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Fedscorts getting left behind?
ursusmorologus
Member Posts: 5,328 Arc User
I was goofing around with a Defiant testing a few things and it just seems to me that the rigid seating on the Fed escorts is becoming a greater liability under the current system. Two engi and two sci, maybe you can get away with Sci Team but you have no chance of running Engi Team while keeping your boat together. I mean even if you want to run two EPtX you give up everything else to do it.
Meanwhile the KDF and Roms have more flexible ships from the get-go and the new lockbox escorts have uni LtCmdr seat that can be used for engi if you want.
Meanwhile the KDF and Roms have more flexible ships from the get-go and the new lockbox escorts have uni LtCmdr seat that can be used for engi if you want.
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LOL atleast the the fleet defiant gets 5 tactical consoles we don't even get one KDF fleet escort/raider/or raptor that has those lol. As in that ship itself is one of the definitions of the power creep its fine the way it is lol. I am sure they can remove that 5th tactical console and make it more customizable the way the fleet norgh bop just has 9 consoles and is only one without a 10th console slot if you wanted more customization down that route although you don't get stacking infiltrator like romulans do to get a long long cloak ambush. So Romulans I can agree with but KDF not so much.
Against Romulan and Lockbox ships, thats a difference story of course. But in that case its a question of "Fed and Klingon in general are being left behind," not something particular to one faction or ship family.
The tac ensign should definitely be a uni ensign so you can at least squeeze another engi or sci out of it.
Its not just the Defiant either, the Advanced Escort has the same problem.
ps--Klinks aren't limited to BOPs... the Fleet Somraw is superior to the Andorian Charal with better shield mod and a cloak, and it has 2+1 engi seating. (Somraw is a very good ship, I have one, would much rather fly it than a Defiant under the current system)
Well, unless you use the Impulse Capacitance console to zoom up on them in three seconds. But like you said somewhere before, that would be a one-trick pony that would only be viable every two or three minutes.
Battle cloaks, and by extension enhanced battle cloaks/Scimi cloaks, are the basic requirement nowadays for a vape build. Otherwise, the escort in question is taking damage for at least twice the length of time as its attack run.
Missing the good ol' days of PvP: Legacy of Romulus to Season 9
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Throw in DEM2 and you have a very potent combination. No amount of DCE/AP doffs will give you these kinds of power levels + CD reduction. I know, I tried to make it work for months using first an FTER and later an FPE. But it wasn't until I moved over to the lockbox Hirogen ship with its extensive boff flexibility/engineering support that I could realize my vision for escort supremacy.
In the end, the Fed escort lineup is looking severely dated and geared towards another place/time in STO history, especially for PvP play. And while you may be able to piece together a mediocre "vape" build using an FTER, or a scrappy (if underpowered) beam-scort using an FPE, if you really want to mix it up you need a lockbox ship.
RCK
It is the most versatile of the escorts, capable of slotting a multitude of build styles.
Mine has been configured many different ways over the months.
A full on attacker with a nasty spike with BO/CRF/APO/tactical powers
An offhealer with TSS3/A2SIF1/ST1/HE2
A crowd controller with TBR doffed, gw1, sometimes another tractor beam
A speedtank with A2D and double copies of APO
A DPS ship with CSV/beta/omega doing around 20k DPS in STF runs
A damage absorber with massive self healing and shield tanking via the same offhealer build above.
But the problem with this escort is that it is a jack of all trades and master really of none. In almost every possible configuration (and i fly all of them equally well, much experience) I can build a ship on another platform that will outdo it.
My Avenger does more DPS, as does my Scimitar (hull to support a beam build)
My TVaro is a better spiker (battle cloak)
My Dhelan is a better offhealer due to being able to slot double engineer or science stations (LT Universal)
Any of my Rom ships is a better escaper, via singularity abilities and battle cloaks.
Virtually every single ship I have built since my first has been better in some way than my main character. To answer you OP, yes, yes fedscorts have become grossly outdated.
Its a damn shame. I love my FAE, I will never change it. But I dont play it very often anymore. My main character is my main in name only. My real main character is now my science dhelan and has been for a very long time.
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At least that is something.
Before I got my hands on a Mobius she was my escort of choice.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
This really is nothing new. The Vet Destroyers have always been able to fit a build like this. The fleet version is a bit more tankier too.
Long before the A2B craze, I had A2B on all sorts of ships, in all sorts of combinations of doffs and copies and different cooldown length abilities back when people would laugh at you for using A2B.
Who knew, I'm a hipster, I used A2B before it was cool! :P
Anyway, the point is A2B isn't anything new, it's just the skill level of the playerbase is rising and now people actually use the damned thing.
Bonus points if you can A2B a FAE... I can... and PvP with her and win...
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
You are missing something that the Fed 5 tac console escorts share to rate their extra firepower... Lt ENG slots only. You want Lt & Ens ENG slots, or something more along those lines? Drop the 5 TAC Consoles.
Then again if you want that style, there's abundant examples already. Stuff like the Patrol Escort, Steamrunner, Sabers, etc., and other well represented Fed Escorts that already cover those lines. They are the more "balanced build" Escorts that you seem to want to fly. With that "balance" means lesser TAC Consoles. The MVAE / Defiant have less ENG space for repairs and such, and are compensated with higher firepower and above average handling.
And again, NONE of the KDF Escorts & Raiders have 5 TAC Consoles. Absolutely NONE.
Yes, but the vet destroyer is unique and also not available to the masses. TBH, I'd love to try my Hirogen A2B/A2D on one, but not if it means I have to pay Cryptic hundreds of dollars for the privilege. :eek:
RCK
The boff layout of rom 5 tac console escorts, are all versatile, and they have 3, the fleet arkif, fleet dhelan, and fleet Hafeh, and a 5 tac dreadnought. There isn't much issue with Fed 5 tac console escorts now when you compare them to that. The fed 5 tac escorts all have bad boff layouts compared to warbirds, so nothing wrong with them getting universal ensign, but KDF should also get some raptors or other escorts made into 5 tac console fleet ships too.
In the meantime I think I will just load this thing with DHCs and quads and a PDS console, put the cloak on it, and make a phaser cannon vaper.
And their cloaks are built in. The romulans have a semi excuse because they kind of sort of but not really pay for it in power levels, but theirs is a battle cloak and they get singularity powers and valdore console/superior operative and all kinds of TRIBBLE. Klingons however offer a strictly apples to apples comparison. Raptors get their no frills cloak built in for free while the Defiant has to give up a console slot for it. How the hell is that balanced? And what is up with the boff seating?
Cryptic seriously needs to give these one proff 3 seats thing a rest. We don't need 3 engineers, we don't need 3 tacs and we don't need 3 Science. Throw in a single uni in there for god sakes cryptic.
And where's my Fleet Guramba?
I dunno, man. That Team uncoupling has made 3-engineer layouts a LOT more appealing, to the point where I have begun to voluntarily assign a third engineer via Uni Ensign. 3 engineers can work, as long as the ship doesn't already have Cdr+LtC in it. Really, Cdr+LtC anything is a somewhat limiting set of options that produces a bad ship at worst and a one-trick pony at best.
Most science ships give up eng and tac abilities to be able to rebuff and hinder the enemy while doing damage. Most eng ships give up sci and tac ability to power through all kinds of damage. Most tac ships give up sci and eng abilities to do massive damage. The newer ships, what do they give up? We have escorts, cruisers, and science vessels now that can do everything due to universal stations. Ltcomm, comm, whatever. And all I see now is people whining about how there need to be not only more, but higher rank universals. "I want my scimitar to be able to do insane escort damage AND tank through everything thrown at me." "The galaxy dreadnaught should have at least a ltcomm universal boff seat so I can use it purely as a tac officer and spam faw and crf endlessly." Any of this sounding familiar? "The fleet galaxy should have a comm universal so I can do more damage and not die." Congratulations cryptic. You're now the proud owner of hour very own whiney playerbase. And congrats to the players, for turning the game.e into the biggest pay to win power creep ever. Seriously, this is getting worse than dark orbit.
When escorts will get this system only the Devs know.
≡/\≡
You're kinda forgetting the crew mechanics which means that the Raptor with 200 crew is in a very bad place compared to the Defiant with her 50.
I know it's counterintuitive but the larger crews the Klingon ships have are actually a bad thing that balances them out. The crew dies just as easily as it does on the Fed ships (X % per hit) but takes longer to recover since it only recovers x crewmen per second.
And I personally would not change its seating arrangements. I dislike ship flexibility, A defiant, a Galaxy, and an intrepid should not feel the same. (My personal belief, and those three examples are me being poetic)
I have an Avenger I never fly, Stat number crunchers love it but for me it is boring to fly. The Galaxy-X forces you to actually make command decisions, Fire the big gun or not, possibly waste a shot of your big gun? or wait till you have the self buffs on you and the de-buffs on your target to make it most effective.
I prefer these more than any asleep at the helm every build works, every load out works effortless vessels.
Perhaps, but the Hirogen isn't exactly cheap either. Anecdotally, there are reports of people spending upwards $200+ in keys before they got the lockbox ship they were looking for.
If you like the Somraw so much, then fly a Fleet Patrol Escort. It's almost the same ship, except without the cloak. A standard cloak really isn't even that great unless you really know what you're doing with it since you need to completely disengage to line up another shot with it. The Charal, though, has a 5th forward weapon in place of a 3rd rear one, which is, IMO, better overall than the extra damage from an ambush attack with a non-Romulan cloak.
Raptors are ridiculously under-utilized, and almost completely outclassed by the Peghqu' for ambush attacks and PvE, and will be completely outclassed by Birds of Prey for ambush attacks once Season 9 hits, since durability hardly matters when your entire purpose is to run in, score a kill, then escape.
And that's just comparing Raptors to the other KDF ships. Federation Escorts have more breadth of choices with their own gimmicks or options, such as a LtCdr Engineering seat and a fighter wing (Armitage) or a LtCdr Sci for Gravity Well (MVAE/Fleet Prometheus). Romulans of course beat the pants off of both the KDF and the Federation when it comes to choice of murder-machines, though.