To be more specific, Gravity Well 2 and 3 will benefit from Aux power and Graviton Generators skill now -- previously they didn't. The amount that they benefit, though, is being reined in from what it would have been if the powers weren't bugged.
In testing, just making GW2 & 3 benefit from Aux and GravGen allowed a science ship with 135 Aux and 150 GravGen to use GW3 against a group of five frigates and snare and destroy all of them. This is a bit over the top.
Borticus has been tweaking the formulae so that the power will be useful, and you will see improvements in your Gravity Wells from increasing Aux or GravGen, but it won't be over the top.
All other stats being equal, GW2 & 3 will be more powerful than GW1.
I appreciate the information. A couple of questions though.
1) Was this a GW buffed by all of a tactical captains abilities?
If so 2/3rds of your classes cannot hope to get near that level of damage.
2) What sort of level of gameplay are we talking about?
If a GW3 that has had a lot of points specced into cannot kill the probes exiting the gateway on Khitomer Space on Elite difficulty with some small AoE fire from a science ship then I'm sorry but it is not even close to comparable to an escorts CSV3.
3) Is there any plans to reign in just how silly some tactical captains can buff theses damage dealing science abilities or do you intend to keep tactical captains as top dog for any situation involving any and all forms of damage?
I have no problems a tactical captain getting the most damage out of weapons and doing the most damage that way but considering the tactical captains buff will affect both the ability AND the weapons it's a 2 fold increase to the damage levels other captains can achieve.
The problem to me is that with a long cooldown and taking up a VERY high level bridge officer slot it should be good but at the same time certain types of captain can buff it to a much larger extent than others which is where the problems begin.
If tactical buffs like attack pattern alpha, omega and other things that say increases your damage by 20-50% did not affect these abilities you would have an easier time balancing these skills as most captains would get the same or a similar amount out of the ability than the other. Kind of like what you're doing now by normalising the values, buffing the base and lowering just how much you benefit from extra particle/graviton gens.
4) Finally, is there a way to alter it's performance between PvP and PvE? If it did good damage in PvP where hulls are maybe 30-50k it won't do as well in PvE, especially elite, where hull strengths are much higher.
I can sense the PvPers coming to claim PvE is so easy you can do it blindfolded with only a shuttle and a mk 1 phaser. Be realistic, in PvE it's not about if you can do it, it's about whether you're useful and whether you're helping to complete it quicker or holding the team back.
The current record for doing all 3 original space STFs on elite is about 2 minutes 30s, this is 5 cruisers with mostly tactical captains. You couldn't even hope to get close to that with 5 science ships, don't agree then prove me wrong and I'll happily apologise, maybe 5 escorts but I'll never see science ships getting that on science abilities.
I appreciate the information. A couple of questions though.
1) Was this a GW buffed by all of a tactical captains abilities?
If so 2/3rds of your classes cannot hope to get near that level of damage.
2) What sort of level of gameplay are we talking about?
If a GW3 that has had a lot of points specced into cannot kill the probes exiting the gateway on Khitomer Space on Elite difficulty with some small AoE fire from a science ship then I'm sorry but it is not even close to comparable to an escorts CSV3.
3) Is there any plans to reign in just how silly some tactical captains can buff theses damage dealing science abilities or do you intend to keep tactical captains as top dog for any situation involving any and all forms of damage?
I have no problems a tactical captain getting the most damage out of weapons and doing the most damage that way but considering the tactical captains buff will affect both the ability AND the weapons it's a 2 fold increase to the damage levels other captains can achieve.
The problem to me is that with a long cooldown and taking up a VERY high level bridge officer slot it should be good but at the same time certain types of captain can buff it to a much larger extent than others which is where the problems begin.
If tactical buffs like attack pattern alpha, omega and other things that say increases your damage by 20-50% did not affect these abilities you would have an easier time balancing these skills as most captains would get the same or a similar amount out of the ability than the other. Kind of like what you're doing now by normalising the values, buffing the base and lowering just how much you benefit from extra particle/graviton gens.
4) Finally, is there a way to alter it's performance between PvP and PvE? If it did good damage in PvP where hulls are maybe 30-50k it won't do as well in PvE, especially elite, where hull strengths are much higher.
I can sense the PvPers coming to claim PvE is so easy you can do it blindfolded with only a shuttle and a mk 1 phaser. Be realistic, in PvE it's not about if you can do it, it's about whether you're useful and whether you're helping to complete it quicker or holding the team back.
The current record for doing all 3 original space STFs on elite is about 2 minutes 30s, this is 5 cruisers with mostly tactical captains. You couldn't even hope to get close to that with 5 science ships, don't agree then prove me wrong and I'll happily apologise, maybe 5 escorts but I'll never see science ships getting that on science abilities.
....Lets face it, sci can't be monetised unlike tac pew so I wouldn't hold my breath this will make gw anywhere equal to a csv (mainly as csv doesn't get slapped with kinetic damage issues regarding shields..changing grav wells damage to have a transphasic component would make it immensely more useful though..or heck, make that +30% damage from the stacking sci trait be transphasic type bleedthrough on all offensive sci abilities)
...as to reigning in tac abilities? that will never happen; tac and roms are stos cash cows - harming either would be detrimental to balance...the bank balance, I mean
regarding dual stats for abilities in pvp/pve, the devs have said many times they cannot/will not (delete as applicable) create such a system
Tacs have to specialize heavily in weapon skills *and* load up on Tac consoles and universal consoles to do top damage. I dont see the difference.
That is the difference. Like you say, these builds are a mirror image of what you say tac captains are doing, except for PG and AUX instead of weapons. The builds are the same idea, just thrown into different skills.
The proposed fix, will make Grav Well weaker than it is now for me and many other science builds that are specced, and the skill will be more efficient with less skill points invested.
For a tac captain that is never the case, because the diminished return on +dmg tac consoles is too insignificant to be noteworthy, and it applies directly to damage, not to the skill which then effects damage, and is thus a diminished return, like a particle generators.
And contrary to most of the angst here, all T4 ships and up can slot ApB1. And then throw in an abomination like the Fleet Luna's 4 tac conosles, and it's like why roll a SCI captain at all?
That is the difference. Like you say, these builds are a mirror image of what you say tac captains are doing, except for PG and AUX instead of weapons. The builds are the same idea, just thrown into different skills.
The proposed fix, will make Grav Well weaker than it is now for me and many other science builds that are specced, and the skill will be more efficient with less skill points invested.
For a tac captain that is never the case, because the diminished return on +dmg tac consoles is too insignificant to be noteworthy, and it applies directly to damage,not to the skill which then effects damage, and is thus a diminished return, like a particle generators.
And contrary to most of the angst here, all T4 ships and up can slot ApB1. And then throw in an abomination like the Fleet Luna's 4 tac conosles, and it's like why roll a SCI captain at all?
It's like you know about the secret 75% cap. Whoops.
But more to the point, there are no alternative Tac consoles. There are no "Pattern Consoles". There's nothing. You put in a plus damage or you leave it empty. I'm not saying anything else, just mentioning that as far as consoles go you really don't give anything up in Tactical, because there's nothing to give up.
Sci and Eng have several alternative choices, so there you can say there is some sort of give and take in a build.
I said 200 points for full damage, by which I mean a single grav well should be able to snare and destroy the the 5 frigates. Dont forget, Sci also has a lot of non-console boosts available, especially deflectors. A casual sci can get >100 points in both graviton and partgen with just 6 bars of skills and a couple of uni consoles, 200 points in each is hard but its possible with a mix of sci consoles, universal consoles, and deflectors.
And you know, there are no deflectors that give +20 ~disruptor damage (a couple of sets that give damage if you slot enough set pieces, but no single item).
The proposed method, where most of the damage comes from the spell, will mean Tac and Engi can use APB and make sci more irrelevant.
I only meant to draw contrast between a console that effects +skill, and all skills diminish, vs a straight stacking of a damage type, even though the concept of the build is the same thing.
Removing a particle gen for something else, will make it weaker yet, however more 'efficient' it would be in output vs investment, but if you want max GW output, you're going to keep it.
I would also be using many of the same universal consoles, and unless I'm giving up those tac console slots, have tougher choices to make.
If +wep damage consoles cap at +75% it's the first I've heard of it.
So they should change the stats of the npc thst way, that sci actually can bring something in and that it doesn?t take way longer if you solo npc?s with a sci ship then with a cruiser or escort.
Would be nice if they change the drains and npc?s that way, that you actually can drain s noticeable amount of an npc?s shield or energy if you use charged particle burst and/or tachyon beam or one of the other drain skills. They can adpat the stats for group play to make it not to easy the way they send in more ships now when you have more ppl doing an mission.
Atm i would say that non of the drains has an noticeable effect on the npc. I know that might have nothing to do with grav welll, but it has. If you change the other sci skills and the npc stats taht way that they actually have an impact on the npc, no one would ask for a high dmg grav well, cause you would have enough other skills that helps to get rid of them also.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
The devs have not indicated the magnitude of any changes. We can raise possible red flags, but for all we know so far things could turn out fine! Nobody is "nerfing" the tooltip-listed damage as that damage was not happening. Dev advice so far suggests damage will increase.
Also, as Tac captains in Sci ships will have captain powers to do more damage than a Sci, that's what Tac captains are all about. Science captains manipulate (targeting subsystems and 'subnuking'). So dam[GW3 Tac Capt] > dam[GW3 Sci Capt], all skills and ship being equal. [Is this fair? -> Wrong thread.]
If dam[GW1 Tac Capt / Tac Ship] compares with dam[GW3 Sci Capt / Sci Ship] then delete GW2 and GW3 as pointless. On the other hand, if GW3 remains relevant then the Tac Capt can still do superior damage using GW3 in a well-built Sci ship.
The devs have not indicated the magnitude of any changes. We can raise possible red flags, but for all we know so far things could turn out fine! Nobody is "nerfing" the tooltip-listed damage as that damage was not happening. Dev advice so far suggests damage will increase.
Also, as Tac captains in Sci ships will have captain powers to do more damage than a Sci, that's what Tac captains are all about. Science captains manipulate (targeting subsystems and 'subnuking'). So dam[GW3 Tac Capt] > dam[GW3 Sci Capt], all skills and ship being equal. [Is this fair? -> Wrong thread.]
If dam[GW1 Tac Capt / Tac Ship] compares with dam[GW3 Sci Capt / Sci Ship] then delete GW2 and GW3 as pointless. On the other hand, if GW3 remains relevant then the Tac Capt can still do superior damage using GW3 in a well-built Sci ship.
I do in some ways agree with this, the problem is the magnitude of difference in damage and how irrelevant it makes the damage aspect to other captains. This means it has to be balanced against the extreme numbers only 1 captain type is capable of through buffs, stacking and buff stacking. Which then leaves the other 2 captain classes with not even a 2nd rate version but a 3rd rate version of damage from the skill.
I do think tactical captains should get more out of it but they shouldn't get so much more that it causes other captain classes to get almost nothing out of it. I would say 25% more damage for a tactical captain to get out of GW, all things being equal, sounds about right. We'll just have to wait and see.
We should get a long chair and several hundreds of books then? I mean you're the developer and you cant even keep track of your own changes? What kind of QA employee do you have working there? The holographic QA kind?
The devs have not indicated the magnitude of any changes. We can raise possible red flags, but for all we know so far things could turn out fine! Nobody is "nerfing" the tooltip-listed damage as that damage was not happening. Dev advice so far suggests damage will increase.
Also, as Tac captains in Sci ships will have captain powers to do more damage than a Sci, that's what Tac captains are all about. Science captains manipulate (targeting subsystems and 'subnuking'). So dam[GW3 Tac Capt] > dam[GW3 Sci Capt], all skills and ship being equal. [Is this fair? -> Wrong thread.]
If dam[GW1 Tac Capt / Tac Ship] compares with dam[GW3 Sci Capt / Sci Ship] then delete GW2 and GW3 as pointless. On the other hand, if GW3 remains relevant then the Tac Capt can still do superior damage using GW3 in a well-built Sci ship.
Yes they have its on page 4.
Don't kid yourself this is a damage NERF(;P) for high Aux characters, we'll see about 100-300 damage reduction compared to what the previous GW SHOULD have been doing (so it will do about 300(!) more than now)
Is it the end of the world? I guess not, GW3 will still be the best exotic damage source you can slot well ahead of the next best being FBP and the increase in the Wells size will make using it alot easier.
I've always run medium to high Aux on my Sci regardless of the ship I was flying, but I was reviewing my Varanus yesterday thinking of what I could do to increase its effectiveness in both PVP and PVE and I struggled to find a T4 sci power that I felt was worth slotting for either.
We do have abilities that are completely worthless like CPB (that also has craptastic DOFF option - 20% horrible)
To abilities mostly worthless ES (hello PLeech, good bye ES), TR (bugged to death), PSW (such horrible damage and why does its aftershock DOFF effect have a repel on it)
To abilities we all struggle to see any value in PO(gimped compared to Aux2Bat, needs a serious review)
This fix is not the death of GW its going to be better than what we have now and if you ran a metre on your damage, this is to all those Sci Sci's in here, I think you'll see that those exotic damage abilities are only a minor portion of your total DPS.
Oh yes last thing to mention, is the aftershock DOFF for GW meant to only make GW1's or is it meant to scale with the version you run? Would be better I think if actually made GW3 aftershocks if your running GW3
We also reduced the multiplier given by Particle Generators Skill. Attempting to give you the actual % values would be useless here because of the overall order of operations, but suffice it so say that it's been reduced. So, again, high-end users may see a decrease in the damage dealt by their Gravity Wells when combining high Skill levels with high Aux levels.
Not sure it's fair to punish science captains on this one. As a tac captain I didn't spec this skill at all because I don't need it and it's a lot of skill points better spent elsewhere. It's not like I can run GW3 on an escort, and the only reason I can even try GW2 on a ship with cannons is because of special ships with universal boff stations.
The power has always dealt Kinetic Damage. It may have, for some reason, been called something different at some point far back in the mists of time, but I can't find any record of that being the case.
Putting in in other words, is GW affected by exotic dmg trait?
Gravity Well isn't a Hold. Think of it as a Push. You are still moving at whatever speed you're moving at, but the Well pushes you into itself with each pulse.
If you're moving faster, a push has far less effect on your momentum.
It's the difference between shoving a person that's standing still and shoving a car that's moving toward you.
I get this. My question though, is whether the ship's inertia modifier gets factored in.
A heavy ship with a lot of inertia behind it should be somewhat less affected by a push than a smaller, lighter ship with low inertia.
To take your example a bit further, it's the difference between trying to shove a Mack truck that's standing still and a Yugo coasting in neutral gear.
Thus, the heavy ship should resist being shoved around at lower speeds than the lighter ship does.
If inertia were factored in a bit differently, things would tend to be a little more balanced, IMO.
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Mass seems to be optional. I've probably missed some key episodes, but the Trek I've seen had tractor beams being used by large ships to manipulate small masses. If mass was a factor in STO then a Defiant using tractor beam repulsors would have a heck of a recoil against a carrier.
I like that they move fast, and require ACC or a lot of hard controls to ball up for slaughter.
I like that it makes it harder for my escort to keep DHCs on target, and that it gives a bit of new life for my BFAW boat as the arc is much more generous and forgiving.
The main issue is, IMO, their behavior.
They scatter to the winds, probably because their original behavior never considered them moving at these speeds.
If their behavior gets fixed, they can keep EPTE and be less flighty.
I have to agree with this, the fact that the ships with EPTE, which is mostly spheres but a lot of other cruisers have them as well, can barely turn is the problem, they move too fast and just fly straight out of range and cause no threats to the players. In ISE it is most noticeable, because they smash against the gates and get stuck.
Mass seems to be optional. I've probably missed some key episodes, but the Trek I've seen had tractor beams being used by large ships to manipulate small masses. If mass was a factor in STO then a Defiant using tractor beam repulsors would have a heck of a recoil against a carrier.
Lol, STO using real science facts? The way drains and power insulators work, it breaks the law of conservation of energy. Why? When PI are high or the target's power level in a given system is zero, you're still getting power from thin air.
That is the difference. Like you say, these builds are a mirror image of what you say tac captains are doing, except for PG and AUX instead of weapons. The builds are the same idea, just thrown into different skills.
The proposed fix, will make Grav Well weaker than it is now for me and many other science builds that are specced, and the skill will be more efficient with less skill points invested.
For a tac captain that is never the case, because the diminished return on +dmg tac consoles is too insignificant to be noteworthy, and it applies directly to damage, not to the skill which then effects damage, and is thus a diminished return, like a particle generators.
And contrary to most of the angst here, all T4 ships and up can slot ApB1. And then throw in an abomination like the Fleet Luna's 4 tac conosles, and it's like why roll a SCI captain at all?
First off tac consoles do not have diminishing return. They give the same amount of bonus, it is all based off base damage. To test this take all of your consoles out and beam to sol or other system space and add one at a time back to your ship. You will see the same amount of damage added to your ship per console. As long as they are the same console.
Here is a good fix, science ships should have sensor anylayst added to the damage of all science abilities. If tac captains skills like APA and APO should not buff these powers. From what I am reading is that they are. If they are why is sensor anylayst not buffing it from science ships. I also think sensor anylayst should not loose the stack for changing target. I think it should drop as soon as you have no possible targets in firing range or loose of red alert. Sensor analyst shield also be increased by a flat rate. So if you have been in combat for the required time it would act like this. If your GW does 1000dps then with a full sensor analyst it would do 1333dps. Now I know this could let out of control, because some gravity wells are supposed to do about 1800dps, adding 600 point of damage might make it to nasty.
One thing we need to remember is that Conservation of Energy was develope with the bug involved. They have to keep the balance.
As far as one person being caught in three gravity wells I am sorry it is just like being shot by three escort with rapid fire three. Both should have the same effect. Just because it could happen either way that is good team play in PvP or PvE. Payers should not be punished for good team play. It should also take more than increasing engine power to break a GW. Everything should have a counter but GW has to many. APO, Aux to Damp, polerize hull, evasive maneuvers, and deterium should be the only way out. It is up to the player to be aware of their surroundings and adapt not just cater to the few that can't adapt. If you don't have one or more of these skills or they are on cooldown you just got caught.
APO, Aux to Damp, polerize hull, evasive maneuvers, and deterium should be the only way out.
I do agree tac ships just have too much of an easy time with GW. A tac captain can concentrate on shooting, defense, and a few counters and they are very effective. A sci captain has horrible DPS weapon wise because of ship layouts, and, unlike tac captains, need to spend skill points for their boff skills to be just decent.
By the way, subspace jump would also be a valid escape tactic.
Lol, STO using real science facts? The way drains and power insulators work, it breaks the law of conservation of energy. Why? When PI are high or the target's power level in a given system is zero, you're still getting power from thin air.
I do not see a violation. The power level is how much power is available to the subsytem. If it is zero, none is available because all of it is being drained by power siphon.
Not sure it's fair to punish science captains on this one. As a tac captain I didn't spec this skill at all because I don't need it and it's a lot of skill points better spent elsewhere. It's not like I can run GW3 on an escort, and the only reason I can even try GW2 on a ship with cannons is because of special ships with universal boff stations.
I agree. If GW cannot crush pets and other spam like a tin can (including elite runabouts and whatnot) it is not doing its job. Science captains need some viable powers. Spending points in science skills and running at high AUX is a big investment which should pay off in terms of usefulness to PvP as much as a tac captain investing in tactical skills and running at high weapons power.
I agree. If GW cannot crush pets and other spam like a tin can (including elite runabouts and whatnot) it is not doing its job. Science captains need some viable powers. Spending points in science skills and running at high AUX is a big investment which should pay off in terms of usefulness to PvP as much as a tac captain investing in tactical skills and running at high weapons power.
Just to play devil's advocate, I run a tac ship that in PvE pretty much runs on all power levels maxed thanks to flow capacitors and the leech console among other things.
Here is a good fix, science ships should have sensor anylayst added to the damage of all science abilities. If tac captains skills like APA and APO should not buff these powers. From what I am reading is that they are. If they are why is sensor anylayst not buffing it from science ships. I also think sensor anylayst should not loose the stack for changing target. I think it should drop as soon as you have no possible targets in firing range or loose of red alert. Sensor analyst shield also be increased by a flat rate. So if you have been in combat for the required time it would act like this. If your GW does 1000dps then with a full sensor analyst it would do 1333dps. Now I know this could let out of control, because some gravity wells are supposed to do about 1800dps, adding 600 point of damage might make it to nasty.
You are mixing up a ship inate power and boff/captain powers. Which would basically mean if you use a tac heavy sci ship the dmg would be increased by both. Which is a bit to much imo.
But i agree in the point that Sensor Analysis should not loose the whole stack instantly as soon as you switch targets, also it stacks to slow.
The whole Problem is more that the other sci skills that can drain shields and pwoers are more or less have no effect on noc or ppl with a few points in power insulators.
Make them working that way that a full aux sci ship that is specced in it can at least drain the shields or powerlvls of an escort class npc completely on normal difficult.
Combine that with a working grav well and sci can do what they are supposed to do.
Ofc when you are in a group or in a stf npc should not loose all their shieldings or power from a single sci ship.
And the dps in a combat tracker does not give a clear picture of the overall part a ship addns in a stf or in any other mission.
The reason why the skills you meantioned buff the dmg from some sci skills is easy, cause they reduce kinetic resistence on the target, but so does Sensor Scan.
Basically there is not really anything wrong with tacs dealing more dmg in any ship, cause that is there job.
The problem is just that the sci skills were nerfed so much into the ground that the intresting ones in terms of dealing dmg to hull, shields or draining energy like cpb, psw, Tykens,Energy Syphons, and TB are more or less useless.
Reynolds/Thokal
U.S.S. Helios -Vesta Class/R.R.W. Dark Science - Dyson Surveillance Science Destroyer U.S.S. Donut - Fleet Advanced Research Vessel Retrofit TheWiseGuys
To be more specific, Gravity Well 2 and 3 will benefit from Aux power and Graviton Generators skill now -- previously they didn't. The amount that they benefit, though, is being reined in from what it would have been if the powers weren't bugged.
In testing, just making GW2 & 3 benefit from Aux and GravGen allowed a science ship with 135 Aux and 150 GravGen to use GW3 against a group of five frigates and snare and destroy all of them. This is a bit over the top.
Borticus has been tweaking the formulae so that the power will be useful, and you will see improvements in your Gravity Wells from increasing Aux or GravGen, but it won't be over the top.
All other stats being equal, GW2 & 3 will be more powerful than GW1.
To be honest, I do not understand this reasoning. An escort (especially one of the five cannon escorts) with weapons at 135 and scatter volley III could also kill five frigates during the use of that power and that is not considered to be "overpowered".
But when a science ship is given the ability to use its highest level power to cause that kind of damage at a much lower rate (once per minute) and with the ability of the prey to escape by using an engine power , it is considered overpowered?
I do not think that science powers should replace tactical officers as damage dealers; however, I do believe that they should be useful. I do believe gravity well should be able to crush pets and other NPC spam if you are speccing fully into it.
Maybe you should consider allowing GW III to do this kind of damage considering that the only ships which can equip it are science vessels and Birds of Prey.
If they're nerfing the skill bonus to gravity well, might as well swap it with the power insulators skill. Frankly the protection from power insulators when just spending 1 or 2 points is massive versus wasting points on this skill when it's getting nerfed.
If they're nerfing the skill bonus to gravity well, might as well swap it with the power insulators skill. Frankly the protection from power insulators when just spending 1 or 2 points is massive versus wasting points on this skill when it's getting nerfed.
Power Insulators is fine.
Really.
There is no reason one or two drain powers should completely disable another player and make them helpless. (And people are upset about Beam Overload. :rolleyes:)
Shield stripping powers could use a tweak, that I agree. They don't however need to be full on shield removal bombs, because that would be silly.
Do you know what a Rapid Fire of Torp spread does without any other buffs vs. all the passive mitigation we have in game?
Stack your powers and go big for an effect, or go home. It's how the entire game works.
Shield stripping powers could use a tweak, that I agree. They don't however need to be full on shield removal bombs, because that would be silly.
Ok, I can agree with that. Power insulators make the Tetryon glider/proc garbage while on the other hand you still get a full benefit from leechs even if the target feels almost nothing(except for bugged ES1).
....Lets face it, sci can't be monetised unlike tac pew so I wouldn't hold my breath this will make gw anywhere equal to a csv (mainly as csv doesn't get slapped with kinetic damage issues regarding shields..changing grav wells damage to have a transphasic component would make it immensely more useful though..or heck, make that +30% damage from the stacking sci trait be transphasic type bleedthrough on all offensive sci abilities)
Shields do not reduce the damage from Gravity Well. The only thing reducing damage from Gravity Well is the ship's kinetic damage resistance rating. Damage from gravity well bypasses shields and applies straight to the ship's hull after taking the damage resistance rating and the distance from the event horizon into account. Photonic Shockwave is the only science damage dealing ability that takes shield resistances into account. Not that it really matters, considering that a Mk XII common quantum torpedo does more damage than a fully specced five science console photonic shockwave III. It's a shame Cryptic nerfed it, there was a time where shockwave could deal 20k damage to unshielded targets when buffed with tactical abilities. Today there are ships with close to 70k hull strength, and 20k hit point shields/facing are not uncommon. Perhaps Cryptic will give the ability a second look someday.
I wouldn't mind the nerfed damage too much, since tacs in sci ships would be able to spec the same way and use GW with far more damage than a Sci could- probably enough to be OP, actually.
All I want is for the hold to be good. At least then it would fulfil its primary purpose.
I do agree tac ships just have too much of an easy time with GW. A tac captain can concentrate on shooting, defense, and a few counters and they are very effective. A sci captain has horrible DPS weapon wise because of ship layouts, and, unlike tac captains, need to spend skill points for their boff skills to be just decent.
By the way, subspace jump would also be a valid escape tactic.
When it comes down to it, Tactical Captains has two abilities buffing their science damage, Go Down Fighting and Attack Pattern Alpha. Attack Pattern Alpha will get you about a 49.5% boost to Gravity Well damage for 30 seconds (2 minute 30 second cooldown). Go Down Fighting can only be used below 50% hull. Now, Science officers have the unique ability of picking up the Conservation of Energy Trait, +30% all damage to any ability buffed by the Particle Generators skill when under fire. Although Tactical officers has slightly higher spike damage, their overall damage is lower than a science officer's most of the time. Cryptic did a really nice job with LoR and providing Science officers a means to make their damage dealing abilities a bit more powerful. Tactical officers in a Science Vessel have become much less of a threat since Legacy of Romulus. To be perfectly honest, Science officers now do a much better job in Science ships than Tactical officers could ever hope to achieve. On top of that, Science officers have subnuke beam and the AoE sensor scan (cleared by science team, unlike tactical's fire on my mark, cleared by tactical team).
There is no reason one or two drain powers should completely disable another player and make them helpless. (And people are upset about Beam Overload. :rolleyes:)
Shield stripping powers could use a tweak, that I agree. They don't however need to be full on shield removal bombs, because that would be silly.
Do you know what a Rapid Fire of Torp spread does without any other buffs vs. all the passive mitigation we have in game?
Stack your powers and go big for an effect, or go home. It's how the entire game works.
The Problem with drain powers is that they are totally useless atm, that includes the target subsystem skills. On my tooltip for the sci ships inate target sub it says i get 35 drain if i hit an oponent, in reality it is more something like 15... if i am lucky.
Same with the other shield drain skills like tachyon beam and cpb. MAybe charged cpb shouldn?t be able to kill shields completely, cause it is an aoe, but tachyon beam should as a single target skill, that you need to keep on the target a while.
And btw. where is the difference if a sci ship would be able to remove shields on a target and then go for the hull to a escort that can basically do the same with brute force? Not to mention that in a sci ship you can?t repeat it that fast cause of the cooldowns.
Also it is easier to time instant skills then skills that need some time to get to their full potential, which makes it imo easier to combine tac debuffs with a spread then several sci skills. The way you wrote it it sound as if an energy drain instantly drains your power as soon as it is deployed.
As i already stated in pve content like stfs or so, it shouldn?t be able to do it, completely, but if you do your daylies on normal and without anyone else, the power should at least be able to do so, if you are skilled in it.
And i am only talking about pve here. Maybe on the other hand they should completely redesignt theshield drains and change them into shield resistence debuffs.
Taht way this sci abilities would help the whole team and sci would be more a force multiplier as it should be in the first place.
You also forget that in pvp the player you are ataking can react with shield heals or heading out with evasive or anything else or maybe even get help from their teammates (yeah i know crazy idea) That is something npc's do not.
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I appreciate the information. A couple of questions though.
1) Was this a GW buffed by all of a tactical captains abilities?
If so 2/3rds of your classes cannot hope to get near that level of damage.
2) What sort of level of gameplay are we talking about?
If a GW3 that has had a lot of points specced into cannot kill the probes exiting the gateway on Khitomer Space on Elite difficulty with some small AoE fire from a science ship then I'm sorry but it is not even close to comparable to an escorts CSV3.
3) Is there any plans to reign in just how silly some tactical captains can buff theses damage dealing science abilities or do you intend to keep tactical captains as top dog for any situation involving any and all forms of damage?
I have no problems a tactical captain getting the most damage out of weapons and doing the most damage that way but considering the tactical captains buff will affect both the ability AND the weapons it's a 2 fold increase to the damage levels other captains can achieve.
The problem to me is that with a long cooldown and taking up a VERY high level bridge officer slot it should be good but at the same time certain types of captain can buff it to a much larger extent than others which is where the problems begin.
If tactical buffs like attack pattern alpha, omega and other things that say increases your damage by 20-50% did not affect these abilities you would have an easier time balancing these skills as most captains would get the same or a similar amount out of the ability than the other. Kind of like what you're doing now by normalising the values, buffing the base and lowering just how much you benefit from extra particle/graviton gens.
4) Finally, is there a way to alter it's performance between PvP and PvE? If it did good damage in PvP where hulls are maybe 30-50k it won't do as well in PvE, especially elite, where hull strengths are much higher.
I can sense the PvPers coming to claim PvE is so easy you can do it blindfolded with only a shuttle and a mk 1 phaser. Be realistic, in PvE it's not about if you can do it, it's about whether you're useful and whether you're helping to complete it quicker or holding the team back.
The current record for doing all 3 original space STFs on elite is about 2 minutes 30s, this is 5 cruisers with mostly tactical captains. You couldn't even hope to get close to that with 5 science ships, don't agree then prove me wrong and I'll happily apologise, maybe 5 escorts but I'll never see science ships getting that on science abilities.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
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Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
....Lets face it, sci can't be monetised unlike tac pew so I wouldn't hold my breath this will make gw anywhere equal to a csv (mainly as csv doesn't get slapped with kinetic damage issues regarding shields..changing grav wells damage to have a transphasic component would make it immensely more useful though..or heck, make that +30% damage from the stacking sci trait be transphasic type bleedthrough on all offensive sci abilities)
...as to reigning in tac abilities? that will never happen; tac and roms are stos cash cows - harming either would be detrimental to balance...the bank balance, I mean
regarding dual stats for abilities in pvp/pve, the devs have said many times they cannot/will not (delete as applicable) create such a system
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That is the difference. Like you say, these builds are a mirror image of what you say tac captains are doing, except for PG and AUX instead of weapons. The builds are the same idea, just thrown into different skills.
The proposed fix, will make Grav Well weaker than it is now for me and many other science builds that are specced, and the skill will be more efficient with less skill points invested.
For a tac captain that is never the case, because the diminished return on +dmg tac consoles is too insignificant to be noteworthy, and it applies directly to damage, not to the skill which then effects damage, and is thus a diminished return, like a particle generators.
And contrary to most of the angst here, all T4 ships and up can slot ApB1. And then throw in an abomination like the Fleet Luna's 4 tac conosles, and it's like why roll a SCI captain at all?
It's like you know about the secret 75% cap. Whoops.
But more to the point, there are no alternative Tac consoles. There are no "Pattern Consoles". There's nothing. You put in a plus damage or you leave it empty. I'm not saying anything else, just mentioning that as far as consoles go you really don't give anything up in Tactical, because there's nothing to give up.
Sci and Eng have several alternative choices, so there you can say there is some sort of give and take in a build.
That's all. TY for your time!:D
And you know, there are no deflectors that give +20 ~disruptor damage (a couple of sets that give damage if you slot enough set pieces, but no single item).
The proposed method, where most of the damage comes from the spell, will mean Tac and Engi can use APB and make sci more irrelevant.
Removing a particle gen for something else, will make it weaker yet, however more 'efficient' it would be in output vs investment, but if you want max GW output, you're going to keep it.
I would also be using many of the same universal consoles, and unless I'm giving up those tac console slots, have tougher choices to make.
If +wep damage consoles cap at +75% it's the first I've heard of it.
So they should change the stats of the npc thst way, that sci actually can bring something in and that it doesn?t take way longer if you solo npc?s with a sci ship then with a cruiser or escort.
Would be nice if they change the drains and npc?s that way, that you actually can drain s noticeable amount of an npc?s shield or energy if you use charged particle burst and/or tachyon beam or one of the other drain skills. They can adpat the stats for group play to make it not to easy the way they send in more ships now when you have more ppl doing an mission.
Atm i would say that non of the drains has an noticeable effect on the npc. I know that might have nothing to do with grav welll, but it has. If you change the other sci skills and the npc stats taht way that they actually have an impact on the npc, no one would ask for a high dmg grav well, cause you would have enough other skills that helps to get rid of them also.
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Also, as Tac captains in Sci ships will have captain powers to do more damage than a Sci, that's what Tac captains are all about. Science captains manipulate (targeting subsystems and 'subnuking'). So dam[GW3 Tac Capt] > dam[GW3 Sci Capt], all skills and ship being equal. [Is this fair? -> Wrong thread.]
If dam[GW1 Tac Capt / Tac Ship] compares with dam[GW3 Sci Capt / Sci Ship] then delete GW2 and GW3 as pointless. On the other hand, if GW3 remains relevant then the Tac Capt can still do superior damage using GW3 in a well-built Sci ship.
I do in some ways agree with this, the problem is the magnitude of difference in damage and how irrelevant it makes the damage aspect to other captains. This means it has to be balanced against the extreme numbers only 1 captain type is capable of through buffs, stacking and buff stacking. Which then leaves the other 2 captain classes with not even a 2nd rate version but a 3rd rate version of damage from the skill.
I do think tactical captains should get more out of it but they shouldn't get so much more that it causes other captain classes to get almost nothing out of it. I would say 25% more damage for a tactical captain to get out of GW, all things being equal, sounds about right. We'll just have to wait and see.
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.
We should get a long chair and several hundreds of books then? I mean you're the developer and you cant even keep track of your own changes? What kind of QA employee do you have working there? The holographic QA kind?
Yes they have its on page 4.
Don't kid yourself this is a damage NERF(;P) for high Aux characters, we'll see about 100-300 damage reduction compared to what the previous GW SHOULD have been doing (so it will do about 300(!) more than now)
Is it the end of the world? I guess not, GW3 will still be the best exotic damage source you can slot well ahead of the next best being FBP and the increase in the Wells size will make using it alot easier.
I've always run medium to high Aux on my Sci regardless of the ship I was flying, but I was reviewing my Varanus yesterday thinking of what I could do to increase its effectiveness in both PVP and PVE and I struggled to find a T4 sci power that I felt was worth slotting for either.
We do have abilities that are completely worthless like CPB (that also has craptastic DOFF option - 20% horrible)
To abilities mostly worthless ES (hello PLeech, good bye ES), TR (bugged to death), PSW (such horrible damage and why does its aftershock DOFF effect have a repel on it)
To abilities we all struggle to see any value in PO(gimped compared to Aux2Bat, needs a serious review)
This fix is not the death of GW its going to be better than what we have now and if you ran a metre on your damage, this is to all those Sci Sci's in here, I think you'll see that those exotic damage abilities are only a minor portion of your total DPS.
Oh yes last thing to mention, is the aftershock DOFF for GW meant to only make GW1's or is it meant to scale with the version you run? Would be better I think if actually made GW3 aftershocks if your running GW3
Not sure it's fair to punish science captains on this one. As a tac captain I didn't spec this skill at all because I don't need it and it's a lot of skill points better spent elsewhere. It's not like I can run GW3 on an escort, and the only reason I can even try GW2 on a ship with cannons is because of special ships with universal boff stations.
Edit: Actually, I could run cannons and GW3 in this one -> http://sto.gamepedia.com/Multi-Mission_Surveillance_Explorer
Putting in in other words, is GW affected by exotic dmg trait?
Then i read: Systems:
a history of sto pvp: 2010 - 2011
a history of sto pvp: 2012 - 2013
I get this. My question though, is whether the ship's inertia modifier gets factored in.
A heavy ship with a lot of inertia behind it should be somewhat less affected by a push than a smaller, lighter ship with low inertia.
To take your example a bit further, it's the difference between trying to shove a Mack truck that's standing still and a Yugo coasting in neutral gear.
Thus, the heavy ship should resist being shoved around at lower speeds than the lighter ship does.
If inertia were factored in a bit differently, things would tend to be a little more balanced, IMO.
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Mass seems to be optional. I've probably missed some key episodes, but the Trek I've seen had tractor beams being used by large ships to manipulate small masses. If mass was a factor in STO then a Defiant using tractor beam repulsors would have a heck of a recoil against a carrier.
I have to agree with this, the fact that the ships with EPTE, which is mostly spheres but a lot of other cruisers have them as well, can barely turn is the problem, they move too fast and just fly straight out of range and cause no threats to the players. In ISE it is most noticeable, because they smash against the gates and get stuck.
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Lol, STO using real science facts? The way drains and power insulators work, it breaks the law of conservation of energy. Why? When PI are high or the target's power level in a given system is zero, you're still getting power from thin air.
First off tac consoles do not have diminishing return. They give the same amount of bonus, it is all based off base damage. To test this take all of your consoles out and beam to sol or other system space and add one at a time back to your ship. You will see the same amount of damage added to your ship per console. As long as they are the same console.
Here is a good fix, science ships should have sensor anylayst added to the damage of all science abilities. If tac captains skills like APA and APO should not buff these powers. From what I am reading is that they are. If they are why is sensor anylayst not buffing it from science ships. I also think sensor anylayst should not loose the stack for changing target. I think it should drop as soon as you have no possible targets in firing range or loose of red alert. Sensor analyst shield also be increased by a flat rate. So if you have been in combat for the required time it would act like this. If your GW does 1000dps then with a full sensor analyst it would do 1333dps. Now I know this could let out of control, because some gravity wells are supposed to do about 1800dps, adding 600 point of damage might make it to nasty.
One thing we need to remember is that Conservation of Energy was develope with the bug involved. They have to keep the balance.
As far as one person being caught in three gravity wells I am sorry it is just like being shot by three escort with rapid fire three. Both should have the same effect. Just because it could happen either way that is good team play in PvP or PvE. Payers should not be punished for good team play. It should also take more than increasing engine power to break a GW. Everything should have a counter but GW has to many. APO, Aux to Damp, polerize hull, evasive maneuvers, and deterium should be the only way out. It is up to the player to be aware of their surroundings and adapt not just cater to the few that can't adapt. If you don't have one or more of these skills or they are on cooldown you just got caught.
I do agree tac ships just have too much of an easy time with GW. A tac captain can concentrate on shooting, defense, and a few counters and they are very effective. A sci captain has horrible DPS weapon wise because of ship layouts, and, unlike tac captains, need to spend skill points for their boff skills to be just decent.
By the way, subspace jump would also be a valid escape tactic.
I do not see a violation. The power level is how much power is available to the subsytem. If it is zero, none is available because all of it is being drained by power siphon.
I agree. If GW cannot crush pets and other spam like a tin can (including elite runabouts and whatnot) it is not doing its job. Science captains need some viable powers. Spending points in science skills and running at high AUX is a big investment which should pay off in terms of usefulness to PvP as much as a tac captain investing in tactical skills and running at high weapons power.
Just to play devil's advocate, I run a tac ship that in PvE pretty much runs on all power levels maxed thanks to flow capacitors and the leech console among other things.
You are mixing up a ship inate power and boff/captain powers. Which would basically mean if you use a tac heavy sci ship the dmg would be increased by both. Which is a bit to much imo.
But i agree in the point that Sensor Analysis should not loose the whole stack instantly as soon as you switch targets, also it stacks to slow.
The whole Problem is more that the other sci skills that can drain shields and pwoers are more or less have no effect on noc or ppl with a few points in power insulators.
Make them working that way that a full aux sci ship that is specced in it can at least drain the shields or powerlvls of an escort class npc completely on normal difficult.
Combine that with a working grav well and sci can do what they are supposed to do.
Ofc when you are in a group or in a stf npc should not loose all their shieldings or power from a single sci ship.
And the dps in a combat tracker does not give a clear picture of the overall part a ship addns in a stf or in any other mission.
The reason why the skills you meantioned buff the dmg from some sci skills is easy, cause they reduce kinetic resistence on the target, but so does Sensor Scan.
Basically there is not really anything wrong with tacs dealing more dmg in any ship, cause that is there job.
The problem is just that the sci skills were nerfed so much into the ground that the intresting ones in terms of dealing dmg to hull, shields or draining energy like cpb, psw, Tykens,Energy Syphons, and TB are more or less useless.
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To be honest, I do not understand this reasoning. An escort (especially one of the five cannon escorts) with weapons at 135 and scatter volley III could also kill five frigates during the use of that power and that is not considered to be "overpowered".
But when a science ship is given the ability to use its highest level power to cause that kind of damage at a much lower rate (once per minute) and with the ability of the prey to escape by using an engine power , it is considered overpowered?
I do not think that science powers should replace tactical officers as damage dealers; however, I do believe that they should be useful. I do believe gravity well should be able to crush pets and other NPC spam if you are speccing fully into it.
Maybe you should consider allowing GW III to do this kind of damage considering that the only ships which can equip it are science vessels and Birds of Prey.
Power Insulators is fine.
Really.
There is no reason one or two drain powers should completely disable another player and make them helpless. (And people are upset about Beam Overload. :rolleyes:)
Shield stripping powers could use a tweak, that I agree. They don't however need to be full on shield removal bombs, because that would be silly.
Do you know what a Rapid Fire of Torp spread does without any other buffs vs. all the passive mitigation we have in game?
Stack your powers and go big for an effect, or go home. It's how the entire game works.
Ok, I can agree with that. Power insulators make the Tetryon glider/proc garbage while on the other hand you still get a full benefit from leechs even if the target feels almost nothing(except for bugged ES1).
Shields do not reduce the damage from Gravity Well. The only thing reducing damage from Gravity Well is the ship's kinetic damage resistance rating. Damage from gravity well bypasses shields and applies straight to the ship's hull after taking the damage resistance rating and the distance from the event horizon into account. Photonic Shockwave is the only science damage dealing ability that takes shield resistances into account. Not that it really matters, considering that a Mk XII common quantum torpedo does more damage than a fully specced five science console photonic shockwave III. It's a shame Cryptic nerfed it, there was a time where shockwave could deal 20k damage to unshielded targets when buffed with tactical abilities. Today there are ships with close to 70k hull strength, and 20k hit point shields/facing are not uncommon. Perhaps Cryptic will give the ability a second look someday.
Yes, the conservation of energy science trait affects Gravity Well, Photonic Shockwave, Tractor Beam, Feedback Pulse, Tykens rift (damage side), Quantum Focus Field Phaser (Vesta), Eject Warp Plasma, Aceton Beam, and Tractor Beam Repulsors.
When it comes down to it, Tactical Captains has two abilities buffing their science damage, Go Down Fighting and Attack Pattern Alpha. Attack Pattern Alpha will get you about a 49.5% boost to Gravity Well damage for 30 seconds (2 minute 30 second cooldown). Go Down Fighting can only be used below 50% hull. Now, Science officers have the unique ability of picking up the Conservation of Energy Trait, +30% all damage to any ability buffed by the Particle Generators skill when under fire. Although Tactical officers has slightly higher spike damage, their overall damage is lower than a science officer's most of the time. Cryptic did a really nice job with LoR and providing Science officers a means to make their damage dealing abilities a bit more powerful. Tactical officers in a Science Vessel have become much less of a threat since Legacy of Romulus. To be perfectly honest, Science officers now do a much better job in Science ships than Tactical officers could ever hope to achieve. On top of that, Science officers have subnuke beam and the AoE sensor scan (cleared by science team, unlike tactical's fire on my mark, cleared by tactical team).
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The Problem with drain powers is that they are totally useless atm, that includes the target subsystem skills. On my tooltip for the sci ships inate target sub it says i get 35 drain if i hit an oponent, in reality it is more something like 15... if i am lucky.
Same with the other shield drain skills like tachyon beam and cpb. MAybe charged cpb shouldn?t be able to kill shields completely, cause it is an aoe, but tachyon beam should as a single target skill, that you need to keep on the target a while.
And btw. where is the difference if a sci ship would be able to remove shields on a target and then go for the hull to a escort that can basically do the same with brute force? Not to mention that in a sci ship you can?t repeat it that fast cause of the cooldowns.
Also it is easier to time instant skills then skills that need some time to get to their full potential, which makes it imo easier to combine tac debuffs with a spread then several sci skills. The way you wrote it it sound as if an energy drain instantly drains your power as soon as it is deployed.
As i already stated in pve content like stfs or so, it shouldn?t be able to do it, completely, but if you do your daylies on normal and without anyone else, the power should at least be able to do so, if you are skilled in it.
And i am only talking about pve here. Maybe on the other hand they should completely redesignt theshield drains and change them into shield resistence debuffs.
Taht way this sci abilities would help the whole team and sci would be more a force multiplier as it should be in the first place.
You also forget that in pvp the player you are ataking can react with shield heals or heading out with evasive or anything else or maybe even get help from their teammates (yeah i know crazy idea) That is something npc's do not.
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