I've seen Rcks build and without APA it is pretty good, remember APO adds quite a bit of a damage boost and you get the double dip by boosting the beam array damage and the DEM damage. APA however does add a ton of damage on top too and while the build would still be good in the hands of other captains it would not have quite the killing power it has with a tactical captain.
Nadeon inversion would help boost the damage nicely for pressure and sensors scan in your high aux period would be good but the tactical captain does not need to wait on such things and can pounce when the time is right rather than risk the window of opportunity pass.
No ego-tripping here! I'm just trying to point out that APA3 makes up a very small component of my overall damage output, because:
1. If I use it for a lead-off "alpha" strike, I'm likely going up against my opponents best defensive buffs. So the effect is mitigated since the target is already in a hardened state.
2. The long CD means that I'm usually fighting for extended periods without the benefit of APA3. So I rely more on stacking APO1 + DEM3 + EPtW1 + FOMM3 (though it also has a long CD). Combined with BFAW2, and assuming a single target, the combination is quite effective and thus the source of most of my kills.
3. When the stars *do* align and I manage to get all of my buffs running at once - including APA3 - then obviously the effect is greater than without APA3.
So...my issue wasn't with APA3, but rather the assumption that without it I'm toothless. Experience has shown the opposite: That even without APA3 running, I can still effectively kill targets using just my stacked Boff skills + some intelligent maneuvering and timing.
Now if only APA were a trainable skill - I would gladly take a reduced-effectiveness version (APA1 or 2) that I could activate on a 30 sec Boff cycle like my APO1 does now...
I think the point here is that beams are a sci's staple weapon(cruisers etc) and without APA, us Sci folks have to get in the kitchen and really cook up some serious out of box(pun?) ideas to try and stay competitive. Also rck, APA isn't a small deal, it's a big one. As rylan was saying the effects of APA are quite dramatic. Let's not trivialize it shall we?
I don't think anybody wants Sci to be a new pew pew king class, but they deserve some more savvy operation over beams. Let Tac be king of cannon and let Sci wield beams with more effective prowess.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Sci that can out DPS a tac in the same identical build and with the laws of deduction it will always boil down to APA and boff abilities that only further propel that skyward in effectiveness.
I think the point here is that beams are a sci's staple weapon(cruisers etc) and without APA, us Sci folks have to get in the kitchen and really cook up some serious out of box(pun?) ideas to try and stay competitive. Also rck, APA isn't a small deal, it's a big one. As rylan was saying the effects of APA are quite dramatic. Let's not trivialize it shall we?
I don't think anybody wants Sci to be a new pew pew king class, but they deserve some more savvy operation over beams. Let Tac be king of cannon and let Sci wield beams with more effective prowess.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Sci that can out DPS a tac in the same identical build and with the laws of deduction it will always boil down to APA and boff abilities that only further propel that skyward in effectiveness.
Most science ships should either be using some combination of Torpedoes, Mines, Turrets, and/or Dual Beam banks. A single array is sometimes useful on slow turning science vessels (Nebula, etc.), but I've never seen a good 6 beam array science vessel, none of their bridge officer abilities compliment that many arrays. Science vessels have an average of 12 turn rate, they have plenty of room to slot 90 degree arc weapons. Beam arrays are for slow moving cruisers and carriers, they need the high arc and their bridge officer abilities best compliment beam arrays.
Beam Arrays still are pretty inferior.
I just simply don't get killed by beam boats these days, not ever, nor can i seem to kill anything but noobs even trying with every imaginable beam combination myself.
Unless your a tactical officer they just don't seem to have the required damage output to be viable.
2 years ago on the other hand they were, very much so.
An escort was a force to be reckoned with, but if he failed to get in that spike damage he could not last long alone under sustained fire from a beam cruiser or a beam escort, the later was in fact actually even more dangerous.
Honestly the most succesful cruisers I have seen pretty much all use cannons and turrets of one kind of another.
And the fact that they are dominant suggests a significant imbalance.
They're only dominant if you can get them on target. Cannons are great weapons on a highly maneuverable ship but the firing arc is so small they don't work well on a cruiser without unbalancing the cruisers strengths to make it more maneuverable. Beams rock if you build right, and would be better if the devs ever fix the power draw problem.
Most science ships should either be using some combination of Torpedoes, Mines, Turrets, and/or Dual Beam banks. A single array is sometimes useful on slow turning science vessels (Nebula, etc.), but I've never seen a good 6 beam array science vessel, none of their bridge officer abilities compliment that many arrays. Science vessels have an average of 12 turn rate, they have plenty of room to slot 90 degree arc weapons. Beam arrays are for slow moving cruisers and carriers, they need the high arc and their bridge officer abilities best compliment beam arrays.
Um.. I'm not sure how that fits into the topic per se as this is just rudimentary knowledge you should be able to obtain in your first few months of playing. However, it is not a good idea for all sci cruisers to slot kinetic weapons as this takes skill spec to utilize effectively and that only detracts from science abilities and flexibility or engineering skills which those weak hulls desperately need.
A sci's true strength will be refining an augmentation that works best(That's just the letter of the law given today's mechanics). Sometimes that can be kinetic but mostly the staple is actually energy weaponry and for the cruiser classes this will be beams unless the build relies off cannons (like one of my own) and can afford turn rate augmentations.
I think the point here is that beams are a sci's staple weapon(cruisers etc) and without APA, us Sci folks have to get in the kitchen and really cook up some serious out of box(pun?) ideas to try and stay competitive. Also rck, APA isn't a small deal, it's a big one. As rylan was saying the effects of APA are quite dramatic. Let's not trivialize it shall we?
I don't think anybody wants Sci to be a new pew pew king class, but they deserve some more savvy operation over beams. Let Tac be king of cannon and let Sci wield beams with more effective prowess.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Sci that can out DPS a tac in the same identical build and with the laws of deduction it will always boil down to APA and boff abilities that only further propel that skyward in effectiveness.
Science-Captains in PvP usually annoy their enemies team to death :P
But lets keep on topic, Science-Ships are usually not Cruisers and not Escorts. They can't slot enough weapons to be a replacement for FaW-Cruisers or something like that.
There is no damage boosting Science-Boff-Ability, so you need your Engineer-Stations and Tactical-Stations to boost your damage a little - or you give up on dealing damage completely. Even if you are able to use DEM or EP2W, you boost only up to 6 weapons that way, while an Escort usually buffs up to 7 and a Cruiser up to 8.
While there are weapons that are boosted by Tactical-Player-Abilities (AP-Weapons or Weapons with CritD-/CrtH-modifiers - boosted by Attack-Pattern-Alpha), there are just a few that are boosted with Science-Abilities:
- Polaron (might be stronger using Flow-Cap-Skills),
- Phaser (Proc should be longer with Subspace-Decompiler-Skills),
- Tetryon (Proc increases with Flow-Cap-Skills).
Against the Phaser-Proc, you need just a few skills in Subsystem Repair (those also reduce the duration of Viral-Matrix) or Human Bridge Officers, against Polaron and Tetryon Procs you need a little Skill in Power-Insulator.
Since almost everybody in PvP is using the Assimilated Deflector and Engines (for the heal-proc), you've got also some effects of Power-Insulators and as a bonus Inertial Dampeners.
Also the Nukara Console and the Zero-Point Energy Conduit protect you from Powerdrains and those Weapon-Procs, I mentioned before.
So, how is a SCI able to hurt you? Those offensive Science-Boff-Abilities are reduced through all these skills, too. For Example: Tachyon-Beam - it's worthless against Players and outside the Crystalline Cataclysm it hasn't got strong effects in PvE, too.
The only remaining thing for a SCI is try to heal the own team, and hold and annoy people: Tractor-Beam, Tractor-Beam-Repulsor, Viral-Matrix, Subnucleonic Beam, Gravity-Well (that's also effective against Player-Ships now), Photonic-Shockwave (-Torpedoes), ...
Since they can't really get your shields down, they can try to help their team to do it, that means using Fleet Elite Disruptors (Proc -25% shield damage resistance) and FaW for KDFs. But even these weapons are better on a Cruiser (more weapons that can proc).
Also the integrated Subsystem Targeting in Science-Ships doesn't help you too much, it's just a small chance to disable a Subsystem and another "Power-Drain"-Ability.
If Science-Ships really get a secondary or aux-Deflector, they could at least annoy you a little more frequently (if they will be able to use an Elite-Fleet Deflector with Science-Cooldown-reduction in the new slot).
If there were effective damage-boosting Science-Boff-Abilities, how would you stop an Engineer or Tactical Captain to use them? Those Abilities would need to be boosted extremly by Science-Skills, that are not cheap or used to buff "Fire on my Mark".
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Science-Captains in PvP usually annoy their enemies team to death :P
But lets keep on topic, Science-Ships are usually not Cruisers and not Escorts. They can't slot enough weapons to be a replacement for FaW-Cruisers or something like that.
There is no damage boosting Science-Boff-Ability, so you need your Engineer-Stations and Tactical-Stations to boost your damage a little - or you give up on dealing damage completely. Even if you are able to use DEM or EP2W, you boost only up to 6 weapons that way, while an Escort usually buffs up to 7 and a Cruiser up to 8.
While there are weapons that are boosted by Tactical-Player-Abilities (AP-Weapons or Weapons with CritD-/CrtH-modifiers - boosted by Attack-Pattern-Alpha), there are just a few that are boosted with Science-Abilities:
- Polaron (might be stronger using Flow-Cap-Skills),
- Phaser (Proc should be longer with Subspace-Decompiler-Skills),
- Tetryon (Proc increases with Flow-Cap-Skills).
Against the Phaser-Proc, you need just a few skills in Subsystem Repair (those also reduce the duration of Viral-Matrix) or Human Bridge Officers, against Polaron and Tetryon Procs you need a little Skill in Power-Insulator.
Since almost everybody in PvP is using the Assimilated Deflector and Engines (for the heal-proc), you've got also some effects of Power-Insulators and as a bonus Inertial Dampeners.
Also the Nukara Console and the Zero-Point Energy Conduit protect you from Powerdrains and those Weapon-Procs, I mentioned before.
So, how is a SCI able to hurt you? Those offensive Science-Boff-Abilities are reduced through all these skills, too. For Example: Tachyon-Beam - it's worthless against Players and outside the Crystalline Cataclysm it hasn't got strong effects in PvE, too.
The only remaining thing for a SCI is try to heal the own team, and hold and annoy people: Tractor-Beam, Tractor-Beam-Repulsor, Viral-Matrix, Subnucleonic Beam, Gravity-Well (that's also effective against Player-Ships now), Photonic-Shockwave (-Torpedoes), ...
Since they can't really get your shields down, they can try to help their team to do it, that means using Fleet Elite Disruptors (Proc -25% shield damage resistance) and FaW for KDFs. But even these weapons are better on a Cruiser (more weapons that can proc).
Also the integrated Subsystem Targeting in Science-Ships doesn't help you too much, it's just a small chance to disable a Subsystem and another "Power-Drain"-Ability.
If Science-Ships really get a secondary or aux-Deflector, they could at least annoy you a little more frequently (if they will be able to use an Elite-Fleet Deflector with Science-Cooldown-reduction in the new slot).
If there were effective damage-boosting Science-Boff-Abilities, how would you stop an Engineer or Tactical Captain to use them? Those Abilities would need to be boosted extremly by Science-Skills, that are not cheap or used to buff "Fire on my Mark".
The topic is how to make beams more effective for the sci ships which have been power-creeped beyond use. That is if we're to stay on topic here. Most of this rudimentary info you provided is pretty much well known to the savvy already but if you have any ideas as to how to help beams be more effective on those ships, feel free.
While there are weapons that are boosted by Tactical-Player-Abilities (AP-Weapons or Weapons with CritD-/CrtH-modifiers - boosted by Attack-Pattern-Alpha), there are just a few that are boosted with Science-Abilities:
- Polaron (might be stronger using Flow-Cap-Skills),
- Phaser (Proc should be longer with Subspace-Decompiler-Skills),
- Tetryon (Proc increases with Flow-Cap-Skills).
You should see what Phased Polaron beams can do with glider on a sci-cruiser specced for drains.
The topic is how to make beams more effective for the sci ships which have been power-creeped beyond use. That is if we're to stay on topic here. Most of this rudimentary info you provided is pretty much well known to the savvy already but if you have any ideas as to how to help beams be more effective on those ships, feel free.
No, the Topic was "Improving Beam-Arrays and Cruisers" and Science-Ships are not Cruisers. Especially Carriers are slower and suffer from a poor turnrate.
The best idea so far is giving Science-Ships a secondary or aux-deflector, so you could choose something that boosts your abilities or lowers the cooldown of your Science-Boff-Abilities.
You should see what Phased Polaron beams can do with glider on a sci-cruiser specced for drains.
I just mentioned the basic damage types, a combination of two might be a little stronger. Tetryon-Glider isn't an Energy-Type, it's just an additional Shield-Drain that can be used on top of every Weapon, just like you could add a Plasma-Proc to this combination to have a little shield-bypassing damage (-chance).
When you talk about a "sci-cruiser", you are talking about an 8-weapon-slot-ship (that usually doesn't have Sensor-Analysis)?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
To be fair,
That thread is NOT talking about "beams" themselves per se being OP.
It is talking about the: double aux to battery, 3 technichian doff plus Marion doff, plus directed energy, plus attack pattern omega, plus Fire at will combo being OP.
And correct me if I'm mistaken, this rather elaborate, and expensive set-up of abilities and rare doffs, was formulated to combat the fact that outside that rather narrow build, by and large, beams stink .
I feel this distinction has to be made in fairness to this discussion.
Yes exactly. Beam weaponry is one of the most iconic weapons STO has to offer and yet they drudge in the lowest of capacities. The only winners of their use are tacs. Some of the mechanical posturing they've done lately only gives me a sliver of hope that they're dismantling a few super op combos(for keybinds) in order to hopefully take a second look at their effectiveness but please, nobody step on my pipeline hope setting sail for an island of realization deep deep into the waters of unfairness. It's a very fragile vessel.
Honestly if they just gutted the target subsystem abilities and replace them with "array effeciency" or something similar to that effect for sci vessels, that'd help a lot in this topic of things.
No, the Topic was "Improving Beam-Arrays and Cruisers" and Science-Ships are not Cruisers. Especially Carriers are slower and suffer from a poor turnrate.
The best idea so far is giving Science-Ships a secondary or aux-deflector, so you could choose something that boosts your abilities or lowers the cooldown of your Science-Boff-Abilities.
Actually it's not just about cruisers even though this is what the OP mentions. Beams are also used on sci ships and the same problem exists there. Just because they're different shapes and the same color doesn't mean it isn't valid.
We don't need a new-gear fix. We need a look at what already exists. In this case, we're talking about beams rather than yet another piece of staple gear. However, it is fair to say that if cruisers(and sci ships) were given something innate beyond just target subsystem abilities (which both of them have if you haven't seen the connection yet) like a beam related augmentation and not necessarily to boost damage but maybe increase their rate of fire for instance, this would be more in line with the topic.
I just mentioned the basic damage types, a combination of two might be a little stronger. Tetryon-Glider isn't an Energy-Type, it's just an additional Shield-Drain that can be used on top of every Weapon, just like you could add a Plasma-Proc to this combination to have a little shield-bypassing damage (-chance).
When you talk about a "sci-cruiser", you are talking about an 8-weapon-slot-ship (that usually doesn't have Sensor-Analysis)?
I was referring to a cruiser with a Lt. Cdr SCI officer or better. The ship list shows them as 'battlecruisers' or 'destroyers' but they're far from escorts, and definitely not pure SCI ships.
You are right i don't use damage meters, because i think they conveys a false impression a ships damage.
Just fireing at ANYTHING doesn't help anyone. Of course it raises your statistics but i think thats all smoke and mirrors IMHO.
For example a 1 on 1 situation.
If you use a full beam boat build and permanently spamming FAW would you do more damage than by using a DHC build with a permanent C:RF?
I think the differences would be resounding.
So in my opinion Beam weapons and their BOFF powers aren't nearly as effective as cannon weapons and their according BOFF powers.[/QUOTE]
You fail to remember that a single alpha striking Scimitar with A2B/full FAW build will do horrendous damage to your entire team, almost always through your shields in a 20k sphere?? And multiple alpha nuke scims makes PVP mostly an extremely frustrating experience
Are cannons ever going to do that?
Who cares about 1v1 bro? How often does that come up in PVP? Ummm..like...never???
no matter how many ships and pacs and gear they release won't matter. escorts are still so tanky.
beams can't be given more spike dmg or dps unless they make em so they can't be equiped by escorts (imagine an tac pilot buffing up in an escort and delivering a 1 shoot kill bo3 after a beam buff, or just equiping 360 beams to **** you up)
buffing heals? dear lord, god forbid an escort slot an engi boff with a high heal, thats all thats missing
science abilites are 90% of the time irrelevant, the 10% is when an ecort gets a 25k HE / full shield ST heal or a well timed feedback+tac team in pvp
sci dmg/drain skills were nerfed Because TAC not SCI captains were making them op with attack patterns and instead of making them not be affected.... nerf... there fixed... oh hold on, sci useless now? eh who cares?
aux weapons seem to work well for sci, but even aux beam gimik will only close the gap and not even come close to balance
one thing every1 agrees on the way to balance is by making escorts killable
armor slot, second deflector, beam ideas.... and so on...i've read all >1 year ago, blabla forum ideas and rants and nothings changed, no fixes, no way made towards balance, but then again, ppl still buying escort packs so why waste dev power on something that wouldn't make money....
if they were in any way serious about fixing stuff you'd see al kinds of weird **** happening on the test server so ppl could debunk whats a good step or a bad one about this stuff, but its all still threads in the forum....
How come every thread ends up back to "we need what the romulans have got" or "why can't we be as good as the romulans at this" blah blah blah
Because cheating Roms are totally OP, maybe?! :P
On-topic, though... LOL. With all talk about BFAW being OP (How come every thread ends up back to "This or that is OP; plz nerf."?), I think asking for a beam-boat buff is a bit silly. Be glad they fixed critting on BFAW; pray they don't 'fix' it any further.
they closed the faw thread in the pvp section, so i go here to find the one they want us to talk in, and the first thing i see is a thread called "Improving Beam Arrays and Cruisers"
this is not the position a serious FAW conversation can be allowed to start from
they closed the faw thread in the pvp section, so i go here to find the one they want us to talk in, and the first thing i see is a thread called "Improving Beam Arrays and Cruisers"
this is not the position a serious FAW conversation can be allowed to start from
This thread was a major necro...somebody entered an Arc code for another PWE game and thought they could summon the dead.
Can i just say, that i dont feel beams are underwhelming, but the damage is largely dependent on tac consoles, just like cannons. Seeing as a lot of cruisers only have 3 slots for tac consoles, this is what makes a lot of them underwhelming.
When used on a group, you dilute some of your damage the more enemies there are. So if you fly in on pvp into a 5 man group, and FAW everyone, if they are half decent, then you will not see any major effect. The only time this is not as true is if you are a tac and you have high crit and pop all your cds, especially APA, then do FAW.
I agree DHC's are crazy in the right hands, and i feel they should at least have a bigger power drain, the power drain on them is a joke compared to beams. Not conducive to what spike damage is all about, when an escort can just sit off your bow pounding you with CRF for as long as he wants with no deficit on damage.
" Experience is a hard mistress, she gives the tests first, and the lessons after... "
BO's aren't that strong you've clearly never been on the receiving end of a tvaro double tap Marion BO strike
If buffed correctly they can hit without crit for 30k easily with crit 55-65k+
How come every thread ends up back to "we need what the romulans have got" or "why can't we be as good as the romulans at this" blah blah blah
If you buff beams the escorts will just run beams( a bit like some of these Risian corvettes spinning about)
You buff beams a bug slots 7 of them equips epte omega auxtodamps and starts spooling around you with 120%+ defence untargetable speed and a build able bonus to there weapons hmm great fun eh?
If there were to be any buff it would have to be to cruisers an then make it so if cruisers use beams they get a slight damage boost but even them it can't be too much as cruisers aren't meant for damage their meant for support
Then again escorts aren't meant to tank...
Because everyone runs marion because everyone has him, right? In fact, most players don't have him, and some never will. But this is actually beside the point. The way to fix beams and cruisers isn't to buff one or the other, because then everyone will switch and the problem remains. I would propose a change to escorts. You said it yourself that cruisers are meant to tank and to support other ships, and escorts aren't supposed to tank. Well, make this a reality. Leave cruisers alone, but get rid of all the eng BO stations on escorts that are higher than lieutenant, and give them slightly lower hull values. The only thing I'd change on cruisers would be reduce all tac BO stations to a maximum of lieutenant.
Comments
I've seen Rcks build and without APA it is pretty good, remember APO adds quite a bit of a damage boost and you get the double dip by boosting the beam array damage and the DEM damage. APA however does add a ton of damage on top too and while the build would still be good in the hands of other captains it would not have quite the killing power it has with a tactical captain.
Nadeon inversion would help boost the damage nicely for pressure and sensors scan in your high aux period would be good but the tactical captain does not need to wait on such things and can pounce when the time is right rather than risk the window of opportunity pass.
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.
1. If I use it for a lead-off "alpha" strike, I'm likely going up against my opponents best defensive buffs. So the effect is mitigated since the target is already in a hardened state.
2. The long CD means that I'm usually fighting for extended periods without the benefit of APA3. So I rely more on stacking APO1 + DEM3 + EPtW1 + FOMM3 (though it also has a long CD). Combined with BFAW2, and assuming a single target, the combination is quite effective and thus the source of most of my kills.
3. When the stars *do* align and I manage to get all of my buffs running at once - including APA3 - then obviously the effect is greater than without APA3.
So...my issue wasn't with APA3, but rather the assumption that without it I'm toothless. Experience has shown the opposite: That even without APA3 running, I can still effectively kill targets using just my stacked Boff skills + some intelligent maneuvering and timing.
Now if only APA were a trainable skill - I would gladly take a reduced-effectiveness version (APA1 or 2) that I could activate on a 30 sec Boff cycle like my APO1 does now...
RCK
I don't think anybody wants Sci to be a new pew pew king class, but they deserve some more savvy operation over beams. Let Tac be king of cannon and let Sci wield beams with more effective prowess.
You'd be hard pressed to find a Sci that can out DPS a tac in the same identical build and with the laws of deduction it will always boil down to APA and boff abilities that only further propel that skyward in effectiveness.
Most science ships should either be using some combination of Torpedoes, Mines, Turrets, and/or Dual Beam banks. A single array is sometimes useful on slow turning science vessels (Nebula, etc.), but I've never seen a good 6 beam array science vessel, none of their bridge officer abilities compliment that many arrays. Science vessels have an average of 12 turn rate, they have plenty of room to slot 90 degree arc weapons. Beam arrays are for slow moving cruisers and carriers, they need the high arc and their bridge officer abilities best compliment beam arrays.
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They're only dominant if you can get them on target. Cannons are great weapons on a highly maneuverable ship but the firing arc is so small they don't work well on a cruiser without unbalancing the cruisers strengths to make it more maneuverable. Beams rock if you build right, and would be better if the devs ever fix the power draw problem.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
Um.. I'm not sure how that fits into the topic per se as this is just rudimentary knowledge you should be able to obtain in your first few months of playing. However, it is not a good idea for all sci cruisers to slot kinetic weapons as this takes skill spec to utilize effectively and that only detracts from science abilities and flexibility or engineering skills which those weak hulls desperately need.
A sci's true strength will be refining an augmentation that works best(That's just the letter of the law given today's mechanics). Sometimes that can be kinetic but mostly the staple is actually energy weaponry and for the cruiser classes this will be beams unless the build relies off cannons (like one of my own) and can afford turn rate augmentations.
Science-Captains in PvP usually annoy their enemies team to death :P
But lets keep on topic, Science-Ships are usually not Cruisers and not Escorts. They can't slot enough weapons to be a replacement for FaW-Cruisers or something like that.
There is no damage boosting Science-Boff-Ability, so you need your Engineer-Stations and Tactical-Stations to boost your damage a little - or you give up on dealing damage completely. Even if you are able to use DEM or EP2W, you boost only up to 6 weapons that way, while an Escort usually buffs up to 7 and a Cruiser up to 8.
While there are weapons that are boosted by Tactical-Player-Abilities (AP-Weapons or Weapons with CritD-/CrtH-modifiers - boosted by Attack-Pattern-Alpha), there are just a few that are boosted with Science-Abilities:
- Polaron (might be stronger using Flow-Cap-Skills),
- Phaser (Proc should be longer with Subspace-Decompiler-Skills),
- Tetryon (Proc increases with Flow-Cap-Skills).
Against the Phaser-Proc, you need just a few skills in Subsystem Repair (those also reduce the duration of Viral-Matrix) or Human Bridge Officers, against Polaron and Tetryon Procs you need a little Skill in Power-Insulator.
Since almost everybody in PvP is using the Assimilated Deflector and Engines (for the heal-proc), you've got also some effects of Power-Insulators and as a bonus Inertial Dampeners.
Also the Nukara Console and the Zero-Point Energy Conduit protect you from Powerdrains and those Weapon-Procs, I mentioned before.
So, how is a SCI able to hurt you? Those offensive Science-Boff-Abilities are reduced through all these skills, too. For Example: Tachyon-Beam - it's worthless against Players and outside the Crystalline Cataclysm it hasn't got strong effects in PvE, too.
The only remaining thing for a SCI is try to heal the own team, and hold and annoy people: Tractor-Beam, Tractor-Beam-Repulsor, Viral-Matrix, Subnucleonic Beam, Gravity-Well (that's also effective against Player-Ships now), Photonic-Shockwave (-Torpedoes), ...
Since they can't really get your shields down, they can try to help their team to do it, that means using Fleet Elite Disruptors (Proc -25% shield damage resistance) and FaW for KDFs. But even these weapons are better on a Cruiser (more weapons that can proc).
Also the integrated Subsystem Targeting in Science-Ships doesn't help you too much, it's just a small chance to disable a Subsystem and another "Power-Drain"-Ability.
If Science-Ships really get a secondary or aux-Deflector, they could at least annoy you a little more frequently (if they will be able to use an Elite-Fleet Deflector with Science-Cooldown-reduction in the new slot).
If there were effective damage-boosting Science-Boff-Abilities, how would you stop an Engineer or Tactical Captain to use them? Those Abilities would need to be boosted extremly by Science-Skills, that are not cheap or used to buff "Fire on my Mark".
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
The topic is how to make beams more effective for the sci ships which have been power-creeped beyond use. That is if we're to stay on topic here. Most of this rudimentary info you provided is pretty much well known to the savvy already but if you have any ideas as to how to help beams be more effective on those ships, feel free.
You should see what Phased Polaron beams can do with glider on a sci-cruiser specced for drains.
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
No, the Topic was "Improving Beam-Arrays and Cruisers" and Science-Ships are not Cruisers. Especially Carriers are slower and suffer from a poor turnrate.
The best idea so far is giving Science-Ships a secondary or aux-deflector, so you could choose something that boosts your abilities or lowers the cooldown of your Science-Boff-Abilities.
I just mentioned the basic damage types, a combination of two might be a little stronger. Tetryon-Glider isn't an Energy-Type, it's just an additional Shield-Drain that can be used on top of every Weapon, just like you could add a Plasma-Proc to this combination to have a little shield-bypassing damage (-chance).
When you talk about a "sci-cruiser", you are talking about an 8-weapon-slot-ship (that usually doesn't have Sensor-Analysis)?
If Star Trek Online was an Open-Source (GPL) Game, we would have a low-grind fork.
Yes exactly. Beam weaponry is one of the most iconic weapons STO has to offer and yet they drudge in the lowest of capacities. The only winners of their use are tacs. Some of the mechanical posturing they've done lately only gives me a sliver of hope that they're dismantling a few super op combos(for keybinds) in order to hopefully take a second look at their effectiveness but please, nobody step on my pipeline hope setting sail for an island of realization deep deep into the waters of unfairness. It's a very fragile vessel.
Honestly if they just gutted the target subsystem abilities and replace them with "array effeciency" or something similar to that effect for sci vessels, that'd help a lot in this topic of things.
Actually it's not just about cruisers even though this is what the OP mentions. Beams are also used on sci ships and the same problem exists there. Just because they're different shapes and the same color doesn't mean it isn't valid.
We don't need a new-gear fix. We need a look at what already exists. In this case, we're talking about beams rather than yet another piece of staple gear. However, it is fair to say that if cruisers(and sci ships) were given something innate beyond just target subsystem abilities (which both of them have if you haven't seen the connection yet) like a beam related augmentation and not necessarily to boost damage but maybe increase their rate of fire for instance, this would be more in line with the topic.
I was referring to a cruiser with a Lt. Cdr SCI officer or better. The ship list shows them as 'battlecruisers' or 'destroyers' but they're far from escorts, and definitely not pure SCI ships.
I'll just put this here for later reference:
Awoken Dead
Now shaddup about the queues, it's a BUG
You are right i don't use damage meters, because i think they conveys a false impression a ships damage.
Just fireing at ANYTHING doesn't help anyone. Of course it raises your statistics but i think thats all smoke and mirrors IMHO.
For example a 1 on 1 situation.
If you use a full beam boat build and permanently spamming FAW would you do more damage than by using a DHC build with a permanent C:RF?
I think the differences would be resounding.
So in my opinion Beam weapons and their BOFF powers aren't nearly as effective as cannon weapons and their according BOFF powers.[/QUOTE]
You fail to remember that a single alpha striking Scimitar with A2B/full FAW build will do horrendous damage to your entire team, almost always through your shields in a 20k sphere?? And multiple alpha nuke scims makes PVP mostly an extremely frustrating experience
Are cannons ever going to do that?
Who cares about 1v1 bro? How often does that come up in PVP? Ummm..like...never???
no matter how many ships and pacs and gear they release won't matter. escorts are still so tanky.
beams can't be given more spike dmg or dps unless they make em so they can't be equiped by escorts (imagine an tac pilot buffing up in an escort and delivering a 1 shoot kill bo3 after a beam buff, or just equiping 360 beams to **** you up)
buffing heals? dear lord, god forbid an escort slot an engi boff with a high heal, thats all thats missing
science abilites are 90% of the time irrelevant, the 10% is when an ecort gets a 25k HE / full shield ST heal or a well timed feedback+tac team in pvp
sci dmg/drain skills were nerfed Because TAC not SCI captains were making them op with attack patterns and instead of making them not be affected.... nerf... there fixed... oh hold on, sci useless now? eh who cares?
aux weapons seem to work well for sci, but even aux beam gimik will only close the gap and not even come close to balance
one thing every1 agrees on the way to balance is by making escorts killable
armor slot, second deflector, beam ideas.... and so on...i've read all >1 year ago, blabla forum ideas and rants and nothings changed, no fixes, no way made towards balance, but then again, ppl still buying escort packs so why waste dev power on something that wouldn't make money....
if they were in any way serious about fixing stuff you'd see al kinds of weird **** happening on the test server so ppl could debunk whats a good step or a bad one about this stuff, but its all still threads in the forum....
Because cheating Roms are totally OP, maybe?! :P
On-topic, though... LOL. With all talk about BFAW being OP (How come every thread ends up back to "This or that is OP; plz nerf."?), I think asking for a beam-boat buff is a bit silly. Be glad they fixed critting on BFAW; pray they don't 'fix' it any further.
this is not the position a serious FAW conversation can be allowed to start from
This thread was a major necro...somebody entered an Arc code for another PWE game and thought they could summon the dead.
When used on a group, you dilute some of your damage the more enemies there are. So if you fly in on pvp into a 5 man group, and FAW everyone, if they are half decent, then you will not see any major effect. The only time this is not as true is if you are a tac and you have high crit and pop all your cds, especially APA, then do FAW.
I agree DHC's are crazy in the right hands, and i feel they should at least have a bigger power drain, the power drain on them is a joke compared to beams. Not conducive to what spike damage is all about, when an escort can just sit off your bow pounding you with CRF for as long as he wants with no deficit on damage.
General characteristic of an Escort?
Cmdr Tac?
More Tac consoles than either Eng or Sci?
Scimitar!
Game's still Escorts Online! :P
Because everyone runs marion because everyone has him, right? In fact, most players don't have him, and some never will. But this is actually beside the point. The way to fix beams and cruisers isn't to buff one or the other, because then everyone will switch and the problem remains. I would propose a change to escorts. You said it yourself that cruisers are meant to tank and to support other ships, and escorts aren't supposed to tank. Well, make this a reality. Leave cruisers alone, but get rid of all the eng BO stations on escorts that are higher than lieutenant, and give them slightly lower hull values. The only thing I'd change on cruisers would be reduce all tac BO stations to a maximum of lieutenant.