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Tipping point: Damage-dealing powers, too much vs too little

mimey2mimey2 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
edited September 2013 in PvP Gameplay
(long title, I know)

The thread on Gravity Well getting changed, particularly GW 2 and 3 (which is cute, they think people use GW 2), got me thinking about sci powers that cause damage.

For some, like a Tractor Beam, not a huge issue, you aren't doing it for the damage, it's for the slow effect.

But some powers do have a pretty decent damage factor on them, which means that people will take that into consideration when using them.

Which brings me to this: In the past, ever since the F2P conversion, there have been nerfs to several of the various damage-dealing sci powers because they were dealing too much damage. Remember the PSW/PSW-torp fiasco we had quite awhile back which eventually caused the damage from PSW 3 to get nerfed?

What was the cause of it? Tac buffs. (Don't misunderstand, anybody could abuse that of course, but only a tac captain could get the huge numbers out of it)

Thus the tipping point: At what point does a damage-dealing power (any kind of power, not just sci BOFF skills) go from being just simply useful for it's damage, to suddenly overpowered due to tac buffs? (on a lesser note, Romulans of any class can do this as well due to their big de-cloaking bonuses and high crit chance/damage that they can easily achieve)

For something like Tac BOFF skills, or maybe a 'console' ability like...Thalaron Pulse, which while it can be powerful, is still a unique ability which requires 3 consoles to have on a specific ship, not to mention the 12 second charge up.

Tac BOFF skills aren't a big deal since they are well...tac BOFFs.

Problems really ever arise when tacs start buffing other things to levels that they probably never were intended to get to. Like the old PSW 3 could deal very good damage with decent spec and aux without being over the top, but add in a tac captain, and all of a sudden, that damage jumped up a LOT. Toss in the PSW/PSW-torp exploit that was around, and all of a sudden there was a build that could quickly kill someone and they would never have a chance to do anything before they were dead.

Again, engy and sci captains could exploit that, sure, but they didn't have the big numbers that a tac could effortlessly achieve.

So really, it wasn't nerfed so much because of the exploit (which fixing an exploit is just that, a fix, never a nerf), it was nerfed because of huge numbers from TAC captains. Anytime something like that has happened, tac captains always stopped using whatever it was, because it was nerfed. But really, it screws over the other two classes far more because they didn't have those ways to buff damage, and it was nerfed due to the tacs, so now they are left with the nerfed abilities from where they could even get them before.

Don't nerf damage dealing powers simply because tacs can achieve huge numbers off of something, because that just hurts the other two classes more when they are using something as it should only to have it nerfed and be even less useful than it was due to that.

And if damage-dealing powers that aren't from tacs are such a worry (side note: to which I also say...then why have them deal damage if they are causing so many gray hairs in the first place), then reduce or remove the damage, but significantly improve how effective those powers are in other ways (like make Tyken's one heck of a power drain, or GW hold a fricking planet with 130 aux and 200 Graviton Generators).

Or, reduce their base damage, but have aux (depending on which power it is) and Particle Gens play a larger part in it. I believe tac buffs affect base damage, so if the base damage is low, the tac buffs won't boost it to insane levels.

I know this all might be confusing, I'm tired and really should've waited to post this, but I've typed all this out, so might as well finish it. Maybe when I look at it later I'll have a clearer head.
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.
Post edited by mimey2 on
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Comments

  • praxi5praxi5 Member Posts: 1,562 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    It all goes back to stacking; in this case, stacking Tac buffs.

    Srsly tho - I understand that Tac abilties state "+Damage", meaning that they'll boost anything that does damage (even Aceton and Tractor Beam). But why can a Tac captain Science better than a Sci captain?
  • baudlbaudl Member Posts: 4,060 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    praxi5 wrote: »
    It all goes back to stacking; in this case, stacking Tac buffs.

    Srsly tho - I understand that Tac abilties state "+Damage", meaning that they'll boost anything that does damage (even Aceton and Tractor Beam). But why can a Tac captain Science better than a Sci captain?

    other than virtually any other rpg, the class you select in STO is just half the way to the playstyle you aim at. The other part is the ship.

    for instance in a fantasy RPG rolling a cleric means you fill the healer spot with high defensive values aswell.
    the translation of that could be a science captain in a cruiser, or a engi captain in a science ship...depending on the focus you choose.

    in that case a "fire mage" would be the equivalent to a tac captain in a science vessel. That is why tac captain "need" their dmg buffs to waork with science ability.

    a pure tank would be and engi in a cruiser, naturally.
    a tank still able to dish out a good amount of dps would be a tactical in a cruiser...i think you get the idea from there on.

    the problem is, people asume that science captain is meant for science ship, when in fact it is merely a possible combination that would result in something like a support/healer or support/DD...a hybrid class in another rpg.

    Again, if you are looking at a "firemage" type of gameply science in sci vessel is not the way to go. Tac in science vessel is...then and only then dps science powers have great potential.


    unfortunately this combination system is not even remotely balanced...a tac in a tactical ship is still durable enough for 99% of the content present ingame and tac captain powers scale much better with normal weapons.
    the engi-cruiser combo is somewhat way too tanky for 99% of the content...for beginners still a good combo, because it is very durable which leaves room for many mistakes and missions in general just take a little longer.
    worst combo for playing is the sci in sci vessel, because you are effectively playing what would be a support class in any other RPG. Those classes are still rewarding in endgame while having a hard time at leveling, but in STO there is no real need for a support class. there are enough hybrid ships that can fill the role of a pure science vessel. not as good but still...
    Go pro or go home
  • thoth36thoth36 Member Posts: 52 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    praxi5 wrote: »
    Or, reduce their base damage, but have aux (depending on which power it is) and Particle Gens play a larger part in it. I believe tac buffs affect base damage, so if the base damage is low, the tac buffs won't boost it to insane levels.

    This makes perfect sense, but it seems that once again the devs want exactly the opposite.

    About the proposed changes to gravity well, the objective is to reward tacs without skill points in particle gens and harm sci captains that run high aux and spent the points in the skill.

    All of this because tac buffs also buff sci powers :(
    ** In order to offset this decrease, the base damage has been increased by a good amount across all ranks. This should result in a notable increase to baseline performance, and a decrease to high-end performance.

    All of the core, unskilled damage values of Gravity Well will be getting an increase of about 40-50%. So if you never used high-Aux or high-Skill with your builds, your GravWell (all ranks) is about to become far more potent.

    We reduced the multiplier that Aux applies to this core damage value. Where it previously scaled from 33%-100% multipier, it now only applies a 33%-66% multiplier. Meaning, again, that only high values will see any significant impact.
  • twamtwam Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    I kind of liked the suggestion to this problem someone coined the other day, when discussing it (was it bpharma?):

    Just make tac captain skills and AP:O only buff damage from weapon sources. That let's tacs keep the escorts exactly the same, but reins in buffs to sci skills, consoles, etc.


    Edit: this'll probably make it much easier to balance pretty much everything, too. I'd say that's a nice bonus.

    It's not a nerf to escorts, but it does make it possible to let eng and sci have balanced damage abilities. And it doesn't even make tacs in sci vessels completely redundant, as that'll still be the best way of having a sci vessel with high weapons damage.
  • bpharmabpharma Member Posts: 2,022
    edited September 2013
    lol twam, fancy seeing you here!

    Anyway a lot of the fleet were talking about it and I think Calm pointed out something worth mentioning. Science abilities deal kinteic damage, they're refered to as exotic but they are kinetic. Attack Pattern Alpha, Omega and decloak alpha all buff damage, whether it be energy based or kinetic.

    When you use a science abilitiy that deals damage it falls under damage type kinetic which means it's buffed by the above and affected as such which is why they more or less do pants damage if shields are there.

    Only way I see to fix it might be to create damage type exotic with it behaving in a completely different way to kinteic and energy. However from a developer standpoint I would wonder if it is really worth it considering the projected lifetime of the game. Without knowing more about what's under the hood I can't comment on how easy it would be to sort out, maybe baudl might be able to answer though.

    You could remove kinetic damage from being buffed by tactical abilities but that would be a heavy nerf to tacticals and could make the game worse. I mean we all saw what happened when dilithium got took out of STFs, can the game afford to lose that many players again?

    I do like your firemage example baudl but here's something to think about. Would you expect a tactician to get the most from weapons in their use? Yes. Would you expect them to create the strongest starships? No. Would you expect them to understand the complexities of string theory and how the interaction of subatomic particles can lead to a huge rift causing more damage? No.

    Also to clarify Engineering abilities are support and are far better at it as more engineering slots means you can survive without assistance and use other engineering abilities like AtSIF, Extend shields and engineering team (with other science abilities like HE, TSS and ST) on other players without suffering. A science ship cannot do this with all their abilities as when you would be giving up a lot more survivability on yourself.

    Science ships are supposed to be debuffers, they are there to triumph over enemies by weakening them for a solid one two punch, cruisers are there to support other players and triumph through attrition, escorts are there for quick strikes, to kill the enemy quickly or else be killed themselves. Unfortunately the biggest debuffs in the game are tactical abilities (I mean target shields is -40 shields power!).

    Yes a science ship can take an enemies shields offline with drains for some good solid torps but outside of that what have we? Control abilities that don't really control or just cause more chaos? Tractor beam is nice but repulsors is horrible if lag hits as enemies just fly in all directions, sometimes towards what you're protecting, GW doesn't work (neither does tykens fyi) and PSW is terrible, just all out terrible.

    Photonic officer, I've had a long discussion with Mimey about and pales compared to other alternatives. VM, anything worth using it on clears it in seconds and human boffs lolz at it. Feedback pulse is ok but you need to be a tactical captain to make it deter escorts from popping a hull heal and laughing at you as they pew pew your TRIBBLE to the stoneage, also useless in PvE.

    CPB (Charged particle burst if you've never seen anyone ever talk about this useless ability) and tachyon beam, you REALLY need to stack flowcaps to the max to get anything from these even in PvP. PvE it's not even close to being useful unless you stack 2 big shield drains on a target. Scramble sensors, kinda poor as you can still target your enemy and keep attacking, extremely poor in PvE due to high enemy resistance, high enemy health and low enemy damage compared to that health (remember most people only die to the big hits in PvE which are not common). Jam sensors, can be useful for breaking a tractor beam...that's it really as PvP you're not usually attacked by only 1 player but 3-4, PvE see scramble sensors.

    Science abilities (and by extension ships) in PvP might be OK when you really commit to a single focus like sensor jamming/confusion, drains or disables but in PvE it's just subpar right across the board, even drains offer little reason to play science vessels over cruisers or escorts.

    Sorry I think I rambled on a bit, what was this about?

    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.
  • thisslerthissler Member Posts: 2,055 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    Okay. Anyways. Here's a really really dead horse that no one gave a **** about over a year ago.

    "Once upon a time Captains stayed in Class ships and Never Came Out. This kept Captain Abilities Where They Belonged. Suggestions that changing this may have been a bit short sighted were ignored. Things like 'Modular Ship Design' were trotted out as justification."

    And yet here we are again, beating the **** out of this one more time. Seriously just put class abilities back ON TO class ships, and it's amazing how much of this **** will go away.

    Or in some dimly lit part of the world, is there a place where a Tactical Captain can hop in a cruiser and make it run the highest level attack patterns like it was a escort? An engineer boards an Escort and suddenly it is imbued with amazing powers of...well POWER! Self Repair! wooooo ****ing hoooooo!

    Get a grip forum.
  • bpharmabpharma Member Posts: 2,022
    edited September 2013
    thissler wrote: »
    Or in some dimly lit part of the world, is there a place where a Tactical Captain can hop in a cruiser and make it run the highest level attack patterns like it was a escort? An engineer boards an Escort and suddenly it is imbued with amazing powers of...well POWER! Self Repair! wooooo ****ing hoooooo!

    Get a grip forum.

    I have no idea if that is sarcasm, seriousness or some form of (rightly or wrongly) irony.

    Which is the highest level attack pattern? Isn't it a captain ability called attack pattern alpha? Isn't that a straight up, no frills 50% damage boost to anything and everything that causes damage? Wait it gets better, it also boosts crit chance, crit severity and turn rate, for that authentic escort feel. Surely that is ship class limited? No, it's taken to any and all ships, huh.

    But wait science captains have a debuff leading to extra damage! Yeah well so do tactical captains too and their debuff is at -41 DR while a sci is based on aux and needs to be at 60 aux to get that same level of -41DR. At 130 aux it gets to -69 damage resistance, not bad on it's own but that's their only edge, anything else a science captain can do to increase damage of abilities the tactical captain can.

    If you removed the interplay of tactical self buffs from science abilities (so they only buff weapon damage) then you get science captains getting more out of science ships than tactical and engineering captains, tactical captains getting more out of escorts than engineering and science captains and engineers getting more out of cruisers than science and tactical captains. All the while retaining an edge by crossing captain classes over between different classes of ships like extra weapon damage, extra durability and extra...whatever science captains do, I guess team buff, debuff.

    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.
  • maicake716maicake716 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    my issue is-

    no matter what the science power a tactical can use it to the same effect a science captain can AND then it gets better because he can boost the damage while the science captain cant.


    the only way to fix this is a major overhaul of the science in this game- have it not deal damage and instead do only shield+power drains, and debuffs.

    name a science power that isnt a heal and i can tell you how it would make a perfect debuff.
    mancom wrote: »
    Frankly, I think the only sound advice that one can give new players at this time is to stay away from PVP in STO.
    Science pvp at its best-http://www.youtube.com/user/matteo716
    Do you even Science Bro?
  • the1tiggletthe1tigglet Member Posts: 1,421 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    the way to fix these skills is simple.

    Change all sci skills back to exotic damage

    Similtanously start balancing patches so that the skills act differently towards players than they do towards npcs which they already do with stuns and slows so it shouldn't be too difficult to do that with damage values.

    Remove the ability of Tac buffs from doing damage increases on the other two class skillsets.

    This would solve the majority of the problems with exotic damage abilities being nerfed when it's simply the buffs from tact skills that are the culprit.

    And then they could move forward in improving ship skills for science ships especially since Voyager will be the theme for the upcoming expansion patch, they have a real opportunity here to make it great for science captains while restoring balance. Here's to hoping they fix alot of our troubles!
  • twamtwam Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    maicake716 wrote: »
    my issue is-

    no matter what the science power a tactical can use it to the same effect a science captain can AND then it gets better because he can boost the damage while the science captain cant.


    the only way to fix this is a major overhaul of the science in this game- have it not deal damage and instead do only shield+power drains, and debuffs.

    name a science power that isnt a heal and i can tell you how it would make a perfect debuff.

    Disagree, to some extend.

    Couple AP:A and AP:O to weapon damage only and then buff the sci skills' damage by just a slight bit, maybe. Tadaa, Sci damage that a Tac can't improve beyond what a properly specced sci can do.

    Then maybe fix some of the useless skills, but that's a later step...
  • p2wsucksp2wsucks Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    maicake716 wrote: »
    my issue is-

    no matter what the science power a tactical can use it to the same effect a science captain can AND then it gets better because he can boost the damage while the science captain cant.


    the only way to fix this is a major overhaul of the science in this game- have it not deal damage and instead do only shield+power drains, and debuffs.

    name a science power that isnt a heal and i can tell you how it would make a perfect debuff.

    The Sci Captain trait can add 30% exotic damage boost if taking energy damage, so potentionally higher uptime than apa/gdf. To be fair I haven't messed around w/Exotic damage builds (waiting for T5 unlocks for Rommy Sci ship), but I can see where the 30% exotic damage boost + high aux GW3 and TB3 sensor analysis w/Sensor scan would be (potentionally mix in decloak 15 sec damage boost) would be nothing to complain about.
    [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
  • lucho80lucho80 Member Posts: 6,600 Bug Hunter
    edited September 2013
    FYI, and this comes from the GW changes thread. Exotic damage and kinetic damage has always been the same thing. The distinction in naming seems to have originated with differentiating weapon vs skill kinetic damage.
  • maicake716maicake716 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    p2wsucks wrote: »
    The Sci Captain trait can add 30% exotic damage boost if taking energy damage, so potentionally higher uptime than apa/gdf. To be fair I haven't messed around w/Exotic damage builds (waiting for T5 unlocks for Rommy Sci ship), but I can see where the 30% exotic damage boost + high aux GW3 and TB3 sensor analysis w/Sensor scan would be (potentionally mix in decloak 15 sec damage boost) would be nothing to complain about.

    but as it was said, in that other thread isnt "exotic" just another term for kenitic?

    it also doesnt say if theres a cooldown on that trait triggering, you also have to be shot (and not killed) etc etc.

    its nice on paper, but in practice its worthless as a trait.

    now, as a captain power for sci's that can be activiated on demand... that might be something neat but still nothing compaired to what the tac can do.
    mancom wrote: »
    Frankly, I think the only sound advice that one can give new players at this time is to stay away from PVP in STO.
    Science pvp at its best-http://www.youtube.com/user/matteo716
    Do you even Science Bro?
  • p2wsucksp2wsucks Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    maicake716 wrote: »
    but as it was said, in that other thread isnt "exotic" just another term for kenitic?

    it also doesnt say if theres a cooldown on that trait triggering, you also have to be shot (and not killed) etc etc.

    its nice on paper, but in practice its worthless as a trait.

    now, as a captain power for sci's that can be activiated on demand... that might be something neat but still nothing compaired to what the tac can do.

    Exotic is more of a subset than another term, since not all kinetic damage is exotic, eg torps. But, the charge particle skill and aux power boosts many of those Exotic damage boff powers. Again, I've been waiting for the Rommy Fleet Sci ship to build, but a APB TS, w/Disrupter arrays, even omega set 3 part ability among others can lower kinetic resists.

    I've not seen a cooldown on the trait as if it's an active power, it seems to be a passive stacking similar to plas leech/fleet shield resists in that there's counters that are active for a time and stacked.

    I don't know how long it takes to drop, but in theory it maybe feasible to cloak for 5 sec an get that bonus as well (not sure how this would effect sensor analysis charge, again I need to test).

    Also, I don't know where and how in the damage calculation the 30% is added.

    In the end I guess what I'm saying is I'd need to test a build 1st, but it seems feasible a Sci Captain would be better at damage builds based on Exotic Sci damage.
    [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
  • dontdrunkimshootdontdrunkimshoot Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    whats the opportunity cost of a tac running a sci ship and mass buffing the damage of TBR and GW? they arent sci captions, and your team is missing 1 nuke/scan/scanter/sci fleet/photonic spam, and missing 1 tac escort, in exchange for GW and TBR that hits a bit harder.


    i will never understand the obsession people have with tac buffs buffing damage dealing sci skills, like its the most unbalanced thing ever. its a joke, and a sci captain debuffing and striping you and using new and improved GW will be MUCH more of a danger to you. they can strip your EPtE and APO, your going no were, a tac's GW will be much easier to fly away from. GW has twice the synergy with a sci captain then it does with a tac.
  • maicake716maicake716 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    whats the opportunity cost of a tac running a sci ship and mass buffing the damage of TBR and GW? they arent sci captions, and your team is missing 1 nuke/scan/scanter/sci fleet/photonic spam, and missing 1 tac escort, in exchange for GW and TBR that hits a bit harder.


    i will never understand the obsession people have with tac buffs buffing damage dealing sci skills, like its the most unbalanced thing ever. its a joke, and a sci captain debuffing and striping you and using new and improved GW will be MUCH more of a danger to you. they can strip your EPtE and APO, your going no were, a tac's GW will be much easier to fly away from. GW has twice the synergy with a sci captain then it does with a tac.

    its mainly because with all the new BO layouts its quite easy to get a cmdr tac witha lt cmdr sci or a cmdr sci with a lt cmdr tac and get the best of both worlds.
    mancom wrote: »
    Frankly, I think the only sound advice that one can give new players at this time is to stay away from PVP in STO.
    Science pvp at its best-http://www.youtube.com/user/matteo716
    Do you even Science Bro?
  • wrwfwrwf Member Posts: 14 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    praxi5 wrote: »
    It all goes back to stacking; in this case, stacking Tac buffs.

    Srsly tho - I understand that Tac abilties state "+Damage", meaning that they'll boost anything that does damage (even Aceton and Tractor Beam). But why can a Tac captain Science better than a Sci captain?

    Tact captains abilities dont rely on ship power levels as you said (+damage), and even if they did, they're stacked up on Weapon power anyway. Worse since any ship uses weapons to some degree, tact captains get the most benefit with the least effort out of all the classes. Sci captains seem to be the fotm target ever since I've played, my sci ship's tactical option are defensive, period, which renders weapon damage only "adequate" for pve, cruisers and above are practically non existent in pvp unless they're fotm also or completely stacked on shinies. Only way a sci can survive in pvp atm is if the player stacks mostly on defensive TRIBBLE on the reputation system.
  • bpharmabpharma Member Posts: 2,022
    edited September 2013
    whats the opportunity cost of a tac running a sci ship and mass buffing the damage of TBR and GW? they arent sci captions, and your team is missing 1 nuke/scan/scanter/sci fleet/photonic spam, and missing 1 tac escort, in exchange for GW and TBR that hits a bit harder.


    i will never understand the obsession people have with tac buffs buffing damage dealing sci skills, like its the most unbalanced thing ever. its a joke, and a sci captain debuffing and striping you and using new and improved GW will be MUCH more of a danger to you. they can strip your EPtE and APO, your going no were, a tac's GW will be much easier to fly away from. GW has twice the synergy with a sci captain then it does with a tac.

    That is the problem, the damage from it is so pitiful that it's not even worth using for the damage. If the damage WAS then made to be worth something a tactical captain could easily abuse it and make it at least 80% stronger per tick than any other captain.

    You said it yourself, it is rubbish to use for the damage and it is exactly because people did what you said you couldn't understand. People found as a tactical captain you could buff them so much that they became AoE kill all weapons in PvP, so they were nerfed, they were nerfed hard so no class could ever use them for that again. So half the use of them disappeared.

    Also for once in your PvPer life realise the majority DO NOT PvP! We should make PvP balanced but not at the cost of things being so pitiful and useless in PvE which is what currently happens.

    I want a gravity well 3 or a PSW 3 that actually does **** to something bigger than a knat in PvE, right now we are getting a TRIBBLE poor excuse of "It'll be OP in PvP if a tactical captain buffs it as much as possible" then get left with the choice of either fly an escort, use drain or lolz you fail. I mean it's the highest ranking ability on your ship and it does...600-1000 per tick to enemies and because it's bugged it doesn't even hold them. Woop de friggin doo, my under powered beam array does that and it will keep firing long after the GW is gone.

    This thread is about how abilities that were good in PvE have been nerfed for whatever reason rendering the vessels that fit them completely and utterly useless. Science vessels in general are completely useless in PvE, they are outclassed, out damaged and out lasted by any and all other ships. Granted they can keep up in boss killing with a drain build (well, when tykens gets fixed) but can you really say that's anywhere near balanced? Where one class of ship is shunned and holds everyone back by not being an escort or cruiser?

    Oh and when you trot back on your high horse and declare you could roflstomp PvE in a shuttle with only 2 abilities tell me you can beat this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzNdz-_IKg&feature=youtu.be or even come close with science vessels.

    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.
  • bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    In the end global +Damage should NOT effect exotic damage.

    Why you ask? Because then it will either be too weak without the +s (current) or too strong with the +s (former PSW one shots anyone?).

    It needs to be balanced with the skill boost (0 to 300+ pts worth), Aux Power boost, and then if you have to worry about all that being doubled and expect to find a balanced number you never will.
  • rmy1081rmy1081 Member Posts: 2,840 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    bareel wrote: »
    In the end global +Damage should NOT effect exotic damage.

    Why you ask? Because then it will either be too weak without the +s (current) or too strong with the +s (former PSW one shots anyone?).

    It needs to be balanced with the skill boost (0 to 300+ pts worth), Aux Power boost, and then if you have to worry about all that being doubled and expect to find a balanced number you never will.

    Exactly. The reason science powers (for damage) are so stupidly weak is because no matter what, a tac captain can make it crazy stronger. This causes cryptic to balance around that which makes it weak for the other 2 classes.

    If cryptic made it so APA did not buff exotic damage it wouldn't change much anyways except that engineering and science captains would do about the same dps using science powers as a tac captain. The tac captain would still be able to buff his weapons over that of the engineering and science captains.
  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    The Tac can buff it fine.
    The Sci can buff it more.
    The Eng is the guy sitting at the starbase watching silly epohh videos on YouTube...
  • ussultimatumussultimatum Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    praxi5 wrote: »
    It all goes back to stacking; in this case, stacking Tac buffs.

    Srsly tho - I understand that Tac abilties state "+Damage", meaning that they'll boost anything that does damage (even Aceton and Tractor Beam). But why can a Tac captain Science better than a Sci captain?

    Is doing damage with a Sci power a thing Sci captains should automatically be better at?

    Does something prevent DHCs from tearing through an unprotected target after they are SNBd?

    As it is right now, with Conservation of Energy, a Tac captain has the higher spike potential with the small handful of damage dealing Sci powers there are and they can control that.

    Sci's can have more damage more often, if they can soak enough fire to power Conservation of Energy (it's pretty easy to get stacks). If your Tacs are cloaking up, I promise you will get shot. :P


    To be honest, I really never saw the damage issue to be an actual issue.

    Sci's are already the best stacking captain in the game, with the best suite of force multipliers.

    They do their own role, and they play a role that Engi's should have been designed for but weren't.


    On top of all of that, there is really very little incentive for a Tac to run around in a Sci ship outside of oddball builds or people who dedicate their lives to FBP.

    Neither is nearly as good as putting a Tac in a Tac ship, just as Sci in a Sci ship stands out as a critical team unit that you want as many of as good manners and match rules will allow.
  • mimey2mimey2 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    The Eng is the guy sitting at the starbase watching silly epohh videos on YouTube...

    I thought I told you to get those damn cameras out of my house, Virus!
    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.
  • bareelbareel Member Posts: 3 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    Its not apa that causes the problem by itself. It is the ap omega and beta, the decloak, and for some eptw, that make the standard kinetic damage and effected by global bonus damage so toxic when you try to make sci boff damage balaced. Especially when a player can already increasing the base by a factor of 2 to 4 depending on skills and aux the last thing you want to worry about is that value being doubled by global damage boosts then doubled again by negative resists on target. Or we can go back to psw one shots or stay with so low it is useless damage.
  • doffingcomradedoffingcomrade Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    twam wrote: »
    Just make tac captain skills and AP:O only buff damage from weapon sources. That let's tacs keep the escorts exactly the same, but reins in buffs to sci skills, consoles, etc.
    No, this is a terrible idea, because it completely ruins every single Tac/Sci character in the game, rendering them all completely worthless. If Tac buffs didn't improve damage, there would be no reason to EVER play a Tac in a Sci ship, and every single character existing of this type would be instantly worthless overnight.
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • mimey2mimey2 Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    Here's something worth keeping in mind:

    We might say here that a tac in a sci ship is a bad idea. We might say that you'd be seriously hurting yourself with it.

    But...here's the thing...doesn't matter. Whatever new flavor of the month pops up, that's what people will hear about and use for their cheap, easy kills. Like a flock of sheep, there are simply some who only care about that, and it doesn't matter what it is, they WILL go for it.

    Look at how quickly the SIC console proliferated once it was known how effective it was. Everyone went out and got it. Sure a lot got it anyways, but they really flocked to it once it got known.

    Point being, we may say 'tac in a sci is a bad idea', but if there's some new strategy to get easy kills, we can all bet that people WILL go for it. That is usually when problems arise.
    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.
  • twamtwam Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    No, this is a terrible idea, because it completely ruins every single Tac/Sci character in the game, rendering them all completely worthless. If Tac buffs didn't improve damage, there would be no reason to EVER play a Tac in a Sci ship, and every single character existing of this type would be instantly worthless overnight.

    Aaand if you read the edit to that post you'd see my response to that.

    A tac in a sci vessel would still get more damage out of that same sci vessel and build, because of the increased weapons damage they'd still be able to do, by virtue of captain abilities.

    Even when tac abilities don't buff sci damage, a tac will still get some 10-20% more damage out of that sci vessel than a sci would. Just not, you know, 50-60% more. Because that's silly.
  • bpharmabpharma Member Posts: 2,022
    edited September 2013
    No, this is a terrible idea, because it completely ruins every single Tac/Sci character in the game, rendering them all completely worthless. If Tac buffs didn't improve damage, there would be no reason to EVER play a Tac in a Sci ship, and every single character existing of this type would be instantly worthless overnight.

    So by contrast an eng in a science ship finds these abilities worthless because they cannot buff FBP and others to be useful. A science captain can buff it a little but not to the unholy amounts a tactical captain can against a single target.

    We're not asking for sci's to be the best in a science ship, we're just asking for damage on science abilities to not be affected as much by captain abilities, namely +%dmg buffs. To not favour running APO3 with GW1/PSW1 because it far eclipses any and all damage that can be done with the rank 3 abilities.

    Tactical captains will still get the huge bonus to weapons damage so their THY, DPB and all others will still hit harder, cause more damage thereby augmenting their science abilities.

    I mean think about it, a tactical captain can stack from captain abilities:
    FOMM: -41 DR
    APA: +50% dmg, 5% CrtH, 20% CrtD
    Tactical fleet: +20% dmg
    GDF (when health low): 25-100% dmg

    Note: GDF is more like 50-100% dmg as it can only be activated at 50% hull. Though at 100% you're pretty much going to die and it's not likely you can sustain that buff.

    Most of that is straight on the top dmg buffs, take that away and you can buff GW to do decent damage for all captains while still having tacticals doing more damage from weapons and having the edge. I mean you're seriously trying to balance that kind of extreme against a captain that can't stack or use any of that?

    Engineer captain:
    0, there are no damage buffs or resistance debuff, they can run power levels higher and squeeze abit more out of energy weapons but that's it.

    Science Captain:
    upto -70 damage resistance on the target.
    Can remove enemy buffs that prevent escape. (only usefull in PvP)

    If a +170% (120% is more realistic, see note above) is balanced what does it make all other people using the ability? Useless? This all before you even upscale the ludicrous health things have in PvE.

    The problem isn't that tactical captains are buffing science abilities as much as it is the amount of which they can buff them which causes anyone not a tactical captain to get almost nothing out of them damage wise. This then leads to players not playing science ships, regardless of captain because it just doesn't compare to other Commander level abilities they could use to greater effect.

    Normalize the damage range different captains can get and stop this madness of tactical captains make everything better because they're tactical captains. Tactical captains getting 25% more damage from it, fine, I can live with that. Tactical captains getting 120-170% more damage from it,possibly more, not fine and a complete nightmare to make the ability competitive for any other captain.

    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.
  • virusdancervirusdancer Member Posts: 18,687 Arc User
    edited September 2013
    edit: Meh, I'm not going to get into the conversation. It's an old one. People disagree. Goes around and around. Nothing happens. Then it comes up again.

    Tac: PvE & PvP
    Sci: PvP
    Eng: Something to fly while waiting for the coffee to kick in...
  • thishorizonthishorizon Member Posts: 1,158
    edited September 2013
    I'll chime in on the tac in a Sci ship thing...


    Spent the past couple days fooling around in the vesta and thought about grabbing a wells.

    But my testing just ended in lackluster results.

    Ya sure, you can buff some stuff, but it's really not worth it vs the raw energy damage you get from being in an escort or destroyer class. The kill shots jut are not there, or I couldn't find them.

    By last night I was back saying, ya you can do it, but why? Best to leave the CC and wacky Sci powers to the Sci captains. It's what they are best at.

    Have fun kill bad guys

    -thrusters on full-
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