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It's time to make fed cruisers more competitive to other factions.
matrix0
Member Posts: 261 Arc User
I've played all faction cruisers and found that Fed cruisers aren't so great.
First, Fed cruisers cant equip cannons. That makes them underpowered in term of dps compare to other factions'. It may be irrelevant in pvp due to the low turn rate of cruisers. However, it's a big difference in pve such STFs.
2nd, all other factions cruisers have cloak which is a big advantage in pvp (1st shoot+attck) and also in pve (+attk.) Rom cruisers may have -40 power, but they have battle cloak.
Imo, Fed cruisers should have something that would make them competitive.
Post your opinion.
First, Fed cruisers cant equip cannons. That makes them underpowered in term of dps compare to other factions'. It may be irrelevant in pvp due to the low turn rate of cruisers. However, it's a big difference in pve such STFs.
2nd, all other factions cruisers have cloak which is a big advantage in pvp (1st shoot+attck) and also in pve (+attk.) Rom cruisers may have -40 power, but they have battle cloak.
Imo, Fed cruisers should have something that would make them competitive.
Post your opinion.
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You are aware that cannons arent what makes escorts good right? And the cloak has negligable effect in pve.
EDIT: Sorry, that came across wrong, I shall clarify.
Cannons dont magically make a ship good. Nor do cloaks,. My Bortas has both and a quick jaunt over to the KDF ship sub forum will tell you what the majority think of it.
Fed Beams in 99% of all canon has always been the feds damage dealer from next gen on
Its the only way to fix the very poor beam damage rate from beams vers cannons without overhauling every single ship in the roster
Example same ship used as test ship
4 DHC...................4000 DPS
4 Beam Arrays.......1000 DPS
Module adds 3000 DPS to Beams and can only be equiped on Fed cruisers
make it Phaser beams only !
The DPS stated is just a example it could be very differnt in testing
The cannons still have a greater proc rate with rapid fire
They still crit more from the faster firing
The ships generally have double the turn rate
most can also cloak without a console
put this module in the worst selling lock box !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
just a thought, there are many other ways beams could be made more usefull as well
I like the idea of a cruiser only Heavy Phaser Beam aray
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Haha, indeed. We even have a 5 TAC Console Cruiser, and it is widely despised in the KDF.
I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that all beam cruiser can out dps a cannons cruiser? I'm not sure how you play ur bortas, but mine can out damage any cruisers/escort and quite nimble too. It can shred probes/sphere way faster than any fed or beam cruiser.
Also, if you're saying that cloak doesn't have any advantage, then you're probably just a newbie in sto or do not play KDF or ROM enough to give a proper opinion.
Every ship needs a balance pass. If certain ships come up short they should be given small boosts to make up for it, like slightly increased hull strength, subsystem power, or shield strength, not some giant "I win" button that allows you to spam massively damaging beam attacks.
PvE is ridiculously easy. The game is supposed to be balanced for PvP. Yes, warbird type cruisers and most KDF cruisers can equip dual cannons; however, for the most part, they are largely useless in PvP due to their narrow firing arc and slow turn rate.
The current restrictions make canon-sense. Most federation cruisers cannot equip dual cannons because they could not in the show. If you really want a cruiser with cannons, get the Galaxy-X or play KDF. If you choose to limit yourself to one faction then you should miss out on some of the unique aspects of other factions, otherwise there is little point to having unique factions in the first place.
I remember threads about a month ago about people wondering how some cruisers are pulling 15k+ dps in a cruiser for stfs.
I believe the answer was auxiliary to battery builds that keep precious tact and emergency power to weapon abilities on their global cool down.
Are other builds that don't need aux to bat viable?
There are emergency power to ? doffs
There are attack pattern doffs
And there are beam, fire at will doffs
Plus marion for dem. All those beams firing drain energy, dem+marion combats that well.
This is not an attack about how long you've played the game, a life time experience does not equate to a lifetime of expertise
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Hey look, barely 5 replies in and we have someone claiming that there super awesome cruiser rocks the pants of escorts! And he gains points for assuming im a new guy, not someone who considers his KDF char(s) his main and has flown hundreds of damned stf's.
In short. No. No your bortas isnt beating equally geared and captained escorts at the old Deeepeeeyessss. Go into a good premade ISE with, oh I don't know, 4 fleet defiants and come back here.
Cloaks will give you an initial spike of damage. Nice, but not a game changer when everything endgame has a gajillion HP.
DHC's have an incredibly tight arc of fire. This means that any dps you can throw out from a cruiser, no matter hom much RCS/EPTE/Engin batteries etc you have, the escort next to you can bring that firepower to bare faster than you.
This means that cruisers problem is not a dps one. It's a role one. So, fixing them should be about improving there role, not making them big escorts.
I absolutely concur. Cruiser dont need to be big escorts, it seems like that is what everyone wants to turn all the ships into these days.
sure DBB's could use a bit, and i emphasize BIT of a wider arc. Sure science vessels could use one more weapon.
But it is all for naught, beacuse it just isnt ever going to happen.
Do i want better beam arrays? you bet your GPL i do, do i find inventive ways to work around the low DPS they start with? YUP.
Especially with build help from many of the helpful people on these very forums. The answer you seek for bettering you ship is in the forum. Search the forums OP you know it to be true
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
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Crazy ideas, I know.
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Actually as most cruiser do have more hull plating than other ships, kind of is crazy.
And boosting consoles? you'll get outcries fro science and tactical that THEY want boosted consoles too.
The answer isnt more power creep.
The answer is build a ship or pick a ship in that category that you can work with, or GTFO.
There are hundreds and hundreds of build threads, you can even search STO academt for a build you like.
I like underwhelimning ships because when you can find a build that release its full potential it becomes more impressive.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
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Make a 360 beam array like shuttles have and DBB will be a viable main weapon choice.(as a side effect torp launchers become a dps gain for cruiser as well)
...so? Besides, they have eng console slots, they can equip the boosted eng consoles.
I disagree. I think it's better than nerfing.
This is a balance issue, not a build issue. Personally, I have no problems with my own cruisers. My Dakota-class fleet heavy cruiser retrofit is one of my best ships, if not THE best of mine.
Same here, but I would like for there no be no underwhelming gameplay elements, despite my play style.
Nothing wrong with A: Having beam AND cannon skills, or B: Not using all of your weapons constantly.
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Beam arrays (and to a lesser extent, DBBs): Their actual damage is fine, there's nothing really wrong with that, especially with lots of ATB going around. Their drain is the real issue (and don't tell me to use Marion, that's just a bandaid on a bigger problem).
Turn rate: Ok...I can understand this one. A LOT of cruisers turn horribly slow. But with all the turn rate boosts and other adjustments they've made, this isn't as big a deal as it once was. (Besides, Evasives and throwing it into reverse, has, and always will be, the best means of turning a slow ship)
Lack of damage: Again, due to all those '10k DPS A2B builds' with lots of FAW and ATB, I think that damage isn't really a problem anymore, PvE-wise. But it still deals with the poor drain mechanic on beams, which is a bigger hurt IMO.
Engy BOFF slots: This one I can get behind more though. Engy BOFFs have a LOT of shared cooldowns, which really hurts many builds that are too engy heavy, because you are constantly hitting another cooldown with something else. Have 3 ensign engineers are you are REALLY screwed due to a lack of options at the ensign level. At least sci and tac BOFF slots, if you so chose, can have 3 separate abilities at the ensign level, and never have a single shared CD between them. I'd say of all a cruiser's problems, this is arguably the biggest one they have to deal with.
If you not using all you weapon your wasting a slot and losing dps.
Another solution would be to change how beam skills work compared to cannon skills.
CRF3 adds 50% damage to cannons for 10 seconds whereas Beam overload3 causes you next beam attack to do 850% damage but drains you energy by 50
CSV3 add 25% damage for 10 seconds and hit all targets in your dhc arc where as Fire at Will is a 40% dps improvement according to wiki but shoot at random meaning more targets the less effective it is.
Buffing beam overload is hard because it already is a hard hitter for an escort using a DBB in pvp but near useless for a cruiser using beam arrays.
Then you fly out into space, and the whole game just shifts into DPS mode where the goal is just hurt whatever is in front of you until its dead. And most STF's even ESTF's are ridiculously easy to survive with a small amount of skill. Minus maybe Cure, as you need at least someone to throw heals at kang. and NWS of course.
This game doesn't need balancing by ship, it needs balancing by content. We nead reasons to fly ships for the roles they were built around. Eng - tanks, Sci - Healers and Tac - DPS.
Everyone talks of balance by making all the ships into destructive powerhouses, instead of real improvements that make you need strategy and planning.
I am Il Shadow and i approve these Shennanigans!
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Sci can take out Engi but weak against tacs.
Tac can take out sci but weak against engi.
Engi can take out Tacs but weak against Sci.
Science debuffs engineers to remove healing abilities and resistance making them easy targets for DOT's and regular attacks plus can trap them easier. Tacs overwhelm science with firepower and traps are not as effective. Engineering can take the hits from a tac and with preassure damage easily kill them as they try to run away to heal.
Once the class are balanced and working correctly remove the DPS for top spot reward and make it equal for everyone on the team.
Leave solo PvE as is, give group PvE targets that use the above setup so it requires a mixed team to be truly effective and a bonus reward for using a mixed team, just not impossible to do with a non mixed team. PvP the system above requiring mixed teams to prevent getting overwhelmed if the other team is the polar opposite of your own.
All that can be done by giving each class a 10% offense and defense modifer against the other 2 class.
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Nuff said.
There are thousands of problems in this game and with the ships and ground combat (don't get me started on that) and many more that will come out of the woodworks. Suffice to say, we could go hours on end about this, and we would still find problems with the ships.
Suggestions for Federation ships:
Give cruisers inate beam fire at will and beam overload. (Everything else on them is okay... except the Dreadnought. They need to fix that thing... and the Gaxaly Retrofit).
Give escorts inate cannon rapid fire and scatter shot (both 1) and nerf hull down a bit and take shields down to .8 modifier. (Anyone else with a suggestion please do tell.)
Science vessels... should not even be in combat for the Founders sake. Only reason why I think we have Fed science combat vessels is because of Voyager. If you're gonna make them war worthy, for Founders sake add an extra fore weapon slot to the high end tier science ships.
Those are my suggestions so far. They are just that, suggestions.
And someone please tell me why a 200 year old ship (the Excelsior) is better than the Dreadnought Cruiser. Or, better yet, the Exploration Cruiser Retrofit!!!!!:mad:
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Yes I have said it many time that do to escorts having huge defense bonuses, they should have even greater reductions to their hull and shield capacity.
As for the beam array vs cannon bit, we don't truly know for certain about everything that makes them canon. Yes ships made use of them all, but the only definitive thing we know was beam arrays were used mainly because tactically they were an effective weapon due to its damaging capability and firing radius over cannons. But ships also carried cannons and made use of them too, so the question remains why? Where cannons more effective damage wise, and if so were they power hungry? Or were they good damage output with high power efficiency? The same with beam arrays, were they high damage output with huge power demands? Or were they good damage with high power efficiency? The only thing again like I said that we know for certain is ships made use of both, and while yes the main fleet of ships for the Federation relied on beam arrays mainly they did have ships with cannon use. So the question still remains why do ships in canon terms prefer beam arrays only, or a mix of both? We don't know for certain so it's hard to answer. As for the game it was just the Dev's way of thinking how it should work, and to try and provide some balance factor between the differing weapons to which it is semi-ok system, but not perfect by know means.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
And in pve beam builds can do tons of damage.
Bingo, bingo and BINGO! Just all this! I'm sick of people whining about how "cruisers suck", "beams suck", "escorts OP", "cannons rule", ad infinitum, ad nauseum. If you are having that much trouble with your cruiser then you are flying it wrong. I have 3 TACS and 1 ENG. A Rommie, a Kleenex and 2 Feddy Bears. My TACS all fly both escorts AND cruisers. Their cruisers sport all beams their escorts all cannons. Level 50 to a man and ALL my cruisers can match my escorts for DPS (regularly in the 4k to 6k range. Could be more but I'm not a size queen :P). Of course the cruisers don't turn as well as the escorts... they're not supposed to! In fact a nimble cruiser doesn't work very well with beams. The power with beams comes in the broadside. A nimble cruiser will swing thru that broadside arc too quickly! You want them a bit slow. If you're having problems with cruisers and beams either review your build/tactics or go escorts. Nothing needs changing. :cool:
You left out sci's....thoughts?
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Half? That's not an arbitrary number in a vacuum is it? Clearly you are a master at "maths" aren't you? Do you even understand how the game works? Or do you at least think you do?
Only because, at present, I have none myself. I have leveled and retired a couple but Sci just isn't my cup of tea. However I will probably do another here in the near future (Rommie, most like). However the Fleet I'm in has one female player who excels at Sci and is positively deadly in her Sci cruiser. In PVP she's capable of pulling DPS on a par with our best Escorts and Tac Cruisers AND healing/crowd control at the same time. BTW - this is the same gal who built a cruiser as a Rainbow Boat able to pull 8k DPS (I've seen it... it's real) JUST to show it could be done. Long story short... any ship in this game can be effective if you play it right... and EVERY ship favors a certain playstyle.
One thing the game needs for these people, who may only be interested in PVE anyway, is an in-game "ship loadout expert" you "pay" to "fix" your ship's console and weapon loadout and advise on BOFF skills and assignments.
It will never be as good as the top loadouts players who *want* to do the spreadsheets wil come up with, but it doesn't have to be - it can just fix some of the broken loadouts that make less-intensive players hate the game.
Also, for those who want to get there but don't know how, a more comprehensive in-game tutorial (possibly through the academy) on these aspects of the game. Not everyone visits the forum or searches online for builds.