Patch notes aren't meant to relay the entire picture. They're just too succinct a format to work for that.
So, to hopefully ally a few fears I already see floating about, I'll share a few example figures of the changes being applied to Tachyon Beam in tomorrow's patch:
- Base magnitudes increased dramatically
- Benefit that can be gained from Auxiliary Power and Flow Capacitors reduced.
Examples:
* 0 Flow Capacitor Skill and 15 Aux Power = ~194% increase to Drain amount (close to triple the current value)
* 100 Skill + 100 Aux Power = ~75% increase to Drain amount
* 300 skill + 135 Aux Power = ~39% increase to Drain amount
So, as you can see, even at extremely-high end, the ability will be receiving an improvement.
I hope that helps. If it's still unclear, please ask any additional questions here and I'll attempt to answer them.
From that I read:
Base is buffed, so everyone who uses it (which is probably mostly NPC's at the moment) get's buffed.
Skill-based benefits reduced in amount of increase. This could be slightly dodgy, but bear in mind that people generally put points in flow caps and run high aux for completely different reasons than to buff tachyon beam, it'll have to be a mahoosive reduction to annoy that many people.
imo, tbh, gsoh, etc etc.
Edit/
If anyone's interested (and in case I tidy this bit of paper away before this evening):
Sorry for my newbiness,still saving Zen to get my science guy a T6 Pathfinder,so how exactly is this a nerf to the science class?
It isn't.
1) Even if Tachyon Beam got worse - you may not even use it. (Since it at least used to be a bad power, most peope are not using it.)
2) The actual data from the developer (see here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1380771) indicates it's a net buff, though the change is not as significant as for people that already were maxing out the old potential as people that didn't (it's ~200 % stronger for the worst case, and ~50 % for people that are pretty close to the best case.)
And on top of that, you can use mit more often than before.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Base is buffed, so everyone who uses it (which is probably mostly NPC's at the moment) get's buffed.
Already asked that in another thread . uhm does this mean that Borg STF opponents will now hit me with 300% more effective tachyon beams? According to STO Wiki they use tachyon beams.
I mean we could talk about a nerf to game here after all, just a different one.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Already asked that in another thread . uhm does this mean that Borg STF opponents will now hit me with 300% more effective tachyon beams? According to STO Wiki they use tachyon beams.
I mean we could talk about a nerf to game here after all, just a different one.
Yeah, think in that thread he say's anything using a boggo tachyon beam will be buffed.
Sphere's use a boggo tachyon beam. It'll be fun getting knacked by a swarm of them now.
Cool,thanks for the useful info,if you dont mind quick question regarding the Pathfinder T6.
Should i be patient and keep on saving for the intrepid bundle? In that case i could use all 3 consoles,is it really that good and like not having it will be like a majoy loss or just getting the one ship is good enough?
To be honest im like 100 Zen short of the pathfinder at the moment but dont think i will have the patience/willpower nor the time to get the extra 2500 Zen i need for the bundle.
Cheers
I forgot the set bonuses, to be honest, but I don't remember the consoles being that exciting. (If anything, the Ablative Armor console is neat if only for that special effect.) But I'd ask that in a seperate thread, my opinion is not neccessarily the best.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Having read Bort's post on the matter I feel a little better about this, I'm still going to keep the pitchfork and the torch handy though, just in case.
Having read Bort's post on the matter I feel a little better about this, I'm still going to keep the pitchfork and the torch handy though, just in case.
TB was useless garbage before, and pretty much nobody used it. Even past the fact it was highly situational (who cares about draining a not shielded mob like a Borg gate ?), the effect itself was barely noticeable.
Even if they removed it completely from the game, I don't think anyone would miss it.
As for nerfing the entire science gameplay by nerfing TB ? Lol yeah. I'm pretty sure GW, various power drain and TBR are screaming in agony right now.
Finally, I've read that as a buff. Not that I actually cares much, I never use TB on any of my character/ship, even on my wells.
TB was useless garbage before, and pretty much nobody used it. Even past the fact it was highly situational (who cares about draining a not shielded mob like a Borg gate ?), the effect itself was barely noticeable.
Even if they removed it completely from the game, I don't think anyone would miss it.
As for nerfing the entire science gameplay by nerfing TB ? Lol yeah. I'm pretty sure GW, various power drain and TBR are screaming in agony right now.
Finally, I've read that as a buff. Not that I actually cares much, I never use TB on any of my character/ship, even on my wells.
It isn't.
1) Even if Tachyon Beam got worse - you may not even use it. (Since it at least used to be a bad power, most peope are not using it.)
2) The actual data from the developer (see here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1380771) indicates it's a net buff, though the change is not as significant as for people that already were maxing out the old potential as people that didn't (it's ~200 % stronger for the worst case, and ~50 % for people that are pretty close to the best case.)
And on top of that, you can use mit more often than before.
Best case scenario is either 30%/or lower. I was going to test with ROM T5 to get the numbers at 539 flow caps but I can't so we'll never know how low it is up there.
Having read Bort's post on the matter I feel a little better about this, I'm still going to keep the pitchfork and the torch handy though, just in case.
The pitchfork was never needed. The OP was totally off-base and overreacting. Basic reading skills showed nothing wrong with the quoted notes. I was sitting there scratching my head at his reaction.
TB was useless garbage before, and pretty much nobody used it. Even past the fact it was highly situational (who cares about draining a not shielded mob like a Borg gate ?), the effect itself was barely noticeable.
Indeed. I don't care about base strength much... but how about it's actually effective, cryptic? If I use it against a voth ship, guess what? I can't tell the difference. If I use it against a vaadwuar spam ship, there's no impact. If I use it against a Citadel? Nada. Zip. The problem is NPC mechanics are so fubar right now that you MUST kill most ships through bleedthrough damage alone. The shields regenerate so fast even with 5 really good playesr on a team, many enemies die with 100% shields still up. This is a fact, especially for boss ships. It's nonsense.
How about the following to make Tachyon Beam more effective:
Add one proc to it. Just one. Leave everything else the same.
The pitchfork was never needed. The OP was totally off-base and overreacting. Basic reading skills showed nothing wrong with the quoted notes. I was sitting there scratching my head at his reaction.
Some people just need to whine about everything. Otherwise they would blow up. Justified or not isn't important to them. You could take away half of everybody's ECs and give them back three times what they had before and some guys would still whine about it and threaten to quit the game.
Many new powers, traits, console, weapon effects are based on the exotic effects of science bridge officer abilities. Not many people fly dedicated science ships so why not take these abilities and put them in consoles or whatever, so that any Captain can deploy these effects with any ship class.
I am not saying they should not do so, in fact it adds variety to the game, and of course it is part of ship design Philosophy to have weapons or a ship system to cause or apply a special effect, be it more damage or some anomaly in space.
But the issue is, each time they do so, they may have to adjust the original science bridge officer ability. This is sometimes good and sometimes bad. And in addition that Captain who wants to fly a dedicated Science Ship may feel left out. Why waste a bridge officer slot with Tachyon Beam for example when you can deploy a turret that does it for you. Or why waste a Bridge Officer slot with photonic shockwave when you can make your torpedoes harness the effect through a console. I repeat, this is not a bad thing as, if you have the effect on a console, you can free up space to use some other ability.
I just hope that, this change does not make the use of the ability on a dedicated science ship feel weaker compared to the newly designed ability on these new ships. Yes you want to make money, I do agree. But please do so without damaging the reputation of a Science Vessels.
I wonder which ability they will do next...oh wait all of them seems to have been tossed around, nerfed or improved and effects made available on consoles, Duty Officers, traits...etc already. Tachyon Beam on a turret is now bringing another additional design change, good or bad, we will know in time. Bravo.
Console or not console, a Science vessel remains versatile in battle with all these abilities still in hand. She may not be able to go in with blazing guns, or rather beams and cannons (though some do that very well), but she retains the ability to turn the tides of battle while messing with the enemy, slowly destroying them. Unfortunately in time though every other captain will be able to do that to some degree if not to full effect due to the way things are going. Only time will tell.
This reminds me of a conversation I had few years ago with a fellow player. We reasoned that, though not a new thing among other players here on the forums, why many players do not fly dedicated science vessels with full science bridge officer seatings is because they do not understand how to synegize the numerous exotic abilities that are available to them, in otherwords a science heavy build. Then ofcourse you have DPS on the other too. Sad really.
Tachyon beam gets a bad rap because of incorrect expectations.
It is lackluster for stripping shields.
It does a fairly good job of keeping shields that are already depleted down long enough for the torps to hit.
People also forget that it is on top of whatever weapon damage you are doing, so saying that weapons do more is irrelevant. I don't stop shooting just because I slotted tachyon beam.
That said, I only slot it in 3 cases:
1. I'm running heavy sci, and I'm starting to run out of relevant skills that don't share cooldowns.
2. I'm running Deflector Officers and I want another ability on deflectors to fish for procs.
3. I'm running heavy flow caps, so I am trying to get the most out of my gear.
It's not a bad gap filler, and I have a sneaking suspicion if we could parse it properly it's effectiveness would surprise us.
I once again match my character. Behold the power of PINK!
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
Are you sure about that? Because players that tried it reported in chat that it still sucked against NPCs. Meanwhile just about every NPC is instantly sucking shields dry now.
It was a buff... for the NPCs. Used against players and their limited shields and shield heals, it's lethal. Used against BS NPCs with infinite regeneration and heals? Does nothing, still. Same as before.
Comments
From that I read:
Base is buffed, so everyone who uses it (which is probably mostly NPC's at the moment) get's buffed.
Skill-based benefits reduced in amount of increase. This could be slightly dodgy, but bear in mind that people generally put points in flow caps and run high aux for completely different reasons than to buff tachyon beam, it'll have to be a mahoosive reduction to annoy that many people.
imo, tbh, gsoh, etc etc.
Edit/
If anyone's interested (and in case I tidy this bit of paper away before this evening):
TB3 as of pre-patch 19/02/2015:
flow caps: Aux Power: Drain per pulse:
292 121 1023.7
292 96 873.3
257 121 930.7
257 96 793.5
219 121 830
219 96 793.5
182 121 734.9
182 96 626.6
144 121 637
144 96 543.1
114 121 558.7
114 96 461
If I get very bored in the next hour I may stick some more data re: different power levels in
1) Even if Tachyon Beam got worse - you may not even use it. (Since it at least used to be a bad power, most peope are not using it.)
2) The actual data from the developer (see here: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1380771) indicates it's a net buff, though the change is not as significant as for people that already were maxing out the old potential as people that didn't (it's ~200 % stronger for the worst case, and ~50 % for people that are pretty close to the best case.)
And on top of that, you can use mit more often than before.
Already asked that in another thread . uhm does this mean that Borg STF opponents will now hit me with 300% more effective tachyon beams? According to STO Wiki they use tachyon beams.
I mean we could talk about a nerf to game here after all, just a different one.
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
Yeah, think in that thread he say's anything using a boggo tachyon beam will be buffed.
Sphere's use a boggo tachyon beam. It'll be fun getting knacked by a swarm of them now.
I forgot the set bonuses, to be honest, but I don't remember the consoles being that exciting. (If anything, the Ablative Armor console is neat if only for that special effect.) But I'd ask that in a seperate thread, my opinion is not neccessarily the best.
Bearing in mind veteran ship console gives a tachyon inversion beam, I would think that power is not affected seeing as Borticus said this:
Edit/ Also, how is an increase in effectiveness a nerf?
Even if they removed it completely from the game, I don't think anyone would miss it.
As for nerfing the entire science gameplay by nerfing TB ? Lol yeah. I'm pretty sure GW, various power drain and TBR are screaming in agony right now.
Finally, I've read that as a buff. Not that I actually cares much, I never use TB on any of my character/ship, even on my wells.
Except in PvP. Quite useful there.
Best case scenario is either 30%/or lower. I was going to test with ROM T5 to get the numbers at 539 flow caps but I can't so we'll never know how low it is up there.
Where do you get that from my post? I'll admit I never mentioned the scope but at the same time I never mentioned the scope of a potential nerf.
The pitchfork was never needed. The OP was totally off-base and overreacting. Basic reading skills showed nothing wrong with the quoted notes. I was sitting there scratching my head at his reaction.
Indeed. I don't care about base strength much... but how about it's actually effective, cryptic? If I use it against a voth ship, guess what? I can't tell the difference. If I use it against a vaadwuar spam ship, there's no impact. If I use it against a Citadel? Nada. Zip. The problem is NPC mechanics are so fubar right now that you MUST kill most ships through bleedthrough damage alone. The shields regenerate so fast even with 5 really good playesr on a team, many enemies die with 100% shields still up. This is a fact, especially for boss ships. It's nonsense.
How about the following to make Tachyon Beam more effective:
Add one proc to it. Just one. Leave everything else the same.
"Set NPC shield regeneration to 0 for 20 seconds"
THAT WOULD MAKE IT USEFUL!
Sorry! I have no idea how that happened, I just clicked Quote.
Some people just need to whine about everything. Otherwise they would blow up. Justified or not isn't important to them. You could take away half of everybody's ECs and give them back three times what they had before and some guys would still whine about it and threaten to quit the game.
I am not saying they should not do so, in fact it adds variety to the game, and of course it is part of ship design Philosophy to have weapons or a ship system to cause or apply a special effect, be it more damage or some anomaly in space.
But the issue is, each time they do so, they may have to adjust the original science bridge officer ability. This is sometimes good and sometimes bad. And in addition that Captain who wants to fly a dedicated Science Ship may feel left out. Why waste a bridge officer slot with Tachyon Beam for example when you can deploy a turret that does it for you. Or why waste a Bridge Officer slot with photonic shockwave when you can make your torpedoes harness the effect through a console. I repeat, this is not a bad thing as, if you have the effect on a console, you can free up space to use some other ability.
I just hope that, this change does not make the use of the ability on a dedicated science ship feel weaker compared to the newly designed ability on these new ships. Yes you want to make money, I do agree. But please do so without damaging the reputation of a Science Vessels.
I wonder which ability they will do next...oh wait all of them seems to have been tossed around, nerfed or improved and effects made available on consoles, Duty Officers, traits...etc already. Tachyon Beam on a turret is now bringing another additional design change, good or bad, we will know in time. Bravo.
Console or not console, a Science vessel remains versatile in battle with all these abilities still in hand. She may not be able to go in with blazing guns, or rather beams and cannons (though some do that very well), but she retains the ability to turn the tides of battle while messing with the enemy, slowly destroying them. Unfortunately in time though every other captain will be able to do that to some degree if not to full effect due to the way things are going. Only time will tell.
This reminds me of a conversation I had few years ago with a fellow player. We reasoned that, though not a new thing among other players here on the forums, why many players do not fly dedicated science vessels with full science bridge officer seatings is because they do not understand how to synegize the numerous exotic abilities that are available to them, in otherwords a science heavy build. Then ofcourse you have DPS on the other too. Sad really.
We know the low end got buffed, which makes it good for things that don't scale well, like NPCs and baddies.
It seems to be about a 30% increase for extremely high flow caps/aux power and a larger % as you go down. All in all it's a buff for everyone.
Tachyon beam gets a bad rap because of incorrect expectations.
It is lackluster for stripping shields.
It does a fairly good job of keeping shields that are already depleted down long enough for the torps to hit.
People also forget that it is on top of whatever weapon damage you are doing, so saying that weapons do more is irrelevant. I don't stop shooting just because I slotted tachyon beam.
That said, I only slot it in 3 cases:
1. I'm running heavy sci, and I'm starting to run out of relevant skills that don't share cooldowns.
2. I'm running Deflector Officers and I want another ability on deflectors to fish for procs.
3. I'm running heavy flow caps, so I am trying to get the most out of my gear.
It's not a bad gap filler, and I have a sneaking suspicion if we could parse it properly it's effectiveness would surprise us.
Fleet Admiral Space Orphidian Possiblities Wizard
It was a buff... for the NPCs. Used against players and their limited shields and shield heals, it's lethal. Used against BS NPCs with infinite regeneration and heals? Does nothing, still. Same as before.