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Should i quit Cannons?
dykeras
Member Posts: 326 Arc User
Back after a long break and use cannons on my Escort, but in my few days back I have seen hardly anyone else using cannons?
Are cannons so inferior to beams that I chould trsh them and stick a few dbb on my escort?
Are cannons so inferior to beams that I chould trsh them and stick a few dbb on my escort?
Post edited by dykeras on
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However, if you have been gone for some time it might be prudent to post your build and tweak it. There have been a lot of changes since LoR.
Technically, you can still use cannon and be effective. Maybe as much as beam, but you'll need twice the skill, to say the least.
But cannons can still perform well enough to do advanced and even elite the top dhc ship i have seen tops out at 35k dps.
DBB are only worth it if your using AP(or using a 5/2 layout ship) since you can now equip the omni 360 degree mission beam and a crafted one as well. Even then a 4/3 escort using DBB may do worse then a beam array escort due to the bad mods on the omni beams only when you get a 5/2 escort does DBB shine. DBB do 30% more dps then a beam array so a 4/3 escort is equal to 7.2 beam arrays and a 5/2 is equal to 7.5 beam arrays assuming you use a kinetic beam in the rear arc for both.
Single player, stuff dies quicker with CSV than BFAW. Summat screwey is up with people painting APB via BFAW over 10/15 entities and debuff stacking. Hence huge DPS numbers.
Opinion retreating!
Edit: just read shandypandys post, i concur.
No. Cannons still do more dps if you can keep them on target. The price of dps is 2 drawbacks... you have to get extra close to your enemy, and you have to be able to keep the guns pointed at a target.
There are some good beam array players out there. But 99% of the beam players you meet are doing tiny, tiny dps to every mob on the screen. You get an entire group of people doing that and its like one cannon ship hitting each target, and they all die at a fairly acceptable rate, without any real effort, so people keep recommending it.
But lets take mirror as an example. When I take my cannon ship in -- level 52 pilot with no upgraded gear, all he has done is run mirror 6 or 7 times and nothing else since expansion. Not doing advanced on that guy. He can take out the battleships in under 5 seconds each. I have watched countless beam array faw spammers take longer to handle the 3 miranda class trash that come out of a fresh rift than I take on the tough guy!
If you play well and like your cannons, they will still be better than most of the beam ships flying for everything except doing wide aoe on trash. Ideally a group would have both anyway, one cannon ship that can melt any tough opponents, and 2 or 3 beamspam boats to handle the annoying stuff.
Which brings up my advice... keep the cannons and focus fire on the tougher targets. That is helping the group, and useful. If you have one or can afford one, a 5 tac console escort that can slot a GW1 is the way to do it. Suck them into the GW and mash scatter from 2 km away... that will outpace all but the best beamboats all day long. But only a few escorts have that luxury ... get a nicor if you can afford one...
I had some Rom Plas DHCs on my new Faeht. But a combination of poor eyesight, dark ship, dark backdrop, and particle effects sometimes make it hard for me to tell if i'm pointed right at my target. Also running x2 CRV1 and x2 CRF2 for aoe/single target kinda blows. I just went back to my beam array build and stuck it on the Faeht. So i have 1 Experimental Rom Plas, 4 Rom Plas BA, KCB and the hyper plas (for the lulz) and i just do donuts in whatever instance i'm in, keep up my momentum for extra defense and rarely have to worry if my nose is pointed directly at the target. As an added bonus i get to run TT1-THY2-BFAW3-APO3 and TT1-THY2-BFAW3 in my LCDr slot. DHC might have more damage potential but i guess i'm getting lazy in my old age. And its not as if i'm doing any competitive PVE in STO. I'll still do the best i can with what i got, but i'm not going to bust my aft since there's no point.
This is actually incorrect. The base damage of DHCs is so high that you need to be over 7.5 km away before DBBs will out-damage DHCs.
The difference is time on target. Higher damage when you're on-target doesn't help if you're only on target half the time.
Yes you should if you want pure dps, which is what the game is about.
But worse, if you want to be able to move your ship too as well as DPS, then yes, beams are better too!
So cannons are sub optimal, fighters are worse, sci ships are worse still, engineers are laughable.
Cannons lose 8% per km past 2km
Beams lose 4% per km past 1km
The base dps of a mk12 white dhc is 256
The base dps of a mk12 white dbb is 229
At 5km a dhc is reduced by 24% to 199 dps
At 5km a Dbb is reduced by 16% to 195 dps
So at 5km a dhc will do about 2% more dps then a dbb by 6km a dhc is down to 183 and dbb is down to 187 dps.
But throw in turrets or beams and see what happens
Turrets are 132 dps for mk 12 white
Beams are 176 dps for mk12 white
Turrets at 5km do 103 dps
Beams at 5km do 112 dps.
So 4 dhc+2 turrets at 5km do a total of 1002 dps
4 dbb+2 beam array do 1004 dps.
So at 5km a dbb with 2 omni beams will match a DHC setup.
Add in the fact that dbb can overcap weapon energy and have a larger arc and now with the 2 omni beams DBB is a viable choice.
^^^ This is really good, but a little glossy in a couple of places. Regardless, the numbers are very useful and thanks for taking the time to list them!
It glosses over the obvious issue... as I said, get 2k away, not 5. Comparing at 5 is a no-go, beams are better (as good or better damage in a bigger arc, can't beat it).
It also glosses over the weapon setups and arc issues. Note the mention of the odd 4/2 setup, what are you flying? Modern ships are 5/3 or 4/3 or 4/4 for the most part, or the odd new raptor is 5/2 but it MATTERS what ship is used a LOT. IMHO a cannon ship, to be viable at the TOP levels of play, needs to be a 5/2 or 5/3 weapon layout, period. But the same is true for a top DBB ship! The array guys can do fine on anything with 8 total.
As far as my earlier comment went, though, this post really nails it. DBB are as good as cannon ships and easier to fly and are a clear winner. I still like my cannons and will fly them, but it takes a lot more work, absolutely! The builds I dislike are the beam array ships; esp the low dps ones that flap around doing no real damage but hitting everything and accomplishing nothing --- again, a few players make the arrays shine so its not the weapon choice, its the build and usually the ship (a lot of these ships are 3 tac console support ships that instead of doing any support, try to do damage but can't quite make it work).
Bottom line though is a DBB escort is probably better for 3 reasons:
1) wider aoe and better trash killing
2) easier to fly, forgives errors by pilot
3) does not have to be 2k which is game breaking because some bosses have mechanics if player flies too close. 5km is where most of those trigger and that is a problem for cannons. The worst of the lot are like the borg gates that DO NOT SHOOT YOU at 9.9K distance and beams do far more dps at 9.9 than cannons -- this is a bad design of the content, but its what we have at the moment.
the other small advantages go both ways. Power efficiency? Meh, a top geared player sits at max weapon power anyway, in anything but a turret boat. Cannons still have the damage at close range, they have the innate critD, there are loads of minor pros and cons we could go on and on about here.
Because DPS is king and support is dead, until they buff support to offer DPS'ers more DPS, and show this as a result at the end of the game.
If you do then by all means keep using them and have fun.
If you don't then switch to beam weapons and have fun.
In all honestly, unless you are trying to max out your DPS, then just use what you like.
If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord
Personally, I'm running around in my 135 engine power Risian Corvette torpedo boat.
I had a nice Kumari Escort cannon boat but I only have one captain that flies that variant and while I love the thing to pieces if I can't upgrade the whole pack I'm not upgrading that one. Beams always seemed boring. The only thing that mattered was if you were within max range. Planet killer in the ground and you can't point your ship straight down? Just park right on top of it and BFAW. Fast moving fighter? Just BFAW. Does it exist and you don't want it to? Just BFAW.
And if those people used cannons instead they'd be firing turrets only because they would be stuck in tractor beams. It's pretty silly to compare good players to bad players.
What he said. Use what you enjoy using.
I fly a Scim. Your escort basically has 90 degree turning ability in comparison. Still, my fore weapon setup is as this:
2 Corrosive Plasma HDCs
1 Corrosive Plasma DBB
1 Corrosive Plasma beam array
1 Tholoron-infused Quantum Torp (thinking about changing this tho)
I have tried to go all-beams and I have played all-cannons. The problem with the prior is you don't get the massive damage that canons provide. The problem with the latter is your firing arc is too limited; if you cant keep your nose on target you might as well not be firing at all.
The best combination Ive found is as above. With the DHCs and DBBs I do great DPS damage when facing my enemy. With the BA fore 1 BA and, omi beam and hyper plasma torps aft, my flanks are covered and I can continue to damage my opponent. I find the omni beam is better than turrets and I have the abilty to add plasma burn to even the AP weapon, so in combination with my plasma buffs I can handle myself against pretty much anything other than the Vaadwuar AppleJack Attack.
I would suggest you dont exchange one for the other but find a balance that works best for you. If you can manage to have both Rapid Fire and FAW available, win!
I'm not saying BFAW is pointless, but with tougher NPCs all around, tickling them with an occasional shot when there's many ships around is not OP as it was before DR.
But, with focused damage like CRF, or even CSV (due to TIGHTER AOE cones to apply the dmg and not spread it around the quadrant), your focused dmg will burn targets down much faster and move onto the next. An Escort / Raider would easily turn and present their DHCs and close in quickly to apply that firepower.
On Elite, even doing something simple like the KDF's "Empire Defense" missions, the Mirandas hold up very well and take some time to burn down if you're not doing it right.
That's kind of where I'm at with my phantom. I like the Defiant aesthetic. And there is something awesome about opening up with rapid fire ripping a ship into pieces and then flying by as it explodes. Like a boss.
I don't use bfaw (out of principle) and I did reasonable damage with my avenger. I've just switched over to cannons and I feel like I'm killing things quicker.
Basically, bfaw > cannons > beams.
And that's only if you believe combat parsers provide actual performance measurement.
First off i agree with your post and i do not hate dhc i actually love dhc but due to current game mechanics they don't do near as well as beams do in pve.
I used 5km because its a good average yes you want to always be point blank but if you have to move from target to target you won't always be firing at point blank.
About the 4/2 setup what i really meant was a 4/3 setup that is running kinetic beam (which all ships should be running in the rear because the 2 piece bonus is one of the highest dps gains in game) So a 4/3 ship would 4xdbb/2xomni/kinetic beam.
The power issue is beams allow you to overcap your energy past 125 (you only get a damage increase upto 125 but can use the overcap for a buffer) which means more of you beams will fire at 125 energy. When i play with beam ships the first 3 or 4 beams that fire don't take my weapon energy below 125. Also dbb drain 10 weapon energy instead of the 12 that dhc do.
So if you have 150 weapon power a dbb/beam array would look like:
First weapon:free
Second weapon: 150-140
Third Weapon: 140-130
Fourth weapon: 130-120 aka the 4th dbb is still firing at full effecive damage of 125 power.
Fifth weapon aka omni beam 120-110
Sixth weapon:110-100
Seventh weapon aka kinetic beam 100-92.
(at least that is how i understand how current weapon drain works)
DHC do not benefit from overcaping weapon energy which means they work like you would think aka each weapon drains 12 weapon energy after the first.
DHc Drain would be
First weapon:free
Second weapon:125-113
Third weapon:113-101
Fourth weapon:101-89
Fifth weapon: (turret) 89-81
Sixth weapon:81-73
Seventh weapon: (kinetic) 73-65
Each point of weapon power is equal to 2% dps which means in the dhc setup your first and second weapon fire at 125 power losing no damage but your third dhc loses 24% damage and then your fourth another 24% damage. After that your first turret fires at 89 weapon power which is a losing 72% damage over firing at 125 weapon power.
There are still a couple ships i use cannons on just because it feels wrong not to.
Aside from the two complete weapon sets (Nukara Appropriated Munitions and Omega Adapted Borg Technology), and various consoles that offer +tetryon_damage, +acc (in addition to all the non-set weapons having [Acc]), and +crit_chance, I think it works fairly well. As far as tactical boff abilities, there's BO, CRF, and THY for alpha striking; TV for shotgunning, and DPB for when it's necessary to leave more than two, shall we say, care packages behind.
And yes, trezlanlorentino, that makes two of us.
As far as actual setups go I usually run 2 dhc 2 flt q-torp front with matching turrets
CMDR Boff tt1/apb1/csv2/csv3
LCDR Boff tt1/ts2/ts3
that is if the layout allows for cmdr/lcdr tac boffs
When I get bored and want to have some fun I use the same Boff setup but replace everything except one torp with turrets. Try that once, you'll be surprised not only at the hilarity of it, but how fast things actually pop when you'd think 'oh all turrets are bad and that can't work.'
Any way you look at it however, it all boils down to what feels right for you, and how you like to play. When and if you find a setup that you like and works well for you, don't let people try to push you into a 'fad build' as I call them.