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Threat levels etc.
lordsteve1
Member Posts: 3,492 Arc User
Can anyone explain exactly how threat level work in space combat.
I've been doing some borg stfs today and i seem to be drawing a lot of attention from the spheres and cubes, more even than some of the heavy FAW cruisers/scimitars in the matches.
I'm only flying a dyson destroyer and most of what i'm doing dps wise is from sci tricks like grav wells and TBRs, plus i'm doing quite a bit of healing of team mates.
But i seem to always be the one the cubes and tac cubes are targeting, even if i fly off out of range and then back in once my shields are back up.
I realise that other people could be using -th consoles (something i'm considering now) but surely a lowly sci vessel is not supposed to generate as much threat as a big cruiser spamming FAW all over the place?
I've been doing some borg stfs today and i seem to be drawing a lot of attention from the spheres and cubes, more even than some of the heavy FAW cruisers/scimitars in the matches.
I'm only flying a dyson destroyer and most of what i'm doing dps wise is from sci tricks like grav wells and TBRs, plus i'm doing quite a bit of healing of team mates.
But i seem to always be the one the cubes and tac cubes are targeting, even if i fly off out of range and then back in once my shields are back up.
I realise that other people could be using -th consoles (something i'm considering now) but surely a lowly sci vessel is not supposed to generate as much threat as a big cruiser spamming FAW all over the place?
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Not to be too nit-picky, but Threat is actually the opposite: the more DPS you do, the more Threat you generate (which makes perfect sense, of course). To paraphrase GLaDOS: "DPS thingy goes out, DPS thingy comes in."
Lower-DPS ships/Captains could increase their Threat generation by using [+Th] consoles; and vice versa: higher-DPS ships/Captains can lower it by using [-Th] consoles.
Threat is primarily a measurement of DPS, however, things like healing (must kill the guy keeping the rest alive) and CC (kill the annoying pest that's keeping us from killing the DPS thingies...) are factored into the Aggro (threat) equation at levels as high as, if not higher, than raw DPS...
Certain things (D'Kyr pet, Photonic Fleet, Romulan Singularity Fleet) can generate innately high levels of threat to keep the aggro off the actual player. Then there's the [+th] and [-th] embassy consoles, the skill "threat generation", and the cruiser command attract fire, that help modify the threat calculation some...
Now, I fly science a lot, Vesta (fed) and sci-royer (KDF) most of the time. I've fast learned to determine the quality of the PuG I'm in based on the completely unscientific "aggro test":
Pull the aggro off me when I GW III a cluster of nanite spheres together to keep them from hitting the transformer - before I lose a shield? Let me fire off my full slate of damage / drain and my Vesta phaser lance and have the (usually tac cube) barely look at me? Awesome player around somewhere...
Pull aggro from something I've annoyed before I'm dead? Very solid player.
Watch me spend 40-60% of a tac cube fight buring all my defenses, even my "emergency" ones like the sci-royer set's RSF-clone and an immunity shield (Sci-royer or Vesta set) and I still die? I begin to contemplate letting loose a scathing comment about pathetic teams that can't out-DPS a science ship - commentary I have yet to use because I'm too busy trying to kill the target and get my marks, and 15 seconds usually isn't enough time to write my manifesto... :P
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
* All that fancy science generates a lot of threat
* All area abilities CSV/TS etc generate a lot of threat
* Most of noobcruisers in the game took "trinity is a load of BS" advice directly to the heart, and packed themselves with embassy -Th consoles.
Having said all that actual thread values aren't in the log, so we cannot measure them reliably. Consider it part of cryptic magic.
It is kind of funny at times...watching some little pet with aggro while there's 5+ people around unloading armageddon on the mob - even when none of the players are running -Th/no placates/confuses/etc and actually have 3-6 Threat for the DRR.
edit: Have to figure they've got some sort built-in threat and they're also picking up threat from the player.
I don't think it has anything to do with you being a sci ship. Except that you may have hit gravity well or whatever first so the threat is on you. Once it's on you your threat increases as you use abilities to heal yourself. So it may be problematical for people to pull the threat off of you. And i'm sure each ability may have a threat value assigned to it. Hit a gravity well 1 and it has an initial value of 10,000 for example before factoring in the threat from damage. We just don't know. It would make sense though as most every game i played has done this.
It gets into ticks, imho. Grav Wells, Plasma DoTs, and the like...keep ticking along generating threat while most weapon attacks are going to have those periods of downtime. I always held aggro better with Plasma Arrays than AP Arrays, even though the AP had me parsing higher.
But my Science ships: Vesta, Atrox and Voth Bastion Flight-Deck Cruiser (with 5 science abilities) are constantly getting swarmed by NPC's (especially the borg sphere's). It's strange that science ships (and ships with 4+ science abilities) generate more threat. The game assumes their the weakest of the group so attack them in swarms.
I still don't like it. In my Multi-Vector Advanced Escort or Jem Dreadnought it would be me vs. 2 borg spheres. But in my science ships, it would be me vs 3 spheres + the gate attacking me.
I just found it infuriating last night on cure elite when i'm trying to help out a scimitar that killing the right side (all i'm using is 2x DHCs with no boff powers as they're on cd) and the cube ignores the scimi and repeatedly hammers me with heavy plasma torps. Then the raptors spawn and they all target me!
It's crazy really. Surely the npcs should be able to distinguish between the scimi pounding them with BFAW and me shooting a few rounds with my cannons.
I also noticed that in some instances in that same match i didn't even need to fire to get agro, just straying to near the cubes during the opening seconds brought all hell down on me!
Same happens in infected, often the gates just open up on me if i stray to close, ignoring a cruiser dumping heavy beam fire into it.
I think the threat generation is messed up in this game at the moment.
On a similar note, anyone else puzzled why in the battlezone if you run past a voth getting shot by a group of npcs the voth will stop shooting back and shoot at you instead, even though you are no threat. They completely ignore the guys who are actually killing them!
I doesn't seem to matter if i use my tac, eng, or sci toon i'm always main tanking. But i am typically doing the most damage in whatever i fly, with a few exceptions. Haven't really noticed a difference between any except my sci seems to tank less then my tac or eng. And sci ships do tank better then any others imo as their shields are typically higher. That and their heals are typically better. Both of which makes them good tanks as they can self heal more then others.
If you find you're dying then you need to be quicker or better at using your abilities. And use your rotations/cooldowns more efficiently. And the number 1 thing is redistribute shields. That's the main thing that keeps you alive. And get the Placate passive. It's 100x better then that extremely low dps passive, which is garbage imo.
This is painfully true. It seems everyone and their grandma now flies with -th no matter what ship they're in, including failcruisers. I fly a Vesta and without fail I'm the primary target 95% of the time and the parsing numbers support this with regards to how much healing I have to do vs everyone else which is always at least double, and often more, whoever placed second.
It's pathetic.
This is also why I've never understood those who claim to be tanks say they struggle with aggro. When I flew a cruiser myself I had exactly zero problems holding or taking aggro from any ship, no matter what their DPS was.
I don't fly with any -th stuff. Matter of fact, prior to this conversation I never heard of it. But I receive plenty of arggo in my ships that have a 5+ science abilities. My ships with less than 5 Science abilities are almost ignored. As I've stated, it boggles my mind.
You'd think an odyssey cruiser that is firing beams, cannons, releasing toxic clouds, trapping things in gravity wells and tractor beaming everything while the +threat cruiser power is enabled would draw more threat than some poor little warbird alongside it.
But nope. My nigh-indestructible odyssey freely goes around, murdering all in its path while wearing a giant "Shoot me" sign.
It makes me unhappy to see all my teammates dying while I sit there not getting shot. Cryptic, I feel left out. The "draw fire" cruiser power should guarantee all (or at least most) aggro gets sent your way. When my beams are hitting every ship within 10km, I expect them to hit back instead of mindlessly attacking the ally I try to heal.
APD + threat DOFF, with maxed threat skill passive and new cruiser command aggro is all I have ever used in my Oddy and I have never failed to grab aggro with a BFAW and TS - use plasma weapons and the burn keeps ticking the threat up while the skills cycle (as Virus said above).