everything else, which is why you see EPtW and EPtS slotted far more often than the other two.
When you consider that the cruiser builds that are considered to be most effective rely on having the most uptime possible on these boosts, the terrible variety in engineering bridge officer ensign powers, and the inherent undesirability of hull tanking as a primary method of damage absorption, then you should see why these changes are being so vehemently opposed.
Not that I am saying the changes are good or even needed but I do have to chuckle a bit. Seems how I have a very powerful Cruiser on the Fed side and a powerful Warship on the KDF and Neither use more than one EP2X ability. Neither suffer from any problem dealing damage nor from any lack of ability to tank.
So I would have to say that ultimately it may be that your setup is horrible. If your setup is the standard broadside beam array boat then I can be certain that it is pretty fail. I have seen many Sovvies and Excelsiors running single and turret combos that can dish out massive DPS and my Odyssey running DBB's and Turrets can outclass those ships but never ONCE have I seen a Beam Broadside Boat using the vaunted "Fail at Will" do more than put on a pretty light show.
But I digress; there still is no need for these changes to take place. They seem sudden, arbitrary, and like someone is trying to fix what is not broken.
My impressions of the latest changes to the EPTX cool downs.
Well, its now even more of a roller coaster ride of invulnerable superpower to "dumb stupid and lame target".
Using 2 EPTS and 3 Damage control doffs(the ones that drop the cooldown timer on eptx skills):
I have found that if all of the doffs proc the skill is immediately available to be used once its cooldown is up. Statistically it is now possible to chain epts3 for an entire fight. Not likely, but now possible to have 100% uptime on EPTS3.
What actually seems to happen with the proc rates is you have a stream of 100% uptime between two powers with parts being back to back of the higher skill than a section of nothing as you got no procs.
What this means is for any shield damage mitigation build you now must use 3 DC doffs, you must slot 2 EPTS# at a minimum and you will still have a period of time every roughly minute as chance stands that you can be very very easily killed by a competent tacscort.
I use to be able to use the 3 doffs and cycle two different powers this change makes that no longer an option. So your attempt o make other EPTX skills more viable actually had the effect of making them non useable. You attempted to make the other skills more in line with epts: but forced a player to attempt to produce the same results as the current system with a less viable skill. Leading to a closest approximation that makes epts an even more exclusive power than it was before. Replacing existing possible combinations with a smaller set of viable choices.
The current system is not achieving your goal of making the other powers more compelling to use in the general case.
#1 EPtAUX...
i find it curious that this one got buffs to SCI offensive powers, i run high aux mostly on my Cruisers for higher Healing numbers. As a Cruiser Captain i would ask that EPtA does something for my Cruiser too, not just for SCI Ship powers that i dont use on any of my 10 Escorts + Cruisers.
#2 20 second cooldown vs. 30 second cooldown
i don't have an opinion on cooldown changes in general,
but this means that i would have to press EPtS 3 times a minute instead of 2 times a minute.
do not like extra clicks, there is too much stuff to press already on that powerbar, the shorter the cooldowns / power durations the less attention i pay to what is going on in space because i stare at my cooldowns half the time...
Normally I wouldn't go in for the idea that the devs only play tacticals and/or escorts, but this combined with the pretty meh science and engineering traits, hardly does anything to dissuade from that impression.
My impressions of the latest changes to the EPTX cool downs.
Well, its now even more of a roller coaster ride of invulnerable superpower to "dumb stupid and lame target".
Using 2 EPTS and 3 Damage control doffs(the ones that drop the cooldown timer on eptx skills):
I have found that if all of the doffs proc the skill is immediately available to be used once its cooldown is up. Statistically it is now possible to chain epts3 for an entire fight. Not likely, but now possible to have 100% uptime on EPTS3.
What actually seems to happen with the proc rates is you have a stream of 100% uptime between two powers with parts being back to back of the higher skill than a section of nothing as you got no procs.
What this means is for any shield damage mitigation build you now must use 3 DC doffs, you must slot 2 EPTS# at a minimum and you will still have a period of time every roughly minute as chance stands that you can be very very easily killed by a competent tacscort.
I use to be able to use the 3 doffs and cycle two different powers this change makes that no longer an option. So your attempt o make other EPTX skills more viable actually had the effect of making them non useable. You attempted to make the other skills more in line with epts: but forced a player to attempt to produce the same results as the current system with a less viable skill. Leading to a closest approximation that makes epts an even more exclusive power than it was before. Replacing existing possible combinations with a smaller set of viable choices.
The current system is not achieving your goal of making the other powers more compelling to use in the general case.
The system that you are describing is exactly what I do on Holo right now.
I have 3 purple DCE and have my power levels set to 90 weapon, 80 shield.
When I hit EPtS3, I have a chance for it to go onto a 30 sec CD instead of 45. If the DCEs do not proc, then I have a second chance for them to proc when I hit EPtW1 in 15 seconds. It works very nicely when it procs, but when it doesn't I still have EPtS1 to fall back on.
With this current change, When the DCEs proc, it still drops it down to just the 30 second mark, so I still end up with the 10 second gap. Since I am in an excelsior and don't have 2 Lt Cmdr slots, I am forced to drop the DCE and slot down to running 2 copies of EPtS2.
Since taking EPtS1 out in favor of 2 without doffs, I have another open ensign slot. So now I have 3 empty ensign slots. I guess I could put 3 copies of ET 1? No other EPtX will ever get used now, so meh.
It is honestly time to unchain these emergency powers from each other. Bring back the Cooldowns as they are on holo, but give them the buffs they have on tribble. Then Keep Emergency power to Weapons and Shields the same, but change Aux and Engine to Reserve Power to Aux/Eng and have them on completely separate cool downs. You can give these two new ones the current cool down mechanic as it exists on tribble, or longer if need be so that people cannot chain all 4 forever.
This is the only to make engines and aux desirable under the mechanics of the game at the moment.
15 SECONDS GAPS! It's a huge blow to cruisers, that are forced to use 4 copies of EPTX, to assure their shield resistance and to either counter weapon power drain, or increase their sciency/healing potential. And also because they don't have much other choices of powers to choose from, especially in the enseigns slots.
On the other hand the basic escort with it's Lt engineering boff slot will have a 88.88% uptime of the EPTS....:(
Something is wrong here....so either you reconsider this change, or give me other viable choice for eng slots (taunt, power drain resist, shield distribution....)..otherwise cruisers are definatelly dead ships
New tribble changes have both the timer and duration be 20 seconds.
Thing is, that only makes escorts insanely more powerful. The emg to wep change is dramatic. The damage buff lasts for 20 seconds and it can be perma-dual cycled and stacked on top of the other perma-dual cycled atk omega? So... much... FAIL.
They need to sit down and re-evaluate the combat model. Right now you have everything providing timed peak buffs and very little that raises the floor performance levels. We need stuff that raises the floor and fills in the valleys, not more peak damage. This would make all ships more survivable while also reducing the crazy spikes. Specifically things like EPtX and the various Teams should be used to raise the floor settings, and then leave the inherent professional abilities like EPS and the specific attack abilities like APX to buff the peaks for spiking.
As an example, EPtW currently adds weapon damage as well as raising weapon power level, which lets you use it to buff a spike. What it should do is provide an alternate source of power that prevents weapon power from dropping below your preset (ie, FaW and BO will not take your pool below your 100 preset). Stop buffing the peak and work on filling the valley.
In the specific case of EPtS, the current system provides a modest buff to shield levels and regens, as well as a large buff to resists. Its the long uptime on the resists buff that is causing so much trouble... What I would like is remove the resists buff and double the buff to shield levels and regeneration. The extra shields will provide a safety-net when regular shields have already been stripped, but they will not last very long against sustained fire, and they will not provide permanent distortion like the current sustained boost to resists. Once that is in place, the rest of the game can be balanced around the "normal" resists and we dont need massive spike peaks that can overcome.
They just need to sit down and rethink the whole model.
I haven't had time to do Tribble play-testing, but the massive amount of negative feedback about the idea inclines me to think I don't need to.
This entire line of thought seems to be primarily resulting in breaking any ability to chain these powers. Which ultimately means you have to split your attention in even more ways than before to activate them in a 'timely' manner - which isn't so timely if a cruiser is intended to be sitting there getting shot all the time, and doing damage over time. Especially since a cruiser is essentially made for this kind of thing. I don't know about everyone else, but I multitask plenty juggling the non-chained abilities already.
Yeah, I had been skeptical about all the claims about escorts being the cream of the crop, but it looks like this is pushing significantly in this way. Unfortunately, I only like escort play in small doses or a few days at a time, so I guess I'm up a creek here.
In short - massively against these changes, since here it seems that 'more interesting' means 'weaker overall' combined with 'more complex' and 'more battle confusion.'
You might as well make a bundle pack of ships with all of the cruisers in it and call it "Fanboi Pack", because honestly that would be the only reason to fly a cruiser at this point.
I think the "fix" wasn't very well thought out. How is it we can immediately spot the problem and an easy for everyone solution but Cryptic can't? Even if they reduced the shared CD to 10 seconds its still a lot more clicking than before, why not simply make them all 30 seconds and call it a day? Better yet, have them work as passives that are always on once you activate them. WoW has such passives and they work out just fine, just limit it to two active and be done with it.
I patched up my Tribble install just to make sure I was hearing right.
Yes. Yes, I was hearing right: Cruisers got nerfed.
They changed it so that you can now get 100% coverage on EPTS. So that's great. Except there's no room for EPTW between the system cooldowns, which means cruisers that were already struggling to cause relevant damage have to struggle even harder. It also leaves the problem of what to do with ensign-level engineering slots, because now there's nothing worth taking.
You might as well make a bundle pack of ships with all of the cruisers in it and call it "Fanboi Pack", because honestly that would be the only reason to fly a cruiser at this point.
They just need to delete all cruisers from the game completely, and give a refund to everyone who bought C Store cruisers. The devs hate cruisers, and have never played one. These EPtX changes are just more proof of that.
I would recommend that the cooldowns go back to what they were for same abilities and the other eptXs. But change the duration of the ability so it lasts for 26 or 25 seconds. So you have a 4 or 5 second hole like you do with tac team eng team and sci team. 20 seconds is too drastic, but I feel 26 seconds would be a good go between or compromise. Keep the 15 second global and the 45 recharge of one ability, Just have their effects last for 26 seconds instead of 30 seconds like they do now on holodeck.
This is a cross-post from a larger post I made but this is relevant here as well.
A practical look at a real shield on a real ship and see how shield power along with EPtS interact to make EPtS so absolutely spectacular. A plain jane mk 10 uncommon shield with plasma resist on my steamrunner. I run at 76 shield power normally without buffs so we will take a look at the shield before, and after, EPtS 1. Total shield strength is 6,792 per facing that will not change.
Standard
Effective Hit Points = 9,325
Base Regeneration = 360
Effective Regeneration = 494
EPtS 1 Active
Effective Hit Points = 11,371
Base Regeneration = 508
Effective Regeneration = 851
So yeah that single ability not only allows me to take 22% more damage before dying but also increases my passive shield restoration by 72% allowing me to stay in the fight that much longer.
You really think anyone in their right mind would choose to use any other emergency power over this one?
Issue is if a non escort has a defensive hole an escort can and will kill it in that time period, or it will force the use of so many heals that next hole the non escort will die.
If your in a cruiser Sci similar ship the only high availability way to survive a competent Escorts Alpha is eptx TSS and TT, otherwise any escort thats actually trying to kill you will kill you. Any part of that falls out of place and the escort wins. only EPTS and TSS your shield facing gets drilled and you die. TT and TSS and the heal is mitigated due to so much damage being done that you end up with the same or less shield HP, you will die before the next heal comes up. EPTS and TT you live for now but die soon after when your heal gets wasted on full shield facings.
Good example: last time me and a fleetmate ran a test on ships he though he could drop TT since I was in a sci ship and put a torp spread there. He was wrong, even a vesta can produce enough burst to drill though TSS3 and EPTS2. since he didnt have all three to use when they worked best together he died 3/4th of the time I alpha'ed with a sci ship. A top teir escort would have been even easier.
The issue inst really in EPTX its in how they interact with the current damage output of escorts and how escorts mitigate damage differently than most other ships. Thats what is causing the problems.
Comments
so what your saying is EXACTLY what ive been claiming would happen since the patch is EXACTLY what happens in practice? im shocked. cruisers completely ruined, and escorts just have to time their 10 second alpha with the 10 second gap? surviving your typical good alpha thats hits you out of no were already had narrow margins at 50% res. that getting cut in half to only about 25% means your taking double the damage to shields, of course your going die, its like getting subnuked every 20 seconds.
since this is the thread they are apparently watching, here is how you fix these powers for every ship and captain type
1. this 20 second nonsense ends. drop 'emergency' from the name if its that big a deal. keep all the new changes to the other EPt skills, except...
2. new EPtE on an escort is overpowered. that speed buff makes them far to zipy and good at damage avoidance. already with how it is on holodeck, their ability to use EPtE and speed tank works as good if not better then slow movers just normal tanking. this skill should just boost engine power, and increase turn rate a flat amount, like+5/10/15 across the grades so it benefits slow turners, not just already fast turners
3. cruisers with their energy sucking weapons need EPtW's power boost to deal with the drain, escorts with DHC almost have no issue with power drain. for a cruiser EPtW is actually nerfed with that 10 seconds with no boosted power, wile an escort 20 seconds is more then enough time. this is just echoing point 1, but theres more then just EPtS that needs to be 30 seconds, ALL of them need to stay at 30 seconds.
here's were further balance steps need to be taken, not necessarily having to do with EPt skills
4. cut the magnitude of the res boost on EPtS in half. also remove the resA/B mods from fleet shields and replace them with cap mods. EPtS3 and an elite shields with the right energy type shooting it hits the resistance hard cap, thats absurd
5 nerf DHCs so they are not so front loaded, but operate more like DCs with a constant stream of high pressure damage. maybe make them 3 cycle instead of 2? that might not seem like it would make that big a difference, but trust me it absolutly would. at the same time lower TT's shield distribute, and clear to 5 seconds.
the result is spike and healing and resistance levels are nerfed, both are completely over the top right now wile pressure deals a net of 0 damage. this cuts into the extremes considerably, and unmarginalizes everything that has currently been made useless.
IF the reason for this change was to make escorts less tanky to give cruisers a chance against them, you have failed. Escorts remain just as unkillable for a cruiser as they ever were. Even one on one an escort can now mitigate the crappy damage from anything that is not a DHC, while I have lost the ability to tank even ONE target.
IF the reason for this change was to entice me to use other eptx abilities, you have failed. Cruiser were already cycling 2 different abilities. To add in more would not only not be practical, it would cut into my ability to heal my team. There is absolutely no way I could ever afford to drop epts3, so then I would have to drop eptw then? Yes and cut into my already easily mitigated damage. All for what epte? Lol. Not only can we not do damage, now we can't tank, but at least I can slot powers for running away! Thanks. Insult to injury, great.
*facepalm*
Great. This means one of two things:
1.) What I can do with 2 officer slots costs me 3 slots. Which means instead of most of my cruiser needing to be emergency power abilities, now all of my cruiser will need be emergency power abilities.
2.) It will be impossible to run both EPTS and EPTW chains (it doesn't mention the system cooldown being reduced to the necessary 10 seconds), meaning you either give up the notion of survivability to keep your firepower, or give up the notion of firepower to keep your survivability. I suppose with the KHG set you could become a torpedo boat...
Gotta tell you, between this and whatever the F is glitched on my Fed engineer character, my enthusiasm for this game is suffering.
Thanks all, now another ability I have to mash more often. I'm so excited. Blah.
You don't even need to go to PVP to see why. In a massive pitched engagement like Starbase 24 or starbase defense, or when taking fire from a single tough enemy in elite-STF, a ship that is too slow to run away cannot be left with gaps in their protection. Cruisers and carriers are forced by the reality of their poor mobility to absorb fire, and constant protection from EPTS is the only thing that makes this practical when taking sustained, or massive, damage.
If you implement this change, engineering ships are going to be put at a massive disadvantage in the only area they currently excel at.
So doesn't that mean that if you want to run EPtS 100% of the time, then you don't have a chance to use another EPtX at all?
DISENCHANTED
What is so wrong with all EPTX having 30 second uptime, 45 sec cooldown, 15 sec global cooldown and 30 second global cd between identical EPTX. The system is fine as it is, the only change that hsould happen is the energy damage boost lasting longer then 5 secs for EPTW.
1) Leaving the system cooldown at 15s means that it will no longer be possible to keep two different EPtX abilities up at the same time, overlapping. Previously the following rotation was possible (using EPtW as an example):
0s - activate EPtS
15s - 15s system CD complete, activate EPtW
30s - 15s system CD and 30s power CD for EPtS complete, EPtS expires, activate EPtS
45s - 15s system CD and 30s power CD for EPtW complete, EPtW expires, activate EPtW
60s - etc
That rhythm is thrown off by the change.
0s - activate EPtS
15s - 15s system CD complete, activate EPtW
20s - 20s power CD for EPtS complete, EPtS expires, but system CD is not complete
(10 second gap without EPtS active)
30s - 15s system CD complete, can now activate EPtS
35s - 20s power CD for EPtW complete, EPtW expires, but system CD is not complete
(10 second gap without EPtW active)
45s - 15s system CD complete, can now activate EPtW
Two copies of the same power will be continuously sustainable, but trying to fit in copies of different EPtX powers will be awkward.
2) By reducing the power CD to 20s, EPtS can be used 1.5x as often as previously. That is, in one minute you will be able to use EPtS 3 times, where previously you could use it twice. This means there will be 1.5x as much shield healing from EPtS on every ship running two copies. Is that desirable?
Please, give us the wider picture that the changes to EPtX powers fall in to, otherwise they will continue to be excoriated. As they stand, these changes won't promote any kind of variety in EPtX usage and further marginalises the utility of Ensign Engineer Bridge Officer slots.
Why make these interim changes if you're planning to do more work in the long term?
EPtShields and EPtWeapons are valued greatly over EPtEngines and EPtAuxiliary because they affect the two most fundamental functions of a ship in combat -- namely, to hurt the enemy, and to survive their return fire. These functions outstrip everything else, which is why you see EPtW and EPtS slotted far more often than the other two.
When you consider that the cruiser builds that are considered to be most effective rely on having the most uptime possible on these boosts, the terrible variety in engineering bridge officer ensign powers, and the inherent undesirability of hull tanking as a primary method of damage absorption, then you should see why these changes are being so vehemently opposed.
So I would have to say that ultimately it may be that your setup is horrible. If your setup is the standard broadside beam array boat then I can be certain that it is pretty fail. I have seen many Sovvies and Excelsiors running single and turret combos that can dish out massive DPS and my Odyssey running DBB's and Turrets can outclass those ships but never ONCE have I seen a Beam Broadside Boat using the vaunted "Fail at Will" do more than put on a pretty light show.
But I digress; there still is no need for these changes to take place. They seem sudden, arbitrary, and like someone is trying to fix what is not broken.
Well, its now even more of a roller coaster ride of invulnerable superpower to "dumb stupid and lame target".
Using 2 EPTS and 3 Damage control doffs(the ones that drop the cooldown timer on eptx skills):
I have found that if all of the doffs proc the skill is immediately available to be used once its cooldown is up. Statistically it is now possible to chain epts3 for an entire fight. Not likely, but now possible to have 100% uptime on EPTS3.
What actually seems to happen with the proc rates is you have a stream of 100% uptime between two powers with parts being back to back of the higher skill than a section of nothing as you got no procs.
What this means is for any shield damage mitigation build you now must use 3 DC doffs, you must slot 2 EPTS# at a minimum and you will still have a period of time every roughly minute as chance stands that you can be very very easily killed by a competent tacscort.
I use to be able to use the 3 doffs and cycle two different powers this change makes that no longer an option. So your attempt o make other EPTX skills more viable actually had the effect of making them non useable. You attempted to make the other skills more in line with epts: but forced a player to attempt to produce the same results as the current system with a less viable skill. Leading to a closest approximation that makes epts an even more exclusive power than it was before. Replacing existing possible combinations with a smaller set of viable choices.
The current system is not achieving your goal of making the other powers more compelling to use in the general case.
#1 EPtAUX...
i find it curious that this one got buffs to SCI offensive powers, i run high aux mostly on my Cruisers for higher Healing numbers. As a Cruiser Captain i would ask that EPtA does something for my Cruiser too, not just for SCI Ship powers that i dont use on any of my 10 Escorts + Cruisers.
#2 20 second cooldown vs. 30 second cooldown
i don't have an opinion on cooldown changes in general,
but this means that i would have to press EPtS 3 times a minute instead of 2 times a minute.
do not like extra clicks, there is too much stuff to press already on that powerbar, the shorter the cooldowns / power durations the less attention i pay to what is going on in space because i stare at my cooldowns half the time...
Commanding Officer: Captain Pyotr Ramonovich Amosov
Dedication Plaque: "Nil Intentatum Reliquit"
The system that you are describing is exactly what I do on Holo right now.
I have 3 purple DCE and have my power levels set to 90 weapon, 80 shield.
When I hit EPtS3, I have a chance for it to go onto a 30 sec CD instead of 45. If the DCEs do not proc, then I have a second chance for them to proc when I hit EPtW1 in 15 seconds. It works very nicely when it procs, but when it doesn't I still have EPtS1 to fall back on.
With this current change, When the DCEs proc, it still drops it down to just the 30 second mark, so I still end up with the 10 second gap. Since I am in an excelsior and don't have 2 Lt Cmdr slots, I am forced to drop the DCE and slot down to running 2 copies of EPtS2.
Since taking EPtS1 out in favor of 2 without doffs, I have another open ensign slot. So now I have 3 empty ensign slots. I guess I could put 3 copies of ET 1? No other EPtX will ever get used now, so meh.
It is honestly time to unchain these emergency powers from each other. Bring back the Cooldowns as they are on holo, but give them the buffs they have on tribble. Then Keep Emergency power to Weapons and Shields the same, but change Aux and Engine to Reserve Power to Aux/Eng and have them on completely separate cool downs. You can give these two new ones the current cool down mechanic as it exists on tribble, or longer if need be so that people cannot chain all 4 forever.
This is the only to make engines and aux desirable under the mechanics of the game at the moment.
Here is my test (over the course of 2 minutes with 2 EPTS2 and 2EPTW1) :
15 SECONDS GAPS! It's a huge blow to cruisers, that are forced to use 4 copies of EPTX, to assure their shield resistance and to either counter weapon power drain, or increase their sciency/healing potential. And also because they don't have much other choices of powers to choose from, especially in the enseigns slots.
On the other hand the basic escort with it's Lt engineering boff slot will have a 88.88% uptime of the EPTS....:(
Something is wrong here....so either you reconsider this change, or give me other viable choice for eng slots (taunt, power drain resist, shield distribution....)..otherwise cruisers are definatelly dead ships
Thing is, that only makes escorts insanely more powerful. The emg to wep change is dramatic. The damage buff lasts for 20 seconds and it can be perma-dual cycled and stacked on top of the other perma-dual cycled atk omega? So... much... FAIL.
As an example, EPtW currently adds weapon damage as well as raising weapon power level, which lets you use it to buff a spike. What it should do is provide an alternate source of power that prevents weapon power from dropping below your preset (ie, FaW and BO will not take your pool below your 100 preset). Stop buffing the peak and work on filling the valley.
In the specific case of EPtS, the current system provides a modest buff to shield levels and regens, as well as a large buff to resists. Its the long uptime on the resists buff that is causing so much trouble... What I would like is remove the resists buff and double the buff to shield levels and regeneration. The extra shields will provide a safety-net when regular shields have already been stripped, but they will not last very long against sustained fire, and they will not provide permanent distortion like the current sustained boost to resists. Once that is in place, the rest of the game can be balanced around the "normal" resists and we dont need massive spike peaks that can overcome.
They just need to sit down and rethink the whole model.
This entire line of thought seems to be primarily resulting in breaking any ability to chain these powers. Which ultimately means you have to split your attention in even more ways than before to activate them in a 'timely' manner - which isn't so timely if a cruiser is intended to be sitting there getting shot all the time, and doing damage over time. Especially since a cruiser is essentially made for this kind of thing. I don't know about everyone else, but I multitask plenty juggling the non-chained abilities already.
Yeah, I had been skeptical about all the claims about escorts being the cream of the crop, but it looks like this is pushing significantly in this way. Unfortunately, I only like escort play in small doses or a few days at a time, so I guess I'm up a creek here.
In short - massively against these changes, since here it seems that 'more interesting' means 'weaker overall' combined with 'more complex' and 'more battle confusion.'
Yes. Yes, I was hearing right: Cruisers got nerfed.
They changed it so that you can now get 100% coverage on EPTS. So that's great. Except there's no room for EPTW between the system cooldowns, which means cruisers that were already struggling to cause relevant damage have to struggle even harder. It also leaves the problem of what to do with ensign-level engineering slots, because now there's nothing worth taking.
A practical look at a real shield on a real ship and see how shield power along with EPtS interact to make EPtS so absolutely spectacular. A plain jane mk 10 uncommon shield with plasma resist on my steamrunner. I run at 76 shield power normally without buffs so we will take a look at the shield before, and after, EPtS 1. Total shield strength is 6,792 per facing that will not change.
Standard
Effective Hit Points = 9,325
Base Regeneration = 360
Effective Regeneration = 494
EPtS 1 Active
Effective Hit Points = 11,371
Base Regeneration = 508
Effective Regeneration = 851
Percent Change
Effective Hit Points = 22%
Effective Regeneration = 72%
So yeah that single ability not only allows me to take 22% more damage before dying but also increases my passive shield restoration by 72% allowing me to stay in the fight that much longer.
You really think anyone in their right mind would choose to use any other emergency power over this one?
If your in a cruiser Sci similar ship the only high availability way to survive a competent Escorts Alpha is eptx TSS and TT, otherwise any escort thats actually trying to kill you will kill you. Any part of that falls out of place and the escort wins. only EPTS and TSS your shield facing gets drilled and you die. TT and TSS and the heal is mitigated due to so much damage being done that you end up with the same or less shield HP, you will die before the next heal comes up. EPTS and TT you live for now but die soon after when your heal gets wasted on full shield facings.
Good example: last time me and a fleetmate ran a test on ships he though he could drop TT since I was in a sci ship and put a torp spread there. He was wrong, even a vesta can produce enough burst to drill though TSS3 and EPTS2. since he didnt have all three to use when they worked best together he died 3/4th of the time I alpha'ed with a sci ship. A top teir escort would have been even easier.
The issue inst really in EPTX its in how they interact with the current damage output of escorts and how escorts mitigate damage differently than most other ships. Thats what is causing the problems.