I'd prefer to see them share a cooldown, but that's just me.
Oh wait. What I'd really prefer is to remove the aspect of cooldown reduction in the first place. CD's are being badly mishandled in this game. Why that is who knows. The original design of not including a global cooldown was instrumental in bringing us the game we have today. Of course it also allows for the magic of aux to bat.
Oh well. CD reductions as a matter of course need to be removed. CD's are the metric of the game, they are what keep things from happening 'all at once'. CD's are essentially little tiny turns. In a turn based game how balanced would you reasonably think it to be to allow some players to take twice as many turns as others get? Right. Not very.
It is weird that something so obvious is actually debated.
EDIT: So yes, STO like life, is turn based. CD's define the turns.
This ^^^^^ ... keeps whistling ...
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Incorrect, a dev said not too long ago that the technician duty officers aren't at ideal levels, yet they are high risk due to how long they have been active in the game.
+1 Vote for this suggestion. Had a team of 5(five) aux2bat Scimitars troll the PvP queue this afternoon. Madness. They camped spawn and swatted players left and right. Left after a couple of minutes of that nonsense.
Aux2bat should be for engineers only if it must exist. Something that allows them to boost DPS (reduce CD on tac) at the cost of reducing defenses / heals. The idea to trigger a CD on EptS is a good one.
That way if you want to spam FAW and AtB ... you are going to lose EptS.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Incorrect, a dev said not too long ago that the technician duty officers aren't at ideal levels, yet they are high risk due to how long they have been active in the game.
that comment was careful to just say it would be dangerous to mess with, not that it was not WAI, or close enough. bran flakes uses it on his avenger, by the looks of it a build pretty boilerplate to whats in my build thread.
oh, i thought of 1 appropriate nerf to AtB that i would support. its not of AtB per say, its a change to the RSP 'global' cooldown so you cant get more uptime with 2 copies, or tech doffs. you wouldn't be able to use it more often then you could with 1 copy, regardless of AtB or doubling up copies of it. aside from letting cruisers use tac buffs at close to global, thats the other big concern. its to much of a defensive advantage, with the offensive advantage. it would be better for the game anyway if no ship could use RSP as often as they can now anyway.
oh, i thought of 1 appropriate nerf to AtB that i would support. its not of AtB per say, its a change to the RSP 'global' cooldown so you cant get more uptime with 2 copies, or tech doffs. you wouldn't be able to use it more often then you could with 1 copy, regardless of AtB or doubling up copies of it. aside from letting cruisers use tac buffs at close to global, thats the other big concern. its to much of a defensive advantage, with the offensive advantage. it would be better for the game anyway if no ship could use RSP as often as they can now anyway.
Doesn't address DEM Warp Plasma VM GW Tykens Tractor... and all the other abilities that have no other ways to reduce there cool downs because they should not have such things. Of course they do thanks to aux to bat... all at once. Sort of makes other cool down doffs seem pretty getto.
Honestly the pay off from tech doffs is way way to high considering you trade nothing.
Honestly... put Aux to bat back on the EPTx cool down group and the problem is fixed.
When these doffs first came out they where completely balanced by that mechanic. I have no idea what bort was thinking when he changed that global worse change they have ever made on purpose.
Doesn't address DEM Warp Plasma VM GW Tykens Tractor... and all the other abilities that have no other ways to reduce there cool downs because they should not have such things. Of course they do thanks to aux to bat... all at once. Sort of makes other cool down doffs seem pretty getto.
Honestly the pay off from tech doffs is way way to high considering you trade nothing.
Honestly... put Aux to bat back on the EPTx cool down group and the problem is fixed.
When these doffs first came out they where completely balanced by that mechanic. I have no idea what bort was thinking when he changed that global worse change they have ever made on purpose.
none of those skills are nearly as concerning. its important to take into account what ship is using them with AtB, it proboly needs that uptime with those skills to be competitive anyway.
butting it back on the EPt cool down tree kills 2 AtB builds, unless you want to run it without any EPt skills. you cant run 2 different EPt skills and the AtB too, giving up EPtW or EPtE would not be worth whatever cooling down you would get, your beter off with damage control doffs, just like you were back then. only now all the EPtX skills that arent EPtS, are to awesome to skip. most of the ships that need it to be more then a heal boat go back to being as useless as they were, thats no solution.
none of those skills are nearly as concerning. its important to take into account what ship is using them with AtB, it proboly needs that uptime with those skills to be competitive anyway.
butting it back on the EPt cool down tree kills 2 AtB builds, unless you want to run it without any EPt skills. you cant run 2 different EPt skills and the AtB too, giving up EPtW or EPtE would not be worth whatever cooling down you would get, your beter off with damage control doffs, just like you were back then. only now all the EPtX skills that arent EPtS, are to awesome to skip. most of the ships that need it to be more then a heal boat go back to being as useless as they were, thats no solution.
Exactly why it WAS balanced before Bort broke it.
Running it was limited to one copy (as you say running 2 would really mean no EPTx at all)... so yes having every single skill on your bar at cool down wasn't a real option... and to run one copy you had to trade one EPTx... meaning you could run EPTS at 100% uptime as well as aux to bat tech doffs reducing most of your cool downs darn close to cool down.
It wasn't broken before... it just required some skill to use... it had a real cost... there was also a real pay off to doing it properly.
Now its a 100% skillless brain dead mechanic that makes the game boring.
Pull 10 cruisers aside at random and see if they are running aux to bat tech doffs. lol
When the answer is going to be obviously 80% of them are then something is broken. Crusiers got there command stuffz... if they still need balancing then so be it... but giving them 2x the boff slots isn't a fix. lmao (also I love that Cryptic has been using the "its Trek cannon" lately for things like faw... so I say where the heck in Trek lore did you ever see a captain yell out... auxiliary to battaries... and then Mr. Worf/Obrian/Jordy/data/spock who ever would yell out... 30s to Deflector charge captain... oh wait good thing you used that a2b captain it recharged that puppy instant like. lol)
Its also not just a cruiser thing, I don't think its fair to say cruisers need it... I don't believe they do... but regardless its not just crusiers using it. lol Hey you should see my Science ship that can spam Tykens/GW 100% of the time... with a VM every 30s... a tractor I can have up 75% of the time... with 2 hazards 2 tss 2 tac teams 2 copies of faw.
Of course there are also a ton of good destroyer style builds out there using it not to mention the shims...
Its out of control... yes I say put it back the way it was... make its use have a real use.
Aux to bat with OUT doffs would be balanced on the global its on now.
I echo what's been already said here. Its a small part of a much larger problem. Its like the series of perfect conditions that result in a super-storm.
For a few months now those conditions kept getting more and more, and imo, the "super-storm" broke soon after the effectiveness of marion/warp-core-engineer/technitians + introduction of Romulan + reached a zenith with the BFAW/ APB/ DEM & a2B-build-cutter we have today. Add the rep. passives etc into the mix and honestly its little wonder that people are floating through Elite STF's + opt solo.
Doesn't address DEM Warp Plasma VM GW Tykens Tractor... and all the other abilities that have no other ways to reduce there cool downs because they should not have such things. Of course they do thanks to aux to bat... all at once. Sort of makes other cool down doffs seem pretty getto.
Just a slight correction.
Tykens and gravity well have deflector doffs, if I remember correctly it's 25% to knock 50% off cool down. It's pretty strong and is supposed to work with energy siphon and tachyon beam, which it doesn't. You can also stack 3 of them for a ~42% chance to activate.
Course the devs don't think they're broken, just say it works and it's us...
IMHO&PO, it's not AtB. It's how the 9000+ other things that have been added interact with AtB. Cores, Inspirational Leader, WCE(Cleanse), Rep Procs, Gear Procs...it's made it very proc spammy.
I'd prefer to see them share a cooldown, but that's just me.
Oh wait. What I'd really prefer is to remove the aspect of cooldown reduction in the first place. CD's are being badly mishandled in this game. Why that is who knows. The original design of not including a global cooldown was instrumental in bringing us the game we have today. Of course it also allows for the magic of aux to bat.
Oh well. CD reductions as a matter of course need to be removed. CD's are the metric of the game, they are what keep things from happening 'all at once'. CD's are essentially little tiny turns. In a turn based game how balanced would you reasonably think it to be to allow some players to take twice as many turns as others get? Right. Not very.
It is weird that something so obvious is actually debated.
EDIT: So yes, STO like life, is turn based. CD's define the turns.
And this is the other issue I have with A2B in particular: it punches puppies in the face. Well, not really, but it does completely mess up one of few core balancing mechanisms built into this game. Cooldowns.
I'm not sure where that puts me in terms of possible solutions. I do think the Technician doffs are way OP compared to any other doffs out there, just because of the way they work (no proc) and the sheer effect (decrease ALL the cooldowns!).
Tykens and gravity well have deflector doffs, if I remember correctly it's 25% to knock 50% off cool down. It's pretty strong and is supposed to work with energy siphon and tachyon beam, which it doesn't. You can also stack 3 of them for a ~42% chance to activate.
Course the devs don't think they're broken, just say it works and it's us...
There is also the Romulan Gravimetrics Scientist that has a chance to reduce all exotic damage ability cooldowns. The biggest difference between Deflector Duty officers and Technician duty officers is the fact that Technicians affect all bridge officer abilities. Deflector officers have a chance to affect several science abilities (part of which doesn't work, as you have said above). It's not possible to get the same level of reduction via Deflector officers as Technician officers.
There is also the Romulan Gravimetrics Scientist that has a chance to reduce all exotic damage ability cooldowns. The biggest difference between Deflector Duty officers and Technician duty officers is the fact that Technicians affect all bridge officer abilities. Deflector officers have a chance to affect several science abilities (part of which doesn't work, as you have said above). It's not possible to get the same level of reduction via Deflector officers as Technician officers.
I know, was just reminding him of it. Thanks for the info about the Romulan doff though.
Next bit is about the thread in general.
Like I've said in other threads, I think it's more of a case that the other options to A2B are just far beyond the scope of most players. I mean seriously it's 40mil ec for just one attack pattern conn officer.
Given a choice between grinding for what might seem an age or a week colonising B'Tran which would you choose? Not to mention that you would need the ec limit lifting to buy said alternatives a lot of the time.
Yes it's a more extreme example, gravemetric doffs, damage control etc are a bit cheaper (but still expensive if KDF) but it's still costing you something when there's a better, free alternative.
Ya forgot about those doffs... ya there ok if you run tykens and gw back to backing them... more bang for the buck out of the broken tech doffs of course.
Thanks for the reminder. I don't play as much anymore and my mind idles more. lol
Yeah tech doffs are better you're right there Antonio, we'll with a single A2B though I would still choose the deflector doffs if they worked with energy siphon properly as there's a lot more stuff I would rather slot in that Lt engineering station over A2B tanking my heals for 10s and for 3 doffs.
Shame you don't, I have a lot of respect for you and PvP certainly needs more people with your kind of acceptance of other peoples accomplishments, skill and knowledge.
Easy fix is to make all active doff slots limited to just one of each profession, ie one Tech, one Conn, one Damage control and so forth. Since many doffs affect cool downs or length of abilities that would be the easiest way to fix and wouldn't take much effort by Cryptic to change. However, you are going to find a lot of unhappy people that have invested millions of EC in to reducing BO powers whether its Attack patterns or overall BO Powers.
The real problem isn't the doffs though at least not for FAW. It is the stacking of abilities that boost damage beyond what is intended. The power increase to weapons and cooldown reduction from aux2b has much less of an effect on the damage of FAW than the stacking of alpha, beta, and gdf. If you know how to fly your ship, you will never see an Eng or Science melting your shields and hull with FAW.
Blah Blah Blah, keybinding buffs have been around in mmos forever. This button activates these abilities, this button these abilities. I remember my brother talking about custom keybinds and macros for Everquest 10+ years ago. Now I will say this I don't play much pvp, never have. Its the age old battle this is op this is op. Is aux2bat powerful? Yes it is, is an escort that can decloak and alpha strike with 20k+ powerful yes it is. Can a cruiser not running aux2bat cycle 2 copies of EPTS and EPTW and BFAW reach close to aux2bat damage yes it can. Can a tac captian in a Vesta with BFAW rom plasma beams, and rom torps with Elite scorpions and gravity well 3 clean house yes it can. Can I go into a pug in say Infected the Conduit Elite and out dps the team by min 3-4k if not more 95% of the time yes I can.
I can remember 6 months ago all I used to hear was this was escorts online, escorts this escorts that, well it looks like the playing field got leveled. Cause I too don't hear that much anymore. I have probably played a total less than 10 pvp matches in my time with this game and have done pretty well for a pve player. If you would like, PM me when you see me on (yttocstfarc@yttocstfarc) and tell me what kind of ship to bring,( science engineering or tactical) cause i'm itching to get handled and see what i've been missing.
Blah Blah Blah, keybinding buffs have been around in mmos forever. This button activates these abilities, this button these abilities. I remember my brother talking about custom keybinds and macros for Everquest 10+ years ago. Now I will say this I don't play much pvp, never have. Its the age old battle this is op this is op. Is aux2bat powerful? Yes it is, is an escort that can decloak and alpha strike with 20k+ powerful yes it is. Can a cruiser not running aux2bat cycle 2 copies of EPTS and EPTW and BFAW reach close to aux2bat damage yes it can. Can a tac captian in a Vesta with BFAW rom plasma beams, and rom torps with Elite scorpions and gravity well 3 clean house yes it can. Can I go into a pug in say Infected the Conduit Elite and out dps the team by min 3-4k if not more 95% of the time yes I can.
I can remember 6 months ago all I used to hear was this was escorts online, escorts this escorts that, well it looks like the playing field got leveled. Cause I too don't hear that much anymore. I have probably played a total less than 10 pvp matches in my time with this game and have done pretty well for a pve player. If you would like, PM me when you see me on (yttocstfarc@yttocstfarc) and tell me what kind of ship to bring,( science engineering or tactical) cause i'm itching to get handled and see what i've been missing.
In a couple of weeks, I will be hosting a PvP tournament. No premades, no fleet tags, mixed and evenly (to the best of my skill) matched teams in terms of skill, etc.
Would give you a great idea of what you can do and what other people can do, see if it's something you want to continue PvPing.
I remain empathetic to the concerns of my community, but do me a favor and lay off the god damn name calling and petty remarks. It will get you nowhere.
I must admit, respect points to Trendy for laying down the law like that.
In a couple of weeks, I will be hosting a PvP tournament. No premades, no fleet tags, mixed and evenly (to the best of my skill) matched teams in terms of skill, etc.
Would give you a great idea of what you can do and what other people can do, see if it's something you want to continue PvPing.
In a couple of weeks, I will be hosting a PvP tournament. No premades, no fleet tags, mixed and evenly (to the best of my skill) matched teams in terms of skill, etc.
Would give you a great idea of what you can do and what other people can do, see if it's something you want to continue PvPing.
Let me know what I have to do I have no problem being a guinea pig. I'm sure I'll learn a lot that I can pass on to my fleet.
Scramble sensors, Feedback Pulse, Energy Siphon - all of these abilities basically shut an A2B cruiser down. Losing auxiliary entirely is a huge risk for these builds, and anyone using a drain skill + flow caps can suppress it easily. It is NOT a good build for PVP if you are facing anybody using science skills. It is the counter to DHC escorts, and that's about it.
Scramble sensors, Feedback Pulse, Energy Siphon - all of these abilities basically shut an A2B cruiser down. Losing auxiliary entirely is a huge risk for these builds, and anyone using a drain skill + flow caps can suppress it easily. It is NOT a good build for PVP if you are facing anybody using science skills. It is the counter to DHC escorts, and that's about it.
Scramble Sensors is cleared with the Warp Core Engineer they will be running. Feedback Pulse, I've tried this multiple times stacking maximum Particle Generators and the Conservation of Energy trait. It does not work, all they do is activate go down fighting and rip everyone in range a new one. Energy Siphon, again, cleared with the Warp Core Engineer and also Hazard Emitters. All counters you have suggested are easily shrugged off. The only thing in this whole game that actually shuts them down right now is Temporal Inversion Field. That's simply due to the AoE debuff nature rather than the single target, the Warp Core Engineer can't clear it.
This is different - it's working as intended. How many threads do you see now in the general section saying my cruiser sucks or calling the game escorts online? That's right - none. Now all those thousands of player with their oddys and others are happily spamming the faw - atb space bar and feeling like powerful awesome players - and you are asking cryptic to pull that rug out from under them?? Lol - never happen.
I think that cuts right to the heart of the issue.
Cooldown reductions- whether they come from A2B or from EWOs/Conns- give cruisers teeth and make them viable for endgame content that requires only DPS. Cruisers, the iconic Starfleet and Klingon ships, that I'd wager a majority of the game's very casual players like. Now they can use their favorite ships and not feel like losers.
How many Regents, Odysseys, Avengers, Moghs, fleet Tor'kahts, etc, etc have bought and used since the repeated mantras of "lol escorts online" and "cruisers suck" died?
This isn't going away. Cryptic may tune it or attempt balance changes, but their most recent balance attempt- making tankier NPCs (the Voth)- points to their strategy.
I think that cuts right to the heart of the issue.
Cooldown reductions- whether they come from A2B or from EWOs/Conns- give cruisers teeth and make them viable for endgame content that requires only DPS. Cruisers, the iconic Starfleet and Klingon ships, that I'd wager a majority of the game's very casual players like. Now they can use their favorite ships and not feel like losers.
How many Regents, Odysseys, Avengers, Moghs, fleet Tor'kahts, etc, etc have bought and used since the repeated mantras of "lol escorts online" and "cruisers suck" died?
This isn't going away. Cryptic may tune it or attempt balance changes, but their most recent balance attempt- making tankier NPCs (the Voth)- points to their strategy.
Well lets be honest they where viable for end game content previously. What they have done now is pretty much add a Super Easy mode and make it the default.
Frankly I can't see it not backfiring on them. This game will always have a sort of RP element that will keep people playing no matter... however imagine this scenario.
Lets imagine instead of STO this was Mario Brothers (everyone gets the reference) now lets imagine that Nintendo updated it and turned The maro White overall fire ball into a ball that hit up to 5 gommbas at once instantly... lets assume that at the same time they changed it so that any time you jumped in a hole you had a 75% chance to engage your pocket hole protection device that jumped you back out instead of killing you.
How long do you think you would keep playing that game ? I know I would be bored to tears after about 5 min.
It is pretty much what we have now... yes good players can finnish an STF these days Solo. Good teams are finishing END GAME team content in 2-3min.
The supposedly harder new enemies.... they aren't any harder at all... tbey spam some more annoying sci. Lets be honest though no one is in moral danger, the missions are almost impossible to fail.
I get that they are going after the casual hate to loose folk .... I think its going to bite them though. Because even those people are going to get bored of a game with Zero challenge factor.
Cooldown reductions- whether they come from A2B or from EWOs/Conns- give cruisers teeth and make them viable for endgame content that requires only DPS.
Cruisers, the iconic Starfleet and Klingon ships, that I'd wager a majority of the game's very casual players like. Now they can use their favorite ships and not feel like losers.
While this sounds like a plausible excuse, the reality is that the current situation isn't very good just as the previous situation wasn't very good.
How do you sell ships that don't excel at A2B BFAW when that is what has become "the best"?
This is just as bad as it was when escorts were "the best", how do you sell lots of non-escorts?
This game lives on ship sales - through C-store and lockbox keys - so you'd think the more sustainable sales model would be one where a variety of ships actually have a value to players.
Unfortunately that requires the one thing Cryptic seems completely adverse to doing, which is creating PvE content that is actually engaging and not a joke.
If you're arguing against A2B changes because you don't want cruisers to be redundant, you're doing it wrong.
1) Cruisers are not redundant without A2B, just takes a little more work to setup and fly effectively.
2) If cruisers need tweaking/buffing/improving, would you not rather see that in a ship class-specific way, so you can actually choose between various build options, rather than be shoehorned into 1 spam-build?
Unfortunately that requires the one thing Cryptic seems completely adverse to doing, which is creating PvE content that is actually engaging and not a joke.
Wait a sec, cryptic made the NWS... :rolleyes:
But yea, you're right, this game needs more "true" and challenging end game content, other than NWS & PvP. Right now, PvE is just casual gaming. (what, sadly, might attract the most players)
Scramble sensors, Feedback Pulse, Energy Siphon - all of these abilities basically shut an A2B cruiser down. Losing auxiliary entirely is a huge risk for these builds, and anyone using a drain skill + flow caps can suppress it easily. It is NOT a good build for PVP if you are facing anybody using science skills. It is the counter to DHC escorts, and that's about it.
The fact that there is a counter to a2b cruiser doesn't mean there's no reason to nerf them. If you compare em to escorts: there are way more counters to alpha striking escorts than to a2b.
Right now, a2b cruisers are just over the top. Beeing the best dmg dealer (dealing 4-5x the amount of dmg than escorts could ever do) while beeing the best tank in a match at the same time is just wrong and totaly unbalanced...and that's about it.
Comments
This ^^^^^ ... keeps whistling ...
Random Quote from Kerrat
"Sumlobus@****: your mums eat Iced Targ Poo"
C&H Fed banter
Incorrect, a dev said not too long ago that the technician duty officers aren't at ideal levels, yet they are high risk due to how long they have been active in the game.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
Aux2bat should be for engineers only if it must exist. Something that allows them to boost DPS (reduce CD on tac) at the cost of reducing defenses / heals. The idea to trigger a CD on EptS is a good one.
That way if you want to spam FAW and AtB ... you are going to lose EptS.
- Judge Aaron Satie
that comment was careful to just say it would be dangerous to mess with, not that it was not WAI, or close enough. bran flakes uses it on his avenger, by the looks of it a build pretty boilerplate to whats in my build thread.
Doesn't address DEM Warp Plasma VM GW Tykens Tractor... and all the other abilities that have no other ways to reduce there cool downs because they should not have such things.
Honestly the pay off from tech doffs is way way to high considering you trade nothing.
Honestly... put Aux to bat back on the EPTx cool down group and the problem is fixed.
When these doffs first came out they where completely balanced by that mechanic. I have no idea what bort was thinking when he changed that global worse change they have ever made on purpose.
none of those skills are nearly as concerning. its important to take into account what ship is using them with AtB, it proboly needs that uptime with those skills to be competitive anyway.
butting it back on the EPt cool down tree kills 2 AtB builds, unless you want to run it without any EPt skills. you cant run 2 different EPt skills and the AtB too, giving up EPtW or EPtE would not be worth whatever cooling down you would get, your beter off with damage control doffs, just like you were back then. only now all the EPtX skills that arent EPtS, are to awesome to skip. most of the ships that need it to be more then a heal boat go back to being as useless as they were, thats no solution.
Exactly why it WAS balanced before Bort broke it.
Running it was limited to one copy (as you say running 2 would really mean no EPTx at all)... so yes having every single skill on your bar at cool down wasn't a real option... and to run one copy you had to trade one EPTx... meaning you could run EPTS at 100% uptime as well as aux to bat tech doffs reducing most of your cool downs darn close to cool down.
It wasn't broken before... it just required some skill to use... it had a real cost... there was also a real pay off to doing it properly.
Now its a 100% skillless brain dead mechanic that makes the game boring.
Pull 10 cruisers aside at random and see if they are running aux to bat tech doffs. lol
When the answer is going to be obviously 80% of them are then something is broken. Crusiers got there command stuffz... if they still need balancing then so be it... but giving them 2x the boff slots isn't a fix. lmao (also I love that Cryptic has been using the "its Trek cannon" lately for things like faw... so I say where the heck in Trek lore did you ever see a captain yell out... auxiliary to battaries... and then Mr. Worf/Obrian/Jordy/data/spock who ever would yell out... 30s to Deflector charge captain... oh wait good thing you used that a2b captain it recharged that puppy instant like. lol)
Its also not just a cruiser thing, I don't think its fair to say cruisers need it... I don't believe they do... but regardless its not just crusiers using it. lol Hey you should see my Science ship that can spam Tykens/GW 100% of the time... with a VM every 30s... a tractor I can have up 75% of the time... with 2 hazards 2 tss 2 tac teams 2 copies of faw.
Of course there are also a ton of good destroyer style builds out there using it not to mention the shims...
Its out of control... yes I say put it back the way it was... make its use have a real use.
Aux to bat with OUT doffs would be balanced on the global its on now.
With doffs its completely broken.
For a few months now those conditions kept getting more and more, and imo, the "super-storm" broke soon after the effectiveness of marion/warp-core-engineer/technitians + introduction of Romulan + reached a zenith with the BFAW/ APB/ DEM & a2B-build-cutter we have today. Add the rep. passives etc into the mix and honestly its little wonder that people are floating through Elite STF's + opt solo.
Just a slight correction.
Tykens and gravity well have deflector doffs, if I remember correctly it's 25% to knock 50% off cool down. It's pretty strong and is supposed to work with energy siphon and tachyon beam, which it doesn't. You can also stack 3 of them for a ~42% chance to activate.
Course the devs don't think they're broken, just say it works and it's us...
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.
I think it's the combination of these combination effects, tbh.
A2B brings your usable boff slots effectively to 22 (or 23 if single A2B), with lots of extra chances for procs as an added bonus.
And this is the other issue I have with A2B in particular: it punches puppies in the face. Well, not really, but it does completely mess up one of few core balancing mechanisms built into this game. Cooldowns.
I'm not sure where that puts me in terms of possible solutions. I do think the Technician doffs are way OP compared to any other doffs out there, just because of the way they work (no proc) and the sheer effect (decrease ALL the cooldowns!).
There is also the Romulan Gravimetrics Scientist that has a chance to reduce all exotic damage ability cooldowns. The biggest difference between Deflector Duty officers and Technician duty officers is the fact that Technicians affect all bridge officer abilities. Deflector officers have a chance to affect several science abilities (part of which doesn't work, as you have said above). It's not possible to get the same level of reduction via Deflector officers as Technician officers.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I know, was just reminding him of it. Thanks for the info about the Romulan doff though.
Next bit is about the thread in general.
Like I've said in other threads, I think it's more of a case that the other options to A2B are just far beyond the scope of most players. I mean seriously it's 40mil ec for just one attack pattern conn officer.
Given a choice between grinding for what might seem an age or a week colonising B'Tran which would you choose? Not to mention that you would need the ec limit lifting to buy said alternatives a lot of the time.
Yes it's a more extreme example, gravemetric doffs, damage control etc are a bit cheaper (but still expensive if KDF) but it's still costing you something when there's a better, free alternative.
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.
Thanks for the reminder. I don't play as much anymore and my mind idles more. lol
Shame you don't, I have a lot of respect for you and PvP certainly needs more people with your kind of acceptance of other peoples accomplishments, skill and knowledge.
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.
The real problem isn't the doffs though at least not for FAW. It is the stacking of abilities that boost damage beyond what is intended. The power increase to weapons and cooldown reduction from aux2b has much less of an effect on the damage of FAW than the stacking of alpha, beta, and gdf. If you know how to fly your ship, you will never see an Eng or Science melting your shields and hull with FAW.
I can remember 6 months ago all I used to hear was this was escorts online, escorts this escorts that, well it looks like the playing field got leveled. Cause I too don't hear that much anymore. I have probably played a total less than 10 pvp matches in my time with this game and have done pretty well for a pve player. If you would like, PM me when you see me on (yttocstfarc@yttocstfarc) and tell me what kind of ship to bring,( science engineering or tactical) cause i'm itching to get handled and see what i've been missing.
In a couple of weeks, I will be hosting a PvP tournament. No premades, no fleet tags, mixed and evenly (to the best of my skill) matched teams in terms of skill, etc.
Would give you a great idea of what you can do and what other people can do, see if it's something you want to continue PvPing.
Kudos sir
Chillax. No Ego. No Drama.
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Let me know what I have to do I have no problem being a guinea pig. I'm sure I'll learn a lot that I can pass on to my fleet.
Scramble Sensors is cleared with the Warp Core Engineer they will be running. Feedback Pulse, I've tried this multiple times stacking maximum Particle Generators and the Conservation of Energy trait. It does not work, all they do is activate go down fighting and rip everyone in range a new one. Energy Siphon, again, cleared with the Warp Core Engineer and also Hazard Emitters. All counters you have suggested are easily shrugged off. The only thing in this whole game that actually shuts them down right now is Temporal Inversion Field. That's simply due to the AoE debuff nature rather than the single target, the Warp Core Engineer can't clear it.
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Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
I think that cuts right to the heart of the issue.
Cooldown reductions- whether they come from A2B or from EWOs/Conns- give cruisers teeth and make them viable for endgame content that requires only DPS. Cruisers, the iconic Starfleet and Klingon ships, that I'd wager a majority of the game's very casual players like. Now they can use their favorite ships and not feel like losers.
How many Regents, Odysseys, Avengers, Moghs, fleet Tor'kahts, etc, etc have bought and used since the repeated mantras of "lol escorts online" and "cruisers suck" died?
This isn't going away. Cryptic may tune it or attempt balance changes, but their most recent balance attempt- making tankier NPCs (the Voth)- points to their strategy.
Well lets be honest they where viable for end game content previously. What they have done now is pretty much add a Super Easy mode and make it the default.
Frankly I can't see it not backfiring on them. This game will always have a sort of RP element that will keep people playing no matter... however imagine this scenario.
Lets imagine instead of STO this was Mario Brothers (everyone gets the reference) now lets imagine that Nintendo updated it and turned The maro White overall fire ball into a ball that hit up to 5 gommbas at once instantly... lets assume that at the same time they changed it so that any time you jumped in a hole you had a 75% chance to engage your pocket hole protection device that jumped you back out instead of killing you.
How long do you think you would keep playing that game ? I know I would be bored to tears after about 5 min.
It is pretty much what we have now... yes good players can finnish an STF these days Solo. Good teams are finishing END GAME team content in 2-3min.
The supposedly harder new enemies.... they aren't any harder at all... tbey spam some more annoying sci. Lets be honest though no one is in moral danger, the missions are almost impossible to fail.
I get that they are going after the casual hate to loose folk .... I think its going to bite them though. Because even those people are going to get bored of a game with Zero challenge factor.
While this sounds like a plausible excuse, the reality is that the current situation isn't very good just as the previous situation wasn't very good.
How do you sell ships that don't excel at A2B BFAW when that is what has become "the best"?
This is just as bad as it was when escorts were "the best", how do you sell lots of non-escorts?
This game lives on ship sales - through C-store and lockbox keys - so you'd think the more sustainable sales model would be one where a variety of ships actually have a value to players.
Unfortunately that requires the one thing Cryptic seems completely adverse to doing, which is creating PvE content that is actually engaging and not a joke.
1) Cruisers are not redundant without A2B, just takes a little more work to setup and fly effectively.
2) If cruisers need tweaking/buffing/improving, would you not rather see that in a ship class-specific way, so you can actually choose between various build options, rather than be shoehorned into 1 spam-build?
Wait a sec, cryptic made the NWS...
But yea, you're right, this game needs more "true" and challenging end game content, other than NWS & PvP. Right now, PvE is just casual gaming. (what, sadly, might attract the most players)
The fact that there is a counter to a2b cruiser doesn't mean there's no reason to nerf them. If you compare em to escorts: there are way more counters to alpha striking escorts than to a2b.
Right now, a2b cruisers are just over the top. Beeing the best dmg dealer (dealing 4-5x the amount of dmg than escorts could ever do) while beeing the best tank in a match at the same time is just wrong and totaly unbalanced...and that's about it.