I think I got this now. A2B, with its 10-second frequency, reduces cool-down multiple times for powers that take over 10 seconds to cool down. At 30% per pop, then a 60 second power could hypothetically be reduced by 180%, except for the limitation of that power's global cool down. So it's never near 100%. For EPtX powers it can't be better than 33%.
...You just hit global with most abilities which is a 100% reduction in cooldown for most abilities.
This is the bit I don't get. 100% reduction is reducing cooldown to zero. If you're considering that "100%" represents reduction to the global cooldown limit then PO is also doing far better than you've represented, as your numbers are a percentage of total cooldown time. You're not making a direct comparison.
...I don't suppose Mimey knows what it would take to get PO down to a 1 min CD on itself assuming that could be it's global cooldown? I have tried calculating it with 2 Photonic studies doffs and got between 73s and 93s depending on how it stacks and how they interact with each other etc etc.
The fundamental limitation of PO is its 2 minute global cool-down with itself. You can't get rid of that half-on-half-off gap. Still worth calculating to support any request for change to how PO works.
The problem is that they both do not work in the same way. PO reduces the amount of cooldown by the formula at the front but only for the minute it is active and only for that duration of PO. What A2B does is it takes a certain amount off the cooldown. So on a 30s skill using A2B straight after using the skill would take 30% off the cooldown left and start at 20s. Using A2B 10s later would take another 30% of the total cooldown (10s) off the cooldown and go from 10s to ready.
Have you ever seen AtB do this as you've described it as I have not. AtB doesn't reduce anything below its shared CD from my experience, not even its OP self.
I'm just trying to show that there is a massive disparity between how this cooldown related skill compares to the only other alternative and that it is massively underwhelming. PO does need a buff to be of real use as to use PO2 or even PO3 you have to give up a Lt.Com or higher ability which is very detrimental to your already nerfed and continually nerfed bag of tricks.
Compared with AtB I think the real issue is its 10 sec shared CD should be 20 IMO.
I don't suppose Mimey knows what it would take to get PO down to a 1 min CD on itself assuming that could be it's global cooldown? I have tried calculating it with 2 Photonic studies doffs and got between 73s and 93s depending on how it stacks and how they interact with each other etc etc.
2 mins is its shared CD its impossible to get it below this.
Like I say they don't work the same and are represented differently. Where the technicians say 10% off the cooldown it means the time left calculated from base. I have seen A2B make a skill have only 1 copy as it hits global cooldown. I did also mention that the reason you don't see A2B as the huge reduction it is was due to hitting the global cooldown. At no point did I say that it can allow a skill past it's global but when you do hit global you know that the skill is ready to use, you're just being blocked by the global cooldown which is impassable.
Milandare you got it with the first paragraph you put. As I said earlier the way they work and the way it's explained are totally different, that is why it gets confusing.
To put it another way PO2 with a 32% reduction on a 60s skill you can use the same skill again after 45s.
A2B running back to back with it's listed 30% reduction on a 60s skill, you can use the skill again after ~22s (or when global CD has finished, this is usually 30s)
In order to make PO be able to achieve the same level of reduction A2B has, you would have to make it about a 180% reduction on the cooldown so the formula would be 60s/(1+1.8) = 21.4s.
What I'm trying to highlight is the need for PO to become competative with A2B either by allowing it to be at the same level but with the 1min off and 1min on aspect OR to allow the slight reduction to have close to 100% uptime with minimal investment.
You have to remember that while A2B has it's downsides to sci ship users, to the curiser and escort hybrid pilots, aux power is not a big issue and neither are the doffs vs what it gives. It goes without saying that Mimey has done a good job with the build and that he has certainly made me reconsider the skill and I don't think it's as bad as I used to, I just think it is still very underpowered compared to alternatives and requires considerably more investment giving up almost as much as A2B.
Thing about PO is that it is a BOFF power from the VERY beginning of the game. It is balanced from the beginning of the game though when the only CD reductions for a very long time were PO, and Tactical Initiative, and that was IT.
The power is balanced off of that time period and really is not OP or UP because of that. It really only seems underpowered because of the biggest thing in the room, the A2B build, which is VERY popular and has the limelight for such builds nowadays.
I don't really consider it underpowered for what it does, more that it's simply out-shined in a LOT of ways by A2B, the biggest thing being simple popularity.
Bpharma, a different idea to muse over:
Would you rather take...
1. Your idea, with a greater reduction to get more powers out of it while it is up, which also doesn't change the CD or DOFF requirement.
or...
2. Lower the global CD but keep the reduction the same. Which means you'd need more DOFFs to keep one copy at global, or no DOFFs but run 2 different copies of it.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
I appreciate it was balanced in a time when it was the only way but at the moment using 1 doff and a Lt.Commander science slot, which is a very valuable thing, reduces cooldowns barely more than A2B with 2 doffs. Certainly 3 doffs is superior as it has a 40s CD. This means while it only matches PO2 during PO2's 1 minute activity, after that when PO2 is on global cooldown it surpases it.
Personally I would prefer the greater uptime as it provides a stable platform to build your tactical and engineering skills upon to really help delivering those final blows to weakened opponants in both PvE and PvP.
I think if PO reduced everything to global for it's duration (which you could have change with the rank of PO rather than CD amount as it is now) then that could also see some good use. I know some escorts might find it useful for some super spiking and some cruisers maybe as a poor mans A2B. However due to the potential to abuse from spike DPS escorts etc that is why I would prefer uptime over greater reduction.
In my book until you can either get 100% uptime for no more than 2 doffs or global cooldowns for a varying amount of time scaling with level of ability I just don't see the advantage over using a 2nd copy of an ability in that slot over PO.
I mean look at the ability on it's own without the elite deflector and maco bonus, would you use it under those conditions? Is getting an ability 8-15s quicker (for half the time of the match) better than using a 2nd copy of the ability which is most likely a crux of your build? Don't forget there's a few doffs that can reduce your cooldowns too!
Like I say I think you've done a great job showing the potential of this ability and stacking but it's kind of like when people were trying to justify using plasma before DoTs stacked. Yes it has some advantages, it's just most alternatives are better.
Like I say they don't work the same and are represented differently. Where the technicians say 10% off the cooldown it means the time left calculated from base. I have seen A2B make a skill have only 1 copy as it hits global cooldown. I did also mention that the reason you don't see A2B as the huge reduction it is was due to hitting the global cooldown. At no point did I say that it can allow a skill past it's global but when you do hit global you know that the skill is ready to use, you're just being blocked by the global cooldown which is impassable.
"Using A2B 10s later would take another 30% of the total cooldown (10s) off the cooldown and go from 10s to ready"
^ this sentence. 30 - 10(for AtB cd reduction) -10 (AtB duration) -10 (for AtB CD reduction) = 0 ("ready"). This is what it appeared you where saying i'm happy thats not the case but I don't understand your sentence.
What I'm trying to highlight is the need for PO to become competative with A2B either by allowing it to be at the same level but with the 1min off and 1min on aspect OR to allow the slight reduction to have close to 100% uptime with minimal investment.
You have to remember that while A2B has it's downsides to sci ship users, to the curiser and escort hybrid pilots, aux power is not a big issue and neither are the doffs vs what it gives. It goes without saying that Mimey has done a good job with the build and that he has certainly made me reconsider the skill and I don't think it's as bad as I used to, I just think it is still very underpowered compared to alternatives and requires considerably more investment giving up almost as much as A2B.
Oh I agree totally. PO is stinky compared to AtB.
Without doffs PO has between a 40% uptime and a 46% uptime. With the doff the best is 50% uptime. It's the same regardless of running multiple copies.
AtB without doffs is 25% uptime and 50% with 2 copies. with the doffs this goes crazy with 100% uptime and the additional function of CD reduction to all other abilities.
Its clear they are not even in the same ballpark for efficiency, function, power, EVERYTHING. If we want to keep viewing these powers with there original balancing then the problem is with AtB not PO as the Doff system has had almost 0 effect on PO power. I think if AtB had a shared cooldown of 20 secs PO wouldn't look so bad and AtB wouldn't be the 1 stop choice for just every ship that can have 2 or more tier2+ engi slots.
I appreciate it was balanced in a time when it was the only way but at the moment using 1 doff and a Lt.Commander science slot, which is a very valuable thing, reduces cooldowns barely more than A2B with 2 doffs. Certainly 3 doffs is superior as it has a 40s CD. This means while it only matches PO2 during PO2's 1 minute activity, after that when PO2 is on global cooldown it surpases it.
Personally I would prefer the greater uptime as it provides a stable platform to build your tactical and engineering skills upon to really help delivering those final blows to weakened opponants in both PvE and PvP.
I think if PO reduced everything to global for it's duration (which you could have change with the rank of PO rather than CD amount as it is now) then that could also see some good use. I know some escorts might find it useful for some super spiking and some cruisers maybe as a poor mans A2B. However due to the potential to abuse from spike DPS escorts etc that is why I would prefer uptime over greater reduction.
In my book until you can either get 100% uptime for no more than 2 doffs or global cooldowns for a varying amount of time scaling with level of ability I just don't see the advantage over using a 2nd copy of an ability in that slot over PO.
I mean look at the ability on it's own without the elite deflector and maco bonus, would you use it under those conditions? Is getting an ability 8-15s quicker (for half the time of the match) better than using a 2nd copy of the ability which is most likely a crux of your build? Don't forget there's a few doffs that can reduce your cooldowns too!
Like I say I think you've done a great job showing the potential of this ability and stacking but it's kind of like when people were trying to justify using plasma before DoTs stacked. Yes it has some advantages, it's just most alternatives are better.
Indeed. You hit it right on the head. It's a nice bonus, but the 'alternatives are better'. Heck, there are other sci DOFFs that can reduce some CDs, like Deflector Officers for example as you mentioned.
I personally think that PO should have a greater uptime, which means reducing the global CD. That keeps it different.
There's also the other option: Greater duration. Which could also work together with greater up-time.
Pretend for a second that it had a 90 second duration and a 90 second global, it'd still be a 50% uptime on the ability, but it would last much longer. To balance, the base CD of it could be made longer, like 4 minutes perhaps. To get it down to that global with only a single copy would be more difficult. It would, presuming it was PO 1, take all 3 purple PSS DOFFs and the CD reduction from 4 minutes (240 seconds) all the way down to 90 seconds. (To compare, a PO 3 with two purple DOFFs would just BARELY get above global, at 92 seconds)
I'm not saying that they would have to do both, just saying that it'd be interesting. I'd prefer just greater uptime myself. Lower the global CD to 90 seconds, keep the duration the same, and I think it'd be a lot more popular.
Y'know, here's a good comparison about A2B and PO: If PO is a 'sustained CD reduction', then A2B is a 'spike CD reduction'.
Also, at this point, I've given up about trying to avoid ideas that 'help escorts', because let's face it, at least in a PvE environment EVERYTHING helps escorts. At this point, I've just focused on making sure any ideas I promote try to avoid helping escorts the most compared to everything else.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Pretend for a second that it had a 90 second duration and a 90 second global, it'd still be a 50% uptime on the ability, but it would last much longer. To balance, the base CD of it could be made longer, like 4 minutes perhaps. To get it down to that global with only a single copy would be more difficult. It would, presuming it was PO 1, take all 3 purple PSS DOFFs and the CD reduction from 4 minutes (240 seconds) all the way down to 90 seconds. (To compare, a PO 3 with two purple DOFFs would just BARELY get above global, at 92 seconds)
I can see how you got to this but that's still a big investment in Doff slots and build for something that's still functionally worse than AtB.
Since us sci boys would like to have stuff that's not simply worse than the tact/engi options how about we look to expand/modify it some?
How about if we keep PO as is but it also reduce all skills shared cooldowns while its up? This lets you combine it with other CD reducing Doffs, expands potential build ideas and makes it better than AtB like a skill that's only function is CD reduction should be.
I would probably say 3 doffs to get PO1 to global, 2 doffs for PO2 to global and 1 doff to get PO3 to global. You have to remember that most science ships are heavily reliant on the boff skills and doffs so by doing something like the scale above you can choose between using a lower tier PO with more doffs, or you can have a higher level version sacrificing a high tier science slot but less doffs.
As for the not buffing escorts. Well the way I see it is it might be used on some specialist escorts but they already have the high risk, stupidly high reward A2B so as long as this is a different flavour of reduction it will mostly go unused by them. That is with a close to or even 100% uptime but not as huge reduction as A2B. However it would be really useful on cruisers, certain lockbox ships and science ships to help lower some of the longer cool downs. Yes you wouldn't get A2B levels of reduction but you might just be able to hit the global on abilities with a 30-60s global which would be a huge boon to cruisers and science ships.
I've really wanted to use this ability but unless there was another thing to stack ontop I just can't see myself unless its buffed/changed a bit. If the elite fleet deflector reduced all cool downs and not just science then I could justify using PO2 with the deflector as I would have engineering and tactical abilities a bit quicker too. Having to use the maco 2 piece is a big downer considering everyone has the leech now.
I can see how you got to this but that's still a big investment in Doff slots and build for something that's still functionally worse than AtB.
Since us sci boys would like to have stuff that's not simply worse than the tact/engi options how about we look to expand/modify it some?
How about if we keep PO as is but it also reduce all skills shared cooldowns while its up? This lets you combine it with other CD reducing Doffs, expands potential build ideas and makes it better than AtB like a skill that's only function is CD reduction should be.
I dunno...the idea you quoted was really only just that, an idea I came up with off the top of my head.
PO should probably get a bump in CD reduction and/or uptime, I don't really feel it needs anything more past that.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Imo PO needs to be able to be reduced to a 1 minute cooldown or close to it.
Compare it to tac captains tactical initiative which reduces cooldowns by 55% for them and the whole team and its free but only has a 25% uptime. Add on the fact that tac ships have more then enough tac boffs slots and it really just icing on the cake.
Eng captains don't have a player ability but do have the best ships for A2B which pretty means 1 boff slot is equal to 2 and it only requires 2 lt boff slots and some expensive doffs.
A2B gets rid of the problem of not having enough tac boffs and also converts aux power to your other systems giving you a large power boost while only costing you around 20 mil ec or a couple crits on a doff mission.
Science ships like engineer ships suffer from a lack of tac boff slots (and before anyone says any bull**** like science is not meant for dps you are a healer with the current endgame being estf there is no point in a healer or debuffer only dps)
Science ships do get PO but even at its highest rank it will only take a 30 second cooldown like FAW down to 21 seconds making it worse then A2B and it takes a commander science slot. (Currently the only way to get PO3 is buying a Photonic officer of the exchange which is currently 10 mil or more and since they are no longer given out prices can only go up)
When you compare a A2B build to a current PO build its almost a joke PO not only has a lesser effect but also does not give you the power advantages that A2b builds give.
So would buffing PO to keep 100% uptime with doffs much like A2B make science op? Nope because it would still be worse then A2B builds but at least it would make it PO useful.
Would it effect tac ships or engineer ships?
Again nope how many tac/eng ships have a commander science slot?
None that i know of, the only ship that comes close would be the Scimitar class with the universal lt.comm station but why would you make that science for PO2 at best when you could just use it as a tac boff slot and double up on abilities or eng boff and use a A2B build.
TLDR:Making PO3 trainable and making it function with 100% uptime would be a slight dps boost to science and have no effect on tac or eng ships.
Does it still function with the other abilities' timers reverting to their original state (i.e. getting time added back on) when PO wears off? I've ranted about that but haven't checked for a stealth fix lately.
If that mechanic is still in place, then here's my rant:
Hey Mimey, didn't realise at first that this was one of your guides (Recent PvP Boot Camp Graduate)
I was originally looking for a post about running an Aux2Bat build with Photonic Officer 3 that a fleet mate has mentioned reading.
I have a Photonic Officer 3 I also have an Aux2Bat build, combined them last night but still unsure as to the results.
I have also found that having the PSS doff is not required with PO3 as it puts itself into imediate global (unless there's other advantages i'm unaware of)
What is the opinion on running an ATB with PO? especialy PO3 and Is the PSS DOFF required for PO3?
Also anyone got any tips or comments on the following?
I've got a Science Vesta with the following setup
(currently running the fleet deflector with fleets sheilds and engines but will be trying the maco 2 piece bonus out for engines and sheilds when i can)
EPtA1, AtB1, AtB2
TSS1 (Non PO3 Version of build has Tac Team)
TS1, BFAW2
EPtE1, ES1
HE1, TBR1, GW1, PO3 (Non PO3 Version of build has TSS1, HE2, TBR3, GW3)
The main point of this build is for no win, the first try of this ship on the non PO3 version got to wave 7 and we weren't a fully kitted out team.
Equipment:
I'm running the Oberth Console and Aux Batteries to help keep Aux as high as possible (most of my systems are extreemely high most of the time) plus RMC [Subspace Field Modulator] and have the new Leadership Trait
Also running Elite: [Hangar - Yellowstone Runabouts] (though I also picked up [Hangar - Armored Shield Repair Units])
[Elite Fleet Fermion Deflector Array MK XII [Inert] [Stealth] [Grav] [SciCdr]]
[Elite Fleet Reinforced Warp Core Mk XII [SEP] [A->W] [ACap] [EWS] [SST]]
Eventualy to be replaced with Maco MK XII
[Elite Fleet Efficient Hyper-Impulse Engines Mk XII [Turn]x2 [Spd] [Pow]]
[Elite Fleet Adaptive Resilient Shield Array Mk XII [Cap]x2 [Reg] [Adapt]]
Weapons:
[Polarized Tetryon Beam Array Mk XI] x2 front x2 back (Mainly for the 10% proc)
[Advanced Fleet Quantum Torpedo Launcher Mk XII [Dmg]x3 [Acc]] front and back
DOFFs (all Purple)
3x Technician
Deflector Officer, Chance to Gain Aux Power when activating Exotic Abilities (May replace with a quarter master eventually)
Gravimetric Sci (The one for aftershocks)
And is there any specific things I should consider when I respec (I have a few things to fix)
Hey Mimey, didn't realise at first that this was one of your guides (Recent PvP Boot Camp Graduate)
I was originally looking for a post about running an Aux2Bat build with Photonic Officer 3 that a fleet mate has mentioned reading.
I have a Photonic Officer 3 I also have an Aux2Bat build, combined them last night but still unsure as to the results.
I have also found that having the PSS doff is not required with PO3 as it puts itself into imediate global (unless there's other advantages i'm unaware of)
What is the opinion on running an ATB with PO? especialy PO3 and Is the PSS DOFF required for PO3?
Unfortunately, I don't really have much time to look at your build, maybe someone else can.
For the rest of your post...
Ehh...I don't think that PO 3 and A2B would be a good choice. I mean, you would basically be giving up 3 whole BOFF slots just for cooldowns, A2B would work well by itself, no PO needed.
Yes, PO 3 puts itself VERY close to global with nothing else needed, the only reason i would recommend the PSS DOFF is if you were using a copy of Photonic Shockwave in your build. Which as it stands atm, you aren't currently using it.
I admit, this wasn't really a guide, more just to put it out there, and to show my own research into it. But I might put this into my signature, since I do consider it useful.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Please do, it is probably one of the most comprehensive looks at PO I've come across and has led to a decent discussion about the skill and what we would expect from it.
For truecyberaxe, I would either forgo PO3 or aux2batt. I would never run both at the same time as it is a bit of a waste in cooldown reduction. Personally speaking I would say aux2batt (back to back) is superior as you will hit global CD on all but the shortest duration abilities and could change your deflector if needed. However it will limit as and when you can use aux dependant abilities due to the aux drain. Even 1 copy of aux2batt can be useful as it will be usable every 40s I believe and take 30% off the cooldown of all abilities there.
Also while we're talking about NWS take a look at the graviton pulse console, if you're just wanting a damn fine AoE hold it can get pretty silly with 125 aux and 200+ graviton gens.
Please do, it is probably one of the most comprehensive looks at PO I've come across and has led to a decent discussion about the skill and what we would expect from it.
For truecyberaxe, I would either forgo PO3 or aux2batt. I would never run both at the same time as it is a bit of a waste in cooldown reduction. Personally speaking I would say aux2batt (back to back) is superior as you will hit global CD on all but the shortest duration abilities and could change your deflector if needed. However it will limit as and when you can use aux dependant abilities due to the aux drain. Even 1 copy of aux2batt can be useful as it will be usable every 40s I believe and take 30% off the cooldown of all abilities there.
Also while we're talking about NWS take a look at the graviton pulse console, if you're just wanting a damn fine AoE hold it can get pretty silly with 125 aux and 200+ graviton gens.
Done. I've added the PO guide to my signature. Also added the EWS modifer thread.
Also, it wouldn't be A2B every 40 seconds Bpharma. It'd be an A2B every 27 seconds (presuming you are using 3 purple Technicians and no other CD reductions) since it takes off it's own CD as well.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Yes forgot about that, thus making it even better as a single ability.
I was just trying to do some theory crafting for how PO should be to stay competative with A2B and other such abilities. I could do with knowing how photonic studies doffs factor into the cooldown reduction of PO.
So do they reduce PO by 40% then PO reduces whats left or does PO reduce it from the original cooldown? Or does the photonic studies doff apply after the CD reduction from PO?
Edit: Hopefully you'll read this edit before responding. I think if you drop the global to 1 minute and the cooldown of PO to 3 mins you can with 2 doffs and the deflector get one copy of PO2 with 100% uptime and 1 doff with PO3 will give 100% for it too. I dare say 1 copy of PO1 will give you 100% uptime with 3 doffs.
2 copies of PO1 would not however be able to keep 100% uptime without a doff though. but 2 abilities and 1 doff for a couple of seconds shaved off all abilities is rather nice. Still won't allow 100% uptime of emergency to X abilities for any version though =(
Edit 2:
Another thing I was playing with was to increase the cooldown reduction of all three abilities to that of PO3 and increase duration with rank. It's a lot of messing around though and if I'm being honest it just seems like a balancing nightmare. It would all depend on if the devs really wanted you to have an ability like this as constant uptime, as a massive temporary reduction or just plain useless.
Also I think we should in the future describe PO as speeding up your cooldown and not reducing it. A cooldown of 100s that has a 40% reduction implies it will be 60s, this does not happen with PO. 100s cooldown sped up by 40% will make people think and work it out properly to the 71.4s it really would be with PO
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Interesting choices. I'm curious, what is the focus on your build here?
In general i am rather scatter-brained, most of my builds reflect this.
I am a big fan of Crowd Control, such as TB, TBR and GW.
Flow Caps help with the Drains off the Tet's. And those nifty little stealth help detectors.
Some Kinetic and Energy resists is always nice.
The Breen is kind of just a temporary placeholder. Free TRIBBLE until i can earn for better stuff from the fleet.
And not really sure why but i like Tet's when teaming up with my Fleet in a clear planned manner they are pretty beneficial. (i'm the superior Crowd Control guy)
But most of my builds start without a really clear direction, then over time i tweak for performance in the area that build is doing best in.
So until i physically run this build for awhile and then fiddle it to close to perfection. So any ideas you have on it much apperciated, a vision in the direction it could go. I generally like to try to jack of all as much as i can in science ships cause they are really the best for it.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Mimey, shear genius bud. Used this as inspiration to create my super healer for PvP. Looking at the PvP meta game, you don't "need" super cool downs all the time.
There are 2 states in an average PvP match where both teams are equal:
Defensive state
Offensive state
Healer wise, pop it during defence state. Offensive scis would do it the opposite way.
I got hazards & TSS, to 32 secs, eng team to 22 secs, aux to sif to 11 secs
What a difference it makes. Fully battle tested for the last 2 days in Tyler Durden. Now I'm refining it day by day.
Mimey, shear genius bud. Used this as inspiration to create my super healer for PvP. Looking at the PvP meta game, you don't "need" super cool downs all the time.
There are 2 states in an average PvP match where both teams are equal:
Defensive state
Offensive state
Healer wise, pop it during defence state. Offensive scis would do it the opposite way.
I got hazards & TSS, to 32 secs, eng team to 22 secs, aux to sif to 11 secs
What a difference it makes. Fully battle tested for the last 2 days in Tyler Durden. Now I'm refining it day by day.
Mimey is one of my Favorite Forum folk. Very helpful, never rude.
I should start a Mimey thread!
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
In general i am rather scatter-brained, most of my builds reflect this.
I am a big fan of Crowd Control, such as TB, TBR and GW.
Flow Caps help with the Drains off the Tet's. And those nifty little stealth help detectors.
Some Kinetic and Energy resists is always nice.
The Breen is kind of just a temporary placeholder. Free TRIBBLE until i can earn for better stuff from the fleet.
And not really sure why but i like Tet's when teaming up with my Fleet in a clear planned manner they are pretty beneficial. (i'm the superior Crowd Control guy)
But most of my builds start without a really clear direction, then over time i tweak for performance in the area that build is doing best in.
So until i physically run this build for awhile and then fiddle it to close to perfection. So any ideas you have on it much apperciated, a vision in the direction it could go. I generally like to try to jack of all as much as i can in science ships cause they are really the best for it.
Hmm, I thought about it, but I'm honestly not sure what to tell you. It's a bit difficult to say. Though I'd at least recommend Polarons for the power drain over shield drain, but that's just me.
I LOVE a combo of polaron weapons plus chroniton torps/mines. A power drain and a slow is a nice combination to have.
Mimey, shear genius bud. Used this as inspiration to create my super healer for PvP. Looking at the PvP meta game, you don't "need" super cool downs all the time.
There are 2 states in an average PvP match where both teams are equal:
Defensive state
Offensive state
Healer wise, pop it during defence state. Offensive scis would do it the opposite way.
I got hazards & TSS, to 32 secs, eng team to 22 secs, aux to sif to 11 secs
What a difference it makes. Fully battle tested for the last 2 days in Tyler Durden. Now I'm refining it day by day.
I dunno if I'd call the thread 'genius' by any stretch, just wanted to make this thread and help folks out.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Hmm, I thought about it, but I'm honestly not sure what to tell you. It's a bit difficult to say. Though I'd at least recommend Polarons for the power drain over shield drain, but that's just me.
I LOVE a combo of polaron weapons plus chroniton torps/mines. A power drain and a slow is a nice combination to have.
Though I am curious about your build, Naz.
Aww, thanks.
1. Is it because my build is ok or because its horrid beyond repair?
2. I do prefer Overall drain myself i like Tet's because its good to combine it with a little alpha runner, A.K.A. i have Tet's he decloaks and Immolates he who as no shields.
3. I'd like to see Naz's build too.
and finally
4. You are Welcome.
Inertia just means you can do Powerslides in you carrier!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
1. Is it because my build is ok or because its horrid beyond repair?
2. I do prefer Overall drain myself i like Tet's because its good to combine it with a little alpha runner, A.K.A. i have Tet's he decloaks and Immolates he who as no shields.
3. I'd like to see Naz's build too.
and finally
4. You are Welcome.
Not really that your build is bad. More that I don't know what you really WANT from it, so I have no clue what to tell you. I do know enough about sci-stuff (though not as good as other folks in these forums, like Praxi) to get you going, but I just need something to start on.
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.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
Since I've seen your thread I've been debating about switching my FBP3 for PO3 but I'm hesitant. I like my feedback.
I need you to tell me what I want to hear. Which is that PO3 and doff will make all my healz dreams come true. :P
The EC price for the P.S.O. is also prohibitive at 18+ milli. Plus the purp doff which I'm a scared to look at. hehe
It's funny that at this point in the exchange market we're looking at tens of millions of EC for a lot of items that we need. I remember when I was getting started and a million EC seemed like a ton to me. But I digress.
Comments
This is the bit I don't get. 100% reduction is reducing cooldown to zero. If you're considering that "100%" represents reduction to the global cooldown limit then PO is also doing far better than you've represented, as your numbers are a percentage of total cooldown time. You're not making a direct comparison.
The fundamental limitation of PO is its 2 minute global cool-down with itself. You can't get rid of that half-on-half-off gap. Still worth calculating to support any request for change to how PO works.
Compared with AtB I think the real issue is its 10 sec shared CD should be 20 IMO.
2 mins is its shared CD its impossible to get it below this.
Milandare you got it with the first paragraph you put. As I said earlier the way they work and the way it's explained are totally different, that is why it gets confusing.
To put it another way PO2 with a 32% reduction on a 60s skill you can use the same skill again after 45s.
A2B running back to back with it's listed 30% reduction on a 60s skill, you can use the skill again after ~22s (or when global CD has finished, this is usually 30s)
In order to make PO be able to achieve the same level of reduction A2B has, you would have to make it about a 180% reduction on the cooldown so the formula would be 60s/(1+1.8) = 21.4s.
What I'm trying to highlight is the need for PO to become competative with A2B either by allowing it to be at the same level but with the 1min off and 1min on aspect OR to allow the slight reduction to have close to 100% uptime with minimal investment.
You have to remember that while A2B has it's downsides to sci ship users, to the curiser and escort hybrid pilots, aux power is not a big issue and neither are the doffs vs what it gives. It goes without saying that Mimey has done a good job with the build and that he has certainly made me reconsider the skill and I don't think it's as bad as I used to, I just think it is still very underpowered compared to alternatives and requires considerably more investment giving up almost as much as A2B.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
The power is balanced off of that time period and really is not OP or UP because of that. It really only seems underpowered because of the biggest thing in the room, the A2B build, which is VERY popular and has the limelight for such builds nowadays.
I don't really consider it underpowered for what it does, more that it's simply out-shined in a LOT of ways by A2B, the biggest thing being simple popularity.
Bpharma, a different idea to muse over:
Would you rather take...
1. Your idea, with a greater reduction to get more powers out of it while it is up, which also doesn't change the CD or DOFF requirement.
or...
2. Lower the global CD but keep the reduction the same. Which means you'd need more DOFFs to keep one copy at global, or no DOFFs but run 2 different copies of it.
Greater up-time vs. greater CD reduction.
Personally I would prefer the greater uptime as it provides a stable platform to build your tactical and engineering skills upon to really help delivering those final blows to weakened opponants in both PvE and PvP.
I think if PO reduced everything to global for it's duration (which you could have change with the rank of PO rather than CD amount as it is now) then that could also see some good use. I know some escorts might find it useful for some super spiking and some cruisers maybe as a poor mans A2B. However due to the potential to abuse from spike DPS escorts etc that is why I would prefer uptime over greater reduction.
In my book until you can either get 100% uptime for no more than 2 doffs or global cooldowns for a varying amount of time scaling with level of ability I just don't see the advantage over using a 2nd copy of an ability in that slot over PO.
I mean look at the ability on it's own without the elite deflector and maco bonus, would you use it under those conditions? Is getting an ability 8-15s quicker (for half the time of the match) better than using a 2nd copy of the ability which is most likely a crux of your build? Don't forget there's a few doffs that can reduce your cooldowns too!
Like I say I think you've done a great job showing the potential of this ability and stacking but it's kind of like when people were trying to justify using plasma before DoTs stacked. Yes it has some advantages, it's just most alternatives are better.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
"Using A2B 10s later would take another 30% of the total cooldown (10s) off the cooldown and go from 10s to ready"
^ this sentence. 30 - 10(for AtB cd reduction) -10 (AtB duration) -10 (for AtB CD reduction) = 0 ("ready"). This is what it appeared you where saying i'm happy thats not the case but I don't understand your sentence.
Oh I agree totally. PO is stinky compared to AtB.
Without doffs PO has between a 40% uptime and a 46% uptime. With the doff the best is 50% uptime. It's the same regardless of running multiple copies.
AtB without doffs is 25% uptime and 50% with 2 copies. with the doffs this goes crazy with 100% uptime and the additional function of CD reduction to all other abilities.
Its clear they are not even in the same ballpark for efficiency, function, power, EVERYTHING. If we want to keep viewing these powers with there original balancing then the problem is with AtB not PO as the Doff system has had almost 0 effect on PO power. I think if AtB had a shared cooldown of 20 secs PO wouldn't look so bad and AtB wouldn't be the 1 stop choice for just every ship that can have 2 or more tier2+ engi slots.
Indeed. You hit it right on the head. It's a nice bonus, but the 'alternatives are better'. Heck, there are other sci DOFFs that can reduce some CDs, like Deflector Officers for example as you mentioned.
I personally think that PO should have a greater uptime, which means reducing the global CD. That keeps it different.
There's also the other option: Greater duration. Which could also work together with greater up-time.
Pretend for a second that it had a 90 second duration and a 90 second global, it'd still be a 50% uptime on the ability, but it would last much longer. To balance, the base CD of it could be made longer, like 4 minutes perhaps. To get it down to that global with only a single copy would be more difficult. It would, presuming it was PO 1, take all 3 purple PSS DOFFs and the CD reduction from 4 minutes (240 seconds) all the way down to 90 seconds. (To compare, a PO 3 with two purple DOFFs would just BARELY get above global, at 92 seconds)
I'm not saying that they would have to do both, just saying that it'd be interesting. I'd prefer just greater uptime myself. Lower the global CD to 90 seconds, keep the duration the same, and I think it'd be a lot more popular.
Y'know, here's a good comparison about A2B and PO: If PO is a 'sustained CD reduction', then A2B is a 'spike CD reduction'.
Also, at this point, I've given up about trying to avoid ideas that 'help escorts', because let's face it, at least in a PvE environment EVERYTHING helps escorts. At this point, I've just focused on making sure any ideas I promote try to avoid helping escorts the most compared to everything else.
I can see how you got to this but that's still a big investment in Doff slots and build for something that's still functionally worse than AtB.
Since us sci boys would like to have stuff that's not simply worse than the tact/engi options how about we look to expand/modify it some?
How about if we keep PO as is but it also reduce all skills shared cooldowns while its up? This lets you combine it with other CD reducing Doffs, expands potential build ideas and makes it better than AtB like a skill that's only function is CD reduction should be.
As for the not buffing escorts. Well the way I see it is it might be used on some specialist escorts but they already have the high risk, stupidly high reward A2B so as long as this is a different flavour of reduction it will mostly go unused by them. That is with a close to or even 100% uptime but not as huge reduction as A2B. However it would be really useful on cruisers, certain lockbox ships and science ships to help lower some of the longer cool downs. Yes you wouldn't get A2B levels of reduction but you might just be able to hit the global on abilities with a 30-60s global which would be a huge boon to cruisers and science ships.
I've really wanted to use this ability but unless there was another thing to stack ontop I just can't see myself unless its buffed/changed a bit. If the elite fleet deflector reduced all cool downs and not just science then I could justify using PO2 with the deflector as I would have engineering and tactical abilities a bit quicker too. Having to use the maco 2 piece is a big downer considering everyone has the leech now.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
I dunno...the idea you quoted was really only just that, an idea I came up with off the top of my head.
PO should probably get a bump in CD reduction and/or uptime, I don't really feel it needs anything more past that.
Compare it to tac captains tactical initiative which reduces cooldowns by 55% for them and the whole team and its free but only has a 25% uptime. Add on the fact that tac ships have more then enough tac boffs slots and it really just icing on the cake.
Eng captains don't have a player ability but do have the best ships for A2B which pretty means 1 boff slot is equal to 2 and it only requires 2 lt boff slots and some expensive doffs.
A2B gets rid of the problem of not having enough tac boffs and also converts aux power to your other systems giving you a large power boost while only costing you around 20 mil ec or a couple crits on a doff mission.
Science ships like engineer ships suffer from a lack of tac boff slots (and before anyone says any bull**** like science is not meant for dps you are a healer with the current endgame being estf there is no point in a healer or debuffer only dps)
Science ships do get PO but even at its highest rank it will only take a 30 second cooldown like FAW down to 21 seconds making it worse then A2B and it takes a commander science slot. (Currently the only way to get PO3 is buying a Photonic officer of the exchange which is currently 10 mil or more and since they are no longer given out prices can only go up)
When you compare a A2B build to a current PO build its almost a joke PO not only has a lesser effect but also does not give you the power advantages that A2b builds give.
So would buffing PO to keep 100% uptime with doffs much like A2B make science op? Nope because it would still be worse then A2B builds but at least it would make it PO useful.
Would it effect tac ships or engineer ships?
Again nope how many tac/eng ships have a commander science slot?
None that i know of, the only ship that comes close would be the Scimitar class with the universal lt.comm station but why would you make that science for PO2 at best when you could just use it as a tac boff slot and double up on abilities or eng boff and use a A2B build.
TLDR:Making PO3 trainable and making it function with 100% uptime would be a slight dps boost to science and have no effect on tac or eng ships.
This is indeed still the case.
I was originally looking for a post about running an Aux2Bat build with Photonic Officer 3 that a fleet mate has mentioned reading.
I have a Photonic Officer 3 I also have an Aux2Bat build, combined them last night but still unsure as to the results.
I have also found that having the PSS doff is not required with PO3 as it puts itself into imediate global (unless there's other advantages i'm unaware of)
What is the opinion on running an ATB with PO? especialy PO3 and Is the PSS DOFF required for PO3?
Also anyone got any tips or comments on the following?
I've got a Science Vesta with the following setup
(currently running the fleet deflector with fleets sheilds and engines but will be trying the maco 2 piece bonus out for engines and sheilds when i can)
EPtA1, AtB1, AtB2
TSS1 (Non PO3 Version of build has Tac Team)
TS1, BFAW2
EPtE1, ES1
HE1, TBR1, GW1, PO3 (Non PO3 Version of build has TSS1, HE2, TBR3, GW3)
The main point of this build is for no win, the first try of this ship on the non PO3 version got to wave 7 and we weren't a fully kitted out team.
Equipment:
I'm running the Oberth Console and Aux Batteries to help keep Aux as high as possible (most of my systems are extreemely high most of the time) plus RMC [Subspace Field Modulator] and have the new Leadership Trait
Also running Elite: [Hangar - Yellowstone Runabouts] (though I also picked up [Hangar - Armored Shield Repair Units])
[Elite Fleet Fermion Deflector Array MK XII [Inert] [Stealth] [Grav] [SciCdr]]
[Elite Fleet Reinforced Warp Core Mk XII [SEP] [A->W] [ACap] [EWS] [SST]]
Eventualy to be replaced with Maco MK XII
[Elite Fleet Efficient Hyper-Impulse Engines Mk XII [Turn]x2 [Spd] [Pow]]
[Elite Fleet Adaptive Resilient Shield Array Mk XII [Cap]x2 [Reg] [Adapt]]
Consoles:
[Console - Engineering - Enhanced Neutronium Alloy Mk XII [+Turn]] x2
[Console - Universal - Subspace Integration Circuit] (Possibly replace with Team Fortress Console)
[Console - Universal - Enhanced Plasma Manifold]
[Console - Science - Graviton Generator Mk XII [HuH] [+Th]]
[Console - Science - Particle Generators Mk XII [HuH] [+Th]]
[Console - Science - Particle Generators Mk XII [+Th] [Pla]]
[Console - Tactical - Tetryon Pulse Generator Mk XII] x3
Weapons:
[Polarized Tetryon Beam Array Mk XI] x2 front x2 back (Mainly for the 10% proc)
[Advanced Fleet Quantum Torpedo Launcher Mk XII [Dmg]x3 [Acc]] front and back
DOFFs (all Purple)
3x Technician
Deflector Officer, Chance to Gain Aux Power when activating Exotic Abilities (May replace with a quarter master eventually)
Gravimetric Sci (The one for aftershocks)
And is there any specific things I should consider when I respec (I have a few things to fix)
Unfortunately, I don't really have much time to look at your build, maybe someone else can.
For the rest of your post...
Ehh...I don't think that PO 3 and A2B would be a good choice. I mean, you would basically be giving up 3 whole BOFF slots just for cooldowns, A2B would work well by itself, no PO needed.
Yes, PO 3 puts itself VERY close to global with nothing else needed, the only reason i would recommend the PSS DOFF is if you were using a copy of Photonic Shockwave in your build. Which as it stands atm, you aren't currently using it.
I admit, this wasn't really a guide, more just to put it out there, and to show my own research into it. But I might put this into my signature, since I do consider it useful.
For truecyberaxe, I would either forgo PO3 or aux2batt. I would never run both at the same time as it is a bit of a waste in cooldown reduction. Personally speaking I would say aux2batt (back to back) is superior as you will hit global CD on all but the shortest duration abilities and could change your deflector if needed. However it will limit as and when you can use aux dependant abilities due to the aux drain. Even 1 copy of aux2batt can be useful as it will be usable every 40s I believe and take 30% off the cooldown of all abilities there.
Also while we're talking about NWS take a look at the graviton pulse console, if you're just wanting a damn fine AoE hold it can get pretty silly with 125 aux and 200+ graviton gens.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
Done. I've added the PO guide to my signature. Also added the EWS modifer thread.
Also, it wouldn't be A2B every 40 seconds Bpharma. It'd be an A2B every 27 seconds (presuming you are using 3 purple Technicians and no other CD reductions) since it takes off it's own CD as well.
I was just trying to do some theory crafting for how PO should be to stay competative with A2B and other such abilities. I could do with knowing how photonic studies doffs factor into the cooldown reduction of PO.
So do they reduce PO by 40% then PO reduces whats left or does PO reduce it from the original cooldown? Or does the photonic studies doff apply after the CD reduction from PO?
Edit: Hopefully you'll read this edit before responding. I think if you drop the global to 1 minute and the cooldown of PO to 3 mins you can with 2 doffs and the deflector get one copy of PO2 with 100% uptime and 1 doff with PO3 will give 100% for it too. I dare say 1 copy of PO1 will give you 100% uptime with 3 doffs.
2 copies of PO1 would not however be able to keep 100% uptime without a doff though. but 2 abilities and 1 doff for a couple of seconds shaved off all abilities is rather nice. Still won't allow 100% uptime of emergency to X abilities for any version though =(
Edit 2:
Another thing I was playing with was to increase the cooldown reduction of all three abilities to that of PO3 and increase duration with rank. It's a lot of messing around though and if I'm being honest it just seems like a balancing nightmare. It would all depend on if the devs really wanted you to have an ability like this as constant uptime, as a massive temporary reduction or just plain useless.
Also I think we should in the future describe PO as speeding up your cooldown and not reducing it. A cooldown of 100s that has a 40% reduction implies it will be 60s, this does not happen with PO. 100s cooldown sped up by 40% will make people think and work it out properly to the 71.4s it really would be with PO
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
R.I.P
Np there.
True, but that does require you to be a tac, or have a tac on your team actually willing to give you his TI instead of using it.
On my Sci toon.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=ussprofessor_0
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Interesting choices. I'm curious, what is the focus on your build here?
In general i am rather scatter-brained, most of my builds reflect this.
I am a big fan of Crowd Control, such as TB, TBR and GW.
Flow Caps help with the Drains off the Tet's. And those nifty little stealth help detectors.
Some Kinetic and Energy resists is always nice.
The Breen is kind of just a temporary placeholder. Free TRIBBLE until i can earn for better stuff from the fleet.
And not really sure why but i like Tet's when teaming up with my Fleet in a clear planned manner they are pretty beneficial. (i'm the superior Crowd Control guy)
But most of my builds start without a really clear direction, then over time i tweak for performance in the area that build is doing best in.
So until i physically run this build for awhile and then fiddle it to close to perfection. So any ideas you have on it much apperciated, a vision in the direction it could go. I generally like to try to jack of all as much as i can in science ships cause they are really the best for it.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
There are 2 states in an average PvP match where both teams are equal:
Defensive state
Offensive state
Healer wise, pop it during defence state. Offensive scis would do it the opposite way.
I got hazards & TSS, to 32 secs, eng team to 22 secs, aux to sif to 11 secs
What a difference it makes. Fully battle tested for the last 2 days in Tyler Durden. Now I'm refining it day by day.
Mimey is one of my Favorite Forum folk. Very helpful, never rude.
I should start a Mimey thread!
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Hmm, I thought about it, but I'm honestly not sure what to tell you. It's a bit difficult to say. Though I'd at least recommend Polarons for the power drain over shield drain, but that's just me.
I LOVE a combo of polaron weapons plus chroniton torps/mines. A power drain and a slow is a nice combination to have.
I dunno if I'd call the thread 'genius' by any stretch, just wanted to make this thread and help folks out.
Though I am curious about your build, Naz.
Aww, thanks.
But that's not to say we aren't willing to give PvP advice to anyone who asks
1. Is it because my build is ok or because its horrid beyond repair?
2. I do prefer Overall drain myself i like Tet's because its good to combine it with a little alpha runner, A.K.A. i have Tet's he decloaks and Immolates he who as no shields.
3. I'd like to see Naz's build too.
and finally
4. You are Welcome.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Fair enough Naz. But if I die to a team that you are on when you are doing that, I will have to call 'hax'. :P
Not really that your build is bad. More that I don't know what you really WANT from it, so I have no clue what to tell you. I do know enough about sci-stuff (though not as good as other folks in these forums, like Praxi) to get you going, but I just need something to start on.
I need you to tell me what I want to hear. Which is that PO3 and doff will make all my healz dreams come true. :P
The EC price for the P.S.O. is also prohibitive at 18+ milli. Plus the purp doff which I'm a scared to look at. hehe
It's funny that at this point in the exchange market we're looking at tens of millions of EC for a lot of items that we need. I remember when I was getting started and a million EC seemed like a ton to me. But I digress.