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Did bug hunt elite get harder?
glorthox
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I have been in two separate runs now and each time it has been the same. The whole group dying. The last group we had better number and better geared people and we still died with ease. So my question is, "Did they make stf elites even harder?"
And if so, this will make me walk away. My friends rarely play because of the current difficulty.
And if so, this will make me walk away. My friends rarely play because of the current difficulty.
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I use peak health (generic trait) and fluidic antigen (surface tension reward) as trait, and an EV suit. It's helpful, more than a Borg armor or a Dyson one.
Finally, dropping mines if you are engineer or have one in your team where the bugs spawn will make your job easier. Just like using them on the queen.
Nonetheless, long as my team is half decent I usually won't get overwhelmed, but if they aren't up to the job, then they do overwhelm my medical prowess, which really isn't a surprise in that case, it's a LOT of bugs, timing neural neutralizer properly proves critical.
One thing I do have trouble with is staying alive at the queen. I often seem to get focus fired on by 3 or 4 of the guys on the cliffs and can't find any adequate cover in the pit. I usually just burn through all my heals then die.
Any tips?
I suppose that's the key for the queen fight. Kill her really fast.
Same goes for a lot of the other ground STFs, IGA? Forget it, still bugged can't finish it at all. CGA? Mostly works but has a small chance of having bugged trigger pillars to drop the shield walls. KAGA? Seems to work fine unless you bork the optional, I've heard people say that when the optional fails the entire end-timer for the dungeon auto fails as well which isn't supposed to happen on Advanced. HGE/HGA? Mostly works, sometimes a drone will vanish into thin air but the main problem is the queen at the end. Knock her into the chasm and all you can do is beam out and curse at the knockback values on some weapons.
Let's put it like this: if you consider game breaking bugs a challenge then yes, STO just got a LOT harder!
I suspect the effect you describe may be caused by lots of clueless newbies hearing it's easy and coming in with no toxic resist.
like all content the more powerful the players are the easier it is
However I don't put it past cryptic to add things like increased resists on the bugs and not say anything about it.
I got a Zero trust factor with the Dev's from past experience so anything is possible
Saphire.. Science ground......Ko'el Romulan space Tac
Leva........Tactical ground.....Koj Romulan space Eng
JJ-Verse will never be Canon or considered Lore...It will always be JJ-Verse
Joined January 2009
yes I have recently had a few groups who probably should not be there leaving me "last man standing" deciding if i should use my one and only group rez now or leave it till later because I usually save it for the spawnmother at the end. So its failing a bit more..
Anything is easy when you get the gear for it there is no hard content in this game. There were a couple of bugs this weekend one was "okay now kill the spawnmother" and we had only made it past the second set of bugs.. the thing ended prematurely not long after (wonder why) another was that it seemed to spawn more of those pestilents then it should but possibly its looking at the classes that zone into it and spawning according to class. (not sure)
I'm an Engineer and usually run with all ENG and maybe one SCI. Orbital strike spam and transphasic bomb spam makes it rain bug guts. Yes, EV suits help tons when you get stuck in their toxic pools.
The ones you really have to watch for are the flying ones and the stalkers that sit up on the side of the walls.
Romulan Institute
D'Galan - Engineer
And another thing that it tells that new players are playing this: some1 was thinking that another team mate was healing the ravangers with its weapon and asked to stop that lol. And even after telling that person that the mob has that skill, still wasnt convinced lol.
Oh I definitely noticed that in the run I did a few minutes ago. It was only me and 1 other player using the class auras that boost the whole team (me using Strike Team and Precision Offensive, and the other player using Scientific Aptitude). We had a player die after 5 seconds in the very first encounter (which doesn't even have Pestilents) and I was the only one targeting the alarm bugs. Thankfully the engineer(s) were at least using orbital strike.
Joined January 2009
Rh'Ihho station is the same thing, sometimes i'm the only one with a TR-116 or cochrane shotgun in it.
Opening stages of the mission, I rush in to find a target and get one-hit-killed by no less than 12 bugs at once.
That never happened before. Then the mobs are thicker, harder to kill, and swarm more. In the past 2 days I've been surrounded and attacked so much I can't move, can't escape, can't eveade. It's like they're interrupting me.
The placates are excessive as well. It's mildly worse than it was before. The flying bugs seem to be FAR stronger in terms of their toxic attacks. 4 of them have attacked at once and will kill any player very easily.
Mind you, I say all this as a joined trill with toxic resist, peak health, extra health points, I've got a toxic resist armor and on top of that a science kit with at least 2 heals (if not more).
It's not just a placebo effect, and it's not just players sucking. There have been some IMO quite noticable changes in the past couple days. They may not have been intentional, but it seems more random bugs are introduced with every minor patch.
Elite is suppsoed to be uber difficult... if Advanced now is what old Eilte used to be, this is supposed to be a whole other level above and beyond
Your group should be facing difficulties
I sometimes saw mass wipes in advanced runs, let alone Elite... in fact, I would argue my first time I went through Bug Elite I cleared it faster than advanced... sounds to me they raised the difficulty to accomodate how Elite should be
Nothing.
As long as you:
- Stock up on Physical and Toxic Resists
- Have an excellent close ranged weapon like a Pulsewave or Cohcrane's Shotgun standing by
- Bring what abilities you can to grant team resists and/or enhance the team's combat performance
- Stay with the rest of the team
- Most of the fighting is rather close ranged with stuff all around you. The attacks are fast and with many opponents. Your combat style should be adjusted for that. Plinkers with Sniper Rifles suck here. Short ranged combat with fast attacks rule here.
- Kill the Alarm Bugs ASAP
- Kill the Spawnmother ASAP
- And for goodness' sake, stock up on some regenerators in your bank to heal your wounds.
Then you'll do fine. Usually the guys that stray off by themselves are first to be overwhelmed and I don't bother running over there to rez them only to get myself killed. I'd rather stay with the group with their PBAOE buff auras and such as well as additional firepower.
Nothing has changed in Bug Hunt difficulty. They swarm you. If you don't have good Physical & Toxic resists and team support, you'll die quick. That was so before all this supposed "OMG Bug Hunt is harder nowz!" and that is so now.
The only thing that makes Bug Hunt hard are people that are not familiar with it. First time you do it and have not read into preparing for it usually results in getting ***** pretty hard. But once you look at your combat log and see exactly what kind of damage is flying your way, notice how combat goes in Bug Hunt, or read up on the boards or ask around for proper preparation, then Bug Hunt gets so much easier. Only thing easier is Undine Infiltration.
Edit to add: There's also a somewhat recurring misconception out there on Bug Hunt. People keep saying to pack Psionic Resists. The enemy does not do Psionic damage in Bug Hunt. Go ahead and copy & paste your combat log and search it, there is none. The enemy only does Physical and Toxic. Now, the Pestilants DO perform Hold attacks, but there are specific resists for that to diminish that effect.
A antiproton wrist lance ( Because it hits those bugs rather hard )
Fluidic shields and secondary weapon ( Because when you need to switch to something that doesn't draw so much aggro )
All of my gear is Mk XIII, lets face it, getting to MK XIV is hard to do if your not maxed on creds and Dilithium. But I haven't had a successful Bug Hunt Elite yet. Not one. And the same thing has been happening. Bugs swarm more on one person or pestilant bugs spawn more than two at a time and start one shotting people. I have done Bug Hunt Elite so many times ( I have everything made through tier 4, working on tier 5 rep ) But now, I cannot even finish one. New players or not. I look at their shields and health. And most are using Delta rep gear. the health is nice, but the rest of it is TRIBBLE. I honestly think all of these bugs are bypassing resist gear. I have 50% toxic resist and psionic resist. As well as everything but radiation and one other. So that should be half damage at least. And even I am being one shotted. Pestilant bugs are bypassing my shields and hitting me twice for crits of 400+. And this happens every time.
So I am starting to wonder if all the gear is TRIBBLE, with nothing that helps. I enjoyed Bug Hunt Elite when it was doable. Now i get the feeling that I need find another means of getting delta marks.
They're not bypassing. The resists work. It's their sheer volume of attacks that get you, and most esp if you let yourself stay in the Toxic pools thrown at you. Nowhere else in the ground game of STO do you have the sheer number of NPCs literally crawling all over you, attacking you from oftenly every compass direction. On top of that, you have stuff like Pestilants flying around and the Ravager just plinking away. While the smaller bugs swarm you and prevent your movement, the Pestilants and Ravagers just **** you from afar.
That's why you need the resists to buy you *some* time. That's why it's important to pack resist abilities that benefits the team. A powerful Ambush Module doesn't mean **** when you're being swarmed from everywhere in close proximity.
Abilities like Rally Team, DOFFed Cover Shield, Mines, DOFFed Forcefield Dome, Overwatch, Biofilter Sweep, Triage, etc. go a far longer way in helping the team.
Also, you are not going to have 100+ resists in anything. Diminishing returns. Look at your Character's or even Ship's Stat sheet. Not the gear and what it says. The stats sheet.
And Delta Rep Ground Armor is among the WORST you can bring to Bug Hunt. It's cool on other things but NOT Toxic. That armor, unless you have some race inherent traits to grant very high Toxic Resists, will leave you very open to Toxic attacks. Going to Bug Hunt with the newest armor, or your favorite armor is not necessarily the best idea. Going to Bug Hunt with gear that grants Physical and Toxic Resists makes life easier.
When you go in Bug Hunt, build for Toxic & Physical Resists. There is no Psionic dmg that you'll face (again, go ahead and examine your Combat Log if you don't believe me). Do bring abilities that will help the team defensively or with resits, heals, etc.
Even when you do go in prepared like that, you can get taken down fast if you're not fast enough, wander away from the group too far, don't support each other.
Time will only tell!
Yes, please bank heals so you can heal yourself in mission. With an experienced team that aims for the purple alarm bugs first and stays together the mission is fairly straightforward. With a team that just runs around shooting everything and spreads out too far the mission becomes painful. I actually failed a pug tonight, that was a bit of a shocker since I'd only failed one once before when it first came out.
@ General audience - I've died more using the DR ground set than I did while using the MACO set and the Biofilter mod. I actually swapped out biofilter for the Elachi mod but will probably swap it back as the hold power is weak, the duration seems to have gotten shorter (although there has been no change) and the 30 cd is a bit long.
I find the compressed gun average, the secondary is a neat effect but the activation takes too long and the target often runs ran and out of range but the time the beam hits. I've used the shotty as a secondary but you really must be next to your target for it to significantly damage it. I'm now playing around with the Tholian rep. Cryo Gun as a secondary, there seems to be some cold damage bleed-through.
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