Mimey is right, aside from the recent additions to the game, beam arrays still suck :P
In answer to the OP, the following produces 50k DPS:
MIn/maxed tac captain flying any of the later cruisers (Fleet Excel/Regent/Scimmy/Avenger), full set of Rommie plasma beam arrays, all tactical and science consoles tuned to plasma damage and more proc, cookie cutter Aux2Batt build using DEM+Marion, FAW+APB.
That with repeaters of the same build spamming everything in range (possibly best if they chain eachother's APBs to maintain full uptime). for best results trying to preserve the insta-healing targets to get more spam numbers. Or you can get 5 of these builds and spam through everything to death before your team's alpha strikes are finished.
In my experience the highest solo dps readout I can produce that is useful is for my engineer and it sits at nine point something thousand.
This is why when I read the parser numbers I prefer to go based off the entire match numbers and average dps figures to get a better idea of how much dps I am sustaining at any given moment when engaging an enemy.
"Damage-padding" may be true in ISE but not true in something like SB24, mirror invasion, fleet alert, or any other content with 5+ targets per team member. With BFAW yes you are spreading the damage out and the first target dies slower but the flip side is each consecutive target dies faster until you are killing them with 1 beam/shot out of all 8. There are no wasted shots if the target doesnt heal and the larger the crowd the more effective it gets. 5 beam boats in a fleet alert can finish faster than 5 escorts, but 5 escorts in ISE can finish faster than 5 beam boats.
They excell in many targets at once why escorts excell at 1 at a time and slow moving or not moving at all.
...<SNIP>...
Funny you should mention SB24, because I see many BFAW boats often competing in there, but I have yet to lose 1st place to such builds. Negh'Vars are the primary SB24 targets, but when they self-heal and are guarded by dozens of smaller ships that don't count towards 1st place, the lack of selective targeting quickly becomes a detriment.
The same holds true for Gorn Mine Field... the final Bortasqu' is the only target that counts at the end, but all the extra fighters and turrets tend to draw valuable damage away from the primary objective, resulting in reduced match ranking and drop prizes.
It's the secret to how a cannon boat does 20k, when a beam boat variant (beam skills and weapons are the only thing that change) does 50k. That is what I'm trying to figure out.
I assume you are using a parser?
Honestly I think it is because a beam boat is always firing if there is a target within 10k and escorts only when the target is in front of it. If you are not firing you are not making any DPS, so the time turning to acquire the next target lowers DPS on a parse. Also parse time makes a differance as well.
Parse the cube in the Undine mission "Assimilation" during the part "Borg, Interrupted". kill the probe or sphere and do not shoot the cube. setup and start combat logs. kill the cube and stop combat log. exit, drop mission, and return with the next weapon setup. repeat with that one and compare the 2 parse logs to find the % differance between the 2 weapon types.
This is why when I read the parser numbers I prefer to go based off the entire match numbers and average dps figures to get a better idea of how much dps I am sustaining at any given moment when engaging an enemy.
Well I swapped out Aux2Damp (9k DPS) on my eng/cruiser to run Aux2Batt for a bit and reached 11.4k (these figures from CSE pugs looking at "EncDPS" under "All") I then decided I didn't like spamming at least 1000 useless DPS and as such I'd take the more coordinated 9k of DPS and the extra fun Aux2Damp gave me.
AFAIK, correct me if I'm wrong, Beams do more damage to shields than Cannons, while Cannons do a bit more damage to hull.
Cannons have falloff damage at ranges > 5km whereas Beams do not have any damage falloff.
Beams have faster recharge time than Cannons do.
You are correct that beams do more shield damage to shields than cannons...but on that same note, Cannons are neutral to shields and hull (no bonus damage) while beams are a bit worse against hull (though nowhere as near as bad as torpedoes to shields).
All weapons except for torpedoes/mines have a fall off damage, but cannons and turrets suffer much worse than beams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember, cannons and turrets have a maximum fall off of -60% while beams have a maximum of -40% starting past 5km. Suffice to say, beams are slightly better at a range, but in a sense, all weapons are hampered when firing at 10km.
__________________________________________________
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
Funny you should mention SB24, because I see many BFAW boats often competing in there, but I have yet to lose 1st place to such builds. Negh'Vars are the primary SB24 targets, but when they self-heal and are guarded by dozens of smaller ships that don't count towards 1st place, the lack of selective targeting quickly becomes a detriment.
The same holds true for Gorn Mine Field... the final Bortasqu' is the only target that counts at the end, but all the extra fighters and turrets tend to draw valuable damage away from the primary objective, resulting in reduced match ranking and drop prizes.
Thats for first place and has nothing to do with overall DPS though. Just DPS against select targets. Thats a different subject altogether.
Also you are getting towards strategy here, beam boat hitting everything making itself a threat allows escorts to get to the primary target without threat and quickly dispatch it. So I suppose you can thank them for drawing all the agro so you can get first.
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"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Thats for first place and has nothing to do with overall DPS though. Just DPS against select targets. Thats a different subject altogether.
Also you are getting towards strategy here, beam boat hitting everything making itself a threat allows escorts to get to the primary target without threat and quickly dispatch it. So I suppose you can thank them for drawing all the agro so you can get first.
The point I'm making is that BFAW boats do get high DPS. However, the trade-off is that their targets attacked rarely matter. If I want to clear SB24 fleet KDF battle groups, I just apply GravityWell1 + CSV1 + TS3... the resulting chain warp core breaches do the rest
The point I'm making is that BFAW boats do get high DPS. However, the trade-off is that their targets attacked rarely matter. If I want to clear SB24 fleet KDF battle groups, I just apply GravityWell1 + CSV1 + TS3... the resulting chain warp core breaches do the rest
To me dps only goes so far as to what is effectively needed to be helpful to not only yourself, but also the team. So while uber dps looks nice and can make short work of enemies, it is not really needed to accomplish the goal. Your described tactics would be sufficient and is also a lot of fun trust me I know, so make a build that you like. For me I have seen plenty of people who can deliver good dps, but slipped on the survivability and get popped often, than there are those smart enough to keep a means of survivability and it is always something I shoot for, as to me getting killed in an stf more than once (TRIBBLE happens) is a disgrace to my own ego of being a good captain and drives me to be better, but that's just my competiveness side of me coming out. So find a balance that works for you and your enjoyment.
Is it the distance damage drop off less then cannons?
Is it how they "buffer" weapon energy drain?
Is it that they have a bigger arc for aoe?
What the hell pushes them to 50k dps?
I know it's not aux2batting bfaw3/dem/ap:b3...it helps but you get bloody close results when going to global cooldown with 1 rank lower abilities.
Could it be that beams are just more suited for sto's endgame? Where everything may not be clumped together but are still close enough for beam aoe to take advantage of?
I just don't know....but I do want to find out
My parses show a 70% dps drop when I'm more than 6km from the mob, and a 2-10% dps gain the closer I am to the mob with cannons.
The buffer seems to max at 125. No matter how much more power you have in weapons, it seems the buffer only goes up to 125 because energy usage will drop the numbers just as fast with 125/100 or 125/80.
As far as the 50K dps, that's a very easy number for tactical captains. A combination of going down fighting, apa, apo3, tact fleet, rapid fire, tactical team (with doffs), and some rep innates, the burst dps can get as high as 80K dps. I average about 10K dps though, but I also have the omega torp on my ship with the omega torp/cuttingbeam/console set. Using the omega torp with HY3 can also do substancial damage as well -- I've seen my own crit upwards of 100K (its also one-shot a player in PVP a time or two lulz, including myself once when I delivered the HY3 while on top of the player ROFLTRAIN!).
The problem with this is as I said, burst, and my average dps as I said is 10K dps. Most of these abilities, in order for them to stack are conditional (such as going down fighting) and takes incredible skill or luck to get the timers to sync up for these amazing parses.
Said NO to Arc. Gets punished by not being given a free outfit, free lobi, and free shuttle. Now forced to use Arc's site when trying to get to STO site. Still not rewards for beta testing the Arc website by force. Bravo Cryptic.
My mirror star cruiser (sovereign for those that don't know) is a beam boat with the exception of two torpedos in front and one in back. all elite fleet phasers and with the correct build with a weapon battery i can push 1k a hit for every single time the beam hits a target... and thats not OP compared to some of the things I've seen other people do with AP weapons a good cannon build :P
that 1k a hit applys even when broadsiding, although the energy drain is more so i use a weapon battery when broadsiding
My mirror star cruiser (sovereign for those that don't know) is a beam boat with the exception of two torpedos in front and one in back. all elite fleet phasers and with the correct build with a weapon battery i can push 1k a hit for every single time the beam hits a target... and thats not OP compared to some of the things I've seen other people do with AP weapons a good cannon build :P
that 1k a hit applys even when broadsiding, although the energy drain is more so i use a weapon battery when broadsiding
I run an A2B Gal-X that posts about 2.8k dps in 1vs1. I'm guessing it can generate much higher numbers since it's able to take 1st place in Gorn Mine Field occasionally
I've played a bunch of games from Battlestar Galactica Online to this to World of taks. This is the only game where you can grind/farm one form of currency and transfer it to bought currency so easily and do it almost as much as you can stomach.
I mean only thing close was BSGO, but there, the time and energy it takes to get the top level stuff is over 10 times what it costs in time and energy in this game.
Seriously with 5 characters now, I can generate 250 CC if I put my nose to the grindstone a day. As it stands i roughly pump out in a few hours about 100-150 depending. Still it's more than you can get out of any other game.
Try SWTOR. You can't get TRIBBLE like you can get here, unless you are prepared to grind for MONTHS. Here I can get the Ar'kif tactical carrier in about 10 days of serious grinding. I don't know of another game where I can do that.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
They're so good because any scrub off the street with 80 million creds laying around to sink into a beam boat project can just buy three purple aux2bat doffs and marion doff and push huge numbers. If anything, beams should be nerfed across the board to offset the power of these doffs.
Instead of nerfing beams for those w/o those doffs (yes, they are out there), why not nerf the doffs and leave beams alone.
The point I'm making is that BFAW boats do get high DPS. However, the trade-off is that their targets attacked rarely matter. If I want to clear SB24 fleet KDF battle groups, I just apply GravityWell1 + CSV1 + TS3... the resulting chain warp core breaches do the rest
And you didnt read what i was saying, first yes those targets matter, they matter for the whole team. would you prefer to attack the important target without every unimportant one shooting you? Or would you rather have all of them shooting you and making your shields and hull melt why you are trying to kill the important target? Well thats what the beam boat + BFAW is doing for you. They are drawing all the agro from all the ships you dont want agroing you. Not only do they draw the agro from them but the longer they do it the faster they kill them off. Less annoying frigates and bops/escorts firing at the squishy tacscorts is a good thing for everyone on the team. And lets not forget pet spam and mines a BFAW clears up way faster than any DHC escort can.
Imagine a whole team of Aux2bat Beam boats BFAWing in that, yeah it will start out slow but increase in kills exponentialy to the point each shot fired is 1 kill per target and the remaining primary targets are no more than a frigate worth of hull left. I have done that solo multiple times in a fleet alert while the other 4 team members in tacscorts cleared the other half of the wave. 2 barely surviving cruisers left on my side when they cleared the side they did and came over and helped finish them off. 5 7-10k+ DPS aux2bat beam boats would finish that mission in record time while a team of tacscorts are still turning to target the final wave.
Thats what I was saying about not wasted DPS/shots in large crowds of non healing targets. 1 it helps other team members getting targets with stripped shields. 2 keeps agro away from other team members. 3 clears out smaller annoying targets, mines, and pets. 4 adds procs to primary targets helping the whole team. 5 helps you kill the primary targets with 1-4 and any DPS they add to it. and 6.. if its a whole team of equal beam boats they will clean everything up very very fast.
PvP.. beam boat... Yeah a joke there with no spike damage unless you enjoy a war of atrition.
Join Date: Nobody cares.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Comments
This is why when I read the parser numbers I prefer to go based off the entire match numbers and average dps figures to get a better idea of how much dps I am sustaining at any given moment when engaging an enemy.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Funny you should mention SB24, because I see many BFAW boats often competing in there, but I have yet to lose 1st place to such builds. Negh'Vars are the primary SB24 targets, but when they self-heal and are guarded by dozens of smaller ships that don't count towards 1st place, the lack of selective targeting quickly becomes a detriment.
The same holds true for Gorn Mine Field... the final Bortasqu' is the only target that counts at the end, but all the extra fighters and turrets tend to draw valuable damage away from the primary objective, resulting in reduced match ranking and drop prizes.
I assume you are using a parser?
Honestly I think it is because a beam boat is always firing if there is a target within 10k and escorts only when the target is in front of it. If you are not firing you are not making any DPS, so the time turning to acquire the next target lowers DPS on a parse. Also parse time makes a differance as well.
Parse the cube in the Undine mission "Assimilation" during the part "Borg, Interrupted". kill the probe or sphere and do not shoot the cube. setup and start combat logs. kill the cube and stop combat log. exit, drop mission, and return with the next weapon setup. repeat with that one and compare the 2 parse logs to find the % differance between the 2 weapon types.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Mission:_Assimilation_(Undine_Front)
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
Well I swapped out Aux2Damp (9k DPS) on my eng/cruiser to run Aux2Batt for a bit and reached 11.4k (these figures from CSE pugs looking at "EncDPS" under "All") I then decided I didn't like spamming at least 1000 useless DPS and as such I'd take the more coordinated 9k of DPS and the extra fun Aux2Damp gave me.
You are correct that beams do more shield damage to shields than cannons...but on that same note, Cannons are neutral to shields and hull (no bonus damage) while beams are a bit worse against hull (though nowhere as near as bad as torpedoes to shields).
All weapons except for torpedoes/mines have a fall off damage, but cannons and turrets suffer much worse than beams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I remember, cannons and turrets have a maximum fall off of -60% while beams have a maximum of -40% starting past 5km. Suffice to say, beams are slightly better at a range, but in a sense, all weapons are hampered when firing at 10km.
All hands! Prepare the popcorn and tinfoil hats!
Thats for first place and has nothing to do with overall DPS though. Just DPS against select targets. Thats a different subject altogether.
Also you are getting towards strategy here, beam boat hitting everything making itself a threat allows escorts to get to the primary target without threat and quickly dispatch it. So I suppose you can thank them for drawing all the agro so you can get first.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek:
The point I'm making is that BFAW boats do get high DPS. However, the trade-off is that their targets attacked rarely matter. If I want to clear SB24 fleet KDF battle groups, I just apply GravityWell1 + CSV1 + TS3... the resulting chain warp core breaches do the rest
To me dps only goes so far as to what is effectively needed to be helpful to not only yourself, but also the team. So while uber dps looks nice and can make short work of enemies, it is not really needed to accomplish the goal. Your described tactics would be sufficient and is also a lot of fun trust me I know, so make a build that you like. For me I have seen plenty of people who can deliver good dps, but slipped on the survivability and get popped often, than there are those smart enough to keep a means of survivability and it is always something I shoot for, as to me getting killed in an stf more than once (TRIBBLE happens) is a disgrace to my own ego of being a good captain and drives me to be better, but that's just my competiveness side of me coming out. So find a balance that works for you and your enjoyment.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
My parses show a 70% dps drop when I'm more than 6km from the mob, and a 2-10% dps gain the closer I am to the mob with cannons.
The buffer seems to max at 125. No matter how much more power you have in weapons, it seems the buffer only goes up to 125 because energy usage will drop the numbers just as fast with 125/100 or 125/80.
As far as the 50K dps, that's a very easy number for tactical captains. A combination of going down fighting, apa, apo3, tact fleet, rapid fire, tactical team (with doffs), and some rep innates, the burst dps can get as high as 80K dps. I average about 10K dps though, but I also have the omega torp on my ship with the omega torp/cuttingbeam/console set. Using the omega torp with HY3 can also do substancial damage as well -- I've seen my own crit upwards of 100K (its also one-shot a player in PVP a time or two lulz, including myself once when I delivered the HY3 while on top of the player ROFLTRAIN!).
The problem with this is as I said, burst, and my average dps as I said is 10K dps. Most of these abilities, in order for them to stack are conditional (such as going down fighting) and takes incredible skill or luck to get the timers to sync up for these amazing parses.
that 1k a hit applys even when broadsiding, although the energy drain is more so i use a weapon battery when broadsiding
I run an A2B Gal-X that posts about 2.8k dps in 1vs1. I'm guessing it can generate much higher numbers since it's able to take 1st place in Gorn Mine Field occasionally
By that logic, everything in the game is free.
The only real cost for anything in STO is time, you put in enough time and willpower to save for things, everything in the gae is free of charge.
I've played a bunch of games from Battlestar Galactica Online to this to World of taks. This is the only game where you can grind/farm one form of currency and transfer it to bought currency so easily and do it almost as much as you can stomach.
I mean only thing close was BSGO, but there, the time and energy it takes to get the top level stuff is over 10 times what it costs in time and energy in this game.
Seriously with 5 characters now, I can generate 250 CC if I put my nose to the grindstone a day. As it stands i roughly pump out in a few hours about 100-150 depending. Still it's more than you can get out of any other game.
Try SWTOR. You can't get TRIBBLE like you can get here, unless you are prepared to grind for MONTHS. Here I can get the Ar'kif tactical carrier in about 10 days of serious grinding. I don't know of another game where I can do that.
Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!
http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
Instead of nerfing beams for those w/o those doffs (yes, they are out there), why not nerf the doffs and leave beams alone.
:rolleyes:
Don't let the join date fool you
It is correct logic
And you didnt read what i was saying, first yes those targets matter, they matter for the whole team. would you prefer to attack the important target without every unimportant one shooting you? Or would you rather have all of them shooting you and making your shields and hull melt why you are trying to kill the important target? Well thats what the beam boat + BFAW is doing for you. They are drawing all the agro from all the ships you dont want agroing you. Not only do they draw the agro from them but the longer they do it the faster they kill them off. Less annoying frigates and bops/escorts firing at the squishy tacscorts is a good thing for everyone on the team. And lets not forget pet spam and mines a BFAW clears up way faster than any DHC escort can.
Imagine a whole team of Aux2bat Beam boats BFAWing in that, yeah it will start out slow but increase in kills exponentialy to the point each shot fired is 1 kill per target and the remaining primary targets are no more than a frigate worth of hull left. I have done that solo multiple times in a fleet alert while the other 4 team members in tacscorts cleared the other half of the wave. 2 barely surviving cruisers left on my side when they cleared the side they did and came over and helped finish them off. 5 7-10k+ DPS aux2bat beam boats would finish that mission in record time while a team of tacscorts are still turning to target the final wave.
Thats what I was saying about not wasted DPS/shots in large crowds of non healing targets. 1 it helps other team members getting targets with stripped shields. 2 keeps agro away from other team members. 3 clears out smaller annoying targets, mines, and pets. 4 adds procs to primary targets helping the whole team. 5 helps you kill the primary targets with 1-4 and any DPS they add to it. and 6.. if its a whole team of equal beam boats they will clean everything up very very fast.
PvP.. beam boat... Yeah a joke there with no spike damage unless you enjoy a war of atrition.
"I'm drunk, whats your excuse for being an idiot?" - Unknown drunk man. :eek: