Keel'el is a poor defense against VM III. The latter applies in 3 distinct phases, without any doff. Each phase lasts up to 14 seconds in theory but in reality quite a bit shorter due to various resists. Keel'el will clear one of the 3 phases but because its effect is instantaneous, it will not prevent the other phases from hitting again shortly after, assuming you only clear the first one.
that's because VM is bugged. The devs tried to fix it but that made ET "fix" cloaking, which was totally a funny trolling method on the kdf side, but in the end was just TRIBBLE. Since then we had LoR and all the other content so there hasn't been much interest in looking at it again. That and VM isn't as widely used as before. But yeah, the reapplication is a bug.
This doff pretty much killed my Sci scort for 1v1. Before a well times nuke would cripple the opponents defenses or neuter their offense. So now I use him for support dps/gank in team settings
I'm not complaining just pointing out how it's changed things.
Keel'el is frustrating to a Sci, I get that. But if you read a few posts above, there are ways to counter it. For example, if you are going to nuke somebody, make sure it happens at the beginning of an EPTX cycle. That means you need to pay attention to your target's buff. Once you nuked at the beginning of an EPTX cycle, your target is guaranteed not being able to hit EPTX again for about another 15 seconds, if not more.
In reality, my nuke is reserved for RSP. The only skill that I care to nuke is RSP. APA, APO, GDF and etc., all those kinds of things don't bother me, all you need is to jam them and they can kiss their buffs goodbye because they will be blind and on the defensive. More often than not, by removing RSP, you are like hitting them when they are trying to hold down to dear life and therefore, removing other buffs along with RSP such as GDF. Nothing bothers the Escort heroes more than seeing their GDF removed.
Frustrating? Frustrating? Talk about the understatement of the century. Keel'el is the final piece to building a ship that is 100% IMMUNE to anything a Science officer is capable of throwing at a player. Emergency Power to Shields + Emergency Power to Engines + Attack Pattern Omega. The player then uses Damage Control Engineers with an Antimatter Specialist and Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners or Technicians with Auxiliary to Battery. Either way, the player becomes 100% immune to all control, disable, hold, drain, slow, stun, repel, and damage over time attacks. All they need to do is tap spacebar repeatedly. The sad truth for all of this is players have realized that the EPtX cleanse proc chance really isn't a chance. There are set seconds in a minute that will always proc the duty officer.
But if you read a few posts above, there are ways to counter it. For example, if you are going to nuke somebody, make sure it happens at the beginning of an EPTX cycle. That means you need to pay attention to your target's buff. Once you nuked at the beginning of an EPTX cycle, your target is guaranteed not being able to hit EPTX again for about another 15 seconds, if not more.
Unless they are running Auxiliary to Battery. A Science Vessel can't kill anything in 15 seconds. After that subnuke wears off, the ship goes back to being immune to anything the science vessel can throw. Cruisers can solo kill targets and Escorts can solo kill target. Science Vessels should be able to solo kill targets as well.
In reality, my nuke is reserved for RSP. The only skill that I care to nuke is RSP. APA, APO, GDF and etc., all those kinds of things don't bother me, all you need is to jam them and they can kiss their buffs goodbye because they will be blind and on the defensive. More often than not, by removing RSP, you are like hitting them when they are trying to hold down to dear life and therefore, removing other buffs along with RSP such as GDF. Nothing bothers the Escort heroes more than seeing their GDF removed.
Go Down Fighting is an Orange buff as of Legacy of Romulus and is immune to Subnuke Beam removal.
It's a sign of how crazy things are with debuffs/"cheese" that a doff which is capable of clearing everything can be seen as somewhat balanced. Plus I feel it pushes the cheese factors and vaper style gameplay even further, since I think some will feel the need to amp cheese factors up even more to overwhelm the doff, and vaper-style is needed even more to get kills within the even smaller windows.
There's a convenient method I can use to gauge the amount of spam/cheese/whatever you want to call it going around. Since I play through a VPN, my connection's pretty fragile, so anytime targetables start pumping, STO becomes a slideshow for me. And there's a clear trend lately that went from facing this about 10% of the time to at least two-thirds of the time. I frequently have to apologize and warp out because I'm just free kills at that point.
Then again, mounting Elite Scorpions probably doesn't help matters much - but I don't have many pet options Fedside besides those and Runabouts, which are probably even worse.
And if you are reading this thread, and you are a Sci player - or any player, and you use any "oh TRIBBLE buttons" or any clicky console pseudo-Sci spam powers like Theta, GPG, Black Hole, Yellowstones, Interceptors, Siphpons, etc - you really have zero moral ground on complaining about this DOFF and it just makes you a hypocrite.
You mean siphon drones and not ES, right.......right?
Then again, mounting Elite Scorpions probably doesn't help matters much - but I don't have many pet options Fedside besides those and Runabouts, which are probably even worse.
You could try Elite Swarmers from the Spire. Their Transphasic Torpedoes and Beam Overloads are quite helpful.
but you totally missed what I said. It's all the cleansing powers in one doff that can be cycled on a power everyone uses and it works better.
also, what people with a brain do, is just omega/evasive/engine battery away. It most often takes 2 subnukes to get them.
In an organized match, yeah, it's not as much of a big deal, but in pugland it's downright OP.
The doff itself is just TRIBBLE. It clears everything, even things that other powers cant clear.
There's no such thing as OP in pugland because, 9 times out of 10, when you're a PUG, you're stuck with 4 other pugs going up against a coordinated wolfpack of cheesers.
This doff actually makes PvP accessible to entry level players so those losers who enjoy ganking noobs still have some semblance of a pool of new victims.
This guy's an entry-level must have with all the debuff stacking that's going on. Nerfing him is only going to hurt pvp in the long run and keep pvpers, the lemmings that they are, an endangered species.
Before this doff was officially released, we had a chat with the Dev and many expressed reservation about how OP she can be. Originally, the Dev had intended for her to clear debuffs for 2 seconds. Instead, it was changed to a one-time cleanse only. We were then assured she can't be stacked and it's a 40% chance proc anyway. The idea of segregating cleanses was proposed to the Dev in no uncertain terms but it was completely ignored but please don't act surprised, because nobody expected them to actually listen - no more than their defensive reaction after everything and their dog can counter Tyken's Rift in PvP.
Several months later, anyone who played PvP know she is completely broken where the chance of proc is more like 90%, so her price on the Exchange skyrocketed. Unfortunately, the Dev now pretends there isn't problem and that the 90%+ actual proc rate is working as intended. :rolleyes: Maybe one day, when people wise up and stopped buying those $100 3 packs that maybe Cryptic will seriously think about bug fixing. Until then, if I were Cryptic, I too would spend my energy on creating more of these packs for sale, after all, there are so many stupid people who will just buy them and find out 3 days later they bought TRIBBLE ships and having some serious buyers' remorse.
So yes, as a Science person, you do have to think harder when you know someone is using it. When I spar with RCK, he almost always has Keel'el equipped so I adapted my Sci powers to those he can't cleanse, and shifting focus away from debuffs into dmg and heals. Keel'el can't cleanse damage, so he ends up wasting an Active duty doff slot. That's the beauty of playing science, you can adapt quickly to different situations. Same goes for those who use Polarize Hull, you can't use TBR against them so if you have that as your Commander Sci skill, well, that's going to be a big waste.
It's a myth that Science is all about debuffs. There are many types of debuffs and some are more subtle than the others, the only way you will ever know that is if you are one of those "kirk player" who has to learn to survive as opposed to some people who think they are good because they have 3 healers welfaring them. :rolleyes: A real example I like to give was last weekend, some kdf player in his shiny new adv. Dyson Science Warbird asked for a 1 vs 1 in Kerrat. I obliged. Long story short, he was dead within 30 seconds. In the post-mortem QQ, the conversation went like follows :
Unnamed Kromulan : "Well, I am not spec to deal with drain, if someone drains me, I lose."
Me : "Uh...none of my Sci boff skills actually drain: TSS, HE, FBP, VM"
If you must know, there was indeed drain because my FC skill was well over 200+. But the drain were coming from multiple sources that were indefensible, passive and invisible to my target. Therefore, even if he had Keel'el, it would not have done him any good. He has RCK to thank for that, I have adapted to people using Keel'el for their debuffs cleansing and made sure my drains and Sci skills cannot be cleansed or be defended by just turning a switch on.
There was literally no point to that rant. "we wanted the doff nerfed before he happened, he wasn't, I adapted my build, I can still squash noobs."
This doff isn't about nerfing science, he's about surviving a withering barrage of APB/
Romplas fawspam from 5 a2b beam boats at once.
For players who don't want to, or can't coordinate.
We reap what we sow.
This along with many other power creep options such as T4 Omega Rep Shield Regen passive, T4 Rom Placate Proc, etc.
These are all designed for players who just want to go it on their own, for PvPers who don't want to pre-form on a team, for PvErs who somehow manage to get killed in this game's PvE.
Just like all of the ridiculous "oh TRIBBLE" save me buttons like the voth console & backstep.
Premade players end up using these too, but these items have done more harm than good to the game's team based PvP.
And if you are reading this thread, and you are a Sci player - or any player, and you use any "oh TRIBBLE buttons" or any clicky console pseudo-Sci spam powers like Theta, GPG, Black Hole, Yellowstones, Interceptors, Siphpons, etc - you really have zero moral ground on complaining about this DOFF and it just makes you a hypocrite.
We reap what we sow, now we all get to embrace the suck.
Ultimatum is the only person here who seems to get it, though it sounds like he doesn't like that he gets it.
Not all pvpers are coordinating, serious gamers who enjoy using third party out of game voice chat, making spreadsheets, and using a mouse in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Most people start as noobs and hit the queues solo before they pick up people and develop the aforementioned habits. They spend time casually pvping and liking it, and if they just get stomped by teams of people who have already developed these habits and arrogantly think that they're winning because they're just some better, more intelligent master race, they're not going to come back and pvp withers and dies.
This doff was intended as a beginner pvper's training wheels. It's idiotic to nerf him, because the people most hurt by the nerf would be newcomers to pvp, whereas the people most hurt by him now are the sooperproleetcoordinatedpremadecheese teams who deserve no sympathy because they're the reason beginner pvpers need such a massive training wheel to have a fighting chance in the first place.
On one end, is it ok to have a DOFF that can let you strip all buffs from a person every few seconds if you use enough on a team? On the other, is it ok to have a DOFF that pretty much cleanses everything?
On one end, a person can stack a significant amount of buffs on themselves. On the other, other people can stack significant amounts of debuffs on a person.
We've seen tons of buffs on people, and tons of debuffs on people. We've seen what happens when a DOFF appears that can keep people stripped of any useful buffs on an almost permanent basis.
Sure you can adapt to SNB DOFFs, and to this DOFF, but does that make it ok?
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.
There's no such thing as OP in pugland because, 9 times out of 10, when you're a PUG, you're stuck with 4 other pugs going up against a coordinated wolfpack of cheesers.
This doff actually makes PvP accessible to entry level players so those losers who enjoy ganking noobs still have some semblance of a pool of new victims.
This guy's an entry-level must have with all the debuff stacking that's going on. Nerfing him is only going to hurt pvp in the long run and keep pvpers, the lemmings that they are, an endangered species.
There was literally no point to that rant. "we wanted the doff nerfed before he happened, he wasn't, I adapted my build, I can still squash noobs."
This doff isn't about nerfing science, he's about surviving a withering barrage of APB/
Romplas fawspam from 5 a2b beam boats at once.
Ultimatum is the only person here who seems to get it, though it sounds like he doesn't like that he gets it.
Not all pvpers are coordinating, serious gamers who enjoy using third party out of game voice chat, making spreadsheets, and using a mouse in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Most people start as noobs and hit the queues solo before they pick up people and develop the aforementioned habits. They spend time casually pvping and liking it, and if they just get stomped by teams of people who have already developed these habits and arrogantly think that they're winning because they're just some better, more intelligent master race, they're not going to come back and pvp withers and dies.
This doff was intended as a beginner pvper's training wheels. It's idiotic to nerf him, because the people most hurt by the nerf would be newcomers to pvp, whereas the people most hurt by him now are the sooperproleetcoordinatedpremadecheese teams who deserve no sympathy because they're the reason beginner pvpers need such a massive training wheel to have a fighting chance in the first place.
so you're saying its ok it have this doff because the other people cheese? Also, the price of the doff isn't entry level.
so you're saying its ok it have this doff because the other people cheese? Also, the price of the doff isn't entry level.
The doff is a development in light of the prevalence of cheese. A counter to cheese. Arguing against him is arguing against measures taken to bring cheese back down to earth.
Nothing pvp-useful is priced entry level, but EC isn't hard to save up and grind out eventually, so that's not really much of a point to anybody.
The doff is a development in light of the prevalence of cheese. A counter to cheese. Arguing against him is arguing against measures taken to bring cheese back down to earth.
Nothing pvp-useful is priced entry level, but EC isn't hard to save up and grind out eventually, so that's not really much of a point to anybody.
I'm just going to have to all around disagree with you. The answer to cheese is less cheese and I don't spend much on PvP and I do fine. I also don't use any cheesy consoles either for that matter. I fill up on Mine and Embassy consoles, and now I'm starting to get Spire consoles.
On one end, is it ok to have a DOFF that can let you strip all buffs from a person every few seconds if you use enough on a team? On the other, is it ok to have a DOFF that pretty much cleanses everything?
On one end, a person can stack a significant amount of buffs on themselves. On the other, other people can stack significant amounts of debuffs on a person.
We've seen tons of buffs on people, and tons of debuffs on people. We've seen what happens when a DOFF appears that can keep people stripped of any useful buffs on an almost permanent basis.
Sure you can adapt to SNB DOFFs, and to this DOFF, but does that make it ok?
Okay, maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Can you explain to me how this very predictable duty officer is OP?? I really don't see it, and I would like your perspective on this.
I use that term extremely selectively, I think you'll notice that I've not actually used it so far in this thread.
In another phase of this game, this DOFF would be considered overpowered.
In the current phase of this game, it sits inside the average power range compared to most of the other extreme end powers & items.
It adds to the greater whole of what is, basically, a mess.
I'm just going to have to all around disagree with you. The answer to cheese is less cheese and I don't spend much on PvP and I do fine. I also don't use any cheesy consoles either for that matter. I fill up on Mine and Embassy consoles, and now I'm starting to get Spire consoles.
I would say it doesn't. It cheapens the game.
You're not going to get less cheese if cheese's effectiveness isn't somehow easily nullified.
This whole thread has been the equivalent of lions arguing that gazelles' legs are OP.
It adds to the greater whole of what is, basically, a mess.
I can't remember the start, but it comes off feeling like chicken, egg, and a basket of grenades. In a sense, imho, it's like FAW, eh?
There's too much spam, FAW clears spam! There's too much FAW, spam more to soak up some FAW. There's more spam, FAW more! There's more FAW, spam more!
Debuffs/control is OP and spammy! Spam more OP cleanses. There's too many OP cleanses being spammed, spam more OP debuffs/control! There's too much...we need more...now there's too much...we need more!
A vicious little circle of chicken and egg...where they've added a basket of grenades.
Yep...a mess.
Heck, one could even say it's like damage. Too much damage - need more healing - too much healing - need more damage - over and over...with little thought given to how everything adds up.
Things are shooting at me too much...I need more ways not to get shot!
Sensor Targeting Assault
Alpha Deception Field
Subspace Integration Circuits
Photonic Displacement
Subspace Jumper
Antimatter Spread
Impulse Capacitance Cell
Jam Sensors
Scrambled Sensors
Intimidating Strikes
KHG Shields (forgot what it's called)
Singularity Jump
Warp Shadows
Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Attack Pattern Omega
Evasive Maneuvers
Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners
Emergency Power to Engines
Romulan Enhanced Battle Cloak
Entertainer DOFF
Research Lab Scientist/Charged Particle Burst DOFF
But damn it, things are still shooting at me...I need more!
I don't know... from the my (noob) point of view, considering the insane capabilities of stacking both buffs and debuffs, I'd say that doff is fine. If SNB can remove all buffs instantly (which is powerful ability by itself), why wouldn't there exist something which does the same for debuffs (which are easier to apply than buffs)?
After all, I cleanse 20 various buffs with SNB only to see 15 of them reapplied almost immediatelly...
P.S. I'm still advocating for complete nerf of absolutely everything in order to combat massive power creep.
I can't remember the start, but it comes off feeling like chicken, egg, and a basket of grenades. In a sense, imho, it's like FAW, eh?
There's too much spam, FAW clears spam! There's too much FAW, spam more to soak up some FAW. There's more spam, FAW more! There's more FAW, spam more!
Debuffs/control is OP and spammy! Spam more OP cleanses. There's too many OP cleanses being spammed, spam more OP debuffs/control! There's too much...we need more...now there's too much...we need more!
A vicious little circle of chicken and egg...where they've added a basket of grenades.
Yep...a mess.
Heck, one could even say it's like damage. Too much damage - need more healing - too much healing - need more damage - over and over...with little thought given to how everything adds up.
Things are shooting at me too much...I need more ways not to get shot!
Sensor Targeting Assault
Alpha Deception Field
Subspace Integration Circuits
Photonic Displacement
Subspace Jumper
Antimatter Spread
Impulse Capacitance Cell
Jam Sensors
Scrambled Sensors
Intimidating Strikes
KHG Shields (forgot what it's called)
Singularity Jump
Warp Shadows
Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Attack Pattern Omega
Evasive Maneuvers
Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners
Emergency Power to Engines
Romulan Enhanced Battle Cloak
Entertainer DOFF
Research Lab Scientist/Charged Particle Burst DOFF
But damn it, things are still shooting at me...I need more!
That's pretty much it. That's why I don't like the doff AND the cheese.
If SNB can remove all buffs instantly (which is powerful ability by itself), why wouldn't there exist something which does the same for debuffs (which are easier to apply than buffs)?
SNB is a bad comparison, SNB is a captain's power on a 120s CD.
This is a DOFF, you slot.
It's passive, it just fires off every 15 or 30s depending on your BOFF layout.
One requires timing, skill and coordination to make use of.
The other is something you slot, and forget about and deal with debuffs without actually having to try, or coordinate with others.
That's a pretty good snapshot of what has happened to the game over the past few years.
SNB is a bad comparison, SNB is a captain's power on a 120s CD.
This is a DOFF, you slot.
It's passive, it just fires off every 15 or 30s depending on your BOFF layout.
One requires timing, skill and coordination to make use of.
The other is something you slot, and forget about and deal with debuffs without actually having to try, or coordinate with others.
That's a pretty good snapshot of what has happened to the game over the past few years.
The issue is that items and powers like these are designed to make the game easier and require less ability, less coordination, less actual teamwork.
This is bad design, in what is actually a team environment.
The reason for that is because these things aren't mutually exclusive.
They aren't slot this OR this, it's slot this AND this.
What is given to the gazelles is given to the lions.
Unfortunately, you can't force teamwork on people. If a noob isn't so easily discouraged, he might stick around long enough to develop a group of contacts and friends to team with and begin coordinating with, but that doesn't happen if pvp remains inaccessible.
And I realize that, but the disparity between lions and gazelles in this game is so great that anything given to lions is a drop in the bucket at this point. The difference is this is something a new player needs to be able to cope with all the BS they'll have thrown at them in this community, where as to an experienced player, this is just another perk that makes stomping noobs that much easier to them.
If you're going to punish new players because some people are already just too d*mn good and have no business pugging, you're just gonna get stuck with the same tired cheesers until pvp is entirely abandoned.
The difference is this is something a new player needs to be able to cope with all the BS they'll have thrown at them in this community, where as to an experienced player, this is just another perk that makes stomping noobs that much easier to them.
Those things being tossed at them, are the same items they are giving to the noobs to help them "cope" with players they can't kill.
Other noobs using the same pool of items to remove the ability of other noobs to cope.
Continually adding new ways to both mitigate and create kills so noobs can cope in both areas, doesn't actually help the noobs.
It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play.
Reinforces their lack of motivation to coordinate.
It sells lockboxes, it sells ships, it sells featured episodes, it sells rep systems, it sells starbases.
You can't sell teamwork, or coordination, or good play.
SNB is a bad comparison, SNB is a captain's power on a 120s CD.
This is a DOFF, you slot.
It's passive, it just fires off every 15 or 30s depending on your BOFF layout.
One requires timing, skill and coordination to make use of.
The other is something you slot, and forget about and deal with debuffs without actually having to try, or coordinate with others.
You're right, my bad, used wrong comparison. I forgot the same reason you mentioned was my reason for looking into energy weapons officer doff which has a chance of removing one buff on fire...
Still, it doesn't change the fact (I hope I'm not wrong XD) that because of the way how stacking works (both buff and debuff) there needs to be a way to deal with it. And Cryptic implemented wrong method(s). So the game became like fight between footman, spearman and horseman where footman has lightsaber while others have medieval weaponry, and to combat it spearman got Ion Painters while Horseman got Manta-Leviathan hybrid and so on...
By the way, what is that SNB doff several people mentioned?
I'm seeing a lot of "I don't like X, so X is cheese." in this thread and others.
Last week somebody told me that I should feel bad for a fail cheese alpha with Willard. Wait, an alpha with Willard? All I did was expose the five Feds that were cloaked and hiding around the obvious baitship in Ker'rat...and then flew away. I knew they were there - couldn't see them, but you could hear them (and experience pretty much suggested that they were there).
I did something the person didn't like...thus it was cheese.
There are a lot of "X killed me!" - thus X is cheese or OP.
There are a lot of "X prevented me from killing my target!" - thus X is cheese or OP.
It would appear that some folks are of the opinion that space combat in STO should consist of folks flying around in circles spamming each other with energy weapons until one of them dies (obviously the other one, cause if the other one doesn't die or the other manages to kill first - there had to have been some kind of cheese or something OP involved)...
That doesn't mean that there are not things that might be extremely spammable (outside of weapons, well - outside of your own weapons, right? That's fine - the other guy spamming his weapons though - that's cheese and OP!)...things that are perhaps working better than intended, etc, etc, etc...things that you could get a bunch of folks together that are both on the giving and receiving ends of certain things to agree that perhaps a tweak is needed...
...but there's just so much overwhelming noise where everything is OP and everything is cheese (as long as it is somebody else doing it) - that well, it gets hard to care - hard not to make jokes - not to want to spam the Hell out of whatever somebody is complaining about just to find some sort of entertainment out of the whole thing.
You can't force any particular gazelle to run faster.
So it gets eaten.
Other gazelles will learn to run faster, or they will get eaten.
That's good design.
Those things being tossed at them, are the same items they are giving to the noobs to help them "cope" with players they can't kill.
Other noobs using the same pool of items to remove the ability of other noobs to cope.
Continually adding new ways to both mitigate and create kills so noobs can cope in both areas, doesn't actually help the noobs.
It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play.
Reinforces their lack of motivation to coordinate.
It sells lockboxes, it sells ships, it sells featured episodes, it sells rep systems, it sells starbases.
You can't sell teamwork, or coordination, or good play.
This is more of that pvper arrogance I was talking about.
"It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play."
....So it teaches them to be average STO pvpers?
"You can't force any particular gazelle to run faster.
So it gets eaten.
Other gazelles will learn to run faster, or they will get eaten.
That's good design."
Your example doesn't hold up. A new player tries pvp, gets roflstomped, and never comes back. Other new players learn from this and do better according to your logic.
It's pretty obvious that's not what happens, or this would be the most hustling and bustling part of the forums.
More likely than this is that the new player goes back to esd zone chat and continues to gripe about how unbalanced and unfair pvp is and how if you want to pug or spend any time in kerrat, you'll only be chum for players who have spent hundreds of hours minmaxing their build and organizing their team to see if they can shave down the number of seconds it takes for them to destroy you. Not only are you down one discouraged potential pvper, but you've contributed to the stereotype that pvp is inaccessible and solely exists as a shooting gallery for experienced players who were there before you.
Your noobs fighting noobs anecdote makes no sense. If anything, we should have a ladder, and noobs should be fighting noobs only. If only.The development of actual skill is a product of experience and evolution, getting the wheels turning, learning the game and what killed you. Vaping a noob is just putting a brick wall in front of them. You're picking your crop early. And seeing as the community is set in the belief that doing this is acceptable practice, measures have to be taken to protect the noobs. If we don't have a ladder to bring noobs up, we have to have a cheap trap door to bring the pros who insist on fighting noobs down.
We've got a fighter ace paradox here. The Red Baron has killed all the people who started training at the same time as him, and is now continuing to patrol the skies, shooting down all the wet-behind-the-ears replacements the enemy is putting into the sky, depriving himself of any potential actual challengers down the road, and all the while bolstering his ego as his kill count climbs. The new pilots aren't doing anything wrong, or at least nothing that the Baron didn't do at some point in his career. They just haven't been given the dozens of chances and battles to fight and figure out how to shoot down other planes like the Red Baron has, and never will as long as he's up there.
If noobs don't have a fighting chance to nullify some minimaxers APB romplas a2b constant crf/faw supported by fleet gear build, they aren't gonna have a chance. The fact that debuff stacking exists to the point that you can wither an enemy into nonexistance and has become so potent that people refuse to build otherwise is the real problem here.
This doff at least evens the playing field, because nobody can stack debuffs on each other anymore. Just like the best way to nullify crit/vapers was passive placate chances from the rom rep that everyone hates so much. It nullifies the cheeser and prevents the noob from becoming a cheeser. It discourages cheese and prevents it from being continued. That's intelligent design if you ask me.
First it was crit, then crit couldn't crack tanks, so now you have to debuff the tanks, so now there's debuff cleansing. This is natural progression. It has all happened before, it will all happen again. The current cheese is becoming extinct as it becomes easier for noobs to defend against. I'm sure next week's cheese is already planned and on its way out. It too will be nullified, etc.
No, it's not ideal that it's tied into the pay2win model, but honestly, pvp is already incompatible with a model like this, so that's a moot point. If you want balanced pvp, play a game where payment is mandatory, not an option that has to be incentivized.
Your example doesn't hold up. A new player tries pvp, gets roflstomped, and never comes back. Other new players learn from this and do better according to your logic.
It's not an example, it's a metaphor.
I was a new player once, I got roflstomped.
When I lost to premades I didn't blame the premades.
I blamed the guys on my team who seemed oblivious to my target calling using binds - or some players actively getting angry at "being told what to do".
Players who clearly had no intention of tossing heals & cleanses around, focusing fire - fundamental and basic team skills.
If anything, we should have a ladder, and noobs should be fighting noobs only.
Agreed.
In the meantime, those noobs can take advantage of the initiatives like bootcamp and tyler durden where they can play with and against veterans actively trying to even all the odds and teach.
Will they?
Or will they just continue to complain in ESD eager to rush out and buy the next new itemized power to "help them win" - a toy that will only let vets destroy them easier.
If only.The development of actual skill is a product of experience and evolution, getting the wheels turning, learning the game and what killed you. Vaping a noob is just putting a brick wall in front of them. You're picking your crop early. And seeing as the community is set in the belief that doing this is acceptable practice, measures have to be taken to protect the noobs. If we don't have a ladder to bring noobs up, we have to have a cheap trap door to bring the pros who insist on fighting noobs down.
Those measures just poison the pool permanently.
You are suggesting that sacrificing long-term balance in favor of "helping noobs" in the short-term is a good idea.
It isn't.
This doesn't protect the noobs at all.
All of the ills you described with Vets getting more and more efficient at destroying and being seemingly invulnerable to noobs are exasperated by items like these.
This is more of that pvper arrogance I was talking about.
"It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play."
....So it teaches them to be average STO pvpers?
"You can't force any particular gazelle to run faster.
So it gets eaten.
Other gazelles will learn to run faster, or they will get eaten.
..............
.
Holy Wall of Text Crit.
Is evident that you are one of those that feel that PvP should be a gradual thing, it should be a learn as you go with tangible results every few matches to let you know you are improving. Sorry it does not work that way in this game it never has. PvP is liking jumping into shark infested water with a meat suit on. Most likely you will be eaten but eventually you figure out at first how to hold off the inevitable, then how to stalemate the inevitable, then you become the dealer of the inevitable.
Hey I Used to be Captain Data, well I guess I still am in game but the account link really screwed everything up :rolleyes:
On one end, is it ok to have a DOFF that can let you strip all buffs from a person every few seconds if you use enough on a team? On the other, is it ok to have a DOFF that pretty much cleanses everything?
On one end, a person can stack a significant amount of buffs on themselves. On the other, other people can stack significant amounts of debuffs on a person.
We've seen tons of buffs on people, and tons of debuffs on people. We've seen what happens when a DOFF appears that can keep people stripped of any useful buffs on an almost permanent basis.
Sure you can adapt to SNB DOFFs, and to this DOFF, but does that make it ok?
Is easy adapt to a doff that dosn't work. SNB doff has been broken for a while, and even if it get fixed, is not very usefull in a target with 60 stacks of fleet shield resistences
because pugging without one is almost impossible for my build...
int the world of ubertanks and cloaking vapers....being a stay in the fight escort is really hard these days....and while pugging, i put it in, when with my fleetmates...i rely on them to clear my debuffs...and slot something else...
This doff is fine. It's one of the things in the game that is useful, but not over-powered. When you have to weigh the options of using this doff vs. the opportunity cost of the doff slot, you know that it is balanced.
Comments
The debuff clear one to me just... i dunno, i dont like it?
Maybe I dont like just putting every piece of broken TRIBBLE on my ships, but I have a few of these doffs and I have never really utilized them.
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
that's because VM is bugged. The devs tried to fix it but that made ET "fix" cloaking, which was totally a funny trolling method on the kdf side, but in the end was just TRIBBLE. Since then we had LoR and all the other content so there hasn't been much interest in looking at it again. That and VM isn't as widely used as before. But yeah, the reapplication is a bug.
Keel'el is frustrating to a Sci, I get that. But if you read a few posts above, there are ways to counter it. For example, if you are going to nuke somebody, make sure it happens at the beginning of an EPTX cycle. That means you need to pay attention to your target's buff. Once you nuked at the beginning of an EPTX cycle, your target is guaranteed not being able to hit EPTX again for about another 15 seconds, if not more.
In reality, my nuke is reserved for RSP. The only skill that I care to nuke is RSP. APA, APO, GDF and etc., all those kinds of things don't bother me, all you need is to jam them and they can kiss their buffs goodbye because they will be blind and on the defensive. More often than not, by removing RSP, you are like hitting them when they are trying to hold down to dear life and therefore, removing other buffs along with RSP such as GDF. Nothing bothers the Escort heroes more than seeing their GDF removed.
Unless they are running Auxiliary to Battery. A Science Vessel can't kill anything in 15 seconds. After that subnuke wears off, the ship goes back to being immune to anything the science vessel can throw. Cruisers can solo kill targets and Escorts can solo kill target. Science Vessels should be able to solo kill targets as well.
Go Down Fighting is an Orange buff as of Legacy of Romulus and is immune to Subnuke Beam removal.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
There's a convenient method I can use to gauge the amount of spam/cheese/whatever you want to call it going around. Since I play through a VPN, my connection's pretty fragile, so anytime targetables start pumping, STO becomes a slideshow for me. And there's a clear trend lately that went from facing this about 10% of the time to at least two-thirds of the time. I frequently have to apologize and warp out because I'm just free kills at that point.
Then again, mounting Elite Scorpions probably doesn't help matters much - but I don't have many pet options Fedside besides those and Runabouts, which are probably even worse.
You mean siphon drones and not ES, right.......right?
You could try Elite Swarmers from the Spire. Their Transphasic Torpedoes and Beam Overloads are quite helpful.
--->Ground Combat General Bugs Directory
Real join date: March 2012 / PvP Veteran since May 2012 (Ground and Space)
There's no such thing as OP in pugland because, 9 times out of 10, when you're a PUG, you're stuck with 4 other pugs going up against a coordinated wolfpack of cheesers.
This doff actually makes PvP accessible to entry level players so those losers who enjoy ganking noobs still have some semblance of a pool of new victims.
This guy's an entry-level must have with all the debuff stacking that's going on. Nerfing him is only going to hurt pvp in the long run and keep pvpers, the lemmings that they are, an endangered species.
There was literally no point to that rant. "we wanted the doff nerfed before he happened, he wasn't, I adapted my build, I can still squash noobs."
This doff isn't about nerfing science, he's about surviving a withering barrage of APB/
Romplas fawspam from 5 a2b beam boats at once.
Ultimatum is the only person here who seems to get it, though it sounds like he doesn't like that he gets it.
Not all pvpers are coordinating, serious gamers who enjoy using third party out of game voice chat, making spreadsheets, and using a mouse in one hand and a calculator in the other.
Most people start as noobs and hit the queues solo before they pick up people and develop the aforementioned habits. They spend time casually pvping and liking it, and if they just get stomped by teams of people who have already developed these habits and arrogantly think that they're winning because they're just some better, more intelligent master race, they're not going to come back and pvp withers and dies.
This doff was intended as a beginner pvper's training wheels. It's idiotic to nerf him, because the people most hurt by the nerf would be newcomers to pvp, whereas the people most hurt by him now are the sooperproleetcoordinatedpremadecheese teams who deserve no sympathy because they're the reason beginner pvpers need such a massive training wheel to have a fighting chance in the first place.
On one end, a person can stack a significant amount of buffs on themselves. On the other, other people can stack significant amounts of debuffs on a person.
We've seen tons of buffs on people, and tons of debuffs on people. We've seen what happens when a DOFF appears that can keep people stripped of any useful buffs on an almost permanent basis.
Sure you can adapt to SNB DOFFs, and to this DOFF, but does that make it ok?
so you're saying its ok it have this doff because the other people cheese? Also, the price of the doff isn't entry level.
The doff is a development in light of the prevalence of cheese. A counter to cheese. Arguing against him is arguing against measures taken to bring cheese back down to earth.
Nothing pvp-useful is priced entry level, but EC isn't hard to save up and grind out eventually, so that's not really much of a point to anybody.
I'm just going to have to all around disagree with you. The answer to cheese is less cheese and I don't spend much on PvP and I do fine. I also don't use any cheesy consoles either for that matter. I fill up on Mine and Embassy consoles, and now I'm starting to get Spire consoles.
I would say it doesn't. It cheapens the game.
I use that term extremely selectively, I think you'll notice that I've not actually used it so far in this thread.
In another phase of this game, this DOFF would be considered overpowered.
In the current phase of this game, it sits inside the average power range compared to most of the other extreme end powers & items.
It adds to the greater whole of what is, basically, a mess.
You're not going to get less cheese if cheese's effectiveness isn't somehow easily nullified.
This whole thread has been the equivalent of lions arguing that gazelles' legs are OP.
I can't remember the start, but it comes off feeling like chicken, egg, and a basket of grenades. In a sense, imho, it's like FAW, eh?
There's too much spam, FAW clears spam! There's too much FAW, spam more to soak up some FAW. There's more spam, FAW more! There's more FAW, spam more!
Debuffs/control is OP and spammy! Spam more OP cleanses. There's too many OP cleanses being spammed, spam more OP debuffs/control! There's too much...we need more...now there's too much...we need more!
A vicious little circle of chicken and egg...where they've added a basket of grenades.
Yep...a mess.
Heck, one could even say it's like damage. Too much damage - need more healing - too much healing - need more damage - over and over...with little thought given to how everything adds up.
Things are shooting at me too much...I need more ways not to get shot!
Sensor Targeting Assault
Alpha Deception Field
Subspace Integration Circuits
Photonic Displacement
Subspace Jumper
Antimatter Spread
Impulse Capacitance Cell
Jam Sensors
Scrambled Sensors
Intimidating Strikes
KHG Shields (forgot what it's called)
Singularity Jump
Warp Shadows
Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Attack Pattern Omega
Evasive Maneuvers
Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners
Emergency Power to Engines
Romulan Enhanced Battle Cloak
Entertainer DOFF
Research Lab Scientist/Charged Particle Burst DOFF
But damn it, things are still shooting at me...I need more!
After all, I cleanse 20 various buffs with SNB only to see 15 of them reapplied almost immediatelly...
P.S. I'm still advocating for complete nerf of absolutely everything in order to combat massive power creep.
That's pretty much it. That's why I don't like the doff AND the cheese.
SNB is a bad comparison, SNB is a captain's power on a 120s CD.
This is a DOFF, you slot.
It's passive, it just fires off every 15 or 30s depending on your BOFF layout.
One requires timing, skill and coordination to make use of.
The other is something you slot, and forget about and deal with debuffs without actually having to try, or coordinate with others.
That's a pretty good snapshot of what has happened to the game over the past few years.
The issue is that items and powers like these are designed to make the game easier and require less ability, less coordination, less actual teamwork.
This is bad design, in what is actually a team environment.
The reason for that is because these things aren't mutually exclusive.
They aren't slot this OR this, it's slot this AND this.
What is given to the gazelles is given to the lions.
Unfortunately, you can't force teamwork on people. If a noob isn't so easily discouraged, he might stick around long enough to develop a group of contacts and friends to team with and begin coordinating with, but that doesn't happen if pvp remains inaccessible.
And I realize that, but the disparity between lions and gazelles in this game is so great that anything given to lions is a drop in the bucket at this point. The difference is this is something a new player needs to be able to cope with all the BS they'll have thrown at them in this community, where as to an experienced player, this is just another perk that makes stomping noobs that much easier to them.
If you're going to punish new players because some people are already just too d*mn good and have no business pugging, you're just gonna get stuck with the same tired cheesers until pvp is entirely abandoned.
You can't force any particular gazelle to run faster.
So it gets eaten.
Other gazelles will learn to run faster, or they will get eaten.
That's good design.
Those things being tossed at them, are the same items they are giving to the noobs to help them "cope" with players they can't kill.
Other noobs using the same pool of items to remove the ability of other noobs to cope.
Continually adding new ways to both mitigate and create kills so noobs can cope in both areas, doesn't actually help the noobs.
It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play.
Reinforces their lack of motivation to coordinate.
It sells lockboxes, it sells ships, it sells featured episodes, it sells rep systems, it sells starbases.
You can't sell teamwork, or coordination, or good play.
You're right, my bad, used wrong comparison.
Still, it doesn't change the fact (I hope I'm not wrong XD) that because of the way how stacking works (both buff and debuff) there needs to be a way to deal with it. And Cryptic implemented wrong method(s). So the game became like fight between footman, spearman and horseman where footman has lightsaber while others have medieval weaponry, and to combat it spearman got Ion Painters while Horseman got Manta-Leviathan hybrid and so on...
By the way, what is that SNB doff several people mentioned?
Last week somebody told me that I should feel bad for a fail cheese alpha with Willard. Wait, an alpha with Willard? All I did was expose the five Feds that were cloaked and hiding around the obvious baitship in Ker'rat...and then flew away. I knew they were there - couldn't see them, but you could hear them (and experience pretty much suggested that they were there).
I did something the person didn't like...thus it was cheese.
There are a lot of "X killed me!" - thus X is cheese or OP.
There are a lot of "X prevented me from killing my target!" - thus X is cheese or OP.
It would appear that some folks are of the opinion that space combat in STO should consist of folks flying around in circles spamming each other with energy weapons until one of them dies (obviously the other one, cause if the other one doesn't die or the other manages to kill first - there had to have been some kind of cheese or something OP involved)...
That doesn't mean that there are not things that might be extremely spammable (outside of weapons, well - outside of your own weapons, right? That's fine - the other guy spamming his weapons though - that's cheese and OP!)...things that are perhaps working better than intended, etc, etc, etc...things that you could get a bunch of folks together that are both on the giving and receiving ends of certain things to agree that perhaps a tweak is needed...
...but there's just so much overwhelming noise where everything is OP and everything is cheese (as long as it is somebody else doing it) - that well, it gets hard to care - hard not to make jokes - not to want to spam the Hell out of whatever somebody is complaining about just to find some sort of entertainment out of the whole thing.
That's a very accurate summary.
This is more of that pvper arrogance I was talking about.
"It never teaches them how to play, it never grants them agency.
It just teaches them to rely on gimmicks.
Reinforces bad play."
....So it teaches them to be average STO pvpers?
"You can't force any particular gazelle to run faster.
So it gets eaten.
Other gazelles will learn to run faster, or they will get eaten.
That's good design."
Your example doesn't hold up. A new player tries pvp, gets roflstomped, and never comes back. Other new players learn from this and do better according to your logic.
It's pretty obvious that's not what happens, or this would be the most hustling and bustling part of the forums.
More likely than this is that the new player goes back to esd zone chat and continues to gripe about how unbalanced and unfair pvp is and how if you want to pug or spend any time in kerrat, you'll only be chum for players who have spent hundreds of hours minmaxing their build and organizing their team to see if they can shave down the number of seconds it takes for them to destroy you. Not only are you down one discouraged potential pvper, but you've contributed to the stereotype that pvp is inaccessible and solely exists as a shooting gallery for experienced players who were there before you.
Your noobs fighting noobs anecdote makes no sense. If anything, we should have a ladder, and noobs should be fighting noobs only. If only.The development of actual skill is a product of experience and evolution, getting the wheels turning, learning the game and what killed you. Vaping a noob is just putting a brick wall in front of them. You're picking your crop early. And seeing as the community is set in the belief that doing this is acceptable practice, measures have to be taken to protect the noobs. If we don't have a ladder to bring noobs up, we have to have a cheap trap door to bring the pros who insist on fighting noobs down.
We've got a fighter ace paradox here. The Red Baron has killed all the people who started training at the same time as him, and is now continuing to patrol the skies, shooting down all the wet-behind-the-ears replacements the enemy is putting into the sky, depriving himself of any potential actual challengers down the road, and all the while bolstering his ego as his kill count climbs. The new pilots aren't doing anything wrong, or at least nothing that the Baron didn't do at some point in his career. They just haven't been given the dozens of chances and battles to fight and figure out how to shoot down other planes like the Red Baron has, and never will as long as he's up there.
If noobs don't have a fighting chance to nullify some minimaxers APB romplas a2b constant crf/faw supported by fleet gear build, they aren't gonna have a chance. The fact that debuff stacking exists to the point that you can wither an enemy into nonexistance and has become so potent that people refuse to build otherwise is the real problem here.
This doff at least evens the playing field, because nobody can stack debuffs on each other anymore. Just like the best way to nullify crit/vapers was passive placate chances from the rom rep that everyone hates so much. It nullifies the cheeser and prevents the noob from becoming a cheeser. It discourages cheese and prevents it from being continued. That's intelligent design if you ask me.
First it was crit, then crit couldn't crack tanks, so now you have to debuff the tanks, so now there's debuff cleansing. This is natural progression. It has all happened before, it will all happen again. The current cheese is becoming extinct as it becomes easier for noobs to defend against. I'm sure next week's cheese is already planned and on its way out. It too will be nullified, etc.
No, it's not ideal that it's tied into the pay2win model, but honestly, pvp is already incompatible with a model like this, so that's a moot point. If you want balanced pvp, play a game where payment is mandatory, not an option that has to be incentivized.
That's not arrogance, that's reality.
These DOFFs, and passives do not teach players the fundamentals of PvP, especially team based Arena PvP.
It's not an example, it's a metaphor.
I was a new player once, I got roflstomped.
When I lost to premades I didn't blame the premades.
I blamed the guys on my team who seemed oblivious to my target calling using binds - or some players actively getting angry at "being told what to do".
Players who clearly had no intention of tossing heals & cleanses around, focusing fire - fundamental and basic team skills.
It is unbalanced and unfair.
Part of that is items like these doffs, they are not equalizers.
They erode balance.
Agreed.
In the meantime, those noobs can take advantage of the initiatives like bootcamp and tyler durden where they can play with and against veterans actively trying to even all the odds and teach.
Will they?
Or will they just continue to complain in ESD eager to rush out and buy the next new itemized power to "help them win" - a toy that will only let vets destroy them easier.
Those measures just poison the pool permanently.
You are suggesting that sacrificing long-term balance in favor of "helping noobs" in the short-term is a good idea.
It isn't.
This doesn't protect the noobs at all.
All of the ills you described with Vets getting more and more efficient at destroying and being seemingly invulnerable to noobs are exasperated by items like these.
Holy Wall of Text Crit.
Is evident that you are one of those that feel that PvP should be a gradual thing, it should be a learn as you go with tangible results every few matches to let you know you are improving. Sorry it does not work that way in this game it never has. PvP is liking jumping into shark infested water with a meat suit on. Most likely you will be eaten but eventually you figure out at first how to hold off the inevitable, then how to stalemate the inevitable, then you become the dealer of the inevitable.
Is easy adapt to a doff that dosn't work. SNB doff has been broken for a while, and even if it get fixed, is not very usefull in a target with 60 stacks of fleet shield resistences
Vin Naftero@playhard88 - FED Sciencie
K'tan@playhard88 - KDF Tactical
Argento@playhard88 - RRF Tactical (FED)
because pugging without one is almost impossible for my build...
int the world of ubertanks and cloaking vapers....being a stay in the fight escort is really hard these days....and while pugging, i put it in, when with my fleetmates...i rely on them to clear my debuffs...and slot something else...
have fun kill bad guys
@DevolvedOne