you do see tho, that the ONLY dif between a beam scort and a beam boat being just how they deal with damage mitigation tho right? one speed tanks, the other traditionally tanks
and with the ability to move about the field fast and "be" 3k at the "fight" opposed to doing some wide, slow turn at range 8k with the beam boat with only 1 arc firing does have its advantages for dishing out good beam damage
don't get me wrong, love your resume, got 12 characters myself, all classes, 8 are pvp rdy, and I LOVE all tac styles, scort/boat/torp/sci etc
I see all of those have excellent roles on pvp, and vs the right team- each one can be devastating, but-
to go into the argument of damage alone- use to contributing to kills in a 5v5 match, both fleet made, friend made, or even premade you gotta have noticed that the tac/scort (the job) is a little out classed by vapers
we all have been in matches with our tac scort cannon builds and try as we might, just cant make head way on the other team due to their cross healing, vapers on the other hand have the better chance of overriding that level of team heal-
so to say beam scorts are stupid and a waste of a slot on a team, I would say (if I was building a team) a tac cannon scort is a waste of a slot on a team, gimmi a good vaper pilot any day of the week, you will have a better chance against the other premade teams in the cues with the vaper
If we are talking pugs, well, pull out your engineer in his scort! LOL and go have some fun! any ship will work and win then, cause at the end of the day, its team work that really wins matches and nets dominating wins, not a pile of lone-gun scort pilots, patting themselves on the back for all the kills they soloed:)
No, that's not the only difference, cruisers are made for the job, have an extra weapon, and more eng to run a2b, dem, and don't need to speed tank so can safely run eptw instead of epte, that's why escorts aren't made for this. Beams are pressure, they need to be able to stay in combat, not zoom in and out.
I like most styles and most ships and all classes, but not beamscort.
As for DHC escorts, it is still working for us and we use bugs all the time in premades and win, it works better for us then when we use all tacs as vapers or FAW beam cruisers. Many times we do combination of vaper and bug with Mini vaping and Zelda and others in DHC bugs. All DHC stil works great, you just need good coordination and sci on the target. I would say we use vapers and DHC escorts about equally and both more then beam ships. I use beam cruisers for pugging and kerrat more then with premade.
There may be someone making it work, I haven't seen it though and the vast majority aren't.
On my Eng, I have been known to beamscort around Ker'rat a bit. Not with epte though, always epts and weapons, but I can keep beams overcapped all the time, and enjoy a very high crit rate. that said, I have pretty well switched everything back over to cannons and only my cruisers run beams at this point.
As fun as damage oriented beamscorting can be, the OMGWTFLOL crits from DHC's are just too good to ignore, even on my Eng.
My KDF tac on the other hand, its DHC's or some flavor of vapy kill-o-whacking or torp brel fun, beams stay on the mirror negh-var.
After reading through the thread I feel I must now formally apologize for getting us all into this mess. When I first started flying my FPE beam-scort ("Sonic Squirrel"), I did so in response to all of the vape attacks being visited upon my hapless FAHCR ("Mama Squirrel"). My goal was to translate my very effective cruiser build to a smaller, nimbler platform. And, for the most part, I succeeded - this despite the lack of viable A2B support on the original FPE.
But it wasn't until I moved my beams to the Hunter escort - and implemented my popular hybrid A2B/A2D build - that the damn broke. After successfully dueling a variety of veteran escort jockeys (and popping quite a few of them), the realization of what I had created began to set-in. And thus began the flood of copycat builds - first on the Hunter (Zero, I'm looking at you), and later on the Nicor (not my fault, honest).
Now, Ker'rat and the queues are awash in beam-scorts flitting to and fro while generating anemic damage (not everyone knows how to build and/or fly one correctly) and generally annoying the PvP elites. I might have called such a development "glorious" had I not, myself, abandoned the beam-scort play style altogether.
It's true. In a fitting bit of irony, this beam-scort pioneer has forsaken his original build in favor of a traditional cannons/turrets/dbb combo.
Why, you might ask? Because it's better. Not only am I more effective 1v1, I'm also more of an asset in a team setting since, unlike most beam-scorts, I can usually KILL something with direct fire!
So, there you have it. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for unleashing this misery upon the PvP community. :P
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
...but yeah, beamscorts have been around forever.
Yep and back then it was Right up on Z while cycling 3 target sub abilities back when running 2 Target 3s wasn't a bad idea.
As far as it being lame, I agree. It looks stupid. But on being "just trolling" and "ineffective" I'd disagree. There were some deadly beam bugs people were doing for lulz that did well. In my former life, my char ran all beam arrays with aux2bat dem build on his JHEC and could take out some ships 1v1 which was pretty funny now that I think of it. So maybe it is trolling. They can kill though. lol
Damn, I remember a LONG time ago, before LOR, someone in a JHEC doing exactly this in a PUG C&H. Using Spiral Wave Disruptors
That was quite painful for anyone trying to close in, while the JHEC had enough mobility to make a game of it and constantly present broadsides no matter what you were doing.
I was in a Gal-X (yes guys, go ahead and laugh) but at least the Gal-X could take it. Other Escorts couldn't.
Why could not escorts uses beam arrays? Because it does not fit a narrow point of view? Because they can be efficient designs?
I am running a beam escort (3 DBBs front, 2 BA aft) and I am quite happy with it. I get better results compared to a canon set-up because it just fits my style.
Not all escorts are small fast ships like the Defiant in DS9, the Prometheus in Voyager was equipped with beams and she was 4 times larger. Some might even say that the Prometheus was actually a combat cruiser.
Well you have been known to be a recent beam scort guy rck... there not a new thing though.
Bah! You know very well that I was just being sarcastic with my "apology," etc.
But seriously, sometimes it feels like I'm ahead of the curve with regard to build trends. For example, when I first started PvP'ing - circa July/August 2013 - there were few, if any, A2B cruisers trolling Ker'rat or the queues. In fact, I was roundly mocked and even criticized for using a big, slow cruiser. After all, I was a Tac officer, and Tac officers were supposed to fly escorts and leave the cruisers to the engineers as "healer boats."
Of course, the mockery turned to outright derision as I proceeded to mop the floor with a host of Ker'rat and queue regulars. Then the DPS guys went on their famous tear through the queues in late 2013 and suddenly the landscape was awash in A2B "abusers" running 7 beams + kcb and dem-faw spamming the competition into dust.
In other words, doing exactly what I had been doing since 3-4 months earlier.
Now, I'm seeing the same trend with beam-scorts: I find a way to make it work, have some success with it, and then others start PM'ing me for my build page so they can copy it.
Of course, I'm well aware that I originated neither build philosophy. Both the A2B beam-boat and the beam-scort have long histories from well before I joined STO in the F2P era. But I do think I've helped popularize (or revive from obscurity) certain build types that had fallen out of favor but which have now become quite potent thanks to changes to the meta-game and also the introduction of new ship models to support their play styles (Avenger, Hunter, new FPE, Nicor, et al).
It would make my month if they banned scimitars from using single beams, then stupid people would stop accusing me of FAWing. That being said if only certain ships can use dual cannons then it makes sense for there to be similar restrictions on beams. Have seen the amount of space they take up on a saucer section ( also how much space must the workings underneath take up?)
I'm not a big supporter of restricting item usage. I prefer seeing a multitude of different builds and not everyone being shoe-horned into running exactly the same. This also works the other way: why not unrestrict Dual Heavies? Although, I haven't really thought that one through, but on first glance, I don't see much of a problem with something like a Temp Sci running Dual Heavies. But please, if I'm missing something, enlighten me.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Devotion Paladin
Every Federation Starship in canon has beam arrays on it including the Defiant.
I'm guessing you use torpedoes on all of your builds as well bc they are so accurately represented in STO.
i love star trek.... laetly i hate sto .. sad but true. haven't played much. to much space majik.... waiting for SC.
and fyi, most of my ships\toons are cannon.
i have a toon named soto... he's a sci leath.... my klingon flies a BoP... my reman flies a scim.... with cannons! my romulan flies a warbird... ect... beams [faw] on an escort is not cannon and stupid. derp
Don't know why it says i'm an ARC user. i will never use that TRIBBLE Cryptic!
The person responsible for the design of that Negh'var, with it not being able to target ships closeby, or the guy responsible for calibrating the targeting computer should be shot for incompetence.
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Devotion Paladin
The person responsible for the design of that Negh'var, with it not being able to target ships closeby, or the guy responsible for calibrating the targeting computer should be shot for incompetence.
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
Wrong. Beams have firing arcs and ships don't have perfect defensive design. Bigger the ship, more weaknesses it has. fast small ships could and must exploit every blind spot there is if they can get close enough.
To have beams to cover every angle on such big ship you would need to make entire ship a giant weapon power distribution system which would not leave much place for anything else.
And unless a ship is a perfect sphere you would risk hitting your own ship with your own weapons.
After reading through the thread I feel I must now formally apologize for getting us all into this mess. When I first started flying my FPE beam-scort ("Sonic Squirrel"), I did so in response to all of the vape attacks being visited upon my hapless FAHCR ("Mama Squirrel"). My goal was to translate my very effective cruiser build to a smaller, nimbler platform. And, for the most part, I succeeded - this despite the lack of viable A2B support on the original FPE.
But it wasn't until I moved my beams to the Hunter escort - and implemented my popular hybrid A2B/A2D build - that the damn broke. After successfully dueling a variety of veteran escort jockeys (and popping quite a few of them), the realization of what I had created began to set-in. And thus began the flood of copycat builds - first on the Hunter (Zero, I'm looking at you), and later on the Nicor (not my fault, honest).
Now, Ker'rat and the queues are awash in beam-scorts flitting to and fro while generating anemic damage (not everyone knows how to build and/or fly one correctly) and generally annoying the PvP elites. I might have called such a development "glorious" had I not, myself, abandoned the beam-scort play style altogether.
It's true. In a fitting bit of irony, this beam-scort pioneer has forsaken his original build in favor of a traditional cannons/turrets/dbb combo.
Why, you might ask? Because it's better. Not only am I more effective 1v1, I'm also more of an asset in a team setting since, unlike most beam-scorts, I can usually KILL something with direct fire!
So, there you have it. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for unleashing this misery upon the PvP community. :P
RCK
Yes you were one of the main people getting others to use it, at least in Kerrat, good to see you are still trying other builds. Your beamscort was more dangerous then all the others I see now which is why I am saying they are a waste of time, but even yours wasn't as dangerous as your new builds. Hopefully some take follow your example and move on lol.
I am seeing a very disturbing trend lately, mostly in PVP but sometimes in PVE and its very lame. People using beams on ships that can equip DHC and have the turn to use it like escorts and destroyers. It normally isn't very effective, but very annoying and is used to troll by people that are hard to kill but not doing much damage. It sucks having somone on your team doing this and wasting a spot, and it is frustrating being trolled by people doing this and zooming around full speed spamming FAW. I think Escorts and destroyers should be restricted from equipping 250 degree beam arrays, the only exemptions should be special beams that are part of sets like the Experimental Romulan beam. This will make PVP much more fun as it will force dogfighting to happen again like it used to and prevent your team from getting underpowered teammates.
Yup, cuz cryptic messed up on bfaw/dem3/eptw3 weapon overcap... etc...
In any given pvp event, a cruiser can out dps any DHC escort... I take notice of who is using beams with the above options and they out DPS my all cannon escort 2:1 according to the stats window after the game. I have made my weapons as strong as they can be and still can't come close.
We tried to tell them this long ago-- even after they were trying to fix bfaw, but they think they know better than we do.
Not to mention... a beamscort is a lazy captain.. it takes more skills to aim your ship with your cannons than with beams and spacebar pwn. I would agree that most beamscorts do not equip eptw3, but I have seen some who have in pvp and they are just as deadly as a cruiser. They have probably 1.5:1 ratio at damage.. which again proves that the combo I specified above is the problem... especially when used with a2b and tech doffs.. they pretty much can have almost 100% uptime whereas a classic cannon scort most likely cannot.
Succinctly, a beamscort can outdamage any all cannon ship. I was actually thinking about switching just because I want to deal out the foolishness for a change.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Yup, cuz cryptic messed up on bfaw/dem3/eptw3 weapon overcap... etc...
In any given pvp event, a cruiser can out dps any DHC escort... I take notice of who is using beams with the above options and they out DPS my all cannon escort 2:1, and I have made my weapons as strong as they can be.
We tried to tell them this long ago-- even after they were trying to fix bfaw, but they think they know better than we do.
Beam builds may out dps any cannon build but do they get kills? Whenever I have beam boats in my team, I have a lot more kills than those guys cuz they do not have spike.
Bring 4-5 faw ships into arena and you're in big trouble if you don't have any counters. But a single beam ship is a joke in most cases...
I'm trying to figure out why people keep saying beam builds don't have spike and cannons do ?
Cannons are NOT spike weapons... they have ZERO spike skills.
Rapid fire is a damage over time skill. Its not anything closet to spike.
The only energy spike skill in the game is BEAM overload... and as the name suggests its a BEAM skill.
If you run a cannon build with a DBB for spike... can you really call it a cannon spike build anymore ?
Is it not a cannon / beam hybrid... where cannons provide the pressure and beams provide the spike.
Not every pure Beam build uses FAW.... faw is a goofy skill a terrible mechanic and an MMO abomination.
Beams in STO however have some major advantages over cannons... They have better damage fall off numbers... they are instant hit... They are more power efficant. Ect.
For an escort with beams...
- ONE drop FAW...faw is stupid and as most people suggest its true it is mostly wasted DPS flung all over and useless, unless your team has a bunch of other pressure (IE more FAW boats) its not really doing anything.
- TWO Stop running all Single arrays... on an escort DBB in front and Single arrays in rear... what this means is You will NOT be broadsideing. There is no need in an escort to try get 7 beams on target... Stick with 2-3 DBB in front and 3 Singles in back.... use the ships mobility to rock the plane of the weapon arcs... this way Engaging rear and then forward arcs independently. You will notice when you break arc on either the weapon power is INSTANTLY returned. (You can laugh about a beam escort not running EPTW if you like when you see me but you won't be laughing when you realize my beams are always hitting at 125 because i rock the arcs)...
By using the arc rock... what you are doing is CONTROLLING your beams. If I want to overload someone... I don't wait for a beam cycle to end... I can load it ... break an arc plane and engage it INSTANTLY. (And always at 125 power no woops half power overloads because my turrets just cycled... or having to micro manage cannon weapon fire with multiple fire keys).
In the current meta... even with the rep changes... people that are buffed are NOT going to die to cannon fire... or standard beam fire... its all about keeping the pressure on until you can spike... and PvP spike in STO is 90% of the time coming from a beam overload... and 10% of the time coming from a Torpedo HY/Spread.
What I run right now on my beam scort is 3 DBB + 1 Torp / 3 arrays I use Overload / HY / DEM 1... I Rock the arc plain with DEM and its no joke... 125 power DEM hits back and forth when I kill the beam cycles over and over back and forth. When its time to end someone (as in there buffs are at a low)... I rock back to my DBB arc and Overload + HY... and its the EXACT same killing spike that you see out of a cannon escort... only thing different is for pressure I am using the beams instead of the cannons... which allows me to run HYs/Overloads/Patterns... and only have to slot one Tac officer, allowing me to run more CC and Survival.
Anyway thats my long winded answer as to why beams on an escort can be great...FAW yes faw is stupid on an escort.
The only energy spike skill in the game is BEAM overload... and as the name suggests its a BEAM skill.
absolutely correct.. everyone needs to quit saying that an all cannon build is an insta-pop build... maybe for the first couple of seasons it was.. but that hasn't been the case for a long long time.
Beams have all the cool stuff. Hell, most of the tier1 tactical skills ARE for beams wasting up all the space and cluttering up actual useful tac abilities. cannons doesn't get any love until lt. level.
But despite all of that... beams do, in fact, out DPS escorts with certain configurations that are difficult to put on an many escorts except for a couple. it is proven at the end of every pvp match when you look at damage. and it takes no skill to aim a beam when you are zipping across the map.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
My fault, I thought it's clear I was comparing FAW builds vs DBB/Cannon builds...
Anyway, since this is the PvP forum I can understand why ppl say faw on an escort is stupid. But I have tested the new Fleet Patrol in PvE with a2b & faw and the result is an amazing pressure dmg (which is everything that actually counts in PvE)! I even out dps'ed some Scimitars - and it wasn't even close
Yup, cuz cryptic messed up on bfaw/dem3/eptw3 weapon overcap... etc...
In any given pvp event, a cruiser can out dps any DHC escort... I take notice of who is using beams with the above options and they out DPS my all cannon escort 2:1 according to the stats window after the game. I have made my weapons as strong as they can be and still can't come close.
We tried to tell them this long ago-- even after they were trying to fix bfaw, but they think they know better than we do.
Not to mention... a beamscort is a lazy captain.. it takes more skills to aim your ship with your cannons than with beams and spacebar pwn. I would agree that most beamscorts do not equip eptw3, but I have seen some who have in pvp and they are just as deadly as a cruiser. They have probably 1.5:1 ratio at damage.. which again proves that the combo I specified above is the problem... especially when used with a2b and tech doffs.. they pretty much can have almost 100% uptime whereas a classic cannon scort most likely cannot.
Succinctly, a beamscort can outdamage any all cannon ship. I was actually thinking about switching just because I want to deal out the foolishness for a change.
what has the most dps and what blows up the scoreboard most is not as important as what kills best. for DPS there is constant counter HPS undoing it. time, or how short a window you can squeeze damage into, is whats most important when all other factors cancel each other out.
the pendulum is about to swing away from beam array FAW builds anyway, or it will if everyone else figures out the things i have.
CRF is definitely BURST and people here call that spike because its compressed into a small period of time.
Your rant is wasted on pedantry. I score 4/10. Next.
10s duration skills are by definition NOT spike. There is nothing spike about Rapid fire. DHC themselves are spiky weapon because they have slow firing cycles with front loaded dmg numbers... that doesn't mean rapid fire however is a spike skill. It is a duration dmg increase skill on a weapon that does have some spike mechanics tied to it.
Comments
No, that's not the only difference, cruisers are made for the job, have an extra weapon, and more eng to run a2b, dem, and don't need to speed tank so can safely run eptw instead of epte, that's why escorts aren't made for this. Beams are pressure, they need to be able to stay in combat, not zoom in and out.
I like most styles and most ships and all classes, but not beamscort.
As for DHC escorts, it is still working for us and we use bugs all the time in premades and win, it works better for us then when we use all tacs as vapers or FAW beam cruisers. Many times we do combination of vaper and bug with Mini vaping and Zelda and others in DHC bugs. All DHC stil works great, you just need good coordination and sci on the target. I would say we use vapers and DHC escorts about equally and both more then beam ships. I use beam cruisers for pugging and kerrat more then with premade.
There may be someone making it work, I haven't seen it though and the vast majority aren't.
Escorts should only be able to load DHC... DC and regular cannons should be locked because they are non optimal.
As fun as damage oriented beamscorting can be, the OMGWTFLOL crits from DHC's are just too good to ignore, even on my Eng.
My KDF tac on the other hand, its DHC's or some flavor of vapy kill-o-whacking or torp brel fun, beams stay on the mirror negh-var.
Derrick - Fed Eng
But it wasn't until I moved my beams to the Hunter escort - and implemented my popular hybrid A2B/A2D build - that the damn broke. After successfully dueling a variety of veteran escort jockeys (and popping quite a few of them), the realization of what I had created began to set-in. And thus began the flood of copycat builds - first on the Hunter (Zero, I'm looking at you), and later on the Nicor (not my fault, honest).
Now, Ker'rat and the queues are awash in beam-scorts flitting to and fro while generating anemic damage (not everyone knows how to build and/or fly one correctly) and generally annoying the PvP elites. I might have called such a development "glorious" had I not, myself, abandoned the beam-scort play style altogether.
It's true. In a fitting bit of irony, this beam-scort pioneer has forsaken his original build in favor of a traditional cannons/turrets/dbb combo.
Why, you might ask? Because it's better. Not only am I more effective 1v1, I'm also more of an asset in a team setting since, unlike most beam-scorts, I can usually KILL something with direct fire!
So, there you have it. I apologize, from the bottom of my heart, for unleashing this misery upon the PvP community. :P
RCK
Beam scorts have existed as long as the game... and to be honest the best beam scorts are all long gone. Ultime / Captain Saki .... those guys never lost a dual in there beam boats... they also never ever used faw. Even when it was broken the first time 4 years back. lmao
Beam scorts are quite effective if they are flow right... I think most of the annoyance comes from the FAW spamming at least imo.
The complaint used to be folks with 45 arcs...it's one thing to sit on a whale and it's another to chase a ship zipping around as fast if not faster than you that doesn't have to maintain the arcs. There were claims of folks exploiting the limitations of the 45 arc, by spiraling - etc, etc, etc...
...but yeah, beamscorts have been around forever.
Yep and back then it was Right up on Z while cycling 3 target sub abilities back when running 2 Target 3s wasn't a bad idea.
Damn, I remember a LONG time ago, before LOR, someone in a JHEC doing exactly this in a PUG C&H. Using Spiral Wave Disruptors
That was quite painful for anyone trying to close in, while the JHEC had enough mobility to make a game of it and constantly present broadsides no matter what you were doing.
I was in a Gal-X (yes guys, go ahead and laugh) but at least the Gal-X could take it. Other Escorts couldn't.
I am running a beam escort (3 DBBs front, 2 BA aft) and I am quite happy with it. I get better results compared to a canon set-up because it just fits my style.
Not all escorts are small fast ships like the Defiant in DS9, the Prometheus in Voyager was equipped with beams and she was 4 times larger. Some might even say that the Prometheus was actually a combat cruiser.
Bah! You know very well that I was just being sarcastic with my "apology," etc.
But seriously, sometimes it feels like I'm ahead of the curve with regard to build trends. For example, when I first started PvP'ing - circa July/August 2013 - there were few, if any, A2B cruisers trolling Ker'rat or the queues. In fact, I was roundly mocked and even criticized for using a big, slow cruiser. After all, I was a Tac officer, and Tac officers were supposed to fly escorts and leave the cruisers to the engineers as "healer boats."
Of course, the mockery turned to outright derision as I proceeded to mop the floor with a host of Ker'rat and queue regulars. Then the DPS guys went on their famous tear through the queues in late 2013 and suddenly the landscape was awash in A2B "abusers" running 7 beams + kcb and dem-faw spamming the competition into dust.
In other words, doing exactly what I had been doing since 3-4 months earlier.
Now, I'm seeing the same trend with beam-scorts: I find a way to make it work, have some success with it, and then others start PM'ing me for my build page so they can copy it.
Of course, I'm well aware that I originated neither build philosophy. Both the A2B beam-boat and the beam-scort have long histories from well before I joined STO in the F2P era. But I do think I've helped popularize (or revive from obscurity) certain build types that had fallen out of favor but which have now become quite potent thanks to changes to the meta-game and also the introduction of new ship models to support their play styles (Avenger, Hunter, new FPE, Nicor, et al).
Anyway, it's fun bucking the conventional wisdom.
RCK
run what you want but just know i and others who like star trek think yer an idiot ^^
that goes especially for you beam scimifawtards out there!~! \
cannons on a scim in cannon you fool!!!
j\k... not really . use cannons on an escort :P
i stand by my original ignorant statement! :P
but if you notice, there is a single beam on that escort and it's not Faw'ing everything in sight. j\s
i love star trek.... laetly i hate sto ..
and fyi, most of my ships\toons are cannon.
i have a toon named soto... he's a sci leath.... my klingon flies a BoP... my reman flies a scim.... with cannons! my romulan flies a warbird... ect... beams [faw] on an escort is not cannon and stupid. derp
Also, all this talk about canon is irrelevant. Truely adhering to canon would make for a horrid game.
To late for that.... the game is already horrid.... returning to a more cannon type sto would make it better in my opinion. :P
Wrong. Beams have firing arcs and ships don't have perfect defensive design. Bigger the ship, more weaknesses it has. fast small ships could and must exploit every blind spot there is if they can get close enough.
To have beams to cover every angle on such big ship you would need to make entire ship a giant weapon power distribution system which would not leave much place for anything else.
And unless a ship is a perfect sphere you would risk hitting your own ship with your own weapons.
Super SpecialStar Trek Online Review
SpecialTemporal PUG 100K DPS Build
We are Travelers
And yet moddable Star Trek games have a countless number of mods focused on making those games "more" canon.... why is that? :rolleyes:
But by all means, go ahead. Make it all totally random when a B'rel or JHAS or Defiant explodes. The shows sure did.
Yes you were one of the main people getting others to use it, at least in Kerrat, good to see you are still trying other builds. Your beamscort was more dangerous then all the others I see now which is why I am saying they are a waste of time, but even yours wasn't as dangerous as your new builds. Hopefully some take follow your example and move on lol.
Yup, cuz cryptic messed up on bfaw/dem3/eptw3 weapon overcap... etc...
In any given pvp event, a cruiser can out dps any DHC escort... I take notice of who is using beams with the above options and they out DPS my all cannon escort 2:1 according to the stats window after the game. I have made my weapons as strong as they can be and still can't come close.
We tried to tell them this long ago-- even after they were trying to fix bfaw, but they think they know better than we do.
Not to mention... a beamscort is a lazy captain.. it takes more skills to aim your ship with your cannons than with beams and spacebar pwn. I would agree that most beamscorts do not equip eptw3, but I have seen some who have in pvp and they are just as deadly as a cruiser. They have probably 1.5:1 ratio at damage.. which again proves that the combo I specified above is the problem... especially when used with a2b and tech doffs.. they pretty much can have almost 100% uptime whereas a classic cannon scort most likely cannot.
Succinctly, a beamscort can outdamage any all cannon ship. I was actually thinking about switching just because I want to deal out the foolishness for a change.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Beam builds may out dps any cannon build but do they get kills? Whenever I have beam boats in my team, I have a lot more kills than those guys cuz they do not have spike.
Bring 4-5 faw ships into arena and you're in big trouble if you don't have any counters. But a single beam ship is a joke in most cases...
Cannons are NOT spike weapons... they have ZERO spike skills.
Rapid fire is a damage over time skill. Its not anything closet to spike.
The only energy spike skill in the game is BEAM overload... and as the name suggests its a BEAM skill.
If you run a cannon build with a DBB for spike... can you really call it a cannon spike build anymore ?
Is it not a cannon / beam hybrid... where cannons provide the pressure and beams provide the spike.
Not every pure Beam build uses FAW.... faw is a goofy skill a terrible mechanic and an MMO abomination.
Beams in STO however have some major advantages over cannons... They have better damage fall off numbers... they are instant hit... They are more power efficant. Ect.
For an escort with beams...
- ONE drop FAW...faw is stupid and as most people suggest its true it is mostly wasted DPS flung all over and useless, unless your team has a bunch of other pressure (IE more FAW boats) its not really doing anything.
- TWO Stop running all Single arrays... on an escort DBB in front and Single arrays in rear... what this means is You will NOT be broadsideing. There is no need in an escort to try get 7 beams on target... Stick with 2-3 DBB in front and 3 Singles in back.... use the ships mobility to rock the plane of the weapon arcs... this way Engaging rear and then forward arcs independently. You will notice when you break arc on either the weapon power is INSTANTLY returned. (You can laugh about a beam escort not running EPTW if you like when you see me but you won't be laughing when you realize my beams are always hitting at 125 because i rock the arcs)...
By using the arc rock... what you are doing is CONTROLLING your beams. If I want to overload someone... I don't wait for a beam cycle to end... I can load it ... break an arc plane and engage it INSTANTLY. (And always at 125 power no woops half power overloads because my turrets just cycled... or having to micro manage cannon weapon fire with multiple fire keys).
In the current meta... even with the rep changes... people that are buffed are NOT going to die to cannon fire... or standard beam fire... its all about keeping the pressure on until you can spike... and PvP spike in STO is 90% of the time coming from a beam overload... and 10% of the time coming from a Torpedo HY/Spread.
What I run right now on my beam scort is 3 DBB + 1 Torp / 3 arrays I use Overload / HY / DEM 1... I Rock the arc plain with DEM and its no joke... 125 power DEM hits back and forth when I kill the beam cycles over and over back and forth. When its time to end someone (as in there buffs are at a low)... I rock back to my DBB arc and Overload + HY... and its the EXACT same killing spike that you see out of a cannon escort... only thing different is for pressure I am using the beams instead of the cannons... which allows me to run HYs/Overloads/Patterns... and only have to slot one Tac officer, allowing me to run more CC and Survival.
Anyway thats my long winded answer as to why beams on an escort can be great...FAW yes faw is stupid on an escort.
absolutely correct.. everyone needs to quit saying that an all cannon build is an insta-pop build... maybe for the first couple of seasons it was.. but that hasn't been the case for a long long time.
Beams have all the cool stuff. Hell, most of the tier1 tactical skills ARE for beams wasting up all the space and cluttering up actual useful tac abilities. cannons doesn't get any love until lt. level.
But despite all of that... beams do, in fact, out DPS escorts with certain configurations that are difficult to put on an many escorts except for a couple. it is proven at the end of every pvp match when you look at damage. and it takes no skill to aim a beam when you are zipping across the map.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Anyway, since this is the PvP forum I can understand why ppl say faw on an escort is stupid. But I have tested the new Fleet Patrol in PvE with a2b & faw and the result is an amazing pressure dmg (which is everything that actually counts in PvE)! I even out dps'ed some Scimitars - and it wasn't even close
Your rant is wasted on pedantry. I score 4/10. Next.
what has the most dps and what blows up the scoreboard most is not as important as what kills best. for DPS there is constant counter HPS undoing it. time, or how short a window you can squeeze damage into, is whats most important when all other factors cancel each other out.
the pendulum is about to swing away from beam array FAW builds anyway, or it will if everyone else figures out the things i have.
10s duration skills are by definition NOT spike. There is nothing spike about Rapid fire. DHC themselves are spiky weapon because they have slow firing cycles with front loaded dmg numbers... that doesn't mean rapid fire however is a spike skill. It is a duration dmg increase skill on a weapon that does have some spike mechanics tied to it.