test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Defending against Surgical Strikes
praxi5
Member Posts: 1,562 Arc User
People are saying that it's not difficult to defend against Surgical Strikes and that it's not OP.
I'm curious, what are people using to defend against it?
I hate to use FBP, but at least for someone of my piloting skill, that appears to be the only defense against it; it overwhelms the healing of a HE + TSS + TacTeam combo, my Vesta's Fermion Field is up only every 2 minutes (and sometimes isn't enough), and Scramble doesn't seem to faze most people. BTS: Weapons is laughable, Rock and Roll only buys you a few seconds, and even with EPtE + DOff'd Aux to ID, I still get melted.
BO/Bio HY Crits are quite high, but I can sometimes manage those because it's not a constant string of 20-60k+ hits.
Am I just teh suck? Or am I missing something?
I'm curious, what are people using to defend against it?
I hate to use FBP, but at least for someone of my piloting skill, that appears to be the only defense against it; it overwhelms the healing of a HE + TSS + TacTeam combo, my Vesta's Fermion Field is up only every 2 minutes (and sometimes isn't enough), and Scramble doesn't seem to faze most people. BTS: Weapons is laughable, Rock and Roll only buys you a few seconds, and even with EPtE + DOff'd Aux to ID, I still get melted.
BO/Bio HY Crits are quite high, but I can sometimes manage those because it's not a constant string of 20-60k+ hits.
Am I just teh suck? Or am I missing something?
Post edited by praxi5 on
0
Comments
geko would agree naab
Doesn't really help against vapers who will prey on ya, waiting for it to go on cool down or for it to be subnuked.
Suppression fire will help once its acc bug is fixed.
And nonoe is saying it isn't op lol!
For those vapers, you could potentially use the Nukara shield and the polarize hull doffs. Not perfect, but one or two of the hits could get back at them.
The S'Golth with the Silent Enemy set for more lolz by building up Haywire.
currently SS boosts DPS per level quite a bit more then CRF, wile also stacking 3 mods worth of crit chance and acc, its utterly absurd. but SS1 seems buged with beams, it actually doesn't increase the DPS at all, not counting the acc and crit boost i mean. actually, it might be the only SS that isn't bugged, skills randomly blowing up in effectiveness far more then they should it pretty much par, just look at the old neutronic.
Tactics that I have used or work effectively that I have seen
1.) Jam Sensors..(Can hit what they cant see as soon as they decloak)
2.) If you fail to Jam or they counter, RR and QSM to absorb the first few hits. (Or use the Kobali console if your Quantum bubble is on cooldown)
3.) Stop them from moving (anchor works if ya can)
4.) Deal out maximum damage. If you can kill a ship in 5-10 seconds then its just a game of who can nullify the other first.
5.) If you kill that ship I suggest using a Mask E sig...Drop it when your abilites are back up..Make them play the game on your terms.
My best choices that have worked have been either a Prtg build or a Drain Build.
Prtg Build for fbp..On a sci ship @ 300 (4 consoles plus the anchor) will net you a 1.1 reflect with 100 to aux (FBP2). Higher with FBP3. Before TT, QSM, APA or TacFleet
I fly a wells and run the Delta Weapons set. Iso-cannon and Isometirc Charge is usually enough to overwhelm my opponents shields and Nearly kill if not kill before following up with torps or beams and or/Doffed TBR. Hit em fast enough and its game over. (Note this is against Phantom and Eclipse)
Drain build/kinetic Build ... Fully specialized into Drain. E Siphon and Tykens (coupled with the Anchor is nasty) will quickly drop that ability into not worth much.. Saw this done with a Palisade running tractor mines and torps.
Tac..again...Jam sensors..and run your nastiest single target abilities.Assuming you've built your ship around those abilities like the Ss'er had to for the wicked spike damage.
Now granted. I am a Tac and fly both Sci and Tac ships...I dont have much to offer for eng/Cruiser..Hopefully someone will.
The biggest problem I had fighting t6 Intels was Ionic turbulence...Now that it no longer auto targets there's really only ss3 to deal with.
Can it be beat..Yea...But you gotta work fast..
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
Besides that - would Evade Target Lock be an option?
A lot of the folks using it...er...telegraph they're coming a week in advance, so yeah - you can wreck all of their fun before it even gets started. There are some folks that you're just wtf dead in 2-4 seconds. There's not much, imho, to complain about with Surgical there because they could do the same thing without Surgical.
Some folks are a wee bit reliant on active buffs for defense rather than base resists, where they might be sporting 20% that they can buff to 40% or the like...and they're just not going to fare as well as the guy that's at 40% that might buff to 50-60%. There's just not going to be the time for that 20% guy.
Just a rough example of some Effective HP...
60k, 20%; 60000 / (1 - 0.2) = 75000
60k, 40%; 60000 / (1 - 0.4) = 100000
60k, 60%; 60000 / (1 - 0.6) = 150000
Same hull, different resists...going to be different opportunities there to do stuff or just wait on the Respawn Button.
Heck, even for somebody that thinks they've got a nifty amount of hull - are they considering their EHP?
95k, 20%; 95000 / (1 - 0.2) = 118750
95k, 40%; 95000 / (1 - 0.4) = 158333
95k, 60%; 95000 / (1 - 0.6) = 237500
Yeah, that 35k difference between the 60k and 95k boat's at 0% DR becomes an 87.5k difference at 60% DR.
Did I ever mention I'm not a fan of all the ratios/percentages in STO?
Lol, this would involve also tgt weapons subsystem 3 and adding extra speed to the Palisade since it's pretty slow. In this case, you drop about 60 to 90 flow caps from the max and probably the drain console in favor of the Bastion console for extra survivability.
Tractor Beams tend to not work either, since their momentum carries them beyond the 5KM fairly easily and having at least 1 PH is pretty much mandatory now, thanks to Particle Manipulator + TBR.
Oh yea..that^ Nice addition. But it works. Ive seen it.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
In short: More Hull + More res = less SS to you.
Diminishing returns. Not everyone with SS will be able to achieve ridiculous, undefinable damage but some people can do so much damage with SS that there's nothing anyone can do. Even zombie tanks/healers are taken out quickly because there's caps on damage resistance but there's no real cap on damage dealt. (I'm not advocating for a cap on dps, but I think the damage resistance formula needs to be looked at again)
__________________________________________________________________________
from:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=22750501#post22750501
I actually agree with bort in this. I think a bit of normalization for damage in PvP would help a lot. Even with a bit less CrtD, SS would still be useful but not ridiculous as it is now. I also like his proposed changes to FBP too. I really like that he has this stuff on his radar. The Neutronic fix has already made pvp a bit better.
That said i still can't help but think reducing the acc bonus would be a better and more immediate fix all round. It would force main maxers into dropping some critd for acc in PvP and actually making them miss with the ability, if it missed I wouldn't be too fussed with its high damage because I could build around defense and and feel I had a chance...you'd have 'dam I missed' vs 'ah OK you got me' like the good ole days.
But to expand more on something addressed a lil in this thread...particle generators. Why in the world can they be buffed up to 454 on a sci ship so a tac officer can alpha and return 300% damage on fbp2? FBP2!!! This is so mind blowing on so many many levels. Why can't I buff my starship weapons training to 454? And why are tac abilities like alpha buffing sci abilities like fbp? So what it does damage it just returns damage that is dealt it shouldn't make it more damage than what is dealt. What are weapons for anyway? Let's all just run fbp circle jerks eventually we'll kill something right? The insanity is real. And shields...oh you may as well just trash those things. This is the 24th century after all. Shields are so 22nd century. The borg have gotten into a pattern of reminding us of this fact.
Don't be distracted by Bort coming and saying... oh my duh didn't know it would do that. Anyone that has played this game for more then 20min knows if you boost an energy weapon to that high a base number its going to get stupid.
Also don't be distracted, by his blowing smoke with the exceptional player TRIBBLE. There is nothing exceptional about it. Load a mk 14 weapon, with a proper number of tac consoles any anyone that can space bar can do 50k+ hits with SS. Its not some super secret hidden squirrel here folks.
They designed SS to be game breaking OP, they decided to further boost the base dmg on MK 14.
The issue is simple flawed game development. Cryptic has this very bad idea that in order for anyone to find a game fun it has to have a level of inbalance standard. There has to always be some "super secret squirrel" power for people to hunt down and feel special for finding. All the broken junk in this game... there not bugs or incompetence, there by design. When enough people figure out that X or Y is OP and BUY it... Cryptic fixes it, and introduces a few intentional balance issues ON PURPOSE every time new stuff comes.
Does anyone really believe there are so stupid that they re-release the same bug every 4th patch... or that more then half the stuff they release "seems" to not quite be right. Newsflash folks THERE NOT STUPID. Its designed that way because Geko has a broken idea of what makes for fun in a game. (what he isn't wrong about is that its a good way to make $)... Hey I was nice I could have said he only pursuing the "broken on purpose" method of game balance because he honestly believes that is what needs to exist for people to like a game, I didn't say he was just a greedy SOB that knows what he is doing.
Seriously folks if your still thinking they could ever balance this thing... realize they don't want to. Not because they hate PvP... no they do it because the believe it makes the game fun. They KNOW it makes them more $. If it was just they where incompetent that would something we could complain about and get them to fix. If I was guessing I would say 95% of all the bugged and OP stuff in the game is there on purpose. They fully know exactly how it will work. Cause even the worst D- Students in community collage aren't that bad.
They were (somehow, amazingly) surprised by how much DPS people could do in PvE, so they bumped up NPC HP. Now they're surprised again that people are doing more damage with a skill that's meant to do more damage?
Because they don't realize all the ways powers can be optimized for max damage. They seem to be surprised when people optimize their builds.
It all comes down to lack of testing and lack of foresight into new mechanics.
Can you tell me more about these proposed FBP changes?
there u go:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=22750171#post22750171
This is because Surgical Strikes users can simply fire SS at an FBPer with their FBP up, and pop Rock & Roll or Quantum Singularity cloak, thus taking zero reflected damage, while killing the FBPer. This should really be classed as an exploit and fixed - FBP is failing to do what it's designed for, countering OP vapes.
Nothing stops your from using rock and roll yourself to avoid the SS.
FBP is already overpowered (reflecting 1 to 3 times the damage with 50% shield pen), let's not make it more so.
Latency does. A competent SS user can kill their target before it can possibly react. Even if the target has FBP, the SS user can simply R&R to bypass it, and still kill the target.
I'm glad it's on the devs' radar.
If they change if from a pulse/blob thing to a beam like they said they might that takes care of the rr immunity.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.