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Beam+AtB+DEM Counter-play Theorycrafting
scurry5
Member Posts: 1,554 Arc User
Alright, so the queues are absolutely packed with beam-users, who absolutely rip apart my hull, if not the shields as well. I'll leave the discussion about whether it's imbalanced or not to others - what I want to discuss is counter-methods. So I'll just walk through my thought process, and all of you can add stuff as you see fit. 
Alright, so the common aspects as I see them are:
-Beams, often enhanced with FaW, or on occasion, BO.
-AtB to reduce cooldowns.
-APB to cut damage resist.
-DEM to cut through shields.
Most of what I'm mulling over here is from the perspective of a Science player who can't cloak, and who pugs most of the time. Team play is another story altogether.
1. Damage resistance and defense
AtS and AtD (doffed) sound like they may be able to work to minimize the damage from their spikes, bleedthrough or not. If large amounts of defense can be used, that's good too. High aux, may be necessary to get the max out of this. This should also involve
2. Scramble Sensors
May be of use if the opponent is abusing FaW. Should be nicely effective if so. Otherwise, near-useless.
3. TBR
To separate a beam-boat-ball from each other and hopefully render the damage less crazy. What do you all think?
4. FBP
I think it would be decent if the enemy is using FaW. Otherwise, not so much, since they can just stop shooting at you.
5. High-particle gen Aceton Beam
Now, I know this is a lousy skill under most circumstances, but hear me out. With the amount of damage players are pulling with these builds, Aceton's ability to cause the player to damage himself might be able to work fast enough before the player notices and clears with HE. The damage cut is a nice bonus. The only problem would be the cooldown, but it could be nice if you can force the player to burn HE and then counter his Tacbuff spike.
6. Sensor Scan (doffed)
Perhaps this might work to knock off some of the damage during the spike phase of the beamboat. If the damage debuff is AoE (I need to check), this could be very interesting combined with CC.
7. Maximum uptime on Tac Team
Escorts pretty much have this already, but Science ships rarely do. Most of the time, one copy was sufficient for me. However, with the pure quantity of APB being flung around, full uptime may be a necessity now.
That's pretty much all I can think of on pug defense against such buildstyles.
Anyone have some input on how well this could work? And any other suggestions on countering this new meta?
Alright, so the common aspects as I see them are:
-Beams, often enhanced with FaW, or on occasion, BO.
-AtB to reduce cooldowns.
-APB to cut damage resist.
-DEM to cut through shields.
Most of what I'm mulling over here is from the perspective of a Science player who can't cloak, and who pugs most of the time. Team play is another story altogether.
1. Damage resistance and defense
AtS and AtD (doffed) sound like they may be able to work to minimize the damage from their spikes, bleedthrough or not. If large amounts of defense can be used, that's good too. High aux, may be necessary to get the max out of this. This should also involve
2. Scramble Sensors
May be of use if the opponent is abusing FaW. Should be nicely effective if so. Otherwise, near-useless.
3. TBR
To separate a beam-boat-ball from each other and hopefully render the damage less crazy. What do you all think?
4. FBP
I think it would be decent if the enemy is using FaW. Otherwise, not so much, since they can just stop shooting at you.
5. High-particle gen Aceton Beam
Now, I know this is a lousy skill under most circumstances, but hear me out. With the amount of damage players are pulling with these builds, Aceton's ability to cause the player to damage himself might be able to work fast enough before the player notices and clears with HE. The damage cut is a nice bonus. The only problem would be the cooldown, but it could be nice if you can force the player to burn HE and then counter his Tacbuff spike.
6. Sensor Scan (doffed)
Perhaps this might work to knock off some of the damage during the spike phase of the beamboat. If the damage debuff is AoE (I need to check), this could be very interesting combined with CC.
7. Maximum uptime on Tac Team
Escorts pretty much have this already, but Science ships rarely do. Most of the time, one copy was sufficient for me. However, with the pure quantity of APB being flung around, full uptime may be a necessity now.
That's pretty much all I can think of on pug defense against such buildstyles.
Anyone have some input on how well this could work? And any other suggestions on countering this new meta?
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My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Aceton is interesting... its pretty pointless as its cleared by hazards. That's the main issue I see with it. (cool down is fine on an atb build funny enough)
Perhaps if Cryptic really is going to stand by working as intended for Beam Overcapping.
What we need to do is Pressure them into changing Aceton up.
What if Aceton....
Was cleared by Engi Team instead of Hazards.
Had a 45s Cool down.
and Had a 15s Effect time.
And to top it off... Drop it down at least one rank.... perhaps even all the way to Ensign.
Aceton 1 - Ensign (25% dmg reduction... small Rad dmg)
Aceton 2 - Lt (33% dmg reduction... medium Rad dmg)
Aceton 3 - Lt Cmd (50% dmg reduction... large Rad Dmg)
I think this would be a nice boost to cruisers... give us another usable ensign skill.
Again running into the issue of Hazards....
Hazards completely clears both of those debuffs.
I really like that idea as well.. make it eat someones shelds... that would make even the small numbers on it useful.
One fix for all the faw... aceton assimilators all over the place. lol
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
They are gonna have to burn engy teams and/or batteries of some kind to fix it.
Sure a lot of Feds (and Fed-Roms) are gonna have a good amount of Human BOFFs, but even with those, you can still make some discord happen.
High flow spec target any other systems can help to as people will tend to switch power instead of loosing other systems. I would imagine a target aux on someone running aux to bat might be a good option.
Interesting ideas, all! On this one, though.....does AtB restore disabled subsystems like emergency power/batteries?
EWO (BO+Pen) applies a debuff for extra shield penetration/bleed and reduced damage resistance
Nanite Disruptors applies a debuff that increases bleed
Enhanced Shield Penetration passive from Nukara Rep
Elachi Disruptors have their proc to ignore shields/reduce resistance (doesn't apply a debuff - just applies to the shot)
Elite Fleet Disruptors applies a debuff to reduce shield damage reduction
I have to test again to see if Disruptor procs from various Disruptors are stacking again. They were before the fix to the "double Disruptor" issue, but not after - not sure if that's changed again yet.
But debuffs stack.
The formula for that (I have it as a multiple step process in a spreadsheet) is:
TDR = (-1 * ((1 / ((1 + (1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1 - (((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1) / (1 + (DRRP / ((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1)) + ((DRRP / ((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1)) ^2)))) / (1 + (1 - (((-1 * ((1 / (1 + (1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1 - (((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1) / (1 + (DRRP / ((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1)) + ((DRRP / ((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1)) ^2))))) - 1)) * 100) / 100) * (1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1 - (((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1) / (1 + (DRRN / ((1 / (1 - MAX)) - 1)) + ((DRRN / ((1 / (1 - 0.75)) - 1)) ^2)))))) - 1)) * 100)
Where the acronyms are the following:
TDR = Total Damage Resistance
DRRP = Positive Damage Resistance Rating
DRRN = Negative Damage Resistance Rating
MAX = Maximum Damage Resistance
Two posts from the same thread:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12640491&postcount=102
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12646181&postcount=111
So outside of the things you can't do anything about (can't get rid of their passives or weapons outside of not having them target you), it gets into a battle of cleansing their debuffs and stripping their buffs.
So yeah, basically...
Cleanse
Strip/Debuff
Jam/Scramble
Buff/Heal
Something to note about the Beams, mind you - is that Cannons can still do more Single Target damage. If you get a group running Cannons that can work together, applying the same stuff (outside of FAW obviously) to Cannons...if they can work some crosshealing/buffing magic while doing the focus fire - they should be able to shred the Beam guys...unless they're Beamscorts that are dancing around. I die far more often to concentrated Cannon fire than Beam fire.
Beams rock in a PUG where you really don't need the coordination...just lean on the spacebar and it does the rest. If you're in a PUG yourself, well - teamwork as mentioned in the previous paragraph is unlikely to happen...so countering it is going to be problematic.
I think that distinction needs to be made...counterplay while in a PUG or counterplay on a Premade? World of difference between what a team could coordinate and what a thrown together team might manage to do, eh?
edit: Oh yeah, I keep asking...anybody tested with the Protonic Polarons and Auto Targeting Module Tac Consoles on Tribble? As far as more bleed that one would have to look at countering?
this is definetly something that needs to happen. being cleared by HE is the killer for it, and being down at ENS would be majorly beneficial to cruisers, and even escorts and sci ships as a whole
That's an interesting suggestion. Higher power - more vulnerability to drain. Higher power, more volatile...lower power, more stable. Power Insulators working off of a scale based on the actual power level. Perhaps working in something for power boosted over the set amount as well? So that 50/15 wouldn't have the same resist as 50/40...? It's boosted more, more volatile, more vulnerable...?
edit: How would you avoid a swing to more drain builds that would take place?
Nope. All A2B does is pump all your Aux into the other systems, it doesn't restore any disabled systems at all. So if you shut down any systems with VM, they are just SoL for that system unless they use an engy team or a battery of some kind.
If it shuts down weapons, that means no pew pew of course. If it shuts down engines, most of these ships are very slow already. If it shuts down aux, that kills most healing skills and prevents any A2B usage. VM won't disable shields of course, but it can really cause some havoc, especially if DOFFed well.
It'd be quite effective against such focused builds like that.
Considering all the +power power creep... would that be such a bad thing... let the scis run some drain builds.
Atb doesnt but emergency power to weps restores as do warpcore batts (I think). Not sure vm is viable.
Careful I suggested that in the general section lately and have basically gotten repeated death threats from full time kdf players!!
Wouldn't just be Sci. It would be a return of Carrier Drain teams. Just shifting it from one "problem" to another. Don't forget that there's supposed to be that Carrier with the FE at the end of the month (Geko confirmed it again as a limited time ship from running the FE at its launch).
Heck, there's a thread over in the Builds section that's already complaining about drain...
It's one of those things where I like the sound of what skollulfr said - just not sure how it could be implemented without simply creating a new FotM.
That said the A2B does revive interest in the cruiser, and if it is mitigated then it will push the flavor of the week people back to escorts.
The real problem is that A2B is the only real build to be significant for cruisers. Sure it might need attention, but the cruiser and especially engineer needs more attention, as the A2B benefits the Tac and sci more.
Acetone needs an Eng clear, not HE. That way the clears are more team based and force more diversity in builds, instead of double TT constantly spammed. I wonder thought if Acetone would be used by escorts as a pre-emptive heal (damage elimination) on their target instead of wanting a heal once they get hit.
I don't know...I could see trading AA for TDF (unless Cryptic changes TDF from being able to be used while cloaked - at which point I wouldn't offer any death threats, but would oft cast stern glances in your direction)...
Indeed fixing things with more problems isn't a good idea... real fix is to just nerf overcapping of weapon power. Having said that though.
Perhaps a higher drain mechanic could effect overcapping... what if any -power drain on the weapon system removed overcapping....
Would make target weapons very powerful... would make tykens and siphen worth trying to time around hazards.
Which is why I run with the bfaw+apb+dem (with marion)+a2b. As long as ppl bring their pets, someone needs to clear them out.
I know you all hate pet spam but it will help.
I got the idea from Orion's in NWS when using my beam boat recluse, massive dps loss if the fighters got out.
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.
That is exactly what I suggested in the thread which is now on page 2 - the QQing from kdf players calling my thread a troll thread was getting so bad I just don't respond to it anymore - but feel free if you want.
I hate that they insta wipe all my HY torps... they are one of the best faw counters in the game though.