Is named right I am fighting this mission with a few allies and fighting over 100 ships I have been blown out of the sky so far 40 times and forget about getting near the command ship you engage one ship and twenty more jump on you you go from full hull to two in like five seconds please fix this mission been on it for over two hours and have not made a dent in the enemy ships
It is sad that that I finally beat it by cloaking and just walking away and letting the NPC ships destroy the command ship, with me coming back when it was at 5% and shooting it with a HY Torp and some Beam Overloads..
I don't get why people have such a hard time with this mission. Sure, it is difficult, for PvE, but not unbeatable. It just takes time and patience. The key I found was hitting the battleships from afar, try and lure one away from the group. Helps if you run a beam boat, specially in the D'Dedirex. Slowly but surely, you'll whittle them down to just the dreads and command ship. By the time I had cleared up the battleships, the ally npcs had done some decent damage to the heavies. Just a clean up at that point. If needed, just find some other people that are running the same mission. I found it much more enjoyable when I had fleet mates by me as we made mincemeat out of the slug faces.
Formerly known as Echo@Rivyn13
Member since early 2011
Fire at Will is probably the most dangerous boff skill u can use on this map, since it seems to instantly gain u a targetinglock of EVERY ship u hit with it, untill u die ... they will keep chasing u by the bunch ...
On that count, Cannon Scatter Volley is probably almost as dangerous, as any ship u hit will target u, instead of the allied/romulan fodder flying about ...
As a sidenote on the amount of ships ... well .. it was the HUGE fleet u were seeing outside the Elachi subspace base , so it does make sense u see those arrive at New Romulus too ..
But what is most needed is the allied ships working as intended, and some better romulan backups in there, at least as long as all the supporting monbosch & dreadnoughts are also still flying about ...
For me, I used FAW whenever it was off cooldown. If I could, I'd keep firing FAW whenever if at all possible, so that everything nearby gets hit. The only time I didn't was when I decided to keep concentrated fire on the battleships.
I did this mission with a 2nd Romulan toon that I'm taking to 50 (this one Fed, my 1st did KDF). On this 2nd toon's very first run, just like my original Romulan, I made it on the first try. This mission was insanely easy for me. When I stand back again, it's simple why.
This mission, is built for tanking. Cruisers shine here. Alot of stuff still gets to the hull even with high shield facings due to the bleedthroughs from all the sheer amount of fire that goes your way. This is compounded even more if you use anything other than Resilient Shields (5% bleedthrough vs 10% with Covariant and Regenerative Shielding). That is why Cruisers with the highest hull points and ENG Console slots should shine here, because they can take the pounding. Science type ships will have superior shielding, but even with these shields, they have lower hull points and generally lower ENG Console Slots. That means, less love for:
- Armor
- SIF Generators (hull repair boosts)
My D'Deridex for self heals, only had Engineering Team 1, Emergency Power to Shields 2 & 3, Hazard Emitters 2. There were close moments, but between these heals and the Singularity ability for boosting shields & hull temporarily, my warbirds on both attempts withstood fire quite well. I didn't even have Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field, which the Lv 3 version is integral to my Cruiser builds at endgame. Regardless, on both runs, I have only been blown up once.
I can see Escorts dying horribly. They may move fast, but the sheer amount of fire can be a problem if you don't have your stuff together. Science Vessels aren't fast like Escorts, but their hulls cannot withstand the sheer bleedthrough damage.
Again, your Cruiser must be built to withstand punishment to the hull, but the shields MUST be up to minimize the hull damage. The bleedthrough, again, is alot, and can kill you if you do not have proper hull repairs. Save Evasive Maneuvers when shields are collapsing and you cannot have shield heals in on time.
Also, please, whatever you do, KEEP MOVING. 1/2 speed is the lowest I dared taking my throttles down to. With a beamboat, this should be EASY. With a forward firing build, it can be a problem because you may sacrifice speed for lower speeds and better turning. The faster you move, the larger defense bonuses you get. Again, DO NOT STOP. EVER, EVER, EVER.
Both my D'Deridex runs had my big fat ship weaving and circling around in the battle. On the outskirts of the fighting, or right in the middle of the fray. And my ship was just constantly blasting FAW whenever possible, conducting self heals, and cycling Emergency Power to Shields 2 & 3 for high shield facings.
I did it in a Mogai, full cannon build. Took me 6 respawns on elite. I ended up suiciding into into the open shield facing on the command ship while it was firing that stupid death beam. They need to buff your ally ships, or get rid of them entirely. They aren't really any help anyways. Oh, and modify the constant "focus the command ship" that keeps yelling at you to "focus the command ship, its a good day to die!"
This mission has caused me to stop playing. It is so badly broken...I counted 47 Elachi ships....3 romulan one (including me).
Bad programming, bad design.
I am done
You have to be kidding... I just did the mission on elite and yes while I died numerous times it was completable. Or maybe the difficulty slider doesn't work properly on this mission and and all difficulty's = elite and you just ran into your 1st elite mission... but I highly doubt that.
Although when I think of gamers like my wife I know she could never finish something like this on elite so I do hope it gets looked into for the casual base but please no nerf to elite
When the NPC told me reinforcements were coming, I was figuring like 10-15 Klingon ships (I'm KDF aligned) and instead I got like 3 Starfleet popcorn escorts.
The first 2 waves weren't bad. That final wave...
I wanted to pull my hair out, it was so incredibly frustrating and un-fun.
I'm adding my voice here...NERF!
3 Starfleet Escorts and a big fat D'Deridex against a Command Ship, 2 Dreadnoughts, 3-5 Battleships and more escorts, frigates and controller ships that I could count on 5 hands.
That's EPIC MEGA UBER x 3 /facepalm right there.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
When the NPC told me reinforcements were coming, I was figuring like 10-15 Klingon ships (I'm KDF aligned) and instead I got like 3 Starfleet popcorn escorts.
The Kang and Varanus should have been there as well. I do think there are more Federation allies that show up though.
What's amusing to me though is that the Belfast survived Defense at New Romulus only to get punked at 4028.
I am doing this mission in the level required ship, i.e the D'deridax, which is big fat and slow, does not turn fast, and i have came across this mission which requires you to kill 3 waves of a fleet which you have to move alot, i have actually died over twenty times due to the cone effect weapon of the elchi ships as it hits for 20k or removes 1 side of your side, your not going to ever do this mission and not die due to this, this mission is way unfair on how hard it is, im constantly getting caught by 3 or 4 of these cone effect weapons, going in every direction in space which means i can not get away from it which means i die, and die and die, its highly annoying.
Please nerf this slighly not alot just so im not dieing every 2 seconds
I concur and would go even farther. The mission needs a complete rework. I cannot believe for a second that this mission was properly tested by the "closed" beta crowd. If it was tested at all, they had to have been using maxed out ships and characters. Seriously, though, does EVERY elachi ship need that cone weapon? Every wave starts the same way, line of cone effects and then focused fired...if the player is within range all of it goes on him/her. It's a shame that allied AI isn't as "hive mind" as the enemy AI. An absolutely amateurish bit of mission coding imho.
I don't get why people have such a hard time with this mission. If needed, just find some other people that are running the same mission. I found it much more enjoyable when I had fleet mates by me as we made mincemeat out of the slug faces.
I guess not everyone can be !337...:) Of course, a well kitted group is going to make a significant difference in any mission...here's your sign...good advice just the same! The reality is though that most players cannot call on a group and will solo. The current mission configuration is skewed against the player unless running a min/max set-up...and most players won't even know what that is. The mission honestly needs to be reworked. However, your advice about teaming, if possible, would be a good work araound.
I was not prepared for the mission at all. All my boffs were still set for the Mogai, and I just had the first four...so, only one engi boff. That I hadn't changed the skills for. So here's how I went in (D'd):
Tac: THY1, CRF1 (and I didn't have any cannons )
Eng1: EP2S1, BP1, BP2, EWP2
Eng2: N/A :eek:
Sci: PH1, HE2
Also, SCI captain.
Yah...
First two waves were not a problem, even with that derp build, but the third...man, that was frustrating. My weapons were not doing much, allies died in seconds, 3 fedies and a neg'var were doing who-knows-what, and I was busy dying. The big furball got to New Romulus pretty quickly, so I was never out of the fight long (though sometimes I got spawn-killed; that was lovely). The main group would alternate between killing me and going after the one feddie that managed to catch up to me, so nothing got done for a while. Eventually I went out to find my other supposed helpers, and managed to gain agro long enough to die, but got far enough away that they could repair somewhat without instantly drawing agro themselves. This happened enough that everyone was in one big ball of death, much of it aimed at me. But I guess I did drew enough agro that somehow my allies were able to take care of the command ship (even though I myself was hardly able to dent the shields).
Without doubt the worst thought out mission yet in STO,literally trial by fire. I for one will not be repeating it till it gets a much needed pass over,shame really as the rest of them are quite nicely put together.
Without doubt the worst thought out mission yet in STO,literally trial by fire. I for one will not be repeating it till it gets a much needed pass over,shame really as the rest of them are quite nicely put together.
May have just been luck on my replay at VA, but it's a lot easier at VA. Not just in terms of your own abilities, but I think in terms of your allied ships survivability [perhaps the ally's ships scale better at 50]. In anycase, I think it's worth considering replaying at 50 for the Mk XI Blue Singularity Core.
It was pretty straightforward at normal difficulty. I don't want to think about it at hard or elite though. Mainly, I was well prepared.
1. Had my big D setup with green level gear (MK VII / VIII), all disruptors since I can't afford plasma gear.
2. Disruptor induction coils + Ablative and shield console
3. Bridge officers setup correctly with EPtS, Polarize, HE, Engineering team, eject warp plasma, beam overload.
4. Used singularity power which protects your hull (forgot name)
Strategy involved mainly cloaking / alpha strikes (yes I am Tac) - hit and runs using evasive man and brace for impact or polarize. At the 3rd stage I drew the command ship away from the main fleet and let my "allies" distract most of the ships.
I would then cycle through alpha strike and eject warp plasma for dot damage. It took about 30-40 minutes and I did not die once.
HOWEVER, I did a lot of prep work for this mission. An unsuspecting newbie would be in serious trouble even at normal which is wrong.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I have not done this mission, since I heard that so many players had difficulty with it I decided to wait for a bit.
I imagine specifically for Wave 3. The ground-portion of the mission leading up to this has a fair bit of length to it. I think Waves 1 and 2 are just timed events without a timer, although I suppose it's possible they're defeat counting events instead. In any event Waves 1 and 2 are pretty straight forward and nothing all too special. It's wave 3 where things can go south.
The whole thing(space) took about 40 minutes. Ground took about 20 minutes. The 1st and 2nd wave took about 3 - 5 minutes each and the 3rd took 25-30 minutes. Like I said I am a tac officer so alpha strike does serious damage even without dual heavy cannons. The disruptor also has a good proc. Maybe elachi have plasma resistance since devs assume that players will stick to plasma.
I also probably lucked out on the command ship since I was able to draw it away and only 2 support vessels were assisting it.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I mean, you die, lolrespawn, die, lolrespawn, die, lolrespawn, finish this mission.
I'm Engineer, I was in Ha'apax with mostly green gear, 6 disrupter arrays, a torp, and a turret (because that's what I had)...
My Boffs are/were
TT
TS1, FAW
EptS1, EptW, EptS3, DEM
ETeam, something?, Aceton (I think)
HE, Tractor
I spent most of my time trying to stay alive and popping in and out of cloak. After the 3rd death, I could just kite them while the friendlies killed them.
Still kind of crazy, but definately not impoissble.
Might be interesting to see how many people tried this as a tac / eng or ... God forbid ... a science officer.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
I don't think the problem is totally the mission. I think it's more a case of how incongruous it is to the rest of the game to that point. I mean, you go through the game at faceroll difficulty and then you run into this mission which is essentially facesmashing difficulty (for those not accustomed to difficult missions). I mean, there is nothing before or even after this mission that is this far removed from the normal pace/difficulty of the game's missions. Someone upthread said that there are some people who like to figure out how to beat the "impossible" challenges and that's true. However, the vast majority of the paying customers of this MMO (and 95% of the others not named 'Eve Online') probably don't fit into that category. (If they did, the genre wouldn't have gotten this easy...err, sorry, "accessible" over the years.) In keeping with the game's established pattern, I think changes should be made only to the Normal version of the mission, in order to accommodate those people looking for a "nice" mission but not necessarily a 'challenging' one.
Although, whenever I see threads like this (in any game), I often wonder how people's perspectives would change if each defeat made them lose a day to a month's worth of progression like in "the old days".
I first attempted this mission using the previous tier ship. I was trying to save my ship token as I was still doing great with my old ship. That didn't work.
However, I eventually stopped, got my D'D, purchased highest possible level dual heavy cannons and turrets for all slots, and equipped my BOFFs with a scatter volley/aux to batt setup (everything else was from mission drops). It went fairly smoothly then. Just get in really close on command ship with cloak, and when one of the dead allies finishes repairing and draws aggro, uncloak, use any abilities you've got on that command carrier. Once DPS abilities are exhausted, or you're about to die, get out using evasive maneuvers and warp shadows or singularity jump, cloak, heal, let abilities cooldown... repeat. After a few runs, the carrier will die, and the other ships will warp away.
Personally, I thought this was a nice change in pace once I upgraded ships. The previous missions weren't very challenging like this one. However, I have a long established Fed engi character that I have put MANY hours into playing and grinding ESTFs and PvP. I know how to make effective ship builds, and how to adapt to different enemy types and situations. And, I had the resources (EC) to modify the ship effectively. That made this mission doable.
If I were a new player, or lacked supplies, the mission would have been horrible. However, I don't agree on nerfing the Elachi. Leave the cone of death, leave the DPS and debuffs. Instead, make the allied ships more useful. I would love to see them be smarter as opposed to invincible (infinte 1 hp), but some sort of consistent backup would be nice, however that is accomplished. Maybe, instead of changing the current allies, bring in additional allies as time goes on. That would be plausible, ships that were farther away making it to the battle piecemeal. And keep bringing them in every few minutes (up to a point) until the command ship goes down. This would still be challenging provided you're actually trying, but wouldn't be quite as much of a roadblock for new or less well-equipped players.
So when I logged on this afternoon, I saw that I needed to redo this mission due to the server reset last night. No big deal I thought as I will do the same as last night. But this time around it was a lot more frustrating in that the entire fleet auto-targetted me instantly. Still managed to draw command cruiser away but need to do some suicide runs.
I ended up dying about 4 - 5 times due to concentrated fire. The battle also took 35 - 40 minutes this time though it was not any "tougher". I have to agree that this mission is seriously bugged and will frustrate the hell out of newbies.
Bad move Cryptic. Experienced players will be fine but new ones may be discouraged.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Might be interesting to see how many people tried this as a tac / eng or ... God forbid ... a science officer.
My first run through this mission was with a TAC in a D'Deridex. Died once. My second run was with an ENG in a D'Deridex without dying. It was LOL-ingly easy.
This mission is not bad at all, guys. There have been a number of posts out there to do this right, pointers to succeed. For me, this is the most exciting combat mission for the entire Romulan campaign.
Learn to adapt, or die. Or just skip and quit and not learn an aspect of STO combat that can make you a better player. The advice is out there. You can heed it and make it through, or just refuse to adapt your playstyle, your ship and build at any time or cost whatsoever.
This mission is very easy if you heed the advice, which is Basic Cruiser Usage 101.
You all forget we are Romulans. Use your battle cloak to get in close to the command ship while the allies take all the hits from the cone weapons. Then decloak and unload everything you have on the command ship...Mission over.
I didn't have trouble in the first two waves the third was a pain though.
As the dreadnought and main ship had shields beyond what my weapons could take out fast and the fact they summoned more ships wasn't good. Also they tended to bypass my shields and hit my hull only which was super annoying.......
I finally resorted to hitting one ship and pulling it toward me and focusing on it only while moving a lot.
Ample usage of my speed up ability when it did its teleport and cone.
I also used warp plasma ejection a lot.....that seamed to stop them from maneuvering behind me as much.
Oh and I outfitted my entire rear weapon arsenal to turrets....
I still cant believe they went back to using the old style turning they had on the cruisers....but I guess they want players to only use turrets again and to not use most of the other game weapons.
Still don't know why they have cannons...they should delete those and only have dual cannons and heavy dual cannons....or maybe only heavy dual cannons.
Anywise the dreadnaught and other ship where a huge pain....took over 30 minutes to destroy them each...and I don't know how many times I had to use ramming speed to get the heck out of the way of the cone.
Anywise I have a KDF ship with the teleport power....but I have no ships with that cheesy cone......too bad the federation doesn't have access to either one easily....and Klingons well they can get the teleport thing.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
You don't really need all turrets aft, especially since you have Tovan Khev, and he has Fire At Will. Stick at least one beam weapon back there (I have a Plasma Beam Array, a Plasma Turret, and a Harh'peng Torpedo launcher), and present your sides to the enemy wherever possible so the forward and aft beam arrays overlap, and you can take down shields (at which point your torps become much more meaningful).
I made it through with a Sci captain at level - um, 33 I think, but I might be misremembering. I died a lot, so it took me somewhere around 30 minutes, but since there's no penalty worth speaking of for dying in this game, I just kept charging back into the fray, dropping satellite turrets whenever I could, and calling for help from the Nimbus Pirates when it came off cooldown (not sure how long that is, but I managed to put out the call twice). I have come to truly dislike when the enemy uses one of my favorite attack modes, Torpedo Spread - that thing's a total biotch to face.
I don't see the issue with this mission. It's supposed to be a bit tougher but it's not unbeatable. I died a couple of times but that was because I was thinking like a Federation captain. Once I started cloaking and using my singularity abilities I stayed alive. I'm playing on advanced and beat it the first time through. I was expecting something horrible based on the comments here.
Yes, the one shot kills need to be fixed and the support ships need to be a bit more useful but a little thinking can make the difference between a horrible experience and a challenging mission.
Reading through how some people have said the mission is simple and beatable I'm now convinced that it truly is bugged. There were many times where I was doing not damage at all, with power to weapons and FaW going.
Cloaking driving right up to the command ship and letting it rip and getting no results, weapons were Mk. VII and VIII. Quite frustrating.
Once that's done I agree, having more reinforcements arrive as the battle goes on is a logical fix...as long as they don't get rick rolled as soon as they warp in. Having the Elachi say GG backup before they do anything is just as useless as them not being there at all.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Comments
Member since early 2011
For me, I used FAW whenever it was off cooldown. If I could, I'd keep firing FAW whenever if at all possible, so that everything nearby gets hit. The only time I didn't was when I decided to keep concentrated fire on the battleships.
I did this mission with a 2nd Romulan toon that I'm taking to 50 (this one Fed, my 1st did KDF). On this 2nd toon's very first run, just like my original Romulan, I made it on the first try. This mission was insanely easy for me. When I stand back again, it's simple why.
This mission, is built for tanking. Cruisers shine here. Alot of stuff still gets to the hull even with high shield facings due to the bleedthroughs from all the sheer amount of fire that goes your way. This is compounded even more if you use anything other than Resilient Shields (5% bleedthrough vs 10% with Covariant and Regenerative Shielding). That is why Cruisers with the highest hull points and ENG Console slots should shine here, because they can take the pounding. Science type ships will have superior shielding, but even with these shields, they have lower hull points and generally lower ENG Console Slots. That means, less love for:
- Armor
- SIF Generators (hull repair boosts)
My D'Deridex for self heals, only had Engineering Team 1, Emergency Power to Shields 2 & 3, Hazard Emitters 2. There were close moments, but between these heals and the Singularity ability for boosting shields & hull temporarily, my warbirds on both attempts withstood fire quite well. I didn't even have Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field, which the Lv 3 version is integral to my Cruiser builds at endgame. Regardless, on both runs, I have only been blown up once.
I can see Escorts dying horribly. They may move fast, but the sheer amount of fire can be a problem if you don't have your stuff together. Science Vessels aren't fast like Escorts, but their hulls cannot withstand the sheer bleedthrough damage.
Again, your Cruiser must be built to withstand punishment to the hull, but the shields MUST be up to minimize the hull damage. The bleedthrough, again, is alot, and can kill you if you do not have proper hull repairs. Save Evasive Maneuvers when shields are collapsing and you cannot have shield heals in on time.
Also, please, whatever you do, KEEP MOVING. 1/2 speed is the lowest I dared taking my throttles down to. With a beamboat, this should be EASY. With a forward firing build, it can be a problem because you may sacrifice speed for lower speeds and better turning. The faster you move, the larger defense bonuses you get. Again, DO NOT STOP. EVER, EVER, EVER.
Both my D'Deridex runs had my big fat ship weaving and circling around in the battle. On the outskirts of the fighting, or right in the middle of the fray. And my ship was just constantly blasting FAW whenever possible, conducting self heals, and cycling Emergency Power to Shields 2 & 3 for high shield facings.
You have to be kidding... I just did the mission on elite and yes while I died numerous times it was completable. Or maybe the difficulty slider doesn't work properly on this mission and and all difficulty's = elite and you just ran into your 1st elite mission... but I highly doubt that.
Although when I think of gamers like my wife I know she could never finish something like this on elite so I do hope it gets looked into for the casual base but please no nerf to elite
Elapsed time: 29 minutes
Total Death Count: 7
When the NPC told me reinforcements were coming, I was figuring like 10-15 Klingon ships (I'm KDF aligned) and instead I got like 3 Starfleet popcorn escorts.
The first 2 waves weren't bad. That final wave...
I wanted to pull my hair out, it was so incredibly frustrating and un-fun.
I'm adding my voice here...NERF!
3 Starfleet Escorts and a big fat D'Deridex against a Command Ship, 2 Dreadnoughts, 3-5 Battleships and more escorts, frigates and controller ships that I could count on 5 hands.
That's EPIC MEGA UBER x 3 /facepalm right there.
"You shoot him, I shoot you, I leave both your bodies here and go out for a late night snack.
I'm thinking maybe pancakes." ~ John Casey
The Kang and Varanus should have been there as well. I do think there are more Federation allies that show up though.
What's amusing to me though is that the Belfast survived Defense at New Romulus only to get punked at 4028.
I concur and would go even farther. The mission needs a complete rework. I cannot believe for a second that this mission was properly tested by the "closed" beta crowd. If it was tested at all, they had to have been using maxed out ships and characters. Seriously, though, does EVERY elachi ship need that cone weapon? Every wave starts the same way, line of cone effects and then focused fired...if the player is within range all of it goes on him/her. It's a shame that allied AI isn't as "hive mind" as the enemy AI. An absolutely amateurish bit of mission coding imho.
I guess not everyone can be !337...:) Of course, a well kitted group is going to make a significant difference in any mission...here's your sign...good advice just the same! The reality is though that most players cannot call on a group and will solo. The current mission configuration is skewed against the player unless running a min/max set-up...and most players won't even know what that is. The mission honestly needs to be reworked. However, your advice about teaming, if possible, would be a good work araound.
I was not prepared for the mission at all. All my boffs were still set for the Mogai, and I just had the first four...so, only one engi boff. That I hadn't changed the skills for. So here's how I went in (D'd):
Tac: THY1, CRF1 (and I didn't have any cannons
Eng1: EP2S1, BP1, BP2, EWP2
Eng2: N/A :eek:
Sci: PH1, HE2
Also, SCI captain.
Yah...
First two waves were not a problem, even with that derp build, but the third...man, that was frustrating. My weapons were not doing much, allies died in seconds, 3 fedies and a neg'var were doing who-knows-what, and I was busy dying. The big furball got to New Romulus pretty quickly, so I was never out of the fight long (though sometimes I got spawn-killed; that was lovely). The main group would alternate between killing me and going after the one feddie that managed to catch up to me, so nothing got done for a while. Eventually I went out to find my other supposed helpers, and managed to gain agro long enough to die, but got far enough away that they could repair somewhat without instantly drawing agro themselves. This happened enough that everyone was in one big ball of death, much of it aimed at me. But I guess I did drew enough agro that somehow my allies were able to take care of the command ship (even though I myself was hardly able to dent the shields).
Do you even Science Bro?
May have just been luck on my replay at VA, but it's a lot easier at VA. Not just in terms of your own abilities, but I think in terms of your allied ships survivability [perhaps the ally's ships scale better at 50]. In anycase, I think it's worth considering replaying at 50 for the Mk XI Blue Singularity Core.
1. Had my big D setup with green level gear (MK VII / VIII), all disruptors since I can't afford plasma gear.
2. Disruptor induction coils + Ablative and shield console
3. Bridge officers setup correctly with EPtS, Polarize, HE, Engineering team, eject warp plasma, beam overload.
4. Used singularity power which protects your hull (forgot name)
Strategy involved mainly cloaking / alpha strikes (yes I am Tac) - hit and runs using evasive man and brace for impact or polarize. At the 3rd stage I drew the command ship away from the main fleet and let my "allies" distract most of the ships.
I would then cycle through alpha strike and eject warp plasma for dot damage. It took about 30-40 minutes and I did not die once.
HOWEVER, I did a lot of prep work for this mission. An unsuspecting newbie would be in serious trouble even at normal which is wrong.
- Judge Aaron Satie
30-40 min for ONE ship or for the whole mission?
I have not done this mission, since I heard that so many players had difficulty with it I decided to wait for a bit.
I imagine specifically for Wave 3. The ground-portion of the mission leading up to this has a fair bit of length to it. I think Waves 1 and 2 are just timed events without a timer, although I suppose it's possible they're defeat counting events instead. In any event Waves 1 and 2 are pretty straight forward and nothing all too special. It's wave 3 where things can go south.
I also probably lucked out on the command ship since I was able to draw it away and only 2 support vessels were assisting it.
- Judge Aaron Satie
I mean, you die, lolrespawn, die, lolrespawn, die, lolrespawn, finish this mission.
I'm Engineer, I was in Ha'apax with mostly green gear, 6 disrupter arrays, a torp, and a turret (because that's what I had)...
My Boffs are/were
TT
TS1, FAW
EptS1, EptW, EptS3, DEM
ETeam, something?, Aceton (I think)
HE, Tractor
I spent most of my time trying to stay alive and popping in and out of cloak. After the 3rd death, I could just kite them while the friendlies killed them.
Still kind of crazy, but definately not impoissble.
- Judge Aaron Satie
Although, whenever I see threads like this (in any game), I often wonder how people's perspectives would change if each defeat made them lose a day to a month's worth of progression like in "the old days".
My character Tsin'xing
However, I eventually stopped, got my D'D, purchased highest possible level dual heavy cannons and turrets for all slots, and equipped my BOFFs with a scatter volley/aux to batt setup (everything else was from mission drops). It went fairly smoothly then. Just get in really close on command ship with cloak, and when one of the dead allies finishes repairing and draws aggro, uncloak, use any abilities you've got on that command carrier. Once DPS abilities are exhausted, or you're about to die, get out using evasive maneuvers and warp shadows or singularity jump, cloak, heal, let abilities cooldown... repeat. After a few runs, the carrier will die, and the other ships will warp away.
Personally, I thought this was a nice change in pace once I upgraded ships. The previous missions weren't very challenging like this one. However, I have a long established Fed engi character that I have put MANY hours into playing and grinding ESTFs and PvP. I know how to make effective ship builds, and how to adapt to different enemy types and situations. And, I had the resources (EC) to modify the ship effectively. That made this mission doable.
If I were a new player, or lacked supplies, the mission would have been horrible. However, I don't agree on nerfing the Elachi. Leave the cone of death, leave the DPS and debuffs. Instead, make the allied ships more useful. I would love to see them be smarter as opposed to invincible (infinte 1 hp), but some sort of consistent backup would be nice, however that is accomplished. Maybe, instead of changing the current allies, bring in additional allies as time goes on. That would be plausible, ships that were farther away making it to the battle piecemeal. And keep bringing them in every few minutes (up to a point) until the command ship goes down. This would still be challenging provided you're actually trying, but wouldn't be quite as much of a roadblock for new or less well-equipped players.
I ended up dying about 4 - 5 times due to concentrated fire. The battle also took 35 - 40 minutes this time though it was not any "tougher". I have to agree that this mission is seriously bugged and will frustrate the hell out of newbies.
Bad move Cryptic. Experienced players will be fine but new ones may be discouraged.
- Judge Aaron Satie
My first run through this mission was with a TAC in a D'Deridex. Died once. My second run was with an ENG in a D'Deridex without dying. It was LOL-ingly easy.
This mission is not bad at all, guys. There have been a number of posts out there to do this right, pointers to succeed. For me, this is the most exciting combat mission for the entire Romulan campaign.
Learn to adapt, or die. Or just skip and quit and not learn an aspect of STO combat that can make you a better player. The advice is out there. You can heed it and make it through, or just refuse to adapt your playstyle, your ship and build at any time or cost whatsoever.
This mission is very easy if you heed the advice, which is Basic Cruiser Usage 101.
As the dreadnought and main ship had shields beyond what my weapons could take out fast and the fact they summoned more ships wasn't good. Also they tended to bypass my shields and hit my hull only which was super annoying.......
I finally resorted to hitting one ship and pulling it toward me and focusing on it only while moving a lot.
Ample usage of my speed up ability when it did its teleport and cone.
I also used warp plasma ejection a lot.....that seamed to stop them from maneuvering behind me as much.
Oh and I outfitted my entire rear weapon arsenal to turrets....
I still cant believe they went back to using the old style turning they had on the cruisers....but I guess they want players to only use turrets again and to not use most of the other game weapons.
Still don't know why they have cannons...they should delete those and only have dual cannons and heavy dual cannons....or maybe only heavy dual cannons.
Anywise the dreadnaught and other ship where a huge pain....took over 30 minutes to destroy them each...and I don't know how many times I had to use ramming speed to get the heck out of the way of the cone.
Anywise I have a KDF ship with the teleport power....but I have no ships with that cheesy cone......too bad the federation doesn't have access to either one easily....and Klingons well they can get the teleport thing.
Power without Perception is Spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.
=^_^=
I made it through with a Sci captain at level - um, 33 I think, but I might be misremembering. I died a lot, so it took me somewhere around 30 minutes, but since there's no penalty worth speaking of for dying in this game, I just kept charging back into the fray, dropping satellite turrets whenever I could, and calling for help from the Nimbus Pirates when it came off cooldown (not sure how long that is, but I managed to put out the call twice). I have come to truly dislike when the enemy uses one of my favorite attack modes, Torpedo Spread - that thing's a total biotch to face.
Yes, the one shot kills need to be fixed and the support ships need to be a bit more useful but a little thinking can make the difference between a horrible experience and a challenging mission.
Cloaking driving right up to the command ship and letting it rip and getting no results, weapons were Mk. VII and VIII. Quite frustrating.
Once that's done I agree, having more reinforcements arrive as the battle goes on is a logical fix...as long as they don't get rick rolled as soon as they warp in. Having the Elachi say GG backup before they do anything is just as useless as them not being there at all.