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What Science powers still work in PvP?
newromulan1
Member Posts: 2,229
Is VM still usefull? GW? Scramble sensors? Photonitc shockwave? etc
Which work and which ones are borked - or a waste?
Which work and which ones are borked - or a waste?
Post edited by newromulan1 on
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I find that in practice, certain aspects of certain abilities don't affect much of anything, whereas other aspects seem to function well, or as expected.
HE, polarize hull, TBR for pet spam.
there goes my GW3 build...
sci skills work per situation most situations that a sci skill could be used in other than subnuke you would be better off with pure damage from a escort or a pure healing build from a sci,what antonio forgets to mention is this.
keep in mind if you work with a build you might be able to use some of these defunk skills to good use but your best bet is to have an escort follow you around killing stuff while you use subnuke to strip and keep healing the escort.
That is simply not true.
Sci = CC
If you think that doesn't work in this game you will in general fail.
Lets go through them and DESTROY some horrible miss conceptions.
Charged Particle Burst.
Shield strip... Level 1 is only Lt...
Up to 7k in shields removed. (ok but no you can't one shot anyone... which isn't a big deal)
The strip is resisted at 50% with 9 points worth of points in Insulators. So yes the shield strip can be reduced down to like 3.5 on the upper end strip.
MAIN use of CPB... cloak denial.
Yes this skill will AOE decloak in a 5k Circle around your ship... it will LOCK out cloak and MES / MES fields for a time that can be increased with aux power.
Use - Cloak removal - great against the new Rom ships. Also strip is fairly effective vs low shield escorts. This skill strips from all facings so escorts relying on Tac team are hard hit.
Cons - If your opponents are all none cloaking fed style cruisers or worse sci ships with massive shield pools.
Gravity Well.
AOE hold
In order for this one to really hold you HAVE to spec it. If you are using Gravity Well spec Gravition.
Doff use.... if you use Gravity Well you will want a Gravity well doff purple is the only real option here, they are also not to expensive.
If possible its also nice to have 1-2 deflector doffs so you can reduce the cool down on it if its possible.
Uses.
Cloak Removal... Yes it will Pull any cloaked vessels in range out of cloak and disable it as long as they are in range.
Works best against other science ships as they in general will have the least ability to escape the well... they are also the most likely to be dropping mines and GW will kill them before they drop.
VS pets... likely the strongest anit pet skill in the game bottom line. Also look into the new Precise trait... if you are a sci running Gravity well you really should have that trait.
Vs escorts... ok this is where everyone is going to wine that its pointless to fire it on escorts... and they are 100% wrong. I fire this on escorts that have omega up on purpose... here is why, the aftershock doff will still proc on them where ever they end up. A cooperative omega running speed scort will drag Gravity wells all over the battle zone for you, controlling pets/mines/hy torps ect.
Cons.
There are none GW is awsome.
Seriously perhaps the 60s cool down sort of sucks... but with doffs that can be reduced and the aftershocks are fantastic.
Tractor Beam.
The only skill that can be doubled up on a sci for an almost perfect roll with no doffs or any other gimmicks.
Holds are still the best type of CC you can imagine.
Yes yes most escorts pump lots of Omega and are immune... so what. I don't remember ever fighting a team of only escorts. Use your tractor on the big massive cruiser that is trying to chase the speed scort to heal him. Slow him up... better yet tractor that sci ship that is trying to turn his arc to nuke someone. Nothing more annoying then not being able to nuke the teams target cause you are tractored out of arc.
Scramble Sensors.
Scramble still highly annoying... again super situational. Most people that run this tend to want to just spam it... if you use it in a smart way... and scramble healers just as spikes are coming on there team mates ect... it WILL get your team kills.
Viral Matrix
Plain and simple one of the best anti escort skills there are.
As a speed escort having your engine shut off then your weapons jam up on you are super annoying. For the New Romulans the aux proc will decloak them.. and lock out all there heals and of course there cloak. (you can't cloak with zero aux)... I have hit cloak ships with this watched them run and cloak... only to decloak 5s later when there aux procs and get killed.
VM is going to be less useful vs healers as high hull repair is more popular on those ships and the VM will be resisted much more.
Again know who your shooting at... Romulans and there full crews of Remans and Romulans are going to suck the entire duration of a VM unless someone clears them... cause they are not going to have there own engi team. lol
Feed Back Pulse.
A bunch of people are going to tell you this is a great skill and the way to go vs everything else I have been talking about. Frankly there all STUPID don't listen to them.
FPB is the worst skill you can slot in PvP... it doesn't help your team at ALL.
All it does is get them shot at while your running it... or it gets you sub nuked and killed.
If you do manage to get a kill off some DPS pumping escort... pat yourself on the back... cause unless there also STUPID... they are going to respawn and now shoot your entire team. As they now know you can't really CC them if your using FPB 3... and or you can't heal the team as well if your running lower versions.
Tykens Rift.
Nothing to defend here... TR is pretty bad right now. Perhaps the only Sci skill that I really don't see a use for. Cleared by Hazards which makes it even more useless.
Energy Siphen.
See above... the only advantage here is it gives you the power. Again its cleared by hazards so most people are pretty much immune.
Jam Sensors.
Jam 1... Not a bad option if you have the room. If you have a sci ship with 3 ensign sci slots... I like this one. Most people will say run a Polarized Hull... but Jam works much the same way but will save you from alphas as well. Jam will break a tractor or any thing else channeled.
Tachyon Beam.
This should be a good skill.. the strip is great to be honest. The issue is 2 fold... 1 only cruisers are to slow to get in a turn fight with you and break the arc on it. The other issue is all the placatings... the KHG shields the Tier 4 Placate. Yes that does make this skill so so no doubt.
I'll stop there... my point though is Almost every sci skill can be super effective if its used in the right way.
With sci you have to STOP right now if you are planning on how you are going to reliably kill people 1v1... Sci ships are team ships first. They are the best team ship... they are the most adaptable PvP ships where... you can swap a boff and come back and counter X Y or Z.
IMO the best sci players have pretty general specs... and carry a boff or two they can swap out in a pinch... and swap for instance from Gravity well to VM 3... ect.
CPB gets further nerfed by the many PI bonuses granted by set pieces. As a Cloak Denial system a good High Yield, Spread, Warp Plasma, Tractor Repulsers, Tractor Beam, or Sensor Scan do it better. I do not even spec into PI much and CPB is generally so weak Vs. my shields as to not be noticed.
GW is as useless as it comes. Firstly, the DOFFs are not that cheap especially if you are KDF. Secondly, the Primary well can be walked out of with half impulse on any ship with full Spec into it and the secondaries while more powerful are still easily evaded with Evasive Maneuvers, EP2E, Detuerium Burn, Engine Batter etc... The Damage they deal is irrelevant because you need to get past their shields for it to matter and the enemy will never stay near the center. GW is only useful in PvE or as pet spam killer in PvP.
Tractor Beam, especially with the DOFF that eats shields, is somewhat useful but it does have the glaring flaw that it will not stop most player ships. Even with no spec into Inertial Dampeners the resistance most players have to being held by Player Tractor Beams will let them keep moving and only be slowed down slightly. This means the Tractor HELPS but it is not that great and if the opponent IS specced to resist them then they have no effect at all.
I do agree with you on SS and VM. Know how to use them and they are still useful in PvP. SS has been reduced a little but VM has actually been made a bit more useful over time.
FPB LOL... Yes... Total waste... I have been in that damage pumping Escort... I killed that Science ship running FPB III and I did not die doing it... Oops.
TR and Syphon are only useful in a full out Power Drain build. You have to be absolutely dedicated and have more than just that before they are worthwhile. Otherwise you are wasting your time. Even in PvE this is true sadly.
Jam 1 IS rather handy. Anyone who is used to cloaking ships knows what Jam is for. Jam 2 and 3 are pointless though.
Tachyon Beam also sucks because it fails to deal enough damage even at level III with full spec to be worth using. You get far more bang out of Beam Overload II or even I than you can EVER get out of TBIII. Thus it is pointless.
What you have demonstrated is mostly that SOME Sci skills work and others only work against folks who have fail setups or who do not know how to pilot their ship which is a pointless argument because everything works on them.
You say that a Sci ship is best in team play but it again begs the question: "What is better; a disabled opponent or a dead one?" Sci MIGHT make the prior, Escorts make the latter. See the problem?
Also... Before the Devs pulled out the Nerf Maul, got drunk off Blood Wine, and went to town on Science skills like it was Ragnaroke the Sci ship used to utterly DOM in 1 Vs 1 combat. If you wanted to counter the deadly drains of a Sci ship in an Escort you had to be CRAZY good or you would ultimately end up shieldless, motionless, and dead in the blink of an eye.
all in all the only useful thing is subnuc witch you can use in an escort so the sci ship itself is only flown by diehard sci lovers like me the skills wont get looked at because cryptic go for sales and escorts sell well.
your giving hope to people that sci has a purpose when thats just not entirly true.
there will have to be a change but alas it isnt near.
I got Intrepid (lvl 30) loaded up with 3 Graviton consoles, 9pts in Graviton Generator, Graviton deflector with [gra] boost so all you could get on this level to get maximum out of pure GW without DOFFs. And GW3.
Frankly - the damage out of it is neglible, but I can live with it, it's not what SCI is for (though damage would make my PvE live easier). But the hold is not there. Simply. A stripped naked cruiser (just after SNB) can simply fly out of it without any problem. Escorts are not even noticing it.
I wonder how bad it must look like on endgame with all additional boosts people get from reps and such.
Tachyon Beam worked for lt. and it was awesome to run it with HYT, but after this, when on lt.cmdr. people get to spec into Power Insulator it became useless. Tyken Rift... it kinda works. TY3 when fired up with Energy Siphon 2 and polaron turrents with CRF is shutting down things, but it's very hard and probably works on people that don't have 7-9 in PI, because some are immune to it.
More or less it goes so with anything but TB/TBR and Viral Matrix. And Polarize Hull. And SNB, of course, but that's cpt skill.
As I see it the main problem with sci skills is not that they not work, cause they do. The problem is that people have too much skill points available and can easily, without any drawback, spec into resisting almost all them.
A few more non-haling powers:
TBR: great for tac dmg, but push resists with constant uptime of APO make it mediocre as zone denial tool.
PSW: Dmg nerfed Stun nerfed. Compared to EMP or ISo charge ..its still usefull.
ONce more the point of comparison for sci powers should be other cc powers in game. Fully consoled, skill tree specced and as part of complimentary sci ship builds most are mediocre at best.
If their primary cc function would no longer be in game we could talk about them as being situational and about something else. GW being a mine poppers, CBP a decloaker. But thats not the case. Movement control and SHield drains are in game, and thse powers suck at it. THeir secondary functions can be better fulfilled by ensign tac powers frmo an escort.
Sci ships are great for their healing combined with turn so that sci/sci can land their SNBs. Which is why eng/cruisers are mostly out the window. I m sorry i disagree that they are all great. Almost every thing high level sci powers do, some consoles, or stupid tac bossted toy does better.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
STOP trying to use it to one shot people... when it used to do that it wasn't working properly. Sci where never intended to walk in.. pop one skill strip ALL of a teams shields that happen to be in 5k. That was broken and Cryptic knew it.. they added resist.
It DOES work just fine as cloak detection... Yes you have to have a good idea where someone is first.
It DOES work extremely well as cloak denial. Trust me I fly enough cloak ships I will tell you having your cloaking device LOCKED out is a pain... and yes it has gotten me killed.
I pointed out the level 1 is a LT skill for a reason. You don't have to run CPB 3...
My point was With all the new Rom ships.... keep ONE boff ready with a CPB 1 setup on it.
Trust me it works very very well if you are fighting a team with 3-4 Rommies with 11s cloak cool downs.
Gravity well again... STOP thinking that it needs to grab and hold someone in the middle of it for the entire skill.
STOP thinking GW should be holding escorts still... it won't.... use the doff (which even klink side is cheapish for a signiture doff... its not like its a 50mil cannon doff... or a 60mil AP doff ect) I find it hillarious that people wine about spam in matches then they don't run the tools to remove or control it.
Frankly you all have a strange idea about what Sci should be doing. Sci is a support vessel period. You are not going to be solo killing anyone. Unless as some of you say they are noobs.... however Most NON noobs are not going to be solo killed by a good escort either... which is where sci comes in... and NO you don't have to nuke good players to get kills on them... you can use the Sci skills PROPERLY and at the right time to score kills. You can also use things like GW / SS / CPB to deny the other team kills of there own. Yes if you remove carrier pets as an issue... Mess with Healing timings with SS... and Punish recloaking targets... YOUR TEAM will win.
IF any of you honestly can say that a team with 1-2 good sci doesn't role more then a team with out... I don't think where playing the same game.
Nobody want to one shoot people/ ONce more CBP is a shield strip. NOw compare it to other shield strip poers in game like tach mines and tell me it works as intended. Gw cannot hold an escort. But GVP can thats what we are complaining about.
AS for cloak detection. TS1 is an ensign power, doesn't disable cloak, but thanks to it hits naked hull for multiple targets, and has a 10 k range. Which one is the better anti cloak device?
Your insistence that GW3 shouldn't hold stuff, but clean mines (is doesn't even clean stupid yellowstone spam ) and that CBP3 should be thought of as a declaoking tool and not a shield strip might be justified if there weren't shields strips and anti-cloak tools in game. But seriously, this line of CPB decloak effect works great so stop complaining is rather irritating. 5x Tet DHCs + OMega do better sheild strip then a CBP. How is that not a valid concern, and what does it have to do with one-shooting people.
I mean clearly APB or FOMM have pretty UI effects, just think of them as the primary function and be happy. It's not like they are supposed to debuff your target??? Oh hi no problem that Danoob are better at tractoring stuff then sci ships. I mean there has always been the damage portion of tractor beam , that is working reliably great! CBP as decloaker, TB for kinetic dmg FTW!!!
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
You are confusing tac and scis roles honestly.
Yes tacs provide damage debuffing with delta and beta and fomms... so what. Science debuffs to a much higher degree with Sensor scan... and it isn't wiped instantly by tac team 9 out of 10 times.
Yes 5x DHC strip shields better.... frankly if you have 5 DHC and you are worried about stripping shields instead of just annihilating them your doing it wrong. BTW full DHC don't work anymore anyway.
It seems people remember the good old days of CPB teams. lol
If anyone honestly remembers 5 man sci teams all with CPB 3 as a good time for this game... they are just plain silly.
Are there better shield strips then CPB... yes yes there are. Should there be ? Ya know likely not.... the Mines I hate I don't think they should have ever existed.
Is Gravity Pulse the better hold... Yes yes it is. There is a reason most Self Respecting PvPers won't slot it as well. It should have never been added to the game. I never claimed that Cryptic knew what they where doing. Simply that the sci skills everyone moans about work better then they let on... and further more that most Sci players have no idea how to use them properly.
GW does more then just Kill mines... but yes that is one advantage it does kill mines. As far as yellowstone pets ect... yes some of the pets are more powerful then they should be... HOWEVER. Fully spec a gravity well. (lets be honest most people don't put any points in graviton and then claim GW sucks... it would be like putting no points in Energy Weapons then claiming that DHC are terrible) THEN go and get the new Precise Trait. +25% acc vs pets... and yes it effects exotic dmg skill. Honestly a full spec GW 3 on a carrier with the precise trait is HILLARIOUS. There pets including the higher hull ones won't get to far.
Considering Cryptic has been throwing more and more carrier spam into the game... having a Sci Skill option that deals with them isn't a bad thing.
As I said on the zooming Omega escorts... use them to your advantage with GW. Yes I have been in matches where I hit an Omega burning escort... and 10s later there are multiple Gravity wells everywhere making life difficult for there team. Did any of them kill anyone alone... no of course they didn't. Still that team took 3 kills in a row not long after. lol
Bottom line is this Sci ships used to be more effective at killing people with out any help from anyone. Frankly there was a time where the honestly perfect team was probaly 4 Science... with perhaps one escort... but that wasn't even needed and likely 5 science was better. Most High end teams refused to go 5 sci... but the few that did... ROLLED so bad they didn't enter any tournys for the most part as they understood it was cheese.
Now we are in a situation where the ideal team will only have 3 Science ships.
So I guess I'm wrong there terribly hobbled and pointless. lol
If sub nuke was the only reason those ships where needed.... we would have teams with 1 sci ship as the heal bot... and a bunch of Sci Scorts.... we don't see that do we ?
Using graviton generator consoles for gravity well is pointless. Cryptic nerfed graviton generators so badly that slotting 3 consoles will give you 1% more repel. You still want the borg assimilated module, the adapted MACO deflector, and 6 points in graviton generators for tractor beams, but anymore than that is a waste currently. What you should do is spec in particle generators, as this is the skill that boosts gravity well's damage. Also be sure to stack particle generator consoles, use 1-2 deflector officers, use 1 gravimetrics scientist, use 1-2 copies of tractor beam, and use your subsystem targetting. If you are in a science vessel capable of running attack pattern omega I, be sure to use it for the decent damage buff to gravity well.
Most science skills are fairly decent in PvP providing that you are specced for the abilities and providing your other abilities work well together. I tend to classify science abilities into one of four areas: damage control, particle/control debuffs, energy/shield debuffs, and sensor debuffs. Below is a list of the abilities and their general usefulness.
Damage Control:
These abilities are a science vessel's primary method for reducing damage or healing teamates. Some of these abilities are often used in combination with abilities from one of the other three remaining categories.
Scattering Field - Captain Ability - Fairly decent hull damage resistance
Science Fleet - Captain Ability - 33% shield damage resistance and bonus to power drain + shield repair for 30 seconds. Excellent damange control ability.
Polarize Hull - Decent at ensign level, all others are wasteful
Science Team - Decent shield heal, clears most science debuffs, including subnuke beam
Hazard Emitters - A good heal over time, clears most damage over time debuffs and energy drain
Transfer Shield Strength - A very good shield heal for science vessels, most run a copy at Lt. or Lt. Com levels
Skill areas to spec in:
Shield Emitters
Hull Repair
With the exception of science team, all skills listed are boosted by high auxiliary power
Particle/Control debuffs:
Skills in this category are the science vessel's primary damage, disable, or crowd control skills. Everything in this category works well together, but not all combinations of abilities listed here are great together.
Gravity Well - A very good source of damage when correctly buffed + duty officers. A duty officer procced gravity well is difficult to escape from without evasive maneuvers.
Photonic shockwave - Good for breaking extend shields, tractor beams, and evasive maneuvers. Also decently effective at giving your science vessel time to get behind an escort. You must spec in subspace decompiler for this skill to work to it's full potential.
Tractor beam repulsors - A good anti-B'rel/T'Varo torp/mine build skill. Also somewhat useful against escorts chaining attack pattern omega while sitting on your aft section - be warned, some will start complaining about you cheating when they die from the shield ignore + high particle generator speccs.
Tractor Beam - Shared cooldown with repulsors - A good bread and butter skill of science vessels built for crowd control. However, it's fairly useless against escorts chaining attack pattern omega, using emergency power to engines, and Space Trait: Helmsman.
Viral Matrix - This ability is worthless without 6+ skill points in subspace decompiler and most effective when combined with 3 system engineers. It's fairly useful providing the target doesn't have engineering team.
Feedback pulse - This is a pure defense skill, ideal when 2 or more escorts are focus firing on you every time you are around them. When using this still it's usually a good idea to have as many shield and hull heals as possible while setting weapons power to 15 and aux power to 100. Note: Feedback pulse I doesn't generate nearly enough damage, making it rather useless. A single copy when running other science abilities damage abilities can also be reasonably effective.
Photonic Fleet - Captain Ability - Warps in multiple photonic ships. Fairly useless in PvP, but they do fire real torps and they are good at clearing minefields. (Not buffed by any skills listed below)
Skills to spec in:
Particle Generators
Subspace Decompiler
Graviton Generators
Energy/Shield debuffs:
Skills in this category are a science vessel's primary method of shield strip or energy drain. These abilities are a lot less effective against anyone with 6 points in power insulators, making their usefulness questionable in PvP.
Tachyon beam - One of the worst science abilities in the game when fighting targets properly specced for resistance. Minimal shield damage and the duty officer debuff doesn't do much against an escort. Tractor beam II with a tractor beam duty officer does more damage than a fully specced tachyon beam III.
Charged Particle burst - This ability has decent shield strip and also decloaks cloaked ships. Works best when combined with tractor beam + tractor beam officer and tachyon mines.
Energy Siphon - This ability is only useful if your own ship is short on power. The target can clear it with hazard emitters and 6 points in power insulators will give 42% resistance.
Tykens rift - Right now this ability is broken. It is supposed to be increased in effectiveness with flow capacitors, yet flow capacitors does nothing to help this ability. Also, this ability is cleared with hazard emitters.
Skills to spec in:
Flow capacitors
Sensor debuffs:
These abilities are designed to allow a science vessel to prevent the enemy from firing on it. Most of these abilities work best when combined with the Damage control category
Mask Energy Signature - Also known as poor man's cloak. It can't be used in combat and it diminishes your ship's power levels. I have yet to find a use for this ability.
Jam Sensors - This ability is the "Go shoot at one of my other teamates" button. However, it is effective in a 1v1 in capture and hold when fighting another ship alone at a zone.
Scramble sensors - If skill points are invested in starship countermeasure sysems and countermeasure consoles are stacked, this ability can be very effective at max aux power. It can last for 45+ seconds, but it is cleared with science team. The cooldown increase duty officer is also moderately effective when used in a team setting and mildly effective in a 1v1.
Skills to spec in:
Starship stealth (Mask Energy Signature only)
Starship Countermeasures
Unclassified:
Photonic Officer - This ability is currently broken and has a 3 minute cooldown.
Subnucleonic Beam - Captain ability - The best science debuff in the game. Removes all buffs and greatly increases active cooldowns for the duration. - Cleared with science team
Sensor Scan - Captain ability - This ability was quite effective as a damage debuff until Legacy of Romulus broke it. I am assuming cryptic will fix it eventually. - Cleared with science team
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
You must have run into an opponent who doesn't know what he was doing. My FBP have routinely killed Escorts who insist on shooting me while it's on, even seeing bug ships one shooting themselves or Minimax aborting his attack because he spotted my FBP.
Just because you escaped once, per your quote that I highlighted, it hardly means the skill is a waste. The way you jump to such conclusion is senseless. Properly spec FB3 can have reflecting factor up to 1.4, possibly more if someone wants to be really nasty about it. That means if you are an escort who delivers an alpha of 30K damage on your opponent in one wave, 42K of damage of will be returnws to you with 50% of it directly going to your hull.
As for the comment that it will just lead to the said escort shooting someone else on the team instead. I don't understand why you put out these senseless comments of poor quality - no reasonable people should be listenting to this kind of BS. You are assuming once the said ship turned on FBP3 that the ship will do nothing else? :rolleyes: Really, he is just going to let you get away and shooting someone else. What kind of alternative universe do you live in? I got news for you, if someone is going to spec in FBP somewhere, chances are this ain't the only Sci power he will have. Powers are not meant to be used in isolation. In my Fed toon, the FBP(2) is usually used in conjunction with ES3 + Beam Target Subsystem + Plasmonic Leech + Romulan Hull Melt while shooting weapons with direct or DoT damage that go through shields. The drain on your power system is as high as 109 - no amount of power insulation can shield you completely especially your weaker subsystems and you are guaranteed to crawl like a turtle, not an escort. Trust me, you will be more focused on surviving than having the time to go shooting someone else.
If you think your helping your team at all running FPB 3 you are very very wrong.
It is one of and likely the WORST team skill in the game... Which is run by ships that SHOULD be setup to be the ultimate teammate. For this reason it is pure fail.
Yes I can tell you when I fly my escort... if I see a FPB I 100% ignore that person, I either shoot them anyway if my heals are up... or I simply count it down... when it ends I know you can't use Transfer shield strength... and with out support I will most likely kill you long before your FPB is back up. If you are setup to just tank dmg... well your not really healing anyone and your FPB is the only dmg you have... so yes I'll just kill the team around you.
You won't die much I agree... but who cares you will still end up on the loosing team more often then your on the winning one.
FPB is pure fail. Period.
Thanks for such a well written and thorough summary. You said it better than I could, saving me from responding to the OP.
I'll add a few comments:
- Caveat with VM is that with LoR, this skill can be render fairly situational due to the possibility that someone can totally spec to neutralize it completely. For example, someone has Weapons Capacitor from their Warp Core + Adapted Maco engine's hot resart + EptA will be pretty much immune to VM compleely. The Weapon capactiors repairs disabled weapon, Engine disable disappear after 1 sec automatically and EPtA will repair disabled Aux. Plus, the need to put 6 points into Decompiler skill is a non-starter or having the need to put 3 system engineering. The investment is too much and too easily countered.
- I run Polarize Hull 2 on my Warbird at Aux = 125. The reason being PH is one of the few skills that can be activated while in cloak and a Warbird with high Defensive value (due to cloak = +50 defense) + high damage resistance will be pretty tanky even if someone managed to break your cloak or the moment you decloak to attack. PH2 on a Fed ship can be less useful. But PH2 on a Warbird who cloaks and decloaks and need to avoid those sudden attack bursts or tractor beams can be justified.
Actually if one were to run 2x Feedback Pulse and 2x Transfer Shield Strength, they would have a 100% uptime on any one of those abilities. It would be possible to chain it like this: Feedback pulse III for 15 seconds, Transfer Shield Strength III for 15 seconds, Feedback Pulse II for 15 seconds, Transfer Shield Strength III (second copy) for 15 seconds. By that time Feedback Pulse III is off cooldown and the cycle continues. FBP is useful if you have managed to aggro everyone on the other team with your science abilities. It's not too effective if there is a science officer on the other team, but if there isn't a science officer it can be quite deadly. I don't know how often you PvP in Capture and Hold, but the escorts never stop shooting at you when FBP goes up. They always assume they will kill you before FBP kills them. The easiest way to keep them thinking that? Keep your shields at full health but let your health linger at 50%, they can never resist such a tempting target.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Sometime I keep shooting at FBP just for the lulz, nothing like getting hit by FBP for more than 2x what the hull on my BOP is. Similar to the Cold War mutually assured destruction model.
Such a big generic swoop from someone who clearly doesn't know what he is talking about. So FB3 is a Commander level skill, what other "ultimate teammate" skill is being sacrificed as a result? TSS 3? Nope, that's Lt. commander. HE3? Nope, that's Lt. Commander too and a Sci can usually carry two Lt. Commander slots. Science Team? Nope, easily taken care of in either Ensign or Lt. slot. So let me go down the list of skills the can be passed to the team:
Scattering Field? Nope, no conflict due to it being a Captain skill
Science Fleet? Nope, no conflict due to it being a Captain skill
Tractor Beams, including repulsors? Nope, an Ensign or Lt slot would suffice
Sensor Scan? Nope, no conflict due to it being a Captain skill
Scramble / Jam Sensors? Nope, an Ensign or Lt slot would suffice
Keep in mind, a Sci ship typically has 1 Commander Sci station, 1 Lt Commander Sci Station and 1 Lt Sci Station as is the case with Wells.
So I went through the list, not seeing any skill that can be passed on or aiding a teammate that was sacrificed as a result of FB3 so care to enlighten me what I am missing? Wait, just admit you don't know what you are talking about is easier and less painful.
Assuming of course that person is using FBP1, which no people in their sound mind would use that and without spec the skill properly. And once again, you think wrong. FBP lasts exactly 15 seconds, cannot be more or less. The shared cooldown on TSS is also exactly 15 seconds. So when FBP ends, TSS can be immediately activated, back to back. I don't understand why you operate under all these false and inaccurate information. It tells me you are either bluffing or really clueless, take your pic.
Did you know I enjoyed killing escorts, more than anything else? But I don't launch these bravado all over the place. Once again, you make it sound as though those who use FBP have nothing else going for them - you know nothing like a big fat Transphaic Cluster Torp heading your way while you are being Jam Sensored? While being jam Sensored, a sneaky Tractor Beam has locked you on and you don't even know it? APO? Subnuke takes care of it. The fact is my Fed Sci ship routinely out damage all escorts in arena and c&H pvp maps with only two Tactical slots. Screenshots available upon request. It should say something about the damage a properly spec Sci ship can do.
LMAO.
You're talking down to one of the best players in the game, and certainly someone who has tried a **** ton of builds.
Sit down before you hurt yourself.
And he's right, in a team setting the skill is pure fail. Heals need to go out fast, so you can't have **** putting them on cooldown if possible.
Exactly.
I think a lot of people see the cooldown is clear and then fire it off with no real thought to what they want it to do.
As you stated, scrambling enemy healers is one good use.
Scrambling enemy Alphas is another.
Yep.
I think this is another power where people just expect to click one button and totally ruin some other players day and serve them up on an instant kill platter.
It needs to be used as part of your overall escort control strategy, it's a piece of the puzzle and not the entirety of it.
Ok, a couple of things.
Having "one or the other" up all of the time is kind of meaningless. neither of these powers is intended, or should be, just rotated perpetually.
He already covered that when he stated "sci powers are situational".
1) TSS is a heal, you need to use it on others a lot. You can't use TSS when you have FBP active.
Coincidentally when your FBP is up, your opponents will now switch targets to your teammates who you are now unable to give TSS.
I am not talking about a team arena team vs team. Of course FPB would be a bad choice in such a match, you have a team to heal you. Now in capture and hold, it's rare to get a team that actually heals. Most players don't even bother trying to take zones in there. And the average escort in Capture and Hold is fairly easy to kill with a science vessel when they aren't running away with EPtE/Evasives/Omega. Now the problem arises when you are alone taking zones while your team is off on a far corner of the map fighting a pointless battle and two or more escorts decide to take you out. Fighting two escorts alone with a science vessel is easiest when you are chaining feedback pulse and transfer shield strength. It gives you time to drop romulan hyper plasma torpedoes and chroniton mines to kill them...assuming they don't do that for you when shooting though FBP.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Why not make it feed back heals
Making the healer the pinnacle in the team bouncing off heals for double the strength.
ParadiseKiller
House of Beautiful Orions
Zeadonouse
ToLate
Personally I think feedback pulse should have a proc to knock the enemy weapons offline. Whenever someone used that ability in Star Trek it always messed up weapons and caused ship damage, yet ingame it only causes ship damage.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)