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The state of torpedoes
pyrogxmk3
Member Posts: 206 Arc User
I loved my torpedo boats. I really did. But ever since DR hit, my DPS and consequently survivability with them have taken quite the nosedive.
Now, DR was supposed to make the focus on extreme DPS less important. The opposite of course turned out to be true, as the "challenge" added was high HP, higher resists, shields that consequently aren't down as often, and mission timers going from optional to fail-condition by elite. I went from brushing against 20k DPS in a TSAD torpedo boat, to barely 10~12k depending on conditions, despite to all the new passives I had gained: +10% kinetic and energy damage, +2.5% crit chance, +15% critical severity and space flanking I/II.
But none of these changes hit me quite so hard as last night, when, on a whim of "let's do something different", I took off the old Mk13/14 torpedoes, swapped a superior romulan operative with subterfuge for Tovan who still had beam overload, and put on a hyper-refracting, the romulan experimental array, a fleet plasma dual-bank, and the ancient-array with KCB in the rear. Left in place were the neutronic and rear romulan hyper to keep hyperflux. The MkXIII fleet +Torp consoles became old mkXII fleet +Beam.
Lost were some of the effect of my higher projectile skills in captain skill points, much of the AMACO bonus' value a little bit of crit and damage bonuses... TRIBBLE I didn't even set my weapon energy to properly go over 100.
And so 10841,33 in a good, solid ISA run, you know, where half the targets don't have shields...
Became 20695. And this was just the beginning. I've clocked anywhere between x1.5 to x3 the output by doing this, depending on the targets (WAY up against voth, only slightly up against the "energy doesn't work use kinetics" crystalline entity).
I took a specialized, carefully tuned torpedo boat, turned it into TASTE THE RAINBOW, and doubled my DPS.
So when exactly are launchers gonna get a bloody look at?
Now, DR was supposed to make the focus on extreme DPS less important. The opposite of course turned out to be true, as the "challenge" added was high HP, higher resists, shields that consequently aren't down as often, and mission timers going from optional to fail-condition by elite. I went from brushing against 20k DPS in a TSAD torpedo boat, to barely 10~12k depending on conditions, despite to all the new passives I had gained: +10% kinetic and energy damage, +2.5% crit chance, +15% critical severity and space flanking I/II.
But none of these changes hit me quite so hard as last night, when, on a whim of "let's do something different", I took off the old Mk13/14 torpedoes, swapped a superior romulan operative with subterfuge for Tovan who still had beam overload, and put on a hyper-refracting, the romulan experimental array, a fleet plasma dual-bank, and the ancient-array with KCB in the rear. Left in place were the neutronic and rear romulan hyper to keep hyperflux. The MkXIII fleet +Torp consoles became old mkXII fleet +Beam.
Lost were some of the effect of my higher projectile skills in captain skill points, much of the AMACO bonus' value a little bit of crit and damage bonuses... TRIBBLE I didn't even set my weapon energy to properly go over 100.
And so 10841,33 in a good, solid ISA run, you know, where half the targets don't have shields...
Became 20695. And this was just the beginning. I've clocked anywhere between x1.5 to x3 the output by doing this, depending on the targets (WAY up against voth, only slightly up against the "energy doesn't work use kinetics" crystalline entity).
I took a specialized, carefully tuned torpedo boat, turned it into TASTE THE RAINBOW, and doubled my DPS.
So when exactly are launchers gonna get a bloody look at?
Post edited by pyrogxmk3 on
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Comments
--Red Annorax
Here? Their damage gets quartered, and then they hit 80+ resists thanks to a teammate haing sensor-scanned them already.
That new tric warhead is sweet when it works though. Too much aoe to use it in many fights, but when you can... reloads a bit slow. Murders CCE.
Considering in trek, a quantum torpedo could rip through Miranda's straight and ramming speed from a bug could kill a galx and a transphasic torpedo can one shot a cube and loop
--Red Annorax
That consoles are nothing game-breaking like a consoles from crafting, they would give more options.
They might appear in a new fleet holding.
Torpedos dont compete with fire at will.
Fire at will made it possible to faceroll content prior to DR, and after DR it became even more necessry to use it.
I keep torps on my ships anyway, but they do feel a lot like dead weight now. Only the ones with special effects are really worth using. I already felt the investment in torps (2-3 projectile weapons officers taking up active roster space to get cooldowns to global) was too high -- now it's even harder to justify.
Torps feel really awesome in the early stages of the game where they one shot your enemies after you drop their shields. Don't want it to be that extreme at endgame, but I'd really like to see running a mix of torps and energy be more useful than just energy.
Those I've equipped had in fact gone up. The main point is that even if they had not, downgrading to something you are not specced for - with less points in skills, less appropriate traits, unoptimized energy levels, lower +% consoles and all of that... Is bringing your damage up. Not just a little up. Drastically, massively up. Because you're getting rid of your kinetics.
GCD+Quartering+Resists is hitting them so hard you can 'un-smirk' your output just by switching to energy from kinetics.
Actually, as things are, you'd still be shooting yourself in the foot for equipping projectiles with those consoles.
when do NPCs ever care?
Faw+Beta3 ftw
If I had 4 consoles [+dis] [+pho] certainly would do it for me greater motivation to play f.e. . 3 cannons and and one torpedo than all consoles that are now only 4x [+dis]
The chroniton torpedo is always nice in this respect as it has a decent chance to reduce flight turnspeed so if you throw a volley of them at your enemy, you are nearly alwways guaranteed to reduce your target's manuverability.
Well to be honest it was multiple bugs that rammed that galaxy class.
But yeah...I don't know why the devs hate torps so much...unless they just make them suck because it's easier to balance everything around energy weapons thank take the time to make torps and sci effective alternatives.
I wouldnt say that the devs hate torpedoes. I mean they gave us the Hyper Plasma launcher, Gravimetric Launcher, Nukara Mines (yahs its a mine launcher but w/e), the super awesome Omega Launcher, TDD, Ferengi Missile Launcher, Red Ball O-Doom, the one that i see being shot out that drags stuff around, Transphasic/TCB Cluster launchers and probably a few others that i'm forgetting about. The Beam and Cannon guys get the same stuff but different flavor. When was the last time they got a beam or cannon weapon that made them go "wow this beam or cannon weapon is awesome". And i dont mean a proc or something...i mean something really cool like the beam shoots out of your ship and kills the bad guys, does your taxes, cooks you dinner and takes your dog for a walk or something like that.
It seems like we are either overlooked when they come up with these new enemy mechanics or they just dont know their own combat engine well enough. Not designing it, but actually playing it. I had made a suggestion that maybe the new rep faction after Delta Alliance should have a 3pc or 4pc weaponry set that gives torp boats an 'ignore shields' set bonus. Something like a set with a launcher (of your preferred damage type), a beam weapon similar to the experimental proton weapon, a console and one other like a mine launcher or something. The 3pc or 4pc set bonus would be something like "projectiles and mines ignore 75% of enemy shields". The percentage is just an example...it can be balanced so it is not to overpowering in PVE and two figures can be given to it one for pve and another for pvp. But i've been told that you can just stack up on gear or traits that bypass or lower resistances. But i dont know if i like the sound of that. Because of how i'm seeing mobs and boss mobs behave with their shield mechanics my two torp boats are going to be shelved for a long time. What sucks is i bought the Faeht which i am using for my DHC toon that is my main and my alt that was in a torp Tvaro that is geared up just as good as my main.
The proof is in the pudding, they hate them!
Why else other than either hating with them or just not simply wanting to put any effort in to balance them would you make them so far and opposite from canon? Then go on to promote energy weapons being the end all be all of the game?
Who cares about spawning a mini gravity well or hyper plasma torp trails when you can just shove a bunch of cannons or beams on your ship and be a 100 times more effective? Not to mention if you love said torps so much you can stick a grav torp on a cannon build and still be plenty effective.
I haven't yet but I've been meaning to try out a dps parser, but I'm afraid to see my torp build doing almost no damage.
So what can be done? Numerous, numerous things.
First, the GCD could be reduced. Apply the GCD but only to pairs of launchers, rounding the number.
Two Frontal launchers share cooldown (pairing is done by priority selection), the third and fourth have their own.
Or the cooldown could be removed entirely. Or reduced to just 1s if you have more than 3 projectile launchers on a ship.
Far more likely is shields. Torpedoes should have their own damage category, so that while ramming and warp breaches remain "kinetic", your chroniton torpedo (and beam bank, remember that one?) is chroniton damage. Or at the very least the torpedoes are "projectile" or something. The important part is that they no longer get quartered by shields.
This would in and of itself fix a grand majority of issues, leaving us with lower DPS but not drawn and quartered ones as well. Only certain (INVISITORPS for example) things would need adjusting to compensate, most of them on the NPC side.
Or, in a rare bone thrown to science, AUX could improve torpedoes at a lower rate than weapon. 1%/point above 50, but with no drain effect. This last one WOULD have to be combined with something else, however, as even 125 AUX won't close the gap alone if you're still dealing quarter damage to all things.
You people really amaze me you really do, for years now I've read nothing but bs about the state of exotic damage, now that the shield negation of damage is hitting home for the rest of you engineers and tacticals suddenly it becomes important. Hypocrites all of you.
Hell I was nearly rich enough for a wells way back before I lost my first account (had stopped a while, missed out on the PWE account/password changing window).
That's not counting those that are relatively new, either. Not everyone has been "Exotic and torps is fine, Lrn2Play" this entire time.
Let us not devolve in this fashion and continue to voice support for not-energy, perhaps to get something finally changed.
Intense Focus
Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense
Armor Penetration
Omega Kinetic Shearing
Advanced Targeting Systems
Intelligence Fleet
Stacked HY/TS
EWO BO Pen DOFF'd BO1 with Mk II VR [Acc]x3 Beam
APB
Ionic Turbulence
Sensor Scan, FoMM, Gather Intel
Counter-Command Deflector
Romulan Engines
[AMP] Core
MACO/AKHG Shields
Splash/AoE Torps
Turning the ship to fire fore and aft torps
Vaadwaur and Breen Clusters
And well, the list goes on and on...
ingame: @.Spartan
Original Cryptic Forum Name: Spartan (member #124)
The Glorious, Kirk’s Protegè
BFAW3
the list goes on..
well, thats pretty much it actually
And I have eery single one of them Virus... well as many as I can have on a science ship anyway.
Here's the problem... for me hull isn't a problem... I tend to eat hull for breakfast...
The problem is shields... if I can drop shields... then I win... if I can't... I lose...
Now take my alt cruiser still using FAW and fleet phasers MK XII (yes you read that right)... I eat everything... and she's built for TANKING... not for beams...
So yeah... when I can do better on a tank cruiser with FAW not even using A2B... over a science ship built for torps... there's an issue... a HUGE issue...
To the OP...
Cryptic has always... ALWAYS... said that STO is an energy focused game... with torps only there on the rare occasion that shields dropped. We've had issues with you launch a torp with shields down... then shields blink up to such a small amount it doesn't even show on the paperdoll... and totally negates what you do. Then add that most ships now are carrying a ton of kinetic hull resist and high HPs anyway... plus the torp GCD and you have a serious problem when compared to beams.
Plus then add in Cryptics obvious love/hate relationship with FAW and A2B. They may say they hate FAW and A2B but they keep feeding stuff into people using them.
So yeah... torps have issues... but then they always have... Cyrptic has never been shy to admit they prefer energy weapon builds over torp builds.
Torpedo and dhc builds are capping out under 40k. (top torpedo build i have seen is 34k from an engineer and for dhc 35k dps meanwhile beam ships have broken 100k)
The crazy part is the weapon class with the lowest skill cap (beams) also has the highest potential wheres as torpedo's/dhc have a higher skill cap and yet much lower potential.