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Elite fleet deflector + Maco 2 piece bonus = Good for sci captain?
mimey2
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
The elite fleet deflectors reduce cooldowns on all science abilities, both BOFF and captain, by 10%. The two piece bonus from the MACO set, the 'Magnetoplasma Relays' reduce all cooldowns by 5%, regardless of source.
Some questions:
1. Are both of these things working correctly? If not, in what way? Due to bugs, or due to a misinterpretation of what I am thinking that is incorrect?
2. Does anyone know if these two cooldown bonuses would stack with each other?
3. If they are working and stack with each other, would this be considered a good combination to use for a sci captain, especially one in a sci ship or sci-heavy carrier?
Some questions:
1. Are both of these things working correctly? If not, in what way? Due to bugs, or due to a misinterpretation of what I am thinking that is incorrect?
2. Does anyone know if these two cooldown bonuses would stack with each other?
3. If they are working and stack with each other, would this be considered a good combination to use for a sci captain, especially one in a sci ship or sci-heavy carrier?
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.pwlaughingtrendy wrote:I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
Post edited by mimey2 on
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As far as I know, the cooldowns do stack. In fact, if you're a sci you probably will want to run this combo as I believe it will reduce your Subnuke to match the timer of APA. Before elite fleet deflectors the cooldown on SNB was a little longer compared to APA, approx 30 seconds, due to the power's activation time. But with the combo listed above you could keep a Tac's alpha permanently nuked off. That's pretty nice in any case.
I think the lowered SNB timer is probably the best effect of this combo. Of course, it will lower the other sci powers. But if you're using it for PvP, you can effectively remove a lot DPS from the opposing team.
All levels of the MACO set.
awesome
I figured it is a good combination. I'm surprised I don't hear about it more to be honest. Elite shields are usually the prime choice of the 'elite fleet gear' for most pvpers.
Edit: Got ninja'd.
It's a decent combination, but people wanting to run Elite fleet shields are probably what keeps you from hearing about it more.
Remember, to run this combo you need the Elite Fleet Deflector, and therefore you need the MACO Shield and Engine.
The Engine is nothing special, and while MACO is still a good shield, Elite Fleet are stronger.
Which if anything goes back to an irk I have about elite shields for a quite awhile. I won't talk about it though. You are right though, people would rather use elite fleet shields.
if it stacked it would be nice to have HE and TSS more often
It is a common combination used by several pvp fleets. It has pros and cons, choose gear wisely depending on the strategy you wanna execute.
"+5% Power Recharge Speed" --- its a vague description yeah. Not the only vague or misinterpretable description in the game.
At the same time not every build is going to need Elite fleet shields, and MACO is stronger than people give it credit for if you run extremely high shield power.
Yeah, very vague.
It does actually reduce literally everything by 5%.
That includes weapon cycles, but from what I can tell through (admittedly limited) testing the impact on damage output is minimal.
those 2 time reduction bonuses and then toss it on a timeship with its tif ability....
major reductions on all powers way too often :P
side note- do they reduce captain power times?
Do you even Science Bro?
3.33% on cannons, 1% on beams, to be exact. That is a final increase though that stacks with everything aside from possibly FAW and CRF (not sure personally).
Yep, they sure do.
So MACO 2 piece + Elite Fleet Deflector = -15% CD to all Sci BOFF and Captain Powers.
Amen there. The warp cores with the +5 max shield power and all the shield power bonuses you can get are pretty awesome. Besides, sci ships and sci-heavy carriers can afford to not always have an elite shields, at least IMO.
They all do stack, but you will hit global CDs pretty quickly on your sci BOFF abilities even after just one A2B. Heck, just an elite Deflector by itself and one A2B will hit global for most sci BOFF abilities except for the long CD ones.
So it's really best to choose one or the other.
(I'm getting some of my info from the wiki, so my knowledge could be mistaken)
I haven't personally. But it could be quite effective.
Photonic Officer 3 + PSW 1, or PO 2, or only PO 3 by itself (using 3 Photonic CD DOFFs) + elite deflector + Maco two-piece = Basically an A2B build?
That'd give excellent CD reductions, and as an added bonus reduce the CDs on a sci captain's powers as well.
Purple Photonic Studies Scientist DOFFs reduce the CD of PO and PSW by 20% each. I'm not sure if that 20% is base, or current CD. In which case they could reduce CD up to 60%.
Let's see...
PO 3 reduces all BOFF CDs by 40% for it's duration. (though on the wiki says the numbers aren't right. Namely that the real reduction is 28.6%)
It has a 3 minute cooldown once specced. Using the MACO and deflector, that reduces the CD of PO 3 itself by 27 seconds.
The three PSS DOFFs could reduce the CD by another 60%, or 108 seconds. However the global CD for PO though is 2 minutes, so the DOFFs would make it hit that by this point.
Does Photonic Officer affect itself? I don't think it does.
Hmm...
So...looking at a Gravity well 1: 60 second CD
PO 3: 28.6%-40%: 17-24 seconds
MACO two-piece: 5%: 3 seconds
Elite Deflector: 10%: 6 seconds
So looking at that...is a total of 26 to 33 seconds, putting it to either just above, or right at the global cooldown on Gravity well.
I probably have some big errors in my math, but if used right, it could be quite effective and act as the 'sci-version of an A2B' build.
That's what I was thinking, sounds fun. Thanks for crunching the numbers and all. now if only there was a reasonable way to get photonic officer 3.
I think one of the old pre-order bonuses or something from long ago could let some older players get a BOFF with PO 3 on it without limit, aside from that, only thing I know is the Photonic Sci officer.
Note that I did not try the photonic officer so far.
Pros:
My CD timers on sci skills dropped by 5-9 sec depending on the ability.
Cons:
Lost some of the tankiness partly of not using the Maco Deflector and the elite fleet shield.
My personal opinion, I cannot give one. I cannot decide if it is worth it or not.
KDF Eng: Boreas I.K.S. Demonon Nemesis {Fleet: HoS}
Rom Sci: Crius I.R.W. Noctem Aeternus {Fleet: LoS}
Fed Tac: Kronos U.S.S. Xibalba, I.S.S. Theogonia{Fleet: HSF}
*sigh* Figures. I wonder how long that has been broken. Or is that meant to be doing it like that?
That would still shave 36 seconds off of PO 3. Plus the 9 seconds from the MACO two-piece, and another 18 seconds from the Elite Deflector.
So that's 63 seconds, or pretty much right at the global cooldown of Photonic Officer.
Meanwhile, all other BOFF abilities would be gaining 43.6%-55% CD reductions, depending on how fixed or broken PO 3 is. So for the most part, you would still be hitting, or nearly hitting the global cooldowns on most of your BOFF abilities. Only other really long CD abilities wouldn't get to that point.
Maybe not as efficient as an A2B build, but it could work still. Even with only one PSS DOFF, you could keep PO 3 at global, and leave room for other DOFFs.
It's been awhile, but I used to mess around w/photonic doffs and psw/pswtorp. They stacked then, but haven't used in awhile. The thing iirc is like most sci boff powers there is a high shared cooldown. The cooldowns overlap in such a way that using 2 abilities would often hinder the availability of the higher ranked Boff power.
You could get away w/a single aux2batt build and still hit the shared cooldown for many sci boff powers (or close enough anyway). I've done this in a B'rel.
I haven't tried the elite deflector & maco combo, mainly b/c the deflector isn't great for specializing.
If I ever get around to a t5 rommy sci ship, I'd probably try it. I just don't know if it fits my playstyle, though I may try it sooner on a tvaro if I grind the maco pieces.
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
It is not "broken" per say, rather it was fixed on purpose. A few months ago, some premades decided to abuse the PSW doff by chaining an endless PSW + PS Torp. The Dev stepped in, and made Photonic Shockwave Torp CD being detached from the PS Doff. Furthermore, the CD of Photonic Officer cannot be reduced less than 2 minutes no matter what.
Like I said, the PO cannot have CD that is below 2 minutes, there is a hard cap imposed by the Dev after some smart-a__ people started to abuse it. In my opinion, those people should be just banned and be done with it.
Your math is fuzzy. The way PO works is: CD time / (1+ reduction factor). For example, PO3 theoretically reduces the timer by 40%. But it is actually far from 40%. Say an ability has 60 sec. CD. You'd think it would be 0.40 X 60 = 24 sec reduction but it isn't. Instead, you take 60 sec., divide by 1.4 = 43 sec. Effectively, the reduction is about 28.5% -- not 40%. Meanwhile, the effective reduction of PO1 is 20%. No sense in getting PO3 really.
A2B build is only valid for people who don't have Sci slots, namely escorts. Otherwise, PO is much more efficient as it requires only 1 doff + 1 Lt. Sci slot as opposed to 2 doff and 2 Lt. Eng slots. People think A2B is godly because Escorts online like the weapon, shield and engine power boost it gives. So in effect, it's two birds one stone tactic. Though on a pure CD reduction standpoint, using Photonic Officer is easier to achieve and more efficient.
I remember the PSW/PSW torp/PO combo. That was extremely irking to deal with. I think it was changed around time that the Aftershock DOFF came out...or was it the the lockbox when Klingons got the shockwave torp? I can't remember, maybe it was neither, maybe it was both, I dunno. But I do remember that.
I know that PO can't be reduced past a 2 minute CD. Though I feel that they didn't change the PO DOFF. I just feel that might honestly be a bug...Then again, when they nerf something, they do tend to be quite heavy-handed about it usually. Who knows.
Wait...that would explain why the wiki page said that it seemed to be reducing at a 28.6% reduction at PO 3, and not 40%. I would guess that my other numbers are correct though? Namely the elite deflector and two-piece MACO reductions.
Indeed it is. I need to still get into the game and do some personal testing though.
To start, what Iskandus said about the CD that PO itself gives is indeed correct. (Though if nobody minds me saying, a dev's word on it would be quite nice to know as well)
Now...this is quite effective. From what I could see, the combination is great at keeping BOFF abilities down to global or nearly global, with a bonus (mostly to sci captains) of reducing captain powers by 15% on top of it.
PO (with 1 DOFF), MACO two piece, and Elite deflector.
With PO 1, I found that PO would be kept at global, and all other sci BOFF skills would be at, or extremely close to global CD. All non-sci BOFF skills usually tended to not be as close to global, but it depended on the ability.
However, using PO 2, all those other skills would be closer, and PO 3 is pretty much a guarantee to keep everything at global or be so close to that as to basically not matter.
A few things to compare between A2B and PO builds:
PO requires 1 DOFF and 1 BOFF slot. A2B needs 1-2 BOFF slots and 2-3 DOFF slots.
PO still has a rather long cooldown at 2 minutes (3 base, but all the CD reductions keep it at global) compared to the 10 second global of A2B. So you have to be choosing of when you actually want the big CD reductions compared to the almost anytime of A2B
A2B doesn't require specific gear to use, meaning you can use something like an elite shield if you choose, compared to the PO build here, which requires an elite deflector and two-piece MACO.
A minor thing, but A2B can be SNB'd off. PO cannot (it is a blue buff); the CD is still affected by SNB and anything else that increases a cooldown however.
PO doesn't affect power levels unlike A2B.
Still, it's been fun to test this out.
Here's where I kinda lost you. How is an ability that has a >2 minutes CD 'more efficient' than A2B?! To me, any ability with a >2 min CD better be a bonus coming from a space set or something. Even with the Photonic Studies Scientist, 2 mins is the absolute minimum recharge time, right? Seeing as how PO itself runs for only 60 secs, I'd say that only makes it available half the time.
Then again, I'm not exactly known for my math skills. :P So, feel free to enlighten me.
It would be nice if therefore the duplicate cooldown was reduced to 1 minute, so you could equip 2 versions of PO1. That would give you a more stable reduction during the whole time, and it would make your higher rank (cmdr) sci ability available for something nice as viral matrix.
@rudiefix Feds: Rudiefix / Thron / Opa
@rudiefix KDFs: Lill / Xifeidur / Dehr / Ugly
@rudiefix Roms (KDF alligned): Chicita
I use two EPtS, two FBPs and two torp spreads on my Sci ship. This looks like an opportunity to cut redundancy. With Photonic Officer 1 instead of a FBP, plus a purple photo doff, no MACO since I use Breen stuff with my Fleet Elite deflector (for the transphasic bonus), what do I get?
My non-duplicated powers should benefit. Not captain powers like Brace For Impact and Subnuke. Not my Graviton Pulse console. Not Science Team which I already have at global cool-down (although I can safely drop a lab doff to make space for the purple photo doff). It helps my Gravity Well, Hazard Emitters, Tractor Beam, Eject Warp Poo, Polarize Hull, and any new boff powers I can add.
I drop EPtS 1. My EPtS 2 will have some 15-second gaps, but otherwise it's always the higher grade and I get a bonus Engineering power. A heal would help me through those gaps, but that's not progress. Aux to Dampeners (using EM if it's down) could be fun, or EPtA for greater raw power. Speed-tanking defeats the purpose of FBP, as does a gappy shield. I sense I'll add risk, for slightly more reward.
My FBP 2 gets used instead of FBP 1, so a small boost to impact, although it will be down slightly more often. It was never continuous anyway. A little risk, a little reward. It might have been more significant if three copies of FBP had become 2 - perhaps I'd have the power mostly up. But that would cost me my Science Team 2, and I'd die. Overall impact is neutral.
If I have one torpedo spread it fires every 22 seconds with the photonic bonus, 27 seconds without. Plenty of risk, no reward - so I stick with my original two torpedo spreads firing at the 15 second global cooldown.
So far I have gained an EPtA 1 boost for the price of occasional gaps in my EPtS 2.EPtA will increase Aux, Particles and Gravitons 75% of the time, perhaps adding 5% more damage and defence. Admittedly this last equation is particularly complex, but I do already have a lot of Particles and Aux.
Then there are time gains to other abilities (cool downs listed with/without Photonic Officer):
Gravity Well 45/54 seconds; Hazard Emitters 36/41 s; Tractor Beam 64/77 s; EWP 36/45 s; Polarize Hull 33/41 s. An average gain of 20% for these powers initially averages to 10% over time. Simplifying, let's call it 10% more damage, 10% more defence, per second, for Sci/EWP attacks. My torpedoes do around 25% of my damage, Brace for Impact is around a quarter of my defence.
It looks like some risk for perhaps 12% impact. A bit less than I had hoped, I'll likely still fall at least 20% short of escort DPS, but worth trying at least.