I do not consider tanking to be a particularly useful role for my engineer. Damage spongine is irrelevant except as a way to survive long enough to deal the necessary damage. You talk about 3 systems in 100 or 4 systems in 100, my engi can get 4 systems to 125. In an escort. That is interesting and useful.
I am starting to think all these threads are complaining that the assumed role does not exist, not that engies do not have a function.
Engineers have never been pvp masters in space though, but have always been the most dominate class on ground.
There was a time where FaW balls of Eng Cruisers mixed w/Sci ships ruled the roost. It was to the point that many Tac Escort pilots were complaining much the was Eng pilots are now (in that case there was no need for Tac DPS, since Eng FaW team w/some Sci Debuffs were more than enough), and people would complain in Zone if they happened to get a PuG Escort pilot on their side.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
There was a time where FaW balls of Eng Cruisers mixed w/Sci ships ruled the roost. It was to the point that many Tac Escort pilots were complaining much the was Eng pilots are now (in that case there was no need for Tac DPS, since Eng FaW team w/some Sci Debuffs were more than enough), and people would complain in Zone if they happened to get a PuG Escort pilot on their side.
I'm sure I'll make a few enemies with this, but thank god those days are dead.
As someone who enjoyed dog fighting in Sci B'rel I agree. Though the T'varo isn't a too bad a substitute.
[Zone] Dack@****: cowards can't take a fed 1 on 1 crinckley cowards Hahahaha you smell like flowers
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
A tank could get usefull again when they give the arena maps an additional winning condition:
Aside to make the kill count, also every enemy needs to be killed at least 1 time.
This will make it interesting for a team to have a tank, and protect it. Although behind in kill counts they can still win, if they keep the tank alive and slowly kill the other team. That would give fun new tactics, because that would also mean that a tacscort can be really min-maxed on damage, and take more risk in being killed, since that has less consequences as long as someone on the team survives.
(And this will not happen because I already see how klingon teams would profit the most out of this.)
This is the first post I have made in nearly 2 years.
I find it odd how much blame and anger is pointed at the engineer player. I have been playing engineer/cruiser since closed beta. We have pretty much always gotten the short end of the stick but I deal..and will not just roll a tac or a sci to follow the crowd. This is what I wanted to play.. this is what I will play.
Every time the devs gave us some way to survive, or do damage.. or even be remotely equal,.. the other players started screaming and crying about we are too tanky or do too much damage for our class or.. whatever. Apparently everybody thinks our role is to pad their score. So don't take it out on us.
So now we are nerfed straight to hell....and it is our fault :rolleyes:
Even performing like this ( Photobucket PvP screen capture image ), I am not wanted by my fleet for premade pvp.. a fleet I have been in for about 3 years,.. to join in premade pvp, because they would have to give up a sci or a tac. How is that fair to me? But I understand. But it is a raw fact of how badly we have been shafted over the past 3 years.
Making many of the powers that engineer uses effect the group would make the engineer very viable for many things.
How about our EPS power boost effecting a large sphere for our teammates to take advantage of. How about miracle worker being used on others as well. How about Nadion inversion acting like Dem 3 as well and it would stack with normal Dem. This would not be much different than a tac stacking Alpha and Beta. The attack type would be different, .. bleedthrough instead of burst... a different mechanic for attack focus.
But instead of trying to find a way to make the class more useful in PvP and PvE, all I keep seeing is how it must be our fault we rolled that class.
Maybe if the community had not been so horrible and whined about every advantage engineers ever had tried to have been given... maybe we would still be viable.
Furthermore, if you want to bring some role differences back quickly, then make Transfer Shield Strength how it used to be. Target other only. It makes no sense that you transfer shields from yourself...to yourself.. to increase your own shields. That is one giant facepalm for mankind.
This change would effect the escort tankiness level dramatically. Then you would see them played how they used to be played. Hit hard and fade fast. Now they just tank and tank and tank while beating on you. Yes, it can be argued that Tac Team is a need-to-have power..and it certainly is these days. But the duration of the rebalance can be reduced to shore it up a bit more.
Also hull and shield heals should be percentage based. This would flat out recognize the differences between ships by making shield and hull heals more or less effective depending on the ship type,.. a move that is completely independent of the captain type.
At this point, it is clear to me that if they are not going to bring the engineer up,.. then certain powers (not necessarily captain powers) have to be reverted or modified. Otherwise, they might as well just remove the engineer from class choices on character creation and get it over with.
But make no mistake.....
The state of the engineer is not the engineer's fault.
Eleven of Twenty-Nine
Eleven of Twenty-Nine. Thousands of pvp matches done...hundreds of tournaments ran..and still seeing the same problems grow even larger than ever for us engineers.
The state of the engineer is not the engineer's fault.
Eleven of Twenty-Nine
Long time no see
A couple months ago, I brought my Engineer into a premade and it was considered a liability. So much so that at the end of the match it said "Wow, we won that even with an Engineer."
Why?
Because an APA or Sensor Scan/SNB is far more valuable than a MW or RSF.
Every time the devs gave us some way to survive, or do damage.. or even be remotely equal,.. the other players started screaming and crying about we are too tanky or do too much damage for our class or.. whatever.
The reality of it is that Engineers are in fact too tanky to realistically get direct offensive improvements. They have been painted into a corner.
Let's be clear really quickly, Tacs have at the moment only 1 really properly functioning and readily usable captain power - it just happens to be excellent in design and uptime.
Attack Pattern Alpha. Does exactly what it needs to do.
90s cooldown.
Fire on My Mark is cleared by one of the most ubiquitous BOFF powers in all of PvP: Tac Team. You should never, ever, get more than 5 to 10s maximum benefit out of this skill.
120s cooldown.
Tactical Initiative is so useless, I don't even keep it on my hotbar.
180s cooldown.
GDF is no longer under player control - and therefore has no real place in proper team coordination (because it's random), and can be SNBd off if needed.
240s cooldown.
Tac Fleet. Works, but doesn't give the listed amount, extreme cooldown.
300s cooldown.
I think a lot of your other points are good ones, things that have marginalized their "roles" as healers.
But what I have been saying in this thread is that the design of Engineers is not "healers", they aren't really even a support class.
Their suite of captain powers are the most self-focused out of all captain powers (and, yes you did suggest to change some of these).
I wouldn't actually have a problem if things like MW, RSF became usable on others - but I don't think that's how cryptic envisions the class.
Sci is actually the support class, they are the class with the most support tools, the most force multipliers, the most group friendly career.
Out of 5 career powers, all 5 of them are designed to in some way support the entire team through either buffs, debuffs or spamming phony targets.
So my question is, to you or anyone else, when you decided on Engineer did you decide on it because you wanted to be a tank or did you want to play a support role?
I picked an eng to fly a heal/cruiser. Back when player class determined ship class, before there was a nebula (which was rumored to be another cruiser and then released as *surprise* sci ship).
NO escort would survive (much less bops) anything without external hull heals. No borg set, no maco, no random heal procs, oh no energy procs either, so my selfish esp was actually quite liked to help escort make good use of its apa. Even without class restrictions, weapons energy drain mechanics, meant that beam boats and selfish eng skills had some sort of synergy....
I would very much like to continue to fly that character, i invested heavily in it. I love my first toons (offensive sci) but i enjoyed the healer and support role of a cruise, that was back then.
Now i accumulated countless hours/gears,shinies/xp on the eng toon. So i want to fly eng because of that. It is just thrilling to see people excluding engs from NWS runs, and premades refusing to play tournies with a 1 of each class requirement.
So my question is, to you or anyone else, when you decided on Engineer did you decide on it because you wanted to be a tank or did you want to play a support role?
I like it because I can shift from offense to defense postures dynamically and am not locked into a single role. Tacs are fun but they can die very quickly without team support. Sci can be fun but is typically limited to a predefined role by the skill point budget. Engi is the most flexible class, they can play aggressively or defensively, can chase down a tac and beat him in a fight, can throw team heals while keeping RSF and MW in reserve for himself, etc.
In a prearranged fight with structured teams, Tac and Sci are able to specialize and rely on teammates to fill their weaknesses, and engi has no place there, but thats not the only kind of gameplay.
I like it because I can shift from offense to defense postures dynamically and am not locked into a single role. Tacs are fun but they can die very quickly without team support. Sci can be fun but is typically limited to a predefined role by the skill point budget. Engi is the most flexible class, they can play aggressively or defensively, can chase down a tac and beat him in a fight, can throw team heals while keeping RSF and MW in reserve for himself, etc.
In a prearranged fight with structured teams, Tac and Sci are able to specialize and rely on teammates to fill their weaknesses, and engi has no place there, but thats not the only kind of gameplay.
The way I judge the classes is by throwing them into 'off ships'.
What happens when you put a Sci in an Escort? One very deadly Escort, thanks to Scan and SNB. What about putting a Tac in a Sci ship? GW/TBR/PSW will eat people.
But what about an Eng? It doesn't really bring anything to any ship class. Sure it'll help an Escort survive a bit longer but it's lacking any sort of helpful offensive punch. But an Eng in a Sci ship and it's already low damage (depending on build, though) will be even lower than if a Sci or Tac were in it.
The way I judge the classes is by throwing them into 'off ships'.
What happens when you put a Sci in an Escort? One very deadly Escort, thanks to Scan and SNB. What about putting a Tac in a Sci ship? GW/TBR/PSW will eat people.
But what about an Eng? It doesn't really bring anything to any ship class. Sure it'll help an Escort survive a bit longer but it's lacking any sort of helpful offensive punch. But an Eng in a Sci ship and it's already low damage (depending on build, though) will be even lower than if a Sci or Tac were in it.
this is exactly why i keep saying eng needs a subsystem energy cap of 140 (150 with the right cores). they would have actual use in a sci ship due to having the highest possible aux levels, and instead of tac buffs they would have a bit higher energy level damage modifier that would more then anything support pressure damage dealing. it would also cause its EPS skill not to actually help fill its energy levels, its to easy to run mulltiple subsystems maxed as it is. nadion would be more useful because it would be keeping energy levels higher then they would on any other ship type.
to me, this is what i think of when i think of what an eng captain should bring to the table. wonder fixes, and running a ship thats customized to run hotter energy levels then the other captain types, wile having no real magic force multipliers per say, just more ingenuity then anyone else. they would have the fastest ships too, seems appropriate.
this is exactly why i keep saying eng needs a subsystem energy cap of 140 (150 with the right cores).
What if they made EPS power transfer let one cap at 140. That could be good for engs because they could obviously use it on themselves but also could be cast on another team mate. That could make them more of a team player than they are now.
Just an idea.
But yeah..engs should have the best running ships..they dont have to be OP but something more than just +10 power ( which is nice). Even getting +5 to level caps would be helpful
this is exactly why i keep saying eng needs a subsystem energy cap of 140 (150 with the right cores). they would have actual use in a sci ship due to having the highest possible aux levels, and instead of tac buffs they would have a bit higher energy level damage modifier that would more then anything support pressure damage dealing.
There are still a few issues with this idea.
1) Sci is really the support class. Eng really is not designed as a healer, at all. I think there is space to push Eng to be more of a support class but I'm not convinced giving them permanently stronger healing is the way to do it.
If anything, a limited use ability on a 90s or 120s cooldown that added +50% to heals for 30s would be better - I don't think anyone would be too upset if this functionality was simply rolled right into EPS or RSF. It wouldn't bother me at least.
2) 150 Weapon power means APA on all of the time (+50% flat damage boost above 125 weapons power). So unless it only counts for Beam Arrays and no other weapon, 150 weapon cap with damage bonuses would see Eng being the single best damage dealer for both spike and pressure, while also being the the hardest to kill of all classes.
It doesn't require EPS, it doesn't require cores. We can run 150 Weapons power now for Beam overcapping, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) add +2% damage per power point.
That's just way too much raw damage, on top of this - unlike a Tac who's APA is susceptible to SNB - you now have a damage dealer who has the same damage output with 100% uptime and nothing can SNB that off.
Engineers could move right into Escorts, and provide better damage and be more survivable at the same time. That would be bad for everyone imo.
At the very least they can't have both of those things, because that would be a nightmare of a balance issue.
Engineers need some balance passes, but turning the game into Engineers online isn't where they need to go imo.
2) 150 Weapon power means APA on all of the time (+50% flat damage boost above 125 weapons power). So unless it only counts for Beam Arrays and no other weapon, 150 weapon cap with damage bonuses would see Eng being the single best damage dealer for both spike and pressure, while also being the the hardest to kill of all classes.
It doesn't require EPS, it doesn't require cores. We can run 150 Weapons power now for Beam overcapping, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) add +2% damage per power point.
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But what about making it require EPS? 150 does seem like a lot, but what if EPS lets you cap at 120? engineers need more team skills and buffing EPS would help.
1) Sci is really the support class. Eng really is not designed as a healer, at all. I think there is space to push Eng to be more of a support class but I'm not convinced giving them permanently stronger healing is the way to do it.
If anything, a limited use ability on a 90s or 120s cooldown that added +50% to heals for 30s would be better - I don't think anyone would be too upset if this functionality was simply rolled right into EPS or RSF. It wouldn't bother me at least.
in situations were multiple healers can make everyone invincible as it is, and theres about 50% overhearing already, big deal honestly. the cost of running a ship with aux heals this hot is 1 less set of sci captain force multipliers, and your proboly going to need EPtA2, if not 3 to get 150 aux anyway. theres not room for that on a heal boat. there would not be enough energy to go around to keep several subsystems at 140/150 anyway, a 150 aux healer is not going to have 150 shields and or 140 weapons power up all the time too.
2) 150 Weapon power means APA on all of the time (+50% flat damage boost above 125 weapons power). So unless it only counts for Beam Arrays and no other weapon, 150 weapon cap with damage bonuses would see Eng being the single best damage dealer for both spike and pressure, while also being the the hardest to kill of all classes.
It doesn't require EPS, it doesn't require cores. We can run 150 Weapons power now for Beam overcapping, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) add +2% damage per power point.
That's just way too much raw damage, on top of this - unlike a Tac who's APA is susceptible to SNB - you now have a damage dealer who has the same damage output with 100% uptime and nothing can SNB that off.
Engineers could move right into Escorts, and provide better damage and be more survivable at the same time. That would be bad for everyone imo.
At the very least they can't have both of those things, because that would be a nightmare of a balance issue.
Engineers need some balance passes, but turning the game into Engineers online isn't where they need to go imo.
overcaping does not increase the effect cap of 125 as it is, it just lets more shots fire at or near the cap. 125 is the current effect cap for weapons power, and no core increases that to 130, so for an eng 140 would be the max weapons power. every point of energy over 50 adds 2% more damage, so going from 125 to 140 will give your best shots a 30% dps increase. total, thats all an eng can get, 30% more then average, a tac can stack quite a bit more then that, its still that spike that is needed to actually kill anyone. its also just for energy damage too. pouring on raw flat DPS is still pissing into the wind the majority of the time.
having an effect cap at 140, and bending over backward to over cap from 140 to overcap to the same extent you can over cap from 125 now is not terribly possible without EPS transfer. you would need to overcap that much so as many shots as possible are shot at or near 140 so you actually can use that potential 30% extra damage. as a result, this is not even remotely close to an APA 50% damage buff on all the time, especially in an escort. the end result will be shots fired from power levels of 140 to about 110, as apposed to 125 to 95 like they are now on most ships. this is a fairly modest increase, and requires running something like EPtW3 to fully exploit, at the expense of EPtS3, and any other importent or at least less selfish LTC eng powers.
ive done a lot of thinking about this, its not nearly as powerful as you would think it is, and everything about it has opportunity costs. you still couldn't set an energy level at more then 100, so unless you run EPtX3 in your chosen subsystem, reaching 140/150 is not going to be all that easy without EPS transfer. if an eng uses a 2 AtB build to keep energy levels as bloated as possible, hes not doing 150 aux heals at the same time.
grace under fire from LoR is an issue though. buffing an eng's self healing even more, exactly what the class DID NOT need. that trait and the effect cap are a bit much. i say trash it, and make a trait for each subsystem getting its effect cap raised to 140, maybe restricted it so you can only choose 1 subsystem trait.
I like the power idea for Engineers, but it should focus on Engine power, not AUX or Weapons power, and no class should have an advantage in shield power. Weapons power is more commonly associated with Tac, Aux with Sci.
If Engineers had a 150 cap for Engine power I am pretty sure that defense bonus would appeal to folks who like to fly very fast, and there is something to be said for extremely high speed, even with all the crowd control that seems to get added every season.
While I feel for players who have a class that appeals to them, I really don't see people blaming "engineer players" specifically.
I see the anger focused at them in posts. What we are supposed to do, what we are not supposed to do. How much we suck..etc. Sorry, but it is not our fault
Out of curiosity, what is it about the Engineer that makes you want to play it?
It is first and foremost a tank in design, it is designed to soak damage.
I just want to be clear if this is what appeals to you about the class.
I always end up playing classes that are tankier... think.. WoW retribution paladin. That was the original intent. Does less damage than an escort.. but has more defense. But not completely focused on tanking. This is done through console layouts, of course. But since escorts can tank 5 cruisers and pretty much make a sandwich while killing them at the same time.. I would say it is pointless now.
Tanking is only worth playing if you are the only tank. Right now, our escort population is the equivalent of a mage wearing full plate armor, carrying a shield and a lance, while at the same time casting fireball and chain lightning. There I am... with my sword and shield...and feeling completely useless. And you know that this is true.
The reality of it is that Engineers are in fact too tanky to realistically get direct offensive improvements. They have been painted into a corner.
Let's be clear really quickly, Tacs have at the moment only 1 really properly functioning and readily usable captain power - it just happens to be excellent in design and uptime.
The corner we have been painted into is because of a lack of imagination and a lack of the community feeling we should have any other role than pure tank. We all know tanking is pointless in pvp and pve. It is so bad you have to spend points into it or buy a console to get agro. So put that thought aside and look at what I suggested. Team buffs, bleedthrough. Let's change focus. Because right now, what we have is not working.
Furthermore we are not too tanky. It is the tanks role to take more damage while doing continual support damage. Something that is pointless now, because of how fast the other classes can heal themselves.
It is the other classes that have become too tanky. There is no downside to playing them now.
Attack Pattern Alpha. Does exactly what it needs to do.
90s cooldown.
Fire on My Mark is cleared by one of the most ubiquitous BOFF powers in all of PvP: Tac Team. You should never, ever, get more than 5 to 10s maximum benefit out of this skill.
120s cooldown.
Tactical Initiative is so useless, I don't even keep it on my hotbar.
180s cooldown.
GDF is no longer under player control - and therefore has no real place in proper team coordination (because it's random), and can be SNBd off if needed.
240s cooldown.
Tac Fleet. Works, but doesn't give the listed amount, extreme cooldown.
300s cooldown.
And yet no PvP team would take all the engineer powers for that 1 good one the tac has. It is really that bad.
This says even more about how broken things are, don't you think?
Sci is actually the support class, they are the class with the most support tools, the most force multipliers, the most group friendly career.
Out of 5 career powers, all 5 of them are designed to in some way support the entire team through either buffs, debuffs or spamming phony targets.
I have been saying this since launch. I applaud you for stating it. Every time I posted this I was pretty much flamed to hell. Yes, sci/sci has more potential to heal and support than eng/crui ever have had. Their heals and protections are frankly amazing. But, players would rather TRIBBLE black holes and forget they can do that role. And since everybody can tank and self heal now.. well .. the tiny role they thought they could shoehorn the engineer/cruiser into is gone.
So my question is, to you or anyone else, when you decided on Engineer did you decide on it because you wanted to be a tank or did you want to play a support role?
Well, I would once again say more along the lines of a retribution paladin. They are not as tanky and not as healy as a standard paladin, but they do more damage. That was the intent. For the most part, I have pulled it off very well. But it is the mechanics of the other classes that have gotten so out of whack that they don't have their roles any more. They do it all or pretty much 90% of what the other classes were supposed to do. While the cruiser/engineer does it worse than any of them. What good is tanking if you can't even turn your ship fast enough to use more than 1 shield arc? What good is doing damage, if it comes slower then their ability to spam TSS?
I read how it takes so much skill to fly an escort. Well, for the record I have several fleet escorts and take them out from time to time. THAT is easy mode. I just kill everything in PvE in seconds and in PvP I can get in and out of almost any situation or change shield arcs in a fraction of the time it takes with my cruiser. I even survive longer on average in many situations that would melt my cruiser. I feel way tankier in an escort because of this.
This is not what I should be experiencing.
Eleven of Twenty-Nine. Thousands of pvp matches done...hundreds of tournaments ran..and still seeing the same problems grow even larger than ever for us engineers.
1) Sci is really the support class. Eng really is not designed as a healer, at all. I think there is space to push Eng to be more of a support class but I'm not convinced giving them permanently stronger healing is the way to do it.
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I typically agree with most your posts, but I don't agree with this at all that Sci was intended to heal. None of their captain powers are heals. The closest they have is scattering field that is more a resist than a heal. The sci boffs have interesting heals, but Engineer Captains are the healers in how they are set up in the game.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Eng support powers are by and large impotent, thinking DEM, acetone, EWP, etc.
Perhaps if Science had the DEM and acetone beam and swapped out Haz Emit and TSS then it would be more pure for sci and eng roles.
I just don't see science as healers in practice with the powers given and their actual in game effect. If you give the heal role to science then what are you going to do with all that exotic damage stuff, give it to engineers? I see hull and shield heals as more organic to an engineer than viral matrix, shock wave, tractors, or gravity well.
One thing to do is increase the cruiser tank and in situational pvp like cap and hold the cruiser has more weight in capping points it could work. That way if 1 cruiser were on a point versus an escort that cruiser can cap the point and the escort is going to need help. WIth damage the way it is I feel cruisers could get a +0.03-5 shield mod and a +10k hull and make them more desirable in standard pvp just to make up for their lack of anything useful in non-situational pvp (5v5 matches).
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
In the discussion of various things like that, need to keep Ships and Careers separated, imho. An Eng is not a Cruiser, etc, etc, etc.
There are going to be the "roles" that the Careers can do, the flavor they add to any build - and then there are going to be the "roles" a Ship can do - dependent upon all the itemization involved (including the Career choice).
In my very humble opinion (oh, I typed it out), the Careers should be broken down as the following in Space:
Tac - Damage/Offensive Support
Sci - Offensive Support/Defensive Support
Eng - Defensive Support/Offensive Support
Again, that's just the Career choice - not the Ship choice.
So, a Tac in any Ship will bring more Damage to that ship as well as bring Offensive Support for the Team. The Sci in any Ship will bring that mix of Offensive and Defensive Support for the Team. The Eng in any Ship will bring that mix of Defensive and Offensive Support for the Team.
Basically...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Debuffer/Buffer
Eng - Buffer/Debuffer
BUT...what we've basically got is...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Support
Eng - Tank
Tank??? That's /facepalm even in PvE for it being a Career role/aspect. On a Ship? Sure, Cruisers/Carriers could be built out as a Tank...but that should come from Ship selection, not Career selection, imvho.
In the discussion of various things like that, need to keep Ships and Careers separated, imho. An Eng is not a Cruiser, etc, etc, etc.
There are going to be the "roles" that the Careers can do, the flavor they add to any build - and then there are going to be the "roles" a Ship can do - dependent upon all the itemization involved (including the Career choice).
In my very humble opinion (oh, I typed it out), the Careers should be broken down as the following in Space:
Tac - Damage/Offensive Support
Sci - Offensive Support/Defensive Support
Eng - Defensive Support/Offensive Support
Again, that's just the Career choice - not the Ship choice.
So, a Tac in any Ship will bring more Damage to that ship as well as bring Offensive Support for the Team. The Sci in any Ship will bring that mix of Offensive and Defensive Support for the Team. The Eng in any Ship will bring that mix of Defensive and Offensive Support for the Team.
Basically...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Debuffer/Buffer
Eng - Buffer/Debuffer
BUT...what we've basically got is...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Support
Eng - Tank
Tank??? That's /facepalm even in PvE for it being a Career role/aspect. On a Ship? Sure, Cruisers/Carriers could be built out as a Tank...but that should come from Ship selection, not Career selection, imvho.
As far as space goes, i am not sure you can split the ship and the captain. the way teh system is set up there are not just tac, eng, sci or cruiser, escort, sci.
Its probably in this that the game struggles in balance and what not, perhaps if captains only had ground traits and the ships themselves and the boffs are responsible for all space capabilities it might be easier to tweak.
PvE Jem'Hadar motto:Participation Ribbonsare life.
Not forcing, but there are some sets that reward you to take on certain groupings for a synergy.
Also it doesnt ahve to be limited to only those, but give different bonuses for all combinations of ship types and captains.
There are already synergies there - they're out of balance, imho - but they're there.
Just looking at Tac, Eng, Escort, Cruiser.
Tac/Escort combine for the most single target damage. But they have too much survivability.
Eng/Cruiser combine for the most survivability. But they have too much damage. (Yes, I'm going to say that.)
Tac/Cruiser...Tac brings damage to the Cruiser and the Cruiser brings survivability to the Tac.
Eng/Escort...Eng brings survivability to the Escort and the Escort brings damage to the Eng.
But again, it's not balanced.
Because in the end, well - balance isn't as important as fun...fun in this case being over there on the PvE side. Balance will be sacrificed to provide a fun gaming experience for the majority.
The Tac/Escort will have more survivability than it should for the damage it can do. The Eng/Cruiser will have more damage than it should for the damage it can take. Etc, etc, etc...
Where the Eng fails in regard to "synergy" - is the lack of synergy with a team (for the most part). What does it bring to the team that makes the team better than if they had taken a Sci or Tac instead? You can see a lot of Eng complaining that they want this or that so they feel balanced with Sci and Tac, but when you see a lot of folks talking about why they don't want the Eng...it's about the team synergy. Looking at various bonuses for synergy between a Career and a Ship...won't fix that.
Comments
I am starting to think all these threads are complaining that the assumed role does not exist, not that engies do not have a function.
There was a time where FaW balls of Eng Cruisers mixed w/Sci ships ruled the roost. It was to the point that many Tac Escort pilots were complaining much the was Eng pilots are now (in that case there was no need for Tac DPS, since Eng FaW team w/some Sci Debuffs were more than enough), and people would complain in Zone if they happened to get a PuG Escort pilot on their side.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
I'm sure I'll make a few enemies with this, but thank god those days are dead.
Watching PvP videos of that is like watching snails copulate.
As someone who enjoyed dog fighting in Sci B'rel I agree. Though the T'varo isn't a too bad a substitute.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Aside to make the kill count, also every enemy needs to be killed at least 1 time.
This will make it interesting for a team to have a tank, and protect it. Although behind in kill counts they can still win, if they keep the tank alive and slowly kill the other team. That would give fun new tactics, because that would also mean that a tacscort can be really min-maxed on damage, and take more risk in being killed, since that has less consequences as long as someone on the team survives.
(And this will not happen because I already see how klingon teams would profit the most out of this.)
@rudiefix Feds: Rudiefix / Thron / Opa
@rudiefix KDFs: Lill / Xifeidur / Dehr / Ugly
@rudiefix Roms (KDF alligned): Chicita
I find it odd how much blame and anger is pointed at the engineer player. I have been playing engineer/cruiser since closed beta. We have pretty much always gotten the short end of the stick but I deal..and will not just roll a tac or a sci to follow the crowd. This is what I wanted to play.. this is what I will play.
Every time the devs gave us some way to survive, or do damage.. or even be remotely equal,.. the other players started screaming and crying about we are too tanky or do too much damage for our class or.. whatever. Apparently everybody thinks our role is to pad their score. So don't take it out on us.
So now we are nerfed straight to hell....and it is our fault :rolleyes:
Even performing like this ( Photobucket PvP screen capture image ), I am not wanted by my fleet for premade pvp.. a fleet I have been in for about 3 years,.. to join in premade pvp, because they would have to give up a sci or a tac. How is that fair to me? But I understand. But it is a raw fact of how badly we have been shafted over the past 3 years.
Making many of the powers that engineer uses effect the group would make the engineer very viable for many things.
How about our EPS power boost effecting a large sphere for our teammates to take advantage of. How about miracle worker being used on others as well. How about Nadion inversion acting like Dem 3 as well and it would stack with normal Dem. This would not be much different than a tac stacking Alpha and Beta. The attack type would be different, .. bleedthrough instead of burst... a different mechanic for attack focus.
But instead of trying to find a way to make the class more useful in PvP and PvE, all I keep seeing is how it must be our fault we rolled that class.
Maybe if the community had not been so horrible and whined about every advantage engineers ever had tried to have been given... maybe we would still be viable.
Furthermore, if you want to bring some role differences back quickly, then make Transfer Shield Strength how it used to be. Target other only. It makes no sense that you transfer shields from yourself...to yourself.. to increase your own shields. That is one giant facepalm for mankind.
This change would effect the escort tankiness level dramatically. Then you would see them played how they used to be played. Hit hard and fade fast. Now they just tank and tank and tank while beating on you. Yes, it can be argued that Tac Team is a need-to-have power..and it certainly is these days. But the duration of the rebalance can be reduced to shore it up a bit more.
Also hull and shield heals should be percentage based. This would flat out recognize the differences between ships by making shield and hull heals more or less effective depending on the ship type,.. a move that is completely independent of the captain type.
At this point, it is clear to me that if they are not going to bring the engineer up,.. then certain powers (not necessarily captain powers) have to be reverted or modified. Otherwise, they might as well just remove the engineer from class choices on character creation and get it over with.
But make no mistake.....
The state of the engineer is not the engineer's fault.
Eleven of Twenty-Nine
Long time no see
A couple months ago, I brought my Engineer into a premade and it was considered a liability. So much so that at the end of the match it said "Wow, we won that even with an Engineer."
Why?
Because an APA or Sensor Scan/SNB is far more valuable than a MW or RSF.
While I feel for players who have a class that appeals to them, I really don't see people blaming "engineer players" specifically.
Out of curiosity, what is it about the Engineer that makes you want to play it?
It is first and foremost a tank in design, it is designed to soak damage.
I just want to be clear if this is what appeals to you about the class.
The reality of it is that Engineers are in fact too tanky to realistically get direct offensive improvements. They have been painted into a corner.
Let's be clear really quickly, Tacs have at the moment only 1 really properly functioning and readily usable captain power - it just happens to be excellent in design and uptime.
Attack Pattern Alpha. Does exactly what it needs to do.
90s cooldown.
Fire on My Mark is cleared by one of the most ubiquitous BOFF powers in all of PvP: Tac Team. You should never, ever, get more than 5 to 10s maximum benefit out of this skill.
120s cooldown.
Tactical Initiative is so useless, I don't even keep it on my hotbar.
180s cooldown.
GDF is no longer under player control - and therefore has no real place in proper team coordination (because it's random), and can be SNBd off if needed.
240s cooldown.
Tac Fleet. Works, but doesn't give the listed amount, extreme cooldown.
300s cooldown.
I think a lot of your other points are good ones, things that have marginalized their "roles" as healers.
But what I have been saying in this thread is that the design of Engineers is not "healers", they aren't really even a support class.
Their suite of captain powers are the most self-focused out of all captain powers (and, yes you did suggest to change some of these).
I wouldn't actually have a problem if things like MW, RSF became usable on others - but I don't think that's how cryptic envisions the class.
Sci is actually the support class, they are the class with the most support tools, the most force multipliers, the most group friendly career.
Out of 5 career powers, all 5 of them are designed to in some way support the entire team through either buffs, debuffs or spamming phony targets.
So my question is, to you or anyone else, when you decided on Engineer did you decide on it because you wanted to be a tank or did you want to play a support role?
NO escort would survive (much less bops) anything without external hull heals. No borg set, no maco, no random heal procs, oh no energy procs either, so my selfish esp was actually quite liked to help escort make good use of its apa. Even without class restrictions, weapons energy drain mechanics, meant that beam boats and selfish eng skills had some sort of synergy....
I would very much like to continue to fly that character, i invested heavily in it. I love my first toons (offensive sci) but i enjoyed the healer and support role of a cruise, that was back then.
Now i accumulated countless hours/gears,shinies/xp on the eng toon. So i want to fly eng because of that. It is just thrilling to see people excluding engs from NWS runs, and premades refusing to play tournies with a 1 of each class requirement.
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I like it because I can shift from offense to defense postures dynamically and am not locked into a single role. Tacs are fun but they can die very quickly without team support. Sci can be fun but is typically limited to a predefined role by the skill point budget. Engi is the most flexible class, they can play aggressively or defensively, can chase down a tac and beat him in a fight, can throw team heals while keeping RSF and MW in reserve for himself, etc.
In a prearranged fight with structured teams, Tac and Sci are able to specialize and rely on teammates to fill their weaknesses, and engi has no place there, but thats not the only kind of gameplay.
The way I judge the classes is by throwing them into 'off ships'.
What happens when you put a Sci in an Escort? One very deadly Escort, thanks to Scan and SNB. What about putting a Tac in a Sci ship? GW/TBR/PSW will eat people.
But what about an Eng? It doesn't really bring anything to any ship class. Sure it'll help an Escort survive a bit longer but it's lacking any sort of helpful offensive punch. But an Eng in a Sci ship and it's already low damage (depending on build, though) will be even lower than if a Sci or Tac were in it.
this is exactly why i keep saying eng needs a subsystem energy cap of 140 (150 with the right cores). they would have actual use in a sci ship due to having the highest possible aux levels, and instead of tac buffs they would have a bit higher energy level damage modifier that would more then anything support pressure damage dealing. it would also cause its EPS skill not to actually help fill its energy levels, its to easy to run mulltiple subsystems maxed as it is. nadion would be more useful because it would be keeping energy levels higher then they would on any other ship type.
to me, this is what i think of when i think of what an eng captain should bring to the table. wonder fixes, and running a ship thats customized to run hotter energy levels then the other captain types, wile having no real magic force multipliers per say, just more ingenuity then anyone else. they would have the fastest ships too, seems appropriate.
What if they made EPS power transfer let one cap at 140. That could be good for engs because they could obviously use it on themselves but also could be cast on another team mate. That could make them more of a team player than they are now.
Just an idea.
But yeah..engs should have the best running ships..they dont have to be OP but something more than just +10 power ( which is nice). Even getting +5 to level caps would be helpful
There are still a few issues with this idea.
1) Sci is really the support class. Eng really is not designed as a healer, at all. I think there is space to push Eng to be more of a support class but I'm not convinced giving them permanently stronger healing is the way to do it.
If anything, a limited use ability on a 90s or 120s cooldown that added +50% to heals for 30s would be better - I don't think anyone would be too upset if this functionality was simply rolled right into EPS or RSF. It wouldn't bother me at least.
2) 150 Weapon power means APA on all of the time (+50% flat damage boost above 125 weapons power). So unless it only counts for Beam Arrays and no other weapon, 150 weapon cap with damage bonuses would see Eng being the single best damage dealer for both spike and pressure, while also being the the hardest to kill of all classes.
It doesn't require EPS, it doesn't require cores. We can run 150 Weapons power now for Beam overcapping, it just doesn't (and shouldn't) add +2% damage per power point.
That's just way too much raw damage, on top of this - unlike a Tac who's APA is susceptible to SNB - you now have a damage dealer who has the same damage output with 100% uptime and nothing can SNB that off.
Engineers could move right into Escorts, and provide better damage and be more survivable at the same time. That would be bad for everyone imo.
At the very least they can't have both of those things, because that would be a nightmare of a balance issue.
Engineers need some balance passes, but turning the game into Engineers online isn't where they need to go imo.
But what about making it require EPS? 150 does seem like a lot, but what if EPS lets you cap at 120? engineers need more team skills and buffing EPS would help.
It's terrible but easy, and these Borg are way cooler than the mess STO and Voyager left us.
AWWWW! Izms so cute when you do that!
in situations were multiple healers can make everyone invincible as it is, and theres about 50% overhearing already, big deal honestly. the cost of running a ship with aux heals this hot is 1 less set of sci captain force multipliers, and your proboly going to need EPtA2, if not 3 to get 150 aux anyway. theres not room for that on a heal boat. there would not be enough energy to go around to keep several subsystems at 140/150 anyway, a 150 aux healer is not going to have 150 shields and or 140 weapons power up all the time too.
overcaping does not increase the effect cap of 125 as it is, it just lets more shots fire at or near the cap. 125 is the current effect cap for weapons power, and no core increases that to 130, so for an eng 140 would be the max weapons power. every point of energy over 50 adds 2% more damage, so going from 125 to 140 will give your best shots a 30% dps increase. total, thats all an eng can get, 30% more then average, a tac can stack quite a bit more then that, its still that spike that is needed to actually kill anyone. its also just for energy damage too. pouring on raw flat DPS is still pissing into the wind the majority of the time.
having an effect cap at 140, and bending over backward to over cap from 140 to overcap to the same extent you can over cap from 125 now is not terribly possible without EPS transfer. you would need to overcap that much so as many shots as possible are shot at or near 140 so you actually can use that potential 30% extra damage. as a result, this is not even remotely close to an APA 50% damage buff on all the time, especially in an escort. the end result will be shots fired from power levels of 140 to about 110, as apposed to 125 to 95 like they are now on most ships. this is a fairly modest increase, and requires running something like EPtW3 to fully exploit, at the expense of EPtS3, and any other importent or at least less selfish LTC eng powers.
ive done a lot of thinking about this, its not nearly as powerful as you would think it is, and everything about it has opportunity costs. you still couldn't set an energy level at more then 100, so unless you run EPtX3 in your chosen subsystem, reaching 140/150 is not going to be all that easy without EPS transfer. if an eng uses a 2 AtB build to keep energy levels as bloated as possible, hes not doing 150 aux heals at the same time.
grace under fire from LoR is an issue though. buffing an eng's self healing even more, exactly what the class DID NOT need. that trait and the effect cap are a bit much. i say trash it, and make a trait for each subsystem getting its effect cap raised to 140, maybe restricted it so you can only choose 1 subsystem trait.
If Engineers had a 150 cap for Engine power I am pretty sure that defense bonus would appeal to folks who like to fly very fast, and there is something to be said for extremely high speed, even with all the crowd control that seems to get added every season.
Rules of Acquisition at Priority One
I see the anger focused at them in posts. What we are supposed to do, what we are not supposed to do. How much we suck..etc. Sorry, but it is not our fault
I always end up playing classes that are tankier... think.. WoW retribution paladin. That was the original intent. Does less damage than an escort.. but has more defense. But not completely focused on tanking. This is done through console layouts, of course. But since escorts can tank 5 cruisers and pretty much make a sandwich while killing them at the same time.. I would say it is pointless now.
Tanking is only worth playing if you are the only tank. Right now, our escort population is the equivalent of a mage wearing full plate armor, carrying a shield and a lance, while at the same time casting fireball and chain lightning. There I am... with my sword and shield...and feeling completely useless. And you know that this is true.
The corner we have been painted into is because of a lack of imagination and a lack of the community feeling we should have any other role than pure tank. We all know tanking is pointless in pvp and pve. It is so bad you have to spend points into it or buy a console to get agro. So put that thought aside and look at what I suggested. Team buffs, bleedthrough. Let's change focus. Because right now, what we have is not working.
Furthermore we are not too tanky. It is the tanks role to take more damage while doing continual support damage. Something that is pointless now, because of how fast the other classes can heal themselves.
It is the other classes that have become too tanky. There is no downside to playing them now.
And yet no PvP team would take all the engineer powers for that 1 good one the tac has. It is really that bad.
This says even more about how broken things are, don't you think?
I have been saying this since launch. I applaud you for stating it. Every time I posted this I was pretty much flamed to hell. Yes, sci/sci has more potential to heal and support than eng/crui ever have had. Their heals and protections are frankly amazing. But, players would rather TRIBBLE black holes and forget they can do that role. And since everybody can tank and self heal now.. well .. the tiny role they thought they could shoehorn the engineer/cruiser into is gone.
Well, I would once again say more along the lines of a retribution paladin. They are not as tanky and not as healy as a standard paladin, but they do more damage. That was the intent. For the most part, I have pulled it off very well. But it is the mechanics of the other classes that have gotten so out of whack that they don't have their roles any more. They do it all or pretty much 90% of what the other classes were supposed to do. While the cruiser/engineer does it worse than any of them. What good is tanking if you can't even turn your ship fast enough to use more than 1 shield arc? What good is doing damage, if it comes slower then their ability to spam TSS?
I read how it takes so much skill to fly an escort. Well, for the record I have several fleet escorts and take them out from time to time. THAT is easy mode. I just kill everything in PvE in seconds and in PvP I can get in and out of almost any situation or change shield arcs in a fraction of the time it takes with my cruiser. I even survive longer on average in many situations that would melt my cruiser. I feel way tankier in an escort because of this.
This is not what I should be experiencing.
:P
I know I'm not right with my Eng/Beam Chel Grett and Eng/Beam JHEC w/Tholian pets.
I typically agree with most your posts, but I don't agree with this at all that Sci was intended to heal. None of their captain powers are heals. The closest they have is scattering field that is more a resist than a heal. The sci boffs have interesting heals, but Engineer Captains are the healers in how they are set up in the game.
Perhaps this is due to the fact that the Eng support powers are by and large impotent, thinking DEM, acetone, EWP, etc.
Perhaps if Science had the DEM and acetone beam and swapped out Haz Emit and TSS then it would be more pure for sci and eng roles.
I just don't see science as healers in practice with the powers given and their actual in game effect. If you give the heal role to science then what are you going to do with all that exotic damage stuff, give it to engineers? I see hull and shield heals as more organic to an engineer than viral matrix, shock wave, tractors, or gravity well.
One thing to do is increase the cruiser tank and in situational pvp like cap and hold the cruiser has more weight in capping points it could work. That way if 1 cruiser were on a point versus an escort that cruiser can cap the point and the escort is going to need help. WIth damage the way it is I feel cruisers could get a +0.03-5 shield mod and a +10k hull and make them more desirable in standard pvp just to make up for their lack of anything useful in non-situational pvp (5v5 matches).
Cruiser + Eng gets bonus x
Tac + Escort gets bonus Y
Sci + Sci gets bonus 2(sci) << hee hee see what I did there?
That might help engineers from making tank pew pews and tacs from making tank beam pew pews.
In the discussion of various things like that, need to keep Ships and Careers separated, imho. An Eng is not a Cruiser, etc, etc, etc.
There are going to be the "roles" that the Careers can do, the flavor they add to any build - and then there are going to be the "roles" a Ship can do - dependent upon all the itemization involved (including the Career choice).
In my very humble opinion (oh, I typed it out), the Careers should be broken down as the following in Space:
Tac - Damage/Offensive Support
Sci - Offensive Support/Defensive Support
Eng - Defensive Support/Offensive Support
Again, that's just the Career choice - not the Ship choice.
So, a Tac in any Ship will bring more Damage to that ship as well as bring Offensive Support for the Team. The Sci in any Ship will bring that mix of Offensive and Defensive Support for the Team. The Eng in any Ship will bring that mix of Defensive and Offensive Support for the Team.
Basically...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Debuffer/Buffer
Eng - Buffer/Debuffer
BUT...what we've basically got is...
Tac - DPS
Sci - Support
Eng - Tank
Tank??? That's /facepalm even in PvE for it being a Career role/aspect. On a Ship? Sure, Cruisers/Carriers could be built out as a Tank...but that should come from Ship selection, not Career selection, imvho.
Why do you want to force my dudes into specific ships?
4 Eng - 1 Escort, 1 Escort Carrier, 1 Cruiser, 1 Battle Cruiser
3 Sci - 1 Sci (will be a Destroyer), 1 Raider (will be an Escort), 1 Warbird
2 Tac - 1 Escort/Cruiser (back and forth), 1 Raptor/Carrier (back and forth)
Not forcing, but there are some sets that reward you to take on certain groupings for a synergy.
Also it doesnt ahve to be limited to only those, but give different bonuses for all combinations of ship types and captains.
As far as space goes, i am not sure you can split the ship and the captain. the way teh system is set up there are not just tac, eng, sci or cruiser, escort, sci.
Its probably in this that the game struggles in balance and what not, perhaps if captains only had ground traits and the ships themselves and the boffs are responsible for all space capabilities it might be easier to tweak.
There are already synergies there - they're out of balance, imho - but they're there.
Just looking at Tac, Eng, Escort, Cruiser.
Tac/Escort combine for the most single target damage. But they have too much survivability.
Eng/Cruiser combine for the most survivability. But they have too much damage. (Yes, I'm going to say that.)
Tac/Cruiser...Tac brings damage to the Cruiser and the Cruiser brings survivability to the Tac.
Eng/Escort...Eng brings survivability to the Escort and the Escort brings damage to the Eng.
But again, it's not balanced.
Because in the end, well - balance isn't as important as fun...fun in this case being over there on the PvE side. Balance will be sacrificed to provide a fun gaming experience for the majority.
The Tac/Escort will have more survivability than it should for the damage it can do. The Eng/Cruiser will have more damage than it should for the damage it can take. Etc, etc, etc...
Where the Eng fails in regard to "synergy" - is the lack of synergy with a team (for the most part). What does it bring to the team that makes the team better than if they had taken a Sci or Tac instead? You can see a lot of Eng complaining that they want this or that so they feel balanced with Sci and Tac, but when you see a lot of folks talking about why they don't want the Eng...it's about the team synergy. Looking at various bonuses for synergy between a Career and a Ship...won't fix that.