I don't usually care about science skills. I can hit Nadian or EPS to deal with power drains, or just use my resting 84 to power insulators. I've got ST and that one intel spec to clear Jam and Scramble Sensors or Subnuc. I've got ET for Viral or subsystem targeting. I'll use APO or EM for Grav wells, I'll use PH or APO for Tractors or TBR's. FBP I usually just hit EF and Fleet Technician out-heals or comes close to matching the damage of.
The thing is, most of those things you've mentioned are pretty weak in PvE. There isn't a single power drain I have to be afraid of in PvE. The Breen Energy Siphon is horrible and always the first thing they throw at you, and the Voth Tyken's can be brushed off mostly by PI. I can't recall if I've ever been hit by Scramble or Jam in PvE and I think only one NPC uses Subnuc but I can be mistaken on that one. I have a full human crew that counteracts VM. If any NPC uses subsystem targeting, again, it's junk compared to the devastating attack it could deliver if it were skilled. NPCs tractors and TBR are also a joke.
The only reason tachyon beam is causing you problems is because you insist on aggroing a mob of spheres with your FAW therefore making them all use tachyon beam on you at the same time. Frankly, I'm glad they did this to stop the FAW madness and make people think before they go shooting left and right.
As for "I shouldn't have to change my build because of a single ability", well, that's how it works. You have to adapt to the realities of each STF.
I'm flying an Elachi Sheshar. (Comparison ship is the Fed Command Cruisers)
I was more talking for average players than your ship build specifically. How much trouble are you having with something like that? With either a Command Cruiser or Xindi-Aquatic carrier, I'd still rate the current difficulty lower than Season 5 or 6 ISE, and I have far more get-out-of-respawn-queue-free options. Though, I'm spec'd heavier into Power Insulators and have far more armor with 2x Neutronium[turn](carry-overs from other builds really, but really helps hull-tanking now that's a thing again). I end up with a fair bit of aggro in ISA, so it's not survivability by under-shooting, though I don't have hard numbers to back it up.
If you just mean that you can't quite zombie tank it anymore, I guess I'd have to agree that my experience matches yours. That's just Cryptic's way of enhancing the queues by taking elements from the less popular queues and giving to the more popular queues, you know, so you don't have to feel forced into playing a given queue, because that's just logical.
Edit:
I'm wondering if tactics come into play as well, as one of my first instincts is to kite enemies for divide and conquer. Getting them into smaller groups than main spawn/post-gravity well ball means less Tachyon Beams on me, and more importantly less torps going to bare hull after TB drains away my shields.
I don't normally make videos, but when I do they're pretty bad.
No awesome FX, transitions, nor edits...no groovy tunes...er...no audio at all.
Not sure there's anything to see in it, though that could be that I'm starting to fall asleep at the keyboard here. But nah, I honestly don't think there's anything to see in it. I fly around in circles. Oh wait, while flying around in circles on the second Trans I get stuck in it.
I mean, it's over 12 minutes long. Didn't bug me to fly it - but watching it? That was kind of tedious.
Speaking of which...
WARNING: The time you waste, even a few seconds, in watching the following video is a part of your life you can never get back.
WARNING: This is not a build recommendation in the least, so please do not take it that way in the least. I just really dig the special FX for the Vaad Arrays and the Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile.
Players A & C actually got 10k invites from that run. Player B did not participate long enough in the run (540/697) for CLR to consider their DPS (for those that missed out on the enjoyment of the video...ZzzzZzzzZzzz...Player B appears to have had a desync/disconnect thing, where they ended up just flying in a straight line to the edge of the map).
Oh my, the highest tanking engineering in the game has spoken. All hallowed is jarvisandalfred.
Jesus Christ.
In your rush to insult him, you seemed to miss the basic point he was trying to make. If one of the few players that has successfully tanked HSE, one of the hardest and most tanky-necessary STFs in the game, is now having a problem with ISA, what was once one of the easiest STFs, perhaps the issues with the buff to enemy Tachyon Beams shouldn't be casually brushed aside.
"There will never be enough blood to wash away my need for vengeance! A single world...I could destroy a million worlds and it would not be enough! Your existence is an insult to the memory of my people! I will continue my fight, even if I must fight alone!"
In your rush to insult him, you seemed to miss the basic point he was trying to make. If one of the few players that has successfully tanked HSE, one of the hardest and most tanky-necessary STFs in the game, is now having a problem with ISA, what was once one of the easiest STFs, perhaps the issues with the buff to enemy Tachyon Beams shouldn't be casually brushed aside.
For a supposedly "succesful tank" not to know how to cleanse and get past a simple hazard, I completely disagree on him having that title.
And as I've said earlier before: You do NOT need any fancy Specialization ability, you do NOT need a Command ship, you do NOT need any fancy gear. You do NOT need fancy ships. You don't even need to spend 1 single specialization point in Command nor Intel. You are not even required to use any Command nor Intel abilities. Command has some special tools but you know what?
The tools to protect yourself from Tachyon Beam, the tools to remove the dangers of Tachyon Beam, the tools to recover from drastic shield loss... Are all already in the base game without doing anything that special, not requiring anything that exotic to equip.
You guys here ranting that you have to spend or get a special ship or some other special item to get by showcases what little people in STO really know.
YOU GUYS ARE STRUGGLING WITH SURVIVING A SIMPLE HAZARD.
I like the idea of mixing things up some but after actually doing a test run I think they overdid it a little. You do something simple like throw a GW+Spread combo on a sphere wave, in range for just a few seconds and not FAWing, but since that aggroed the lot of them you still eat 6 TBs and your shields are gone in a flash even with ~100 in PI. Not sure what more of a counter there is since its not technically a debuff so can't be hard-countered, and no heal is going to keep up with that level of drain short of maybe chained RSPs. Rock & Roll works to a point but given R&R's duration and cooldown vs the sheer number of spheres involved thats not really feasible for the entire mission. Given the multipliers Borg torps get once they actually hit hull, hull tanking isn't really a practical approach. Nukara mines with DPB maybe, thought kinda silly to gear a ship just for one specific enemy spawn in one specific mission. Scramble Sensors maybe (if in a premade team), or would they drain you off before the SS took effect, and only have half a second from their jacked-up resistances anyways? Hmm.
I dunno. I get the bad feeling the 'solution' is just going to be the usual 'such volume of fire they never complete the TB cycle.' Without any straightforward counters, its certainly less pug friendly. I just hope they fine-tune it rather than either 1 meganerf it or 2 leave it as-is.
Not specced into Power Insulators, don't make me laugh! I've got about 150 points in Power Insulators and all that means is it takes a fraction of a second (literally) longer for the Tachyon Beam to drain my shield than if I had 0 points.
Almost nothing is pug friendly in space anymore. A CEA every half hour is about the only queued content that dose not have "I won't try that in a pug again" nonsense attached to it.
Don't play it anymore, I don't. And I have a tanking cruiser built to handle it. One captain cannot make enough of a difference in that lopsided environment to overcome a lack of teamwork.
Stay away form pugging. It's a frustration trap, it's punitive and demeaning, and Crytpic dose not care about your feelings.
Now now, who will be hurt by the changes? Correct: Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players, otherwise known as around 80% of the games population, maybe even more.
I played ISA a few times now in a pug, tanked it quite fine, no big deal compared to before. Now, do you seriously think we DPS Wizards will get any dent in the hull by this change? Seriously? Of course not. And after even the last one of our apprentices has gotten the memo "How to migitade drain" the dps-crowd will march through queues like we always do.
Next week we get a plasmadope-fix and a EAP-Fix. Dont think that would hinder us wizards. Sure, some of our apprentices will have problems, but eventually, even they wont be hindered much. Who will be hindered are of course Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players.
DR was the try, the hard try of the devs to hinder us. And we just snapped with our fingers and went through the enemies like we did pre-DR.
Lets make sure ppl understand: The very moment they buff an enemy or nerf gear/ability, we wizards are not affected, but those who dont know mechanics are (e.g. the biggest part of the playerbase).
The moment they make a dent by us, its a mortal wound for the playerbase. They tried with DR, fortunately they failed. Still, we see were the queues are now.
People mock what they don't or can't understand. You'll get there one day, mate! Keep trying!
Having skimmed some of the back and forth there, would say that it was a setup to elicit that particular comment so the mocking could be made...put somebody on the defensive, eventually if it matters to them in the least...tada, what took place there. Basically...some basic trolling.
Now now, who will be hurt by the changes? Correct: Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players, otherwise known as around 80% of the games population, maybe even more.
I played ISA a few times now in a pug, tanked it quite fine, no big deal compared to before. Now, do you seriously think we DPS Wizards will get any dent in the hull by thing change? Seriously? Of course not. And after even the last one of our apprentices has gotten the memo "How to migitade drain" the dps-crowd will march through queues like we always do.
Next week we get a plasmadope-fix and a EAP-Fix. Dont think that would hinder us wizards. Sure, some of our apprentices will have problems, but eventually, even they wont be hindered much. Who will be hindered will be of course Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players.
DR was the try, the hard try of the devs to hinder us. And we just snapped with our fingers and went through the enemies like we did pre-DR.
Lets make sure ppl understand: The very moment they buff an enemy or nerf gear/ability, we wizards are not affected, but those who dont know mechanics are (e.g. the biggest part of the playerbase).
The moment they make a dent by us, its a mortal wound for the playerbase. They tried with DR, fortunately that wasnt a dent. Still, we see were the queues are now.
LOL Insult him?? Oh my god, I can't believe you...
I don't understand some people that want everything to be so easy. You can't even consider the fact that HSE might actually be broken instead, the HSE npcs not using the correct version of tachyon beam with ISA working as intended.
I haven't tried HSE post Tachyon change. I have tried HSN, and I know that got affected.
Let me re-iterate this, once again.
7 days ago, I was the only one in the game who could tank HSE, and one of few who could beat it in the first place. ISA was laughably easy.
Today, I can't tank ISA.
I have HE and ST, and I know how to use them. I do, in fact, have copious amounts of power insulators (a skill of 84), high amounts of shield and hull capacity, resists, and healing, and I still have issues.
There is one person who might understand more mechanics than I do, and that would be virusdancer. There are some people who have beaten my dps, and know a bit more about raw dps than I do. But, the fact that I'm the game's highest dps'ing non-tactical captain, the fact that I am the only person to have ever tanked HSE, the fact that I introduced several members of the dps-leagues to tanking, to the point where I'm frequently requested by people in DPS-75k (though they can just ask in that channel, since I got a tank into it), should tell you that I actually know what I'm talking about.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
But, ehm, now I have to ask too: Why? I did it with my recluse and my Ody with the previously used setups. Just add a bit more heals, cycle Aux2Sif 3 (for heal and for dmgres) and you will be fine.
The Buff to TB only hurts the grand amount of the playerbase, someone from the higher dpschans and -in your case- one who can tank HSE shouldnt have the slightest problem with this -minor- change.
I like the idea of mixing things up some but after actually doing a test run I think they overdid it a little. You do something simple like throw a GW+Spread combo on a sphere wave, in range for just a few seconds and not FAWing, but since that aggroed the lot of them you still eat 6 TBs and your shields are gone in a flash even with ~100 in PI. Not sure what more of a counter there is since its not technically a debuff so can't be hard-countered, and no heal is going to keep up with that level of drain short of maybe chained RSPs. Rock & Roll works to a point but given R&R's duration and cooldown vs the sheer number of spheres involved thats not really feasible for the entire mission. Given the multipliers Borg torps get once they actually hit hull, hull tanking isn't really a practical approach. Nukara mines with DPB maybe, thought kinda silly to gear a ship just for one specific enemy spawn in one specific mission. Scramble Sensors maybe (if in a premade team), or would they drain you off before the SS took effect, and only have half a second from their jacked-up resistances anyways? Hmm.
I dunno. I get the bad feeling the 'solution' is just going to be the usual 'such volume of fire they never complete the TB cycle.' Without any straightforward counters, its certainly less pug friendly. I just hope they fine-tune it rather than either 1 meganerf it or 2 leave it as-is.
Add a drain boat with Tykens, Tachyon Beams stop being a problem. Low or no aux, crappy tachyon beam.
nah there's no bragging in these forums - teeheee.
I didn't notice the change personally. Assimilated set.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard: "We think we've come so far. Torture of heretics, burning of witches, it's all ancient history. Then - before you can blink an eye - suddenly it threatens to start all over again."
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
Comments
You jest. People have said things like that in all seriousness. Your loss.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Yes. Some of them even think I'm a clueless idiot.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
Did you mean here, where I said
?
Because that was in the context of 'I can deal with them just fine.'
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
The thing is, most of those things you've mentioned are pretty weak in PvE. There isn't a single power drain I have to be afraid of in PvE. The Breen Energy Siphon is horrible and always the first thing they throw at you, and the Voth Tyken's can be brushed off mostly by PI. I can't recall if I've ever been hit by Scramble or Jam in PvE and I think only one NPC uses Subnuc but I can be mistaken on that one. I have a full human crew that counteracts VM. If any NPC uses subsystem targeting, again, it's junk compared to the devastating attack it could deliver if it were skilled. NPCs tractors and TBR are also a joke.
The only reason tachyon beam is causing you problems is because you insist on aggroing a mob of spheres with your FAW therefore making them all use tachyon beam on you at the same time. Frankly, I'm glad they did this to stop the FAW madness and make people think before they go shooting left and right.
As for "I shouldn't have to change my build because of a single ability", well, that's how it works. You have to adapt to the realities of each STF.
I was more talking for average players than your ship build specifically. How much trouble are you having with something like that? With either a Command Cruiser or Xindi-Aquatic carrier, I'd still rate the current difficulty lower than Season 5 or 6 ISE, and I have far more get-out-of-respawn-queue-free options. Though, I'm spec'd heavier into Power Insulators and have far more armor with 2x Neutronium[turn](carry-overs from other builds really, but really helps hull-tanking now that's a thing again). I end up with a fair bit of aggro in ISA, so it's not survivability by under-shooting, though I don't have hard numbers to back it up.
If you just mean that you can't quite zombie tank it anymore, I guess I'd have to agree that my experience matches yours. That's just Cryptic's way of enhancing the queues by taking elements from the less popular queues and giving to the more popular queues, you know, so you don't have to feel forced into playing a given queue, because that's just logical.
Edit:
I'm wondering if tactics come into play as well, as one of my first instincts is to kite enemies for divide and conquer. Getting them into smaller groups than main spawn/post-gravity well ball means less Tachyon Beams on me, and more importantly less torps going to bare hull after TB drains away my shields.
No awesome FX, transitions, nor edits...no groovy tunes...er...no audio at all.
Not sure there's anything to see in it, though that could be that I'm starting to fall asleep at the keyboard here. But nah, I honestly don't think there's anything to see in it. I fly around in circles. Oh wait, while flying around in circles on the second Trans I get stuck in it.
I mean, it's over 12 minutes long. Didn't bug me to fly it - but watching it? That was kind of tedious.
Speaking of which...
WARNING: The time you waste, even a few seconds, in watching the following video is a part of your life you can never get back.
But here's a link to the video anyway...
http://youtu.be/D5p_xxxrKGg
Here's a link to the build I flew...
WARNING: This is not a build recommendation in the least, so please do not take it that way in the least. I just really dig the special FX for the Vaad Arrays and the Ferengi Rapid Fire Missile.
www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=xenovirus_5343
Here's a link to a collage of the parse in CLR (sorted each tab to maintain the order throughout the tabs)...
http://i.imgur.com/JlE9FiA.png
Players A & C actually got 10k invites from that run. Player B did not participate long enough in the run (540/697) for CLR to consider their DPS (for those that missed out on the enjoyment of the video...ZzzzZzzzZzzz...Player B appears to have had a desync/disconnect thing, where they ended up just flying in a straight line to the edge of the map).
Well....
...if the boot fits....
Also,
In your rush to insult him, you seemed to miss the basic point he was trying to make. If one of the few players that has successfully tanked HSE, one of the hardest and most tanky-necessary STFs in the game, is now having a problem with ISA, what was once one of the easiest STFs, perhaps the issues with the buff to enemy Tachyon Beams shouldn't be casually brushed aside.
For a supposedly "succesful tank" not to know how to cleanse and get past a simple hazard, I completely disagree on him having that title.
And as I've said earlier before: You do NOT need any fancy Specialization ability, you do NOT need a Command ship, you do NOT need any fancy gear. You do NOT need fancy ships. You don't even need to spend 1 single specialization point in Command nor Intel. You are not even required to use any Command nor Intel abilities. Command has some special tools but you know what?
The tools to protect yourself from Tachyon Beam, the tools to remove the dangers of Tachyon Beam, the tools to recover from drastic shield loss... Are all already in the base game without doing anything that special, not requiring anything that exotic to equip.
You guys here ranting that you have to spend or get a special ship or some other special item to get by showcases what little people in STO really know.
YOU GUYS ARE STRUGGLING WITH SURVIVING A SIMPLE HAZARD.
I dunno. I get the bad feeling the 'solution' is just going to be the usual 'such volume of fire they never complete the TB cycle.' Without any straightforward counters, its certainly less pug friendly. I just hope they fine-tune it rather than either 1 meganerf it or 2 leave it as-is.
Then you're doing it wrong....
People mock what they don't or can't understand. You'll get there one day, mate! Keep trying!
Don't play it anymore, I don't. And I have a tanking cruiser built to handle it. One captain cannot make enough of a difference in that lopsided environment to overcome a lack of teamwork.
Stay away form pugging. It's a frustration trap, it's punitive and demeaning, and Crytpic dose not care about your feelings.
I played ISA a few times now in a pug, tanked it quite fine, no big deal compared to before. Now, do you seriously think we DPS Wizards will get any dent in the hull by this change? Seriously? Of course not. And after even the last one of our apprentices has gotten the memo "How to migitade drain" the dps-crowd will march through queues like we always do.
Next week we get a plasmadope-fix and a EAP-Fix. Dont think that would hinder us wizards. Sure, some of our apprentices will have problems, but eventually, even they wont be hindered much. Who will be hindered are of course Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players.
DR was the try, the hard try of the devs to hinder us. And we just snapped with our fingers and went through the enemies like we did pre-DR.
Lets make sure ppl understand: The very moment they buff an enemy or nerf gear/ability, we wizards are not affected, but those who dont know mechanics are (e.g. the biggest part of the playerbase).
The moment they make a dent by us, its a mortal wound for the playerbase. They tried with DR, fortunately they failed. Still, we see were the queues are now.
Having skimmed some of the back and forth there, would say that it was a setup to elicit that particular comment so the mocking could be made...put somebody on the defensive, eventually if it matters to them in the least...tada, what took place there. Basically...some basic trolling.
I played ISA a few times now in a pug, tanked it quite fine, no big deal compared to before. Now, do you seriously think we DPS Wizards will get any dent in the hull by thing change? Seriously? Of course not. And after even the last one of our apprentices has gotten the memo "How to migitade drain" the dps-crowd will march through queues like we always do.
Next week we get a plasmadope-fix and a EAP-Fix. Dont think that would hinder us wizards. Sure, some of our apprentices will have problems, but eventually, even they wont be hindered much. Who will be hindered will be of course Scrubs and other "none-competetive"-players.
DR was the try, the hard try of the devs to hinder us. And we just snapped with our fingers and went through the enemies like we did pre-DR.
Lets make sure ppl understand: The very moment they buff an enemy or nerf gear/ability, we wizards are not affected, but those who dont know mechanics are (e.g. the biggest part of the playerbase).
The moment they make a dent by us, its a mortal wound for the playerbase. They tried with DR, fortunately that wasnt a dent. Still, we see were the queues are now.
well, how about this:
/doublefacepalm
I haven't tried HSE post Tachyon change. I have tried HSN, and I know that got affected.
Let me re-iterate this, once again.
7 days ago, I was the only one in the game who could tank HSE, and one of few who could beat it in the first place. ISA was laughably easy.
Today, I can't tank ISA.
I have HE and ST, and I know how to use them. I do, in fact, have copious amounts of power insulators (a skill of 84), high amounts of shield and hull capacity, resists, and healing, and I still have issues.
There is one person who might understand more mechanics than I do, and that would be virusdancer. There are some people who have beaten my dps, and know a bit more about raw dps than I do. But, the fact that I'm the game's highest dps'ing non-tactical captain, the fact that I am the only person to have ever tanked HSE, the fact that I introduced several members of the dps-leagues to tanking, to the point where I'm frequently requested by people in DPS-75k (though they can just ask in that channel, since I got a tank into it), should tell you that I actually know what I'm talking about.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
Tacs are overrated.
Game's best wiki
Build questions? Look here!
But, ehm, now I have to ask too: Why? I did it with my recluse and my Ody with the previously used setups. Just add a bit more heals, cycle Aux2Sif 3 (for heal and for dmgres) and you will be fine.
The Buff to TB only hurts the grand amount of the playerbase, someone from the higher dpschans and -in your case- one who can tank HSE shouldnt have the slightest problem with this -minor- change.
Add a drain boat with Tykens, Tachyon Beams stop being a problem. Low or no aux, crappy tachyon beam.
I didn't notice the change personally. Assimilated set.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
only 52 people. that sounds very wrong.
I did few last week.
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