I see these cases come up from time to time. (There's tl;dr at the end.)
A well geared very experienced player, for whatever reasons, decides that a particular game feature is not to their liking, perhaps because they lost to it in PVP, perhaps because they feel they wish to contribute their extensive knowledge in the game to the developers, perhaps they are seeking the opinion of others in that small group of very well geared and very knowledgeable people.
They ask for something that appears to benefit some players to be nerfed. I always wonder why players ask that something that benefits some players and has been a regular feature of the game for some time be nerfed. I also find it intriguing that the discussion continues where other well geared and well knowledgeable people point out that perhaps its power is situational, or no longer so powerful in light of newly added features, yet the newly added features, considered more powerful than the one originally brought up, are not suggested for nerfing.
--- All this while the rest of the player base is not nearly so knowledgeable and not nearly so well geared and making changes to these features would only serve to confuse and make life more complicated for those who understand builds less and have less resources to adapt to such feature changes.
I would much rather that the very well geared and very knowledgeable people spent their time in the forums instructing the rest of the player base (of which I include myself) how to become well geared and very knowledgeable themselves.
There is an information gap in STO, despite the existence of the wiki and reddit and sto academy sites..and I, for one, would like to see more information exchanged.
Ideally this is to be done in fleets, but that would only happen in large fleets where people chose to share.
Just my opinion early in the morning before my caffeine.
tl;dr, I'd rather hear details about how Aux2Bat works, ways to set it up, the alternatives, and ways to set those up, then discussions over what is or is not more powerful in a specific part of the game to the most geared and most knowledgeable.
Aux is disposable on ships with only an LT science boff station or what not. thus tac/eng focused ships get a free ride with aux2bat powering the other 3 systems for the price of one.
To top it off you have the tech doff that adds a global cooldown reduction to aux2bat as if it needed any more boosts.
3 green tech doff's = 18% CD reduction AND great boost to engine/shield/weapon power.
Aux2bat is not the only broken ability ingame.. if i had to criticize one aspect of the game alone is the sheer lack of direction. the developers are talented but seem to go in very bizarre directions with balance (among other things).
Well not entirely true. For ships with limited tac slots that can't double up or run Reciprocity (the Qib, the D'deridex, or the Kobali cruiser all come to mind), or even people who don't own a Phantom or AHOD cruiser Fed-side and want to fly something like a Gal-X or a Guardian, it does give them an option to boost their rate of fire. Plus for people running mostly solo or random queues, it lets them boost the recharge on not only their EPTx and offensive stuff, but also utility powers like RSP or Sci Team. Most importantly though, its a setup where the VR doffs can be simply farmed, making it a nice option for people who can't or don't want to spend a hundred million on doffs or $30 on a ship for the trait alone. (I think ya been spoiled by your normal budget ) Its a tool like anything else; good for some situations, bad for others. I certainly disagree with the OP calling it OP, but its not useless either. *shrugs*
Yes, it has a place. I'm not a fan of that place; because if I was flying a gal-x or guardian without reciprocity, I'd just run TT1+Conn doffs +2xFAW, or in the Gal-R, TSS+Boarding party clear doff+2xFAW, and dragon it out if need be - they've got the engineering stations. Of course, that's not the highest dps setup; but I wouldn't be going for max dps in a Guardian or Galaxy anyway.
It's not a terrible starting build, and I may have been too harsh on it; but I'm pretty sure we all know that it's far from OP. The point I was trying to make was that there's no situation where it's not outclassed; and you bring up a good one that sometimes that out-classing is expensive.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Considering the cooldown reductions added to the game lately, I think Aux2Bat is not really such a serious problem anymore. And with stuff like Override Subsystem Safety, even the energy buff is not that impressive anymore.
A fundamental problem Aux2Bat still has is - you need 3 DOFFs to turn a completely useless noob trap into a staple power. That is just terrible balancing. Aux2Bat on its own should be more useful than it was, and the DOFFs should have not make it as effective as it is.
Maybe they should make Aux2Bat actually grant a cooldown reduction of 25 % or so innately, and make the DOFFs just add a chance to add a bit more of a reduction.
And then they have to look into Photonic Officer and make that viable.
ANd now, since we're so incredibly bold and succesful in balancing the game, we should look into why weapon power is the only important power for every type of ship excepts science vessels, and how to make the different power levels more equal in value to the game.
If they're done with that, they are probably ready to cure cancer.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I see these cases come up from time to time. (There's tl;dr at the end.)
A well geared very experienced player, for whatever reasons, decides that a particular game feature is not to their liking, perhaps because they lost to it in PVP, perhaps because they feel they wish to contribute their extensive knowledge in the game to the developers, perhaps they are seeking the opinion of others in that small group of very well geared and very knowledgeable people.
Because having a rather easy way to bring any BOFF skill CD to global, negating the CD in the very first place (a 1m CD will have the same CD than a 20s CD for example) is balanced in your mind ?
It's not. Some skill have a long CD for a reason, and a2b negate that. But then, as I said earlier, nowadays it's minor compared to the powercreep we have all around. And everyday, the devs continue the trend by adding more and more.
haven't seen moaning about this in a wile. i remember the patch that launched the vetren ships, that also modified AtB so it wasn't in the EPtX system cooldown anymore, but the AtD/AtS system instead. when i read those patch notes, i instantly realized that would allowed for doubling up 2 copies of AtB with tech doffs, and allowed you to run 2 different EPtX skills all at the same time, and everything, even tactical skills with 30 second cooldowns could have the up time as if i ran 2 copies. about an hour after the patch dropped, i was pretty much inventing the build style, and the vet ship had the perfect station setup for it. the next day i was the first talking about it, in the pvp section.
pve has moved past it, with all the traits and items that turn aux power into DPS, and especially after reciprocity, but AtB has always been more then a DPS booster. thats something that actually maters in pvp, for slow moving cruisers and sub 20 turn escorts/destroyers, especially after the team skills lost their system cooldowns, AtB has been about improving survivability compared to speed tankers and battle cloaking warbirds. this actually balanced those slow movers and also rans, they were underpowered, AtB has ALWAYS been a net gain in balance. also, on those escorts and destroyers, AtB builds competed directly for space with AtD builds, that made for the fastest and most deadly escort builds, you pretty much had to chose 1 or the other, an 1AtB/1AtD build had crappy tac skill uptime and no enhanced mobility, only a bit more armor.
but, especially now, its more about everything but tactical skills, feds for example will never need more then 1 AtB copy because tac skills were the only ones that needed AtB cycled twice during cooldown to get peek up time. also team skills, but eh its close enough.
in pve, other then maybe DEM and EPtW, you don't need eng and sci skills at any sort of enhanced uptime, tanking and healing isn't much of a concern, certainly not as much as the aux based DPS boosts. in PVP, you're likely to need heals every time they cool down, AtB can do wonders for keeping you alive there. well, before DR ruined PVP, its unfortunately a tottal loss now, there has never been a time were there was less cause to complain about 'AtBS' :rolleyes:
while i agree with op (worse things make bad things not look better lol), this thread is not worth the calories that went down for typing imo :rolleyes:...
and collected a ton of heated discussion, suggestions and observations on a2b. as they don't have a clue what to do with it and recently made all previous powercreep look like a candy stick in comparison to a baseball bat, i don't think this will lead anywhere.
i still never use a2b (again), all my cruisers have been fine without it pre dr. the combo though made some ships way over the top imo. but with everything else around nowadays... yeah it's just one thing out of many...
AtB1 = 15 Aux -> 5 weap/shields/engine
AtB2 = 30 Aux -> 10 weap/shields/engine
AtB3 = 45 Aux -> 15 weap/shields/engine
That would make low-level AtB (escorts) weak for power buffs but still viable for cooldown management. High-level AtB would still be awesome, but very expensive. Add power consumption to everything so that you have to protect AUX power levels, you'd have the start of a balanced mechanic. balance lol
Fifth - That setup you're showcasing is just terrible. EPtE? No EPtW 3? CRF1 and a BO3? My guess is it's meant to be some sort of PvP vaper build.. but I'd not want to use it. Aux2Batt really isn't very useful to a vaper setup, as they tend to end any fights they start instantly.. or fail.
Yes, it's quite obvious what happened.
OP doesn't know what they're doing, got obliterated in PvP, came onto the forums to whine about A2B.
AtB1 = 15 Aux -> 5 weap/shields/engine
AtB2 = 30 Aux -> 10 weap/shields/engine
AtB3 = 45 Aux -> 15 weap/shields/engine
That would make low-level AtB (escorts) weak for power buffs but still viable for cooldown management. High-level AtB would still be awesome, but very expensive. Add power consumption to everything so that you have to protect AUX power levels, you'd have the start of a balanced mechanic. balance lol
That would be a buff.
The power bonus is nothing more than a helpful side effect. The primary benefit is the cooldown reduction (from the DOffs) and the primary disadvantage is losing Auxiliary power.
I used to run A2b on my Avenger for the longest time then switched to a Drake build. I pull more Dps with the drak than I did A2b just because it allows me to add another SRO. Right how I have 2 T boffs but will switch to Zemok when the funds allow it. With the space trait and gel pack the a2b isn't really needed on a lot of ships.
A2B does not need to be nerfed because it is the only way a lot of Eng heavy Cruisers can be viable since there is no need for the trinity.
I am no space ace but it seems idiotic to me to run A2B in an escort or destroyer.
After seeing this ship sail and come back and sail again, just let the kiddies keep their training wheels. There is so much other garbage out there that reduces cooldowns to BOff skills and even captain skills, cryptics plan to "fix" a2b was obviously to implement tons of other similar abilities in various forms.
Now it's a great way to identify the (lack of) capabilities and knowledge of someone on your team. More often than not at least, as there are always a few exceptions such as dusting off very old toons to farm the CE.
I used to run A2b on my Avenger for the longest time then switched to a Drake build. I pull more Dps with the drak than I did A2b just because it allows me to add another SRO. Right how I have 2 T boffs but will switch to Zemok when the funds allow it. With the space trait and gel pack the a2b isn't really needed on a lot of ships.
A2B does not need to be nerfed because it is the only way a lot of Eng heavy Cruisers can be viable since there is no need for the trinity.
I am no space ace but it seems idiotic to me to run A2B in an escort or destroyer.
Um.. Aux2batt and drakes aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're both best when used together. Aux2batt reduces the cooldowns of EPtW/EPtS so that you can keep both up 100% of the time.
Um.. Aux2batt and drakes aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're both best when used together. Aux2batt reduces the cooldowns of EPtW/EPtS so that you can keep both up 100% of the time.
Drakes use DCEs to achieve what Aux2Bat does to EptX. Typically you also use a Conn Officer to get the TT cooldown too.
Um.. Aux2batt and drakes aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're both best when used together. Aux2batt reduces the cooldowns of EPtW/EPtS so that you can keep both up 100% of the time.
Drake refers to the use of DCE's to keep 2 different EPTx abilities on constant rotation. A2B keeps all boff abilities on global cooldown, making DCE's, ME's, Dev Lab Sci's, Conn officers, Deflectors officers, and the like useless. So, while not technically mutually exclusive, one makes the other pointless.
SCM - Crystal C. (S) - [00:12] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 8.63M(713.16K) - Fed Sci
Um.. Aux2batt and drakes aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're both best when used together. Aux2batt reduces the cooldowns of EPtW/EPtS so that you can keep both up 100% of the time.
If I'm running 3 Techs, I don't need the DCEs. By dropping the techs, I can use 2 DCEa and 2 Conn officers for the TT CD and the constant cycling of EPtW3 and EPtS2. I will drop the COnns for Zemoks when I have the money, then I can go with 2 TT and either 1 APB1 or go FAW2, APO 1 and APB 1.
By going Drake I gain a better shield heal because I can use EPtS2 instead of 1, gain 2 more Tac abilities, and gain another SRO although I do not know how much better he is over my Naussicaan Engineer. I also can run an AMP Core because with not tanking Aux, I get the bonus of all 4 power levels which is better than the Obelisk core since I run AP weapons.
I feel like the people that call for a nerf to aux2bat don't really understand what aux2bat really does. Aux2bat basically makes ships with particularly bad boff layouts relevant in this dps focused game. That's pretty much it.
There are a couple of critical drawbacks if you use aux2bat. You will never have the top dps, if you don't understand why you need to look at the top dps builds and figure it out. Additionally you lose the ability to use most science skills to the maximum effect since they depend on aux power.
When Aux2BS DOFFs were first released, Aux2BS was pretty well balanced. Sure, you could reduce the cooldown on your abilities to global, but the loss of your auxiliary meant healing was very challenging.
Then Tac Team, Eng Team and Sci Team were taken off shared cooldown. This provided Aux2BS users the ability to increase their shield and hull healing regardless of their aux levels. They could even do it when their aux was offline. This is when Aux2BS moved in to OP land.
Nowadays, Aux2BS has moved beyond OP. Why? Because now traits and specialisations do all the healing your Sci Team and Eng Team can't manage, making auxiliary levels obsolete for a lot of ships. Now many Aux2BS ships are, in essence, 3 subsystem ships that happen to have the 3 subsystems they need at close to max power.
Now, the usual call is "But you can reduce cooldowns using DOFFs!!" Come now, we all know that that's ludicrous. Let's look at an Aux2BS ship with the following setup.
Tac Team I / CRF I / BO III / APO III
Tac Team I / APB I EPtE I / Aux2BS I / EPtS III
Eng Team I / Aux2BS I Sci Team I / OSS I
If you removed the Aux2BS slots and the 3 DOFFs required to run it you would need to add.....
2 Conn (Zemok) for the Attack Patterns
3 Energy Weapons for an 87.5% chance of reducing BO to global.
3 Energy Weapons for an 87.5% chance of reducing CRF to global. This can't be done at the same time as reducing BO to global, though.
3 DCEs for a 92.4% chance at reducing the Emergency Powers to global.
2 Maintenance Engineers to reduce Eng Team to global.
2 Development Lab Scientists to reduce Sci Team to global.
So. 15 DOFFs (which can't be done) to gain the 2 BOFF slots and 3 DOFF slots that Aux2BS uses. And you wouldn't be able to speed up OSS.
Some people I've spoken to regarding this say that it shouldn't be fixed because other things in the game are broken. So we should leave broken things in the game until ALL broken things are fixed in one fell swoop? That's like saying "I'm not going to fix the ignition on my car because the air-conditioning is broken".
Some people have also said "But there's Photonic Officer, that does the same thing". Well, no, it most certainly does not. If you have Photonic Officer II and III on your ship with photonic DOFFs on your ship you still can't consistently reduce your BOFF abilities to global. Making 2 copies of a Lt ability more powerful than a Lt Cmdr and a Cmdr put together. To my way of thinking, Cmdr abilities were meant to be more powerful that Lt abilities.
How to fix it? The easiest way would be to change Technician DOFFs so that they offer a chance at reducing the cooldown on BOFF abilities. This would go a long way to restoring the balance that this game so desperately needs.
Now, I know there's going to be a lot of players who are going to attack this post. Most of them will be Aux2BS users and I'm sure many will care more about someone talking about taking their OP ship away than they will be about the balance in the game. Well, if you want to attack this post then I challenge you to show why it's not OP. I feel I've done a pretty good job of showing why it is.
The various team abilities needed to come off their shared cooldowns. It made no sense as to why using a science ability would put an engineering ability or tactical team ability on cooldown. I personally never was able to get enough out of a2b for me to warrant a switch to the build. It just didn't impress me that much and I dropped the build.
There are far far more overpowered things or broken things in this game that need to be focused on before this. The a2b builds are working as intended. Some of the traits and consoles you can get for your ships now are far stronger and far more broken than a2b is and this is the thing you're worrying about? There's a difference between fixing things that need it, and fixing something that isn't broke. There's ALOT that needs to be done if you're going to address balance long before you ever get to a2b.
You keep forgetting a2b is one ability and can be a double edged sword as well. What if for example you get hit with a power drain from say a polaron beam or some other source when a2b is up? that's going to knock your aux power offline and take a good chunk of your healing and sci abilities with it. It's not without its faults. As I said above, aux2bat is one ability, and you're putting far too much faith into one ability to bring you home the win. If that single ability is the difference between you doing good and failing in a mission, you seriously need to reevaluate your ship, your character, and how you're playing the game as a whole, because you have more problems than aux2bat. As for your duty officer analysis, you don't need to swap out that many doffs to do that. Nor do you need all of those officers in the first place.
aux2bat while certainly still viable today is far from the overpowered thing you're making it out to be. i'm not disagreeing it can be good for people, I just don't see the appeal with everything else out there now.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
This is a very enlightening thread. And helped me do some further experimentation with my scimitar build. As an f2p player ive just played a single romulan eng on a paid scimi and its been decent so far (except for the sudden wonderfully shield suck drain borg thingy/ plus reporting error on shields which can be countered partially with HE) Thanks all.
Just wondering though... should the Zemok build be nerfed now instead of the aux2 batt build? Always get the negative feeling from the forum that powerful PvE builds should be nerfed to make sure we suffer the grind.
To OP, you are more than a year late. You are completely out now. Watch some youtube videos. There are many better builds now. Ask in any DPS channel. And for some heavy engi ships, a2b is only way, how to make them at least a bit playable.
[...] And for some heavy engi ships, a2b is only way, how to make them at least a bit playable.
that's a tale many tell :rolleyes:... u even can run a gal-x with dual heavies just fine without it lol... even more in pve (in pvp zippies made it really hard to run that build, but alternations come to mind).
Reading all of this stuff makes me feel like joining the DPS league should be mandatory as a Tutorial class or something cause clearly players either don't know enough for getting the most out of their ship/toon or they've been away for too long to adjust to the new possabilities and the "buffed" hostiles.
A2B is a starter set up that I sometimes recommend to "newer" players in the fleet I'm in if they need to up their dps a bit but don't have the resources to go for different builds.
I got on 2 of my 5 toons simply cause those are just to farm and I don't want to invest any resources in them at all.. 3techs 3 torpedo dudes and romulan plasma torpedo.. def. not the best option but it does the job....
So if you're upset about the a2b ask for advice in game join the dps league for more info on builds and you'll see what truly would be op in your "definition of it" (that's from your opinion about a2b being op lol):D
At this point nerfing A2B Doffs is just piling on more of the same not so well thought out fixes as before. The game needs major combat changes to become fun again, A2B was balanced before, don't treat the symptoms, treat the cause. '
The minute NPCs do enough damage to challenge players to use real heals then A2B Doff becomes much less attractive. This was always the natural balance, just like the natural balance to BFAW damage was power drain, I'm more worried about lack of weapon drains and stacking APBs over A2Bs, at least A2B has some drawback you can balance against, the rest is just pure power creep.
http://www.a2b-online.com/ - this is actually a genuine haulage company in Europe. I saw one of the lorries the other day and immediately thought of STO.
StI'll don't see a legit reason to nerf it seems pretty harmless in PVE( note; People are complaining seems about high failure rates in STFs, lets just neef some easy power and increase it.)
If this about PVP wow there is a entire list of iTunes theater should get fixed before this.
If this thread is just because someone doesn't like A2B, then the OP should go play Power Rangers.
Nerfing A2B would just lead to more people leaving the game, not a smart thing to do now.
http://www.a2b-online.com/ - this is actually a genuine haulage company in Europe. I saw one of the lorries the other day and immediately thought of STO.
Man, that video they've got there...the best reason to nerf A2B I've ever seen. That video clearly shows them as OP.
Nowadays, Aux2BS has moved beyond OP. Why? Because now traits and specialisations do all the healing your Sci Team and Eng Team can't manage, making auxiliary levels obsolete for a lot of ships.
So let me get this straight : just because some traits & setups replicate A2B , that in turn brings in the nerf time for A2B ?
Just a wild guess -- can YOU now replicate A2B by other means and you want others to not have YOUR ability (unless they pay through the nose that is) ?
Yeah , this sounds great .... for Cryptic .
Ship traits already are selling in the same price category as Delta / LoR packs (4 x empty traits slots = 4 x 3000Z for those who collect them offensive Ship Traits) , so indeed , now is the time to nerf A2B , to drive Cryptic's profits up some more !
... because as I noticed , the free T6 ships that Cryptic gives away only include Defensive Traits , and we all know Offense is the name of the game these days ...
that's a tale many tell :rolleyes:... u even can run a gal-x with dual heavies just fine without it lol... even more in pve (in pvp zippies made it really hard to run that build, but alternations come to mind).
You can also shoot yourself into the knee and still walk
Comments
A well geared very experienced player, for whatever reasons, decides that a particular game feature is not to their liking, perhaps because they lost to it in PVP, perhaps because they feel they wish to contribute their extensive knowledge in the game to the developers, perhaps they are seeking the opinion of others in that small group of very well geared and very knowledgeable people.
They ask for something that appears to benefit some players to be nerfed. I always wonder why players ask that something that benefits some players and has been a regular feature of the game for some time be nerfed. I also find it intriguing that the discussion continues where other well geared and well knowledgeable people point out that perhaps its power is situational, or no longer so powerful in light of newly added features, yet the newly added features, considered more powerful than the one originally brought up, are not suggested for nerfing.
--- All this while the rest of the player base is not nearly so knowledgeable and not nearly so well geared and making changes to these features would only serve to confuse and make life more complicated for those who understand builds less and have less resources to adapt to such feature changes.
I would much rather that the very well geared and very knowledgeable people spent their time in the forums instructing the rest of the player base (of which I include myself) how to become well geared and very knowledgeable themselves.
There is an information gap in STO, despite the existence of the wiki and reddit and sto academy sites..and I, for one, would like to see more information exchanged.
Ideally this is to be done in fleets, but that would only happen in large fleets where people chose to share.
Just my opinion early in the morning before my caffeine.
tl;dr, I'd rather hear details about how Aux2Bat works, ways to set it up, the alternatives, and ways to set those up, then discussions over what is or is not more powerful in a specific part of the game to the most geared and most knowledgeable.
To top it off you have the tech doff that adds a global cooldown reduction to aux2bat as if it needed any more boosts.
3 green tech doff's = 18% CD reduction AND great boost to engine/shield/weapon power.
Aux2bat is not the only broken ability ingame.. if i had to criticize one aspect of the game alone is the sheer lack of direction. the developers are talented but seem to go in very bizarre directions with balance (among other things).
Yes, it has a place. I'm not a fan of that place; because if I was flying a gal-x or guardian without reciprocity, I'd just run TT1+Conn doffs +2xFAW, or in the Gal-R, TSS+Boarding party clear doff+2xFAW, and dragon it out if need be - they've got the engineering stations. Of course, that's not the highest dps setup; but I wouldn't be going for max dps in a Guardian or Galaxy anyway.
It's not a terrible starting build, and I may have been too harsh on it; but I'm pretty sure we all know that it's far from OP. The point I was trying to make was that there's no situation where it's not outclassed; and you bring up a good one that sometimes that out-classing is expensive.
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!
A fundamental problem Aux2Bat still has is - you need 3 DOFFs to turn a completely useless noob trap into a staple power. That is just terrible balancing. Aux2Bat on its own should be more useful than it was, and the DOFFs should have not make it as effective as it is.
Maybe they should make Aux2Bat actually grant a cooldown reduction of 25 % or so innately, and make the DOFFs just add a chance to add a bit more of a reduction.
And then they have to look into Photonic Officer and make that viable.
ANd now, since we're so incredibly bold and succesful in balancing the game, we should look into why weapon power is the only important power for every type of ship excepts science vessels, and how to make the different power levels more equal in value to the game.
If they're done with that, they are probably ready to cure cancer.
It's not. Some skill have a long CD for a reason, and a2b negate that. But then, as I said earlier, nowadays it's minor compared to the powercreep we have all around. And everyday, the devs continue the trend by adding more and more.
pve has moved past it, with all the traits and items that turn aux power into DPS, and especially after reciprocity, but AtB has always been more then a DPS booster. thats something that actually maters in pvp, for slow moving cruisers and sub 20 turn escorts/destroyers, especially after the team skills lost their system cooldowns, AtB has been about improving survivability compared to speed tankers and battle cloaking warbirds. this actually balanced those slow movers and also rans, they were underpowered, AtB has ALWAYS been a net gain in balance. also, on those escorts and destroyers, AtB builds competed directly for space with AtD builds, that made for the fastest and most deadly escort builds, you pretty much had to chose 1 or the other, an 1AtB/1AtD build had crappy tac skill uptime and no enhanced mobility, only a bit more armor.
but, especially now, its more about everything but tactical skills, feds for example will never need more then 1 AtB copy because tac skills were the only ones that needed AtB cycled twice during cooldown to get peek up time. also team skills, but eh its close enough.
in pve, other then maybe DEM and EPtW, you don't need eng and sci skills at any sort of enhanced uptime, tanking and healing isn't much of a concern, certainly not as much as the aux based DPS boosts. in PVP, you're likely to need heals every time they cool down, AtB can do wonders for keeping you alive there. well, before DR ruined PVP, its unfortunately a tottal loss now, there has never been a time were there was less cause to complain about 'AtBS' :rolleyes:
we've already been there some time ago
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1159271
and collected a ton of heated discussion, suggestions and observations on a2b. as they don't have a clue what to do with it and recently made all previous powercreep look like a candy stick in comparison to a baseball bat, i don't think this will lead anywhere.
i still never use a2b (again), all my cruisers have been fine without it pre dr. the combo though made some ships way over the top imo. but with everything else around nowadays... yeah it's just one thing out of many...
AtB1 = 15 Aux -> 5 weap/shields/engine
AtB2 = 30 Aux -> 10 weap/shields/engine
AtB3 = 45 Aux -> 15 weap/shields/engine
That would make low-level AtB (escorts) weak for power buffs but still viable for cooldown management. High-level AtB would still be awesome, but very expensive. Add power consumption to everything so that you have to protect AUX power levels, you'd have the start of a balanced mechanic. balance lol
Yes, it's quite obvious what happened.
OP doesn't know what they're doing, got obliterated in PvP, came onto the forums to whine about A2B.
That would be a buff.
The power bonus is nothing more than a helpful side effect. The primary benefit is the cooldown reduction (from the DOffs) and the primary disadvantage is losing Auxiliary power.
A2B does not need to be nerfed because it is the only way a lot of Eng heavy Cruisers can be viable since there is no need for the trinity.
I am no space ace but it seems idiotic to me to run A2B in an escort or destroyer.
Now it's a great way to identify the (lack of) capabilities and knowledge of someone on your team. More often than not at least, as there are always a few exceptions such as dusting off very old toons to farm the CE.
Um.. Aux2batt and drakes aren't mutually exclusive. In fact, they're both best when used together. Aux2batt reduces the cooldowns of EPtW/EPtS so that you can keep both up 100% of the time.
Drakes use DCEs to achieve what Aux2Bat does to EptX. Typically you also use a Conn Officer to get the TT cooldown too.
Drake refers to the use of DCE's to keep 2 different EPTx abilities on constant rotation. A2B keeps all boff abilities on global cooldown, making DCE's, ME's, Dev Lab Sci's, Conn officers, Deflectors officers, and the like useless. So, while not technically mutually exclusive, one makes the other pointless.
SCM - Hive (S) - [02:31] DMG(DPS) - @jarvisandalfred: 30.62M(204.66K) - Fed Sci
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If I'm running 3 Techs, I don't need the DCEs. By dropping the techs, I can use 2 DCEa and 2 Conn officers for the TT CD and the constant cycling of EPtW3 and EPtS2. I will drop the COnns for Zemoks when I have the money, then I can go with 2 TT and either 1 APB1 or go FAW2, APO 1 and APB 1.
By going Drake I gain a better shield heal because I can use EPtS2 instead of 1, gain 2 more Tac abilities, and gain another SRO although I do not know how much better he is over my Naussicaan Engineer. I also can run an AMP Core because with not tanking Aux, I get the bonus of all 4 power levels which is better than the Obelisk core since I run AP weapons.
There are a couple of critical drawbacks if you use aux2bat. You will never have the top dps, if you don't understand why you need to look at the top dps builds and figure it out. Additionally you lose the ability to use most science skills to the maximum effect since they depend on aux power.
The various team abilities needed to come off their shared cooldowns. It made no sense as to why using a science ability would put an engineering ability or tactical team ability on cooldown. I personally never was able to get enough out of a2b for me to warrant a switch to the build. It just didn't impress me that much and I dropped the build.
There are far far more overpowered things or broken things in this game that need to be focused on before this. The a2b builds are working as intended. Some of the traits and consoles you can get for your ships now are far stronger and far more broken than a2b is and this is the thing you're worrying about? There's a difference between fixing things that need it, and fixing something that isn't broke. There's ALOT that needs to be done if you're going to address balance long before you ever get to a2b.
You keep forgetting a2b is one ability and can be a double edged sword as well. What if for example you get hit with a power drain from say a polaron beam or some other source when a2b is up? that's going to knock your aux power offline and take a good chunk of your healing and sci abilities with it. It's not without its faults. As I said above, aux2bat is one ability, and you're putting far too much faith into one ability to bring you home the win. If that single ability is the difference between you doing good and failing in a mission, you seriously need to reevaluate your ship, your character, and how you're playing the game as a whole, because you have more problems than aux2bat. As for your duty officer analysis, you don't need to swap out that many doffs to do that. Nor do you need all of those officers in the first place.
aux2bat while certainly still viable today is far from the overpowered thing you're making it out to be. i'm not disagreeing it can be good for people, I just don't see the appeal with everything else out there now.
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Just wondering though... should the Zemok build be nerfed now instead of the aux2 batt build? Always get the negative feeling from the forum that powerful PvE builds should be nerfed to make sure we suffer the grind.
that's a tale many tell :rolleyes:... u even can run a gal-x with dual heavies just fine without it lol... even more in pve (in pvp zippies made it really hard to run that build, but alternations come to mind).
A2B is a starter set up that I sometimes recommend to "newer" players in the fleet I'm in if they need to up their dps a bit but don't have the resources to go for different builds.
I got on 2 of my 5 toons simply cause those are just to farm and I don't want to invest any resources in them at all.. 3techs 3 torpedo dudes and romulan plasma torpedo.. def. not the best option but it does the job....
So if you're upset about the a2b ask for advice in game join the dps league for more info on builds and you'll see what truly would be op in your "definition of it" (that's from your opinion about a2b being op lol):D
The minute NPCs do enough damage to challenge players to use real heals then A2B Doff becomes much less attractive. This was always the natural balance, just like the natural balance to BFAW damage was power drain, I'm more worried about lack of weapon drains and stacking APBs over A2Bs, at least A2B has some drawback you can balance against, the rest is just pure power creep.
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Man, that video they've got there...the best reason to nerf A2B I've ever seen. That video clearly shows them as OP.
So let me get this straight : just because some traits & setups replicate A2B , that in turn brings in the nerf time for A2B ?
Just a wild guess -- can YOU now replicate A2B by other means and you want others to not have YOUR ability (unless they pay through the nose that is) ?
Yeah , this sounds great .... for Cryptic .
Ship traits already are selling in the same price category as Delta / LoR packs (4 x empty traits slots = 4 x 3000Z for those who collect them offensive Ship Traits) , so indeed , now is the time to nerf A2B , to drive Cryptic's profits up some more !
... because as I noticed , the free T6 ships that Cryptic gives away only include Defensive Traits , and we all know Offense is the name of the game these days ...
That's it folks this just a post to get people upset.
Time to move on to mechanics that are broken and not just someones wish list.
You can also shoot yourself into the knee and still walk