Sci is a hard class to create a perfect general spec for. There are a lot of required skill points to min max sci skills... and of course if you want to be able to train things.
Having said that... I use aprox. this type of spec on most of my sci toons.
Lets me use energy or torps or a combo... gives me a strong sensor scan and detection... covers flow and prtg skills. I find I can mostly get enough Grav Gen points from gear that I really don't need to spec it. (the psychological warfare trait from the current box gives you all the pull you need anyway). Power levels should be as good as they will get basicly. You don't need more then 6 in any of the power specs and warp core. I don't often bother with hull armors or threat spec... I find with the fleet combo armors and things like Aux to Damp Matter anti matter doffs I hardly ever need the extra small bit of armour.
Of course tweek it out yourself and come up with something that will cover off your main playstyles nad you will find you very rarely need to worry about respecs. http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm
That is a great resource if your are curious about exact effects of a point added or shaved here and there.
Antonio knows science BUT he also uses tact/sci alot too so take what he says with a grain of salt when it concerns other matters.
science ships have 6 weapons because at one point our skills did a decent amount for us now they dont this is what your experiencing not something that is wrong with the ship or your captain but whats wrong with the skills themselves they need a balance pass and im sure cryptic will hear our pleads.
if they dont well eventually you will only see tact/sci around.
Oh I wasn't disagreeing, just stating how even a tac/sci, or dps oriented cleric could pose a threat.
But they felt the sci spam, and higher shield mod, best compensated for some dps deficiency regarding science vessels.
This ^
Do SCI ships and abilities need a buff or fix? Yes. But the design of weapon slots doesnt need to change.
Tactical Ships will always have an affinity towards DPS
Eng Cruisers will always have an affinity towards Tanking
SCI ships will always have an affinity towards Shielding/Debuffs
Do SCI ships and abilities need a buff or fix? Yes. But the design of weapon slots doesnt need to change.
Tactical Ships will always have an affinity towards DPS
Eng Cruisers will always have an affinity towards Tanking
SCI ships will always have an affinity towards Shielding/Debuffs
I think a lot of the issues could be solved if there are a little more flexibility in the CDR Slot. For example, The Science Oddy should offer either an Eng CDR or Sci CDR. Or set it up similar to the Dysons with a "mode". So the LTC/CDR Slots are locked to SCI?ENG and which ever mode it is that becomes the CDR. It shouldn't be every cruiser but more than the science cruiser. Could do the same for the Battle Cruiser except have it TAC/ENG.
Sci ships only having 6 weapons and access to to better sci abilities than a cruiser forces players to think and play differently. I have a Sci alt and I appreciate that I have to be more creative in my battles to do well compared to when I play my Tac. Is it balanced? One on one I'd say no, but they shine in team battles.
I have heard rumors that Sci ships will retroactively be getting a Secondary Deflector to help enhance their there sci powers...but who knows when or if this will ever be implemented.
I do like the idea of Sci ships having an additional rear weapon though, it would give them a little boost in the weapon department without making them an outright cruiser clone.
The idea is that sensor analyses and subsystem targeting compensate for the loss of the 2 weapon slots.
In practice however that never happens since both are rarely used and when someone uses it the debuff is cleaned in less than 1 second.
THIS!
If the devs don't want to put time and resources into significantly buffing Sci ships with more weapons or some other DPS buff then they should NERF the ability of other ships (including players) to remove the debuff from science ships.
I am fine with only 6 weapons if I can strip away my enemy's damage resistance and they can do NOTHING about it. It's only an unfair advantage in PVP if the non-science ship has a really squishy build with no burst damage. Even if a science ship rebuffs me in my escorts I am "usually" tanky enough to hang in and unload high burst DPS with my DHCs.
On that note, if Tacs and engineers are worried about the idea of not being able to cleanse the debuff from science then make it so the target of the science ship can't cleanse himself from a sensor analysis debuff but ANOTHER TEAM MEMBER can cleanse you if they target you with hazard emitters. This would help Sci players in 1v1 PVP fights and give a cool element to team play.
In the immortal words of Captain Sisko: "It may not be what you believe, but that doesn't make it wrong."
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
er WHICH d&d was that? Im an old guy, so the D&D I played, clerics tended to have a mace, shield, and plate armor, being as tough or tougher than most fighters.
D&D aside, the answer is "there is no good reason at this point in the game, but there was a long long long time ago so they keep doing it that way".
Antonio knows science BUT he also uses tact/sci alot too so take what he says with a grain of salt when it concerns other matters.
science ships have 6 weapons because at one point our skills did a decent amount for us now they dont this is what your experiencing not something that is wrong with the ship or your captain but whats wrong with the skills themselves they need a balance pass and im sure cryptic will hear our pleads.
if they dont well eventually you will only see tact/sci around.
I have flown pretty much everything. Honestly since I have come to love the COE trait... honestly the only toons I have in sci ships are science captains.
They did add more dmg to tykens rift not to long ago.
They gave us physiological warfare in this last box.
They also fixed deflector doffs not to long ago. Deflector doffs have made drain ships a reality. Where as before the cool downs where just to long to easily time around peoples buffs to ensure drain. Now with siphen and TR at 30s with doffs instead of 60s it works much better. You can also combo in a Tachyon beam (yes I know I know... but since the rep changes the drain on it is pretty good... also if we ever get our secondary deflectors they add 33% more drain to Tachyon beam). Tachyon beam though with the doffs has a very very fast cool down... and it also procs the deflector doffs properly now.
I am not saying sci skills are perfect... there in a good place though. To be honest Sci Sci I feel is in the best place it has ever been. Yes its true at one time we could suck peoples shields off almost instantly.... yes that was powerful, truth was it was overpowered though. Where the game is now we can have that same type of killing power, only relies on proper timing. Which is ok by me works like it used to just takes skill to pull off and a skilled opponent can protect themselves by holding and rolling counters so they don't get hit by multiple magiks and die.
I have flown pretty much everything. Honestly since I have come to love the COE trait... honestly the only toons I have in sci ships are science captains.
They did add more dmg to tykens rift not to long ago.
They gave us physiological warfare in this last box.
They also fixed deflector doffs not to long ago. Deflector doffs have made drain ships a reality. Where as before the cool downs where just to long to easily time around peoples buffs to ensure drain. Now with siphen and TR at 30s with doffs instead of 60s it works much better. You can also combo in a Tachyon beam (yes I know I know... but since the rep changes the drain on it is pretty good... also if we ever get our secondary deflectors they add 33% more drain to Tachyon beam). Tachyon beam though with the doffs has a very very fast cool down... and it also procs the deflector doffs properly now.
I am not saying sci skills are perfect... there in a good place though. To be honest Sci Sci I feel is in the best place it has ever been. Yes its true at one time we could suck peoples shields off almost instantly.... yes that was powerful, truth was it was overpowered though. Where the game is now we can have that same type of killing power, only relies on proper timing. Which is ok by me works like it used to just takes skill to pull off and a skilled opponent can protect themselves by holding and rolling counters so they don't get hit by multiple magiks and die.
lately the only thing that feels like a threat right now is being outnumbered and isolated, RNG BO3, err i mean elachi DBB BO3, and sci/sci. skill is to easy to counter, you can hold off someone better at flying then you for quite some time, it takes one of these things to actually die.
i have been experimenting with my sci ship for some time, and in pve, or in a team i love it.
i have learned that sci ships are team players, you slow them down, control the spam crowd and debuff, making it mega easy to take out.
however i say sci builds need more power in pvp, we now have good escort builders that can tank, counter, and destroy.
i say tank because i can grind almost any ship to a hallt, i can even drain the unimatrix one flat.
and on 2 times i can think of,
using self replicating grav well, sub nuke, subspace cloud/rift(console thing) then tycons rift with polorons(faw) plas leach and energysiphon with em2aux.
i had them as sitting ducks with no power, no shields and no eng. yet at full blast faw/aux2batt i couldnt get it below 90% and i timed the second one, just over 40sec i had an escort sitting there with no shields and i couldn't destroy him, i even used singularity beam overload which does crasy dmg :eek:
havnt a clue why, all my gear was mk xii purple and i even had the 2 mk xii green tac consoles.
so my conclusion is this, sci are fantastic in a team or in a pve crowd, but 1v1 pvp severly lacking in power.
it would be nice to have the dmg output of the elete escorts toned down a bit, it is good that it takes skill and effort to get there, but unless i am very fortunate my dyson (cstore) gets vaped often even with tac team and full dyson set, escorts shouldn't be able to have that dmg output and tank at the same time like that
Ow, cant believe someone is asking this question... its really pretty straight forward.. science ships are focused on science abilities, so they are not built to be able to carry so many weapons. Science ships are not supossed to enter in any battle (this talking about the shows..) but they have some weapons to aid in case of emergency. Escorts, battleships, etc are designed for combat, so they have more power focused to weapons and they can carry more weapons, logically but they dont have even a decent science station in your bridge ^^. I mean, the difference between science and everything else is really obvious.. :P
lately the only thing that feels like a threat right now is being outnumbered and isolated, RNG BO3, err i mean elachi DBB BO3, and sci/sci. skill is to easy to counter, you can hold off someone better at flying then you for quite some time, it takes one of these things to actually die.
yep easy to counter, atack pattern omaga perhaps needs a little ajustment, with that there is no reason to have polarise hull, dont get me wrong, i love omaga my klink, but it is too easy to get out of bother with it, there is no point in having all these cool sci abilities, if 1 ability can counter almost all of them
so my conclusion is this, sci are fantastic in a team or in a pve crowd, but 1v1 pvp severly lacking in power.
First Remove the FAW.... its pointless on a science ship. Focus on killing one person and debuffing many.
Mainly do that by getting rid of all the energy weapons.
Torpedo Doffs are your friends... Run 2-3 torpedos in front. Load the 360 beam from the mission in the rear for Sub System disables (and perhaps a 360 crafted polaron one after the crafting patch) Replace your faw with a Torpedo Spread... and if you can run a Gravametric photon.
I have no issues killing people in PvP in my sci ship. (yes solo)... in fact easiest kills in the game 1v1 are sci sci vs pretty much anything else. Just spam torps in a group and focus on killing power and debuffing... at some point a team mate will melt a facing and your torps will hit and really really hurt someone. If you are focusing on ONE target watch there buffs and when the time is right stack the drains... when there shield drops you should always have a stream of torps on the way. Also make sure you have omega shearing trait selected. If your not running them now also make sure you have at least one of the dyson sci consoles equipped. Free hull dmg procs are always nice.
yep easy to counter, atack pattern omaga perhaps needs a little ajustment, with that there is no reason to have polarise hull, dont get me wrong, i love omaga my klink, but it is too easy to get out of bother with it, there is no point in having all these cool sci abilities, if 1 ability can counter almost all of them
Its also not hard to watch for buffs and simply hold your own debuffs for a few seconds...
Omega burning escorts are also suckers for a nasty sub nuking. Most of them burn Omega with there Alpha one nuke and they loose there captain skill for a rotation and there omega for awhile. If they are attempting to let there hull drop so they can activate GDF that is even better... wait for the GDF buff and then nuke them and target there aux. They will be low hull with no buffs and likely they will attempt to pop there Hazards and if you don't get lucky and grey that out on them with a disable at the very least you reduce its effect a great deal.
Science is a thinking class... we are not supposed to be chasing zippy escorts around... let them zip aroudn and wait for them to make a mistake. When they do... make them pay. Nothing is more squish then an escort with no buffs up.
ok i will take your advice, and see how i do, i have already learned to watch buffs, i deliberately keep a tractor beam to force them to omaga then i sub-nuke, and trap, however i have found some escape this by sporting 2 omaga's
i will try being more torp centric, and i will get rid of one of my faws, the reason i havnt used torp so far is that aiming them at a zippy escort is no fun, and most can outrun even quantum.
ok i will take your advice, and see how i do, i have already learned to watch buffs, i deliberately keep a tractor beam to force them to omaga then i sub-nuke, and trap, however i have found some escape this by sporting 2 omaga's
i will try being more torp centric, and i will get rid of one of my faws, the reason i havnt used torp so far is that aiming them at a zippy escort is no fun, and most can outrun even quantum.
(been at it for a year or so)
To be honest in 5v5 PvP... basicly ignore the zippy escorts. I know that sounds nuts... but for the most part your team will be chasing them around. Let them. (I only worry about the ones I know put out lots of hurt... and then all I do is mess them up by nuking there Alpha / GDF buffs off) Prioritize your targets, and honestly only switch to escorts when they are already hurting. Focus on removing the ability of the other teams healers to do anything... and shut down the other teams sci. Also watch for things like a Tholian Carrier healer player who just dumped a ton of heals on that zippy escort everyone is chasing around. At that point pick on the carrier. Drain them CC the heck out of them and just keep peppering them with torps. You will win a lot of matches cause the other team will just not be able to support each other as well as they would like.
Activating Omega should be putting there second copy on a shard cool down so nuking it as soon as someone activates it should ensure both copies are locked out. You will only see a second copy pop up if you nuke an omega at the very end of it. Unless they have been cleared by a Sci team. Some escorts do carry sci teams now that they don't share a global with tac team. However it is more likely they are getting sci team from a support ship. This is why I say focus on the support ships. Your team is going to chase the escorts around let them do that... drive the support guys nuts instead. If you do that at some point you should be able to switch over to that escort and you will find them much easier to kill.
You will know if you are harrassing a teams support ships properly when there entire team switchs to you at some point. That happens when the healer/sci player finally says can we PLEASE kill this annoying science ship. Always save an escape for when that happens. lol
To be honest in 5v5 PvP... basicly ignore the zippy escorts. I know that sounds nuts... but for the most part your team will be chasing them around. Let them. (I only worry about the ones I know put out lots of hurt...
all good advice, but isnt it the zippy escorts that do the hurt?
some of them are crazy, i have had my obelisk vaped with fleet shields and tac team active
all good advice, but isnt it the zippy escorts that do the hurt?
some of them are crazy, i have had my obelisk vaped with fleet shields and tac team active
Well don't ignore them when they don't give you a choice. You will notice if you pvp a good amount though that only a handful of escort players can not be ignored for at least awhile.
The only time I find escorts to be a major issue is the odd unlucky pug roll. Where the other team consists of mainly escorts and your own team has none or none that are any good at least. If that is the case it will likely be painful. As long as there is a good mix on both sides though you can mostly let the escorts dog fight each other... and as I suggest remove there support. At some point of course you can switch to them when there team is less able to help them and do your part to respawn them.
er WHICH d&d was that? Im an old guy, so the D&D I played, clerics tended to have a mace, shield, and plate armor, being as tough or tougher than most fighters.
D&D aside, the answer is "there is no good reason at this point in the game, but there was a long long long time ago so they keep doing it that way".
Originally in D&D Clerics could only wear up to chain, but that got changed in later editions.
Ow, cant believe someone is asking this question... its really pretty straight forward.. science ships are focused on science abilities, so they are not built to be able to carry so many weapons. Science ships are not supossed to enter in any battle (this talking about the shows..) but they have some weapons to aid in case of emergency. Escorts, battleships, etc are designed for combat, so they have more power focused to weapons and they can carry more weapons, logically but they dont have even a decent science station in your bridge ^^. I mean, the difference between science and everything else is really obvious.. :P
Sooo - You are trying to explain a (subjectively perceived - I do not share that notion though I also do not think that Secondary Deflectors cut it) game imbalance by a rather vague reference to the TV show the game is based on which would also make it quite impossible to match Escorts and Cruisers on the same scale?
It's not really fair to compare escorts to science ships, because they don't fulfill the same role.
Escorts are straight up DPS. They need their weapons hardpoints because all the tactical station abilities modify the damage and effectiveness of those weapons.
Cruisers are tough, rugged tanks that are all like "I'm a SPACE PALADIN BISHES", with all that tanking stuff I know it can do (never tried to make a tanky cruiser, to be honest.)
Science ships are the red-headed stepchild of the DPS family. Because it's a support ship. Science abilities are independent of the equipped weapons on your vessel. Tachyon Beams, Gravity Wells, Tyken Rifts, and the ability to scramble, jam, or fricasee enemy sensors, as well as just broadly heal and reinforce your allies.
For all you WoW-heads, Escorts are Mages and Warlocks. Cruisers are, duh, Space Paladins. And a science ship is that druid you can't find that keeps healing that Death Knight you're trying to kill and you're like WHY WON'T HE JUST DIE, I AM RUNNING OUT OF MANA.
*cough* I may have some residual WoW rage. I quit that game for a reason XD
There shouldn't be dedicated science vessels as playable ships, honestly. It's a crude and misguided attempt to shoehorn in the MMO Trinity from fantasy games into Star Trek with a lame wizard class ship. It shouldn't happen.
EVERY major Trek ship has been a multi-role Cruiser with the exception of the Defiant, which had a base to operate out of and was never sent on any long-term assignments. Cruisers are what Starfleet builds, period. You might get a few arguable exceptions here and there, but they're few and far between at best.
The only canon ship I can think of which was a pure dedicated science ship was the USS Grissom in STIII, which was one-shotted by a B'Rel Bird of Prey and may have had no weapons at all. Those kinds of ships exist merely as mobile science labs which park next to something interesting and study it, after a main line ship has discovered it and secured the area. That's all they're good for, and Cryptic invented an entire class concept from whole cloth to get the "wizard / spellcaster / healer" class they were going for. It was something that never existed in Star Trek before and has zero canon support.
They also crammed most of the cruisers into the equally artificial tank role which is again a fantasy concept which has no place being shoehorned into Star Trek. Thus, until Cryptic got a clue and gave us a few more versatile Cruisers (still not enough, but it's something) and players figured out how to get around Cruiser limitations with A2B / FAW builds, you had a fleet full of Escorts vastly out of proportion with anything ever seen on screen. Hell, the Escort class itself is extrapolated from a mere handful of examples but Cryptic wanted their DPS class glass cannons and to hell with how Starfleet was actually built in canon.
This isn't WoW. Fantasy character classes have no place here. It's long overdue that the ship selection is overhauled to more closely match how Starfleet was actually portrayed on screen.
How exactly is Starfleet portrayed on-screen? I am having trouble with that. It acts as the Federation's military arm, even though most captains are not militarily trained, and in fact Picard always seemed to prefer the Gentleman's way out (until the movies at least). It uses navy terminology, while it's officers make use of infantry behaviour, and its navigation officers are referred to as "pilots" like the Air Force. ...but it's not a military, because Federation diplomats are all former Starfleet officers.
Essentially, Starfleet is whatever the TV show needed Starfleet to be at the time. And at this time, Starfleet is needed to be the MMO Trinity of Healer, DPS, Tank.
ive skipped page 8 and these couple posts on 9 sorry just a bit ill this week.
As a note i dont often agree with antonio as he would attest to but in all honesty he is mostly right the only problem that i currently see is that tacts can deal better damage with the skills then sci.
This i think is fundamentally wrong and as a side effect everyone thinks sci is weak compared to tact its a falsity its just not true.Sci is strong i have seen better sci i am a decent sci myself.
Now are my builds on the same level in pvp as say Antonio probably not i dont focus just on pvp i run a diversity build this does slightly block me out of the higher tier skill builds but it does leave me with something that is an asset ALWAYS.
I have never been in an stf where in some way i didn't feel i contributed my heals are useful my croud control is almost mandatory when people are getting sleepy/lazy so you see even if we currently do less damage we are useful.
This i think is fundamentally wrong and as a side effect everyone thinks sci is weak compared to tact its a falsity its just not true.Sci is strong i have seen better sci i am a decent sci myself.
I run a couple of sci toons myself and by no means are they underpowered (so here here, I definitely agree with you.) The primary issue for most people seems to be that in having more strategic options than your usual escort there's more ways you can play a sci toon badly.
Don't put points into particle generators or flow capacitors, well you're not going to have that much to speak for the profession. Choose a chip without at least a LC sci boff station, well that's going to generally suck as well because the basic sci abilities complement the stronger boff abilities you should be running (unlike a what you find in Tac espeically they aren't so good in their own right.)
But when you do find an appropraite build (ex. grav welling, fleet spawning, Aventine or Scimitar) you can do a huge amount of damage but in the larger sense of crippling and controlling as well as the direct "make things go booooom!" It just requires a little more consideration to find that build because you need to worry about more than just one stat (your DPS) and one tactic (fire).
However once you get into ground, well tachyon harmonic, tricorder scan, and exothermic reaction makes just about all enemies moot. Even if in Space sci can be a little finicky that DEFINITELY does not carry over to the other side of combat. There you have the control AND mad outright power.
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I have a Lethean Sci toon who started life as a mule. One day I got bored with just shooting things as fast as I can. So I decided to work him up.
I am really glad I did. It is enjoyable to play Cha. Due to his abilities, along with the Boffs I've surrounded him with, they all look like they're doing nothing at all because they're probably not shooting at the moment someone is watching. Then, Elite Tactical Drones begin a retrograde movement to get out of the danger zone. Those which do not move fast enough die very quickly.
Taking an ordinary KDF cruiser and being able to trash a herd of Spheres is very satisfying. Watching them try to run away can be very funny. I only wish I had something similar to the Vesta to put him in.
Sci toons are not underpowered or weak. They are just not twitch merchants who must rely only upon DPS to score any success at all.
A six year old boy and his starship. Living the dream.
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rattler2Member, Star Trek Online ModeratorPosts: 58,694Community Moderator
edited July 2014
Kinda agreed. I enjoy my Caitian and Andorian characters, as they're Sci. One's a Pyro with the old Physicist kit and the other's a Medic. Things may not die fast... but lighting them on fire is always fun.
I can't take it anymore! Could everyone just chill out for two seconds before something CRAZY happens again?!
The nut who actually ground out many packs. The resident forum voice of reason (I HAZ FORUM REP! YAY!)
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite colored text = mod mode
Kinda agreed. I enjoy my Caitian and Andorian characters, as they're Sci. One's a Pyro with the old Physicist kit and the other's a Medic. Things may not die fast... but lighting them on fire is always fun.
Stack up on Geologists. They're cheap and they make the fire oh so much more frequent (which really hammers on the power). There's a voth armory officer you might want to look into to if you haven't already, he makes the fire able to have little molten babies which spread their burning love to the rest of the world!
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
as i said its never been that sci captains or our ships are underpowerd its always been in the fact that balancing our skills is difficult especialy if you remember those with tactical captains can buff it very well and if they train and stack into it they were able to do some pritty silly numbers
i remember the old 5k per tick gravwells some tact officers in sci ships could put out.they hurt ;-) or the 20-25k photonic shockwaves.
to get to my point its all in how cryptic decides to deal with balancing our skills they chose to tone them down across the board forgetting that science did pay the toll for the skills to function how they where.tactical officers skewed the math on that starting free2play when exotic damage all of a sudden turned into kinetic damage and was then buffable by tacticals.
Comments
Thanks for that, i'll look into it.
science ships have 6 weapons because at one point our skills did a decent amount for us now they dont this is what your experiencing not something that is wrong with the ship or your captain but whats wrong with the skills themselves they need a balance pass and im sure cryptic will hear our pleads.
if they dont well eventually you will only see tact/sci around.
This ^
Do SCI ships and abilities need a buff or fix? Yes. But the design of weapon slots doesnt need to change.
Tactical Ships will always have an affinity towards DPS
Eng Cruisers will always have an affinity towards Tanking
SCI ships will always have an affinity towards Shielding/Debuffs
I think a lot of the issues could be solved if there are a little more flexibility in the CDR Slot. For example, The Science Oddy should offer either an Eng CDR or Sci CDR. Or set it up similar to the Dysons with a "mode". So the LTC/CDR Slots are locked to SCI?ENG and which ever mode it is that becomes the CDR. It shouldn't be every cruiser but more than the science cruiser. Could do the same for the Battle Cruiser except have it TAC/ENG.
I would add SCI/ENG to these ships:
Support Cruiser
Sci Oddy
Star Cruiser
And ENG/TAC to:
Dreadnought
Avenger
Assault Cruiser
I have heard rumors that Sci ships will retroactively be getting a Secondary Deflector to help enhance their there sci powers...but who knows when or if this will ever be implemented.
I do like the idea of Sci ships having an additional rear weapon though, it would give them a little boost in the weapon department without making them an outright cruiser clone.
THIS!
If the devs don't want to put time and resources into significantly buffing Sci ships with more weapons or some other DPS buff then they should NERF the ability of other ships (including players) to remove the debuff from science ships.
I am fine with only 6 weapons if I can strip away my enemy's damage resistance and they can do NOTHING about it. It's only an unfair advantage in PVP if the non-science ship has a really squishy build with no burst damage. Even if a science ship rebuffs me in my escorts I am "usually" tanky enough to hang in and unload high burst DPS with my DHCs.
On that note, if Tacs and engineers are worried about the idea of not being able to cleanse the debuff from science then make it so the target of the science ship can't cleanse himself from a sensor analysis debuff but ANOTHER TEAM MEMBER can cleanse you if they target you with hazard emitters. This would help Sci players in 1v1 PVP fights and give a cool element to team play.
Don't believe the lies in this forum. I am NOT an ARC user. I play STO on Steam or not at all.
er WHICH d&d was that? Im an old guy, so the D&D I played, clerics tended to have a mace, shield, and plate armor, being as tough or tougher than most fighters.
D&D aside, the answer is "there is no good reason at this point in the game, but there was a long long long time ago so they keep doing it that way".
I have flown pretty much everything. Honestly since I have come to love the COE trait... honestly the only toons I have in sci ships are science captains.
They did add more dmg to tykens rift not to long ago.
They gave us physiological warfare in this last box.
They also fixed deflector doffs not to long ago. Deflector doffs have made drain ships a reality. Where as before the cool downs where just to long to easily time around peoples buffs to ensure drain. Now with siphen and TR at 30s with doffs instead of 60s it works much better. You can also combo in a Tachyon beam (yes I know I know... but since the rep changes the drain on it is pretty good... also if we ever get our secondary deflectors they add 33% more drain to Tachyon beam). Tachyon beam though with the doffs has a very very fast cool down... and it also procs the deflector doffs properly now.
I am not saying sci skills are perfect... there in a good place though. To be honest Sci Sci I feel is in the best place it has ever been. Yes its true at one time we could suck peoples shields off almost instantly.... yes that was powerful, truth was it was overpowered though. Where the game is now we can have that same type of killing power, only relies on proper timing. Which is ok by me works like it used to just takes skill to pull off and a skilled opponent can protect themselves by holding and rolling counters so they don't get hit by multiple magiks and die.
lately the only thing that feels like a threat right now is being outnumbered and isolated, RNG BO3, err i mean elachi DBB BO3, and sci/sci. skill is to easy to counter, you can hold off someone better at flying then you for quite some time, it takes one of these things to actually die.
i have learned that sci ships are team players, you slow them down, control the spam crowd and debuff, making it mega easy to take out.
however i say sci builds need more power in pvp, we now have good escort builders that can tank, counter, and destroy.
i say tank because i can grind almost any ship to a hallt, i can even drain the unimatrix one flat.
and on 2 times i can think of,
using self replicating grav well, sub nuke, subspace cloud/rift(console thing) then tycons rift with polorons(faw) plas leach and energysiphon with em2aux.
i had them as sitting ducks with no power, no shields and no eng. yet at full blast faw/aux2batt i couldnt get it below 90% and i timed the second one, just over 40sec i had an escort sitting there with no shields and i couldn't destroy him, i even used singularity beam overload which does crasy dmg
havnt a clue why, all my gear was mk xii purple and i even had the 2 mk xii green tac consoles.
so my conclusion is this, sci are fantastic in a team or in a pve crowd, but 1v1 pvp severly lacking in power.
it would be nice to have the dmg output of the elete escorts toned down a bit, it is good that it takes skill and effort to get there, but unless i am very fortunate my dyson (cstore) gets vaped often even with tac team and full dyson set, escorts shouldn't be able to have that dmg output and tank at the same time like that
yep easy to counter, atack pattern omaga perhaps needs a little ajustment, with that there is no reason to have polarise hull, dont get me wrong, i love omaga my klink, but it is too easy to get out of bother with it, there is no point in having all these cool sci abilities, if 1 ability can counter almost all of them
First Remove the FAW.... its pointless on a science ship. Focus on killing one person and debuffing many.
Mainly do that by getting rid of all the energy weapons.
Torpedo Doffs are your friends... Run 2-3 torpedos in front. Load the 360 beam from the mission in the rear for Sub System disables (and perhaps a 360 crafted polaron one after the crafting patch) Replace your faw with a Torpedo Spread... and if you can run a Gravametric photon.
I have no issues killing people in PvP in my sci ship. (yes solo)... in fact easiest kills in the game 1v1 are sci sci vs pretty much anything else. Just spam torps in a group and focus on killing power and debuffing... at some point a team mate will melt a facing and your torps will hit and really really hurt someone. If you are focusing on ONE target watch there buffs and when the time is right stack the drains... when there shield drops you should always have a stream of torps on the way. Also make sure you have omega shearing trait selected. If your not running them now also make sure you have at least one of the dyson sci consoles equipped. Free hull dmg procs are always nice.
Its also not hard to watch for buffs and simply hold your own debuffs for a few seconds...
Omega burning escorts are also suckers for a nasty sub nuking. Most of them burn Omega with there Alpha one nuke and they loose there captain skill for a rotation and there omega for awhile. If they are attempting to let there hull drop so they can activate GDF that is even better... wait for the GDF buff and then nuke them and target there aux. They will be low hull with no buffs and likely they will attempt to pop there Hazards and if you don't get lucky and grey that out on them with a disable at the very least you reduce its effect a great deal.
Science is a thinking class... we are not supposed to be chasing zippy escorts around... let them zip aroudn and wait for them to make a mistake. When they do... make them pay. Nothing is more squish then an escort with no buffs up.
i will try being more torp centric, and i will get rid of one of my faws, the reason i havnt used torp so far is that aiming them at a zippy escort is no fun, and most can outrun even quantum.
(been at it for a year or so)
To be honest in 5v5 PvP... basicly ignore the zippy escorts. I know that sounds nuts... but for the most part your team will be chasing them around. Let them. (I only worry about the ones I know put out lots of hurt... and then all I do is mess them up by nuking there Alpha / GDF buffs off) Prioritize your targets, and honestly only switch to escorts when they are already hurting. Focus on removing the ability of the other teams healers to do anything... and shut down the other teams sci. Also watch for things like a Tholian Carrier healer player who just dumped a ton of heals on that zippy escort everyone is chasing around. At that point pick on the carrier. Drain them CC the heck out of them and just keep peppering them with torps. You will win a lot of matches cause the other team will just not be able to support each other as well as they would like.
Activating Omega should be putting there second copy on a shard cool down so nuking it as soon as someone activates it should ensure both copies are locked out. You will only see a second copy pop up if you nuke an omega at the very end of it. Unless they have been cleared by a Sci team. Some escorts do carry sci teams now that they don't share a global with tac team. However it is more likely they are getting sci team from a support ship. This is why I say focus on the support ships. Your team is going to chase the escorts around let them do that... drive the support guys nuts instead. If you do that at some point you should be able to switch over to that escort and you will find them much easier to kill.
You will know if you are harrassing a teams support ships properly when there entire team switchs to you at some point. That happens when the healer/sci player finally says can we PLEASE kill this annoying science ship. Always save an escape for when that happens. lol
all good advice, but isnt it the zippy escorts that do the hurt?
some of them are crazy, i have had my obelisk vaped with fleet shields and tac team active
Well don't ignore them when they don't give you a choice. You will notice if you pvp a good amount though that only a handful of escort players can not be ignored for at least awhile.
The only time I find escorts to be a major issue is the odd unlucky pug roll. Where the other team consists of mainly escorts and your own team has none or none that are any good at least. If that is the case it will likely be painful. As long as there is a good mix on both sides though you can mostly let the escorts dog fight each other... and as I suggest remove there support. At some point of course you can switch to them when there team is less able to help them and do your part to respawn them.
Originally in D&D Clerics could only wear up to chain, but that got changed in later editions.
Won't work, really - just sayin'.
Taskforce 47 Falkenwacht (Federation) / Greifenreiter (KDF)
(at) deianirrah
Free Gear and where to get it
Escorts are straight up DPS. They need their weapons hardpoints because all the tactical station abilities modify the damage and effectiveness of those weapons.
Cruisers are tough, rugged tanks that are all like "I'm a SPACE PALADIN BISHES", with all that tanking stuff I know it can do (never tried to make a tanky cruiser, to be honest.)
Science ships are the red-headed stepchild of the DPS family. Because it's a support ship. Science abilities are independent of the equipped weapons on your vessel. Tachyon Beams, Gravity Wells, Tyken Rifts, and the ability to scramble, jam, or fricasee enemy sensors, as well as just broadly heal and reinforce your allies.
For all you WoW-heads, Escorts are Mages and Warlocks. Cruisers are, duh, Space Paladins. And a science ship is that druid you can't find that keeps healing that Death Knight you're trying to kill and you're like WHY WON'T HE JUST DIE, I AM RUNNING OUT OF MANA.
*cough* I may have some residual WoW rage. I quit that game for a reason XD
How exactly is Starfleet portrayed on-screen? I am having trouble with that. It acts as the Federation's military arm, even though most captains are not militarily trained, and in fact Picard always seemed to prefer the Gentleman's way out (until the movies at least). It uses navy terminology, while it's officers make use of infantry behaviour, and its navigation officers are referred to as "pilots" like the Air Force. ...but it's not a military, because Federation diplomats are all former Starfleet officers.
Essentially, Starfleet is whatever the TV show needed Starfleet to be at the time. And at this time, Starfleet is needed to be the MMO Trinity of Healer, DPS, Tank.
Captaincy, Excelsior-Class U.S.S. Bianca Beauchamp NCC-99947-F
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
As a note i dont often agree with antonio as he would attest to but in all honesty he is mostly right the only problem that i currently see is that tacts can deal better damage with the skills then sci.
This i think is fundamentally wrong and as a side effect everyone thinks sci is weak compared to tact its a falsity its just not true.Sci is strong i have seen better sci i am a decent sci myself.
Now are my builds on the same level in pvp as say Antonio probably not i dont focus just on pvp i run a diversity build this does slightly block me out of the higher tier skill builds but it does leave me with something that is an asset ALWAYS.
I have never been in an stf where in some way i didn't feel i contributed my heals are useful my croud control is almost mandatory when people are getting sleepy/lazy so you see even if we currently do less damage we are useful.
I run a couple of sci toons myself and by no means are they underpowered (so here here, I definitely agree with you.) The primary issue for most people seems to be that in having more strategic options than your usual escort there's more ways you can play a sci toon badly.
Don't put points into particle generators or flow capacitors, well you're not going to have that much to speak for the profession. Choose a chip without at least a LC sci boff station, well that's going to generally suck as well because the basic sci abilities complement the stronger boff abilities you should be running (unlike a what you find in Tac espeically they aren't so good in their own right.)
But when you do find an appropraite build (ex. grav welling, fleet spawning, Aventine or Scimitar) you can do a huge amount of damage but in the larger sense of crippling and controlling as well as the direct "make things go booooom!" It just requires a little more consideration to find that build because you need to worry about more than just one stat (your DPS) and one tactic (fire).
However once you get into ground, well tachyon harmonic, tricorder scan, and exothermic reaction makes just about all enemies moot. Even if in Space sci can be a little finicky that DEFINITELY does not carry over to the other side of combat. There you have the control AND mad outright power.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
I am really glad I did. It is enjoyable to play Cha. Due to his abilities, along with the Boffs I've surrounded him with, they all look like they're doing nothing at all because they're probably not shooting at the moment someone is watching. Then, Elite Tactical Drones begin a retrograde movement to get out of the danger zone. Those which do not move fast enough die very quickly.
Taking an ordinary KDF cruiser and being able to trash a herd of Spheres is very satisfying. Watching them try to run away can be very funny. I only wish I had something similar to the Vesta to put him in.
Sci toons are not underpowered or weak. They are just not twitch merchants who must rely only upon DPS to score any success at all.
normal text = me speaking as fellow formite
colored text = mod mode
Stack up on Geologists. They're cheap and they make the fire oh so much more frequent (which really hammers on the power). There's a voth armory officer you might want to look into to if you haven't already, he makes the fire able to have little molten babies which spread their burning love to the rest of the world!
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
i remember the old 5k per tick gravwells some tact officers in sci ships could put out.they hurt ;-) or the 20-25k photonic shockwaves.
to get to my point its all in how cryptic decides to deal with balancing our skills they chose to tone them down across the board forgetting that science did pay the toll for the skills to function how they where.tactical officers skewed the math on that starting free2play when exotic damage all of a sudden turned into kinetic damage and was then buffable by tacticals.