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Why are Phasers weak?
antiquesroadshow
Member Posts: 227 Arc User
Since I have played the game for 2 years, the biggest "immersive" dissapointment is phaser weapon type. Why is it that phaser weapons,..one of the most iconic weapons in the star trek universe, reduced to 3rd hand damage types? I hate the fact that I have to run anti-proton villain weapons to get great dps on a fed ship!! This kills the immersive feeling I'm suppose to get when playing the game. I understand in pvp their suppose to be good, but I dont pvp. Why did criptic do this? I haven't seen much complaint about this on forums, but people talk about it in chat all the time. I wish I could take a vote to see how many people would want to change this. What gives Criptic?.. Make Phasers iconic again!!
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The only time the Phaser proc adds any damage is when it procs shields...and is a 25% chance to happen on a 2.5% chance to proc...not to mention like I said npc's will recover almost instantly in most cases.
But why? What mechanic do they have that makes them better?
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
They don't have a proc...they have a flat crit bonus instead of a proc and everyone who tries to do high dps stacks crit
True but only if you use original recipe AP.
And if you're min maxing like that then sacrifices, like looks, are necessary.
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Occidere populo et effercio confractus
However, if you account for optimal build/ships/pilots, etc., phasers are probably one of the most powerful weapons out there due to the Nadeon Bomb Console.
Most weapons have a "proc", IOW a chance, typically 2.5% per shot of applying some special effect. In Phaser's case, it disables a random subsystem of the enemy ship for a short while. This isn't that useful, as NPC ships recover from this so fast.
Antiproton is an exception in that it doesn't have a proc. It's special bonus is an extra rarity bonus, like crit chance, crit damage, accuracy etc. Especially an extra 20% crit damage bonus is wildly more useful than the proc from a phaser, as with just that bonus, you'll be doing 170% damage with each critical hit, instead of 150%. Even if it's something else than the crit damage bonus, it's always there, and doesn't need luck to work, unlike the proc on a phaser.
Every so often Cryptic nerfs something so that you have to have the latest shiny DPS monster weapon. They do not seek to have a balance of weaponry. With each foreign weapon of the enemy we get overwhelmed with a new lockbox. Plain and simple it is a sheer moneygrab without any thought to those of us who actually prefer to play iconic Federation or iconic Empire captains.
Proof: What ever happened to buying or acquiring weaponry from Section 31? Why haven't we even heard a peep from Drake?
The failure on storylining the intentions of the Federation and the Empire is disastrous. The results we captains are not privy to Starfleet Intelligence yet we are expected to go out and fight the flavored enemy of the day without any background as to why we are at war with them.
I have never understood why these people who run this game decide that the Federation weaponry is so pathetic in comparison to every other type of weaponry. Phasers were good for Kirk, Picard, and Janeway so why do they suck so bad in-game? Why can't we simply balance the weaponry?
There needs to be a scale of weaponry
Phasers
Disruptors
Antiproton
Chroniton/Temporal
Plasma
Tetryon
Polaron
Protonic
Kinetic
Exotic
It is my position that when a new power comes available that we should be able to go to our respective Intelligence Agencies and acquire a countermeasure. In the very least we need to be able to craft the latest addition to our current weapons.
Crafting at level 60 needs to allow us to select the area of expertise and extend it up to 4X the current power.
Acc
Crit D
Crit H
Exotic Dmg
Kinetic Dmg
How about this [Shield Penetration 20%] up to a total of 80% for HYT skills
No one weapon type should be more powerful than any other it should be up to the captain to decide what weapon type best fits the players gaming style.
Because stacking critD is good and antiproton complements that. Also it's the only weapon type bonus that's a passive effect and not a proc (unless you think scoring a critical hit counts as a proc).
And from what I've seen, this discussion has been about the weapons. If a single console gives a whole class of weapons some supposed uber status, it's the console and not the weapons that's powerful.
Oh, neat. Thanks for the correction. I'm not an antiproton enthusiast myself, but my fleet seems to have several, and my knowledge is based on what I've overheard.
As I said this only accounts for original AP and critical are almost a proc, they are just a proc you can buff.
And like I said minmaxing requires sacrafice.
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Occidere populo et effercio confractus
The critical severity is a constant effect. 2.5% procs are a chance to do "x" mechanic. A constant effect will always out perform a chance effect.
Also, most procs can be buffed with captain skills. Like the flow capacitor skill increases the shield damage of Tetryon weapons and the power drain of Polarons. However, a flat bonus will still out perform any buffs in PvE because our enemies are stupid HP bags. Which makes AP and Disruptors weapons of choice.
I've had 30k phaser builds, others have pushed much higher. But AP will always out damage any other type of weapon.
If looks are a factor for examining weapons, the art subforum is elsewhere. It has nothing to do with min/maxing.
I really wish they would build a minute proc bonus ( like .5 percent acc for 5 seconds or something) to offset the immunity.
Basically, phasers were highly accurate weapons and could disable another vessel's subsystems through pin-point targeting. To express that high accuracy, the Devs gave phasers their current proc.
The innate subsystem targeting of science ship was possibly also built off that same idea (science ships were Fed-only back at the beginning) - non-coincidentally, those innate powers are also pretty lame.
...
In hindsight, a +10% to accuracy boost (mirroring the critD boost AP gets) would've possibly been more appropriate than something oh-so-random and ineffective.
Ok my point got lost somewhere.
If you want canon weapons then get canon weapons.
If you want max deeps, then your stuck with whatever does max deeps. Asking for more deeps on your favorite piece of canon is the same as asking for x ship to be uber cause in x series or x episode it did uber things.
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
^ This. I'm partial to the phased biomatter weapons. With disruptors and tetryons also being favorites. However my highest DPS build, which the devs have built the game around, is antiproton.
I actually mix my AP weapons on my AP builds.
I also feel fluidic ap and elachi disruptor may be superior
Not everything you see on the internet is true - Abraham Lincoln
Occidere populo et effercio confractus
If you take account both are Dual beam bank with 5 tac consoles and using crtdx3pen mk 14 epics. On that scenario, The only advantage of AP is 20% critd which is around 5% damage advantage over a standard phaser. That means a phased Biomatter Phaser damage difference is smaller but its pretty expensive to bring the mod to critdx3pen.
The difference between Phaser and Antiproton is small and would only make a lot of difference if you are competing for top DPS.
So if the average player is doing 10k DPS on Antiproton, shedding 500 DPS for phasers to look authentic.
You can still get Phasers with [CrtD]x3. You can still have the same Crit rates. Your damage will just be slightly lower. Phasers aren't underpowered in any way. You just won't be mix/max'ing your DPS.
Really, you can fly just about any ship with any build and succeed in PvE. It's just a matter of how long it will take. And it's not like Phasers are going to take that much longer, probably a few seconds at best.
AFAIK, that was never changed. Phasers can still disable shields.
That's just my point. Anti-Proton are the defacto No.1 weapon type. Why is that. Either buff phasers or nerf Anti-proton. Phasers should be on par with the No. 1 best weapon damage in game. As I said before, phasers are iconic, not anti-proton.