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Ward's full AP torp review
wardcalis
Member Posts: 1,137 Arc User
Special thanks to Marshal@Odenknight for his help with testing
Like most of you when I first heard of the AP Torpedo being an energy based torpedo I raised an eyebrow and once I read the blog the first word out of my mouth was, “Huh?” Even more confusion has come about too because it has received a few changes since Borticus initially posted a clarification of the mechanics. So what does it do now? What skills, items and abilities work with it? How good is it? Who will get the most use it? These are all questions I’m going to address in this blog. Bear in mind that this torpedo is still rather controversial and Cryptic may still make further changes. I do however feel that it has reached a good place and I don’t think it’s going to be changed anytime soon.
What does it do?
Well it’s an energy based torpedo. But what exactly does that mean? Basically it means that when this torpedo hits, it hits will do Anti-Proton energy damage instead of kinetic. This opens up a world of possibilities. Kinetic damage is reduced by 75% against shields. That’s a lot. Imagine you fired a torpedo for 1,000 damage. When it hits your targets shields it will instead do 250 damage and only 10% of that, 25 damage, will be passed directly to the hull with bleed-through. Resilient shields will reduce that to 5%. So for every 1,000 damage you’re in fact only doing 25 damage to their hull. This is the reason torpedoes have such a stigma these days. There are ways of gaining shield penetration and ways of making torpedoes hit so hard that the part that hits the hull still hurts like a mutha. Combining both can make torpedo builds quite nasty and requires extensive research and experimentation to make work. But were not here to talk about torpedo builds. The AP torpedo doesn’t suffer from this reduction to shields. Which means when it hits the shields it will do heavy damage to them. Keep that in mind as we move forward.
What skills does it work with?
Not surprisingly there are not many skills or abilities that work with this special little child. In terms of skills there are only 3 skills that it works with; Starship Weapons Training, Starship Projectile Weapons and Starship Projectile Weapon Specialization. So as we can see, it’s buffed by torpedo boosting skills. This is excellent news for torpedo builds, but not so great if you don’t normally use those particular skills. This is further compounded by what I discovered about the way it scales with skills. Turns out Projectile Skills have a crazy curve when it comes to increasing the potency of the AP torpedo. +3 points in Projectile Skills is about a 5% increase in damage whereas 9 skill points in Projectile Skills is about a 25% increase in damage. Those numbers aren’t exact but I’m using it to illustrate the curve the torpedo follows. More Projectile Skills means a significant increase in damage the more you have. This also holds true for Projectile Specialization skills. The more you have the greater the return. It seems counter intuitive to how the skill system works because the more points contributed typically means less return on investment but that’s how it does operate. If you really think about it, it will kind of make sense because of my next point.
What items does it work with?
As Borticus posted on the forums this AP torpedo is no boosted by items that normally boost torpedo damage. This includes raw +torp damage, +projectile damage and any type of specific torpedo damage like +photon or +quantum. None of these will boost the damage, so what will? The only things that boost the damage are +AP and +Energy damage. The AP damage you can easily get from AP boosting tact consoles, also from the Obelisk set 2pc bonus (warbirds cannot use the core for this set). As for raw +Energy damage, there isn’t a lot of that. It can mostly be found on set bonuses. Generally though anything that boosts Energy Damage will boost the damage of the AP Torp. Skills will boost the damage of the AP torp more than AP consoles.
What abilities does it work with?
Several in fact. The AP torp synergies well I you are using other torpedoes because it benefits from torpedo CD reduction Doffs. It can take full advantage of all 3 torpedo skills; High yield, Torp Spread and Transport Warhead. It uses the functionality of Concentrate Firepower very well and also gets boosted by Emergency Power to Weapons. It doesn’t gain damage from your weapon power levels so with EPtW your getting the +Energy Damage from that ability. Initially Borticus said that it could be reflected with Feedback Pulse, from my understanding this is no longer the case, same thing goes for Directed Energy Modulation and Reverse Shield Polarity, none of these work with the AP torpedo anymore.
Who will make the most of this torp?
Well that one depends entirely on you and your build. If you run a Pure Style torp build or a Shield Slammer torp build then this is an awesome torpedo for it’s shield stripping value. I run a Slammer build and I’ve personally had this torp hit for over 100k damage which would entirely strip the shield facing in 1 hit perfect for following up with nasty hard hitting torps. Torp builds aren’t the only ones that will gain benefit though, AP builds that use 2 or more torpedoes and torp CD reducing doffs will be able to take advantage of this torp. There will also be niche sci builds that can make good use of it. Anyone else isn’t going to find this torpedo to be very valuable. So on the whole I think it is a good torpedo but it isn’t for everyone. If you ever have any questions you can always grab me in-game @wardcalis.
Like most of you when I first heard of the AP Torpedo being an energy based torpedo I raised an eyebrow and once I read the blog the first word out of my mouth was, “Huh?” Even more confusion has come about too because it has received a few changes since Borticus initially posted a clarification of the mechanics. So what does it do now? What skills, items and abilities work with it? How good is it? Who will get the most use it? These are all questions I’m going to address in this blog. Bear in mind that this torpedo is still rather controversial and Cryptic may still make further changes. I do however feel that it has reached a good place and I don’t think it’s going to be changed anytime soon.
What does it do?
Well it’s an energy based torpedo. But what exactly does that mean? Basically it means that when this torpedo hits, it hits will do Anti-Proton energy damage instead of kinetic. This opens up a world of possibilities. Kinetic damage is reduced by 75% against shields. That’s a lot. Imagine you fired a torpedo for 1,000 damage. When it hits your targets shields it will instead do 250 damage and only 10% of that, 25 damage, will be passed directly to the hull with bleed-through. Resilient shields will reduce that to 5%. So for every 1,000 damage you’re in fact only doing 25 damage to their hull. This is the reason torpedoes have such a stigma these days. There are ways of gaining shield penetration and ways of making torpedoes hit so hard that the part that hits the hull still hurts like a mutha. Combining both can make torpedo builds quite nasty and requires extensive research and experimentation to make work. But were not here to talk about torpedo builds. The AP torpedo doesn’t suffer from this reduction to shields. Which means when it hits the shields it will do heavy damage to them. Keep that in mind as we move forward.
What skills does it work with?
Not surprisingly there are not many skills or abilities that work with this special little child. In terms of skills there are only 3 skills that it works with; Starship Weapons Training, Starship Projectile Weapons and Starship Projectile Weapon Specialization. So as we can see, it’s buffed by torpedo boosting skills. This is excellent news for torpedo builds, but not so great if you don’t normally use those particular skills. This is further compounded by what I discovered about the way it scales with skills. Turns out Projectile Skills have a crazy curve when it comes to increasing the potency of the AP torpedo. +3 points in Projectile Skills is about a 5% increase in damage whereas 9 skill points in Projectile Skills is about a 25% increase in damage. Those numbers aren’t exact but I’m using it to illustrate the curve the torpedo follows. More Projectile Skills means a significant increase in damage the more you have. This also holds true for Projectile Specialization skills. The more you have the greater the return. It seems counter intuitive to how the skill system works because the more points contributed typically means less return on investment but that’s how it does operate. If you really think about it, it will kind of make sense because of my next point.
What items does it work with?
As Borticus posted on the forums this AP torpedo is no boosted by items that normally boost torpedo damage. This includes raw +torp damage, +projectile damage and any type of specific torpedo damage like +photon or +quantum. None of these will boost the damage, so what will? The only things that boost the damage are +AP and +Energy damage. The AP damage you can easily get from AP boosting tact consoles, also from the Obelisk set 2pc bonus (warbirds cannot use the core for this set). As for raw +Energy damage, there isn’t a lot of that. It can mostly be found on set bonuses. Generally though anything that boosts Energy Damage will boost the damage of the AP Torp. Skills will boost the damage of the AP torp more than AP consoles.
What abilities does it work with?
Several in fact. The AP torp synergies well I you are using other torpedoes because it benefits from torpedo CD reduction Doffs. It can take full advantage of all 3 torpedo skills; High yield, Torp Spread and Transport Warhead. It uses the functionality of Concentrate Firepower very well and also gets boosted by Emergency Power to Weapons. It doesn’t gain damage from your weapon power levels so with EPtW your getting the +Energy Damage from that ability. Initially Borticus said that it could be reflected with Feedback Pulse, from my understanding this is no longer the case, same thing goes for Directed Energy Modulation and Reverse Shield Polarity, none of these work with the AP torpedo anymore.
Who will make the most of this torp?
Well that one depends entirely on you and your build. If you run a Pure Style torp build or a Shield Slammer torp build then this is an awesome torpedo for it’s shield stripping value. I run a Slammer build and I’ve personally had this torp hit for over 100k damage which would entirely strip the shield facing in 1 hit perfect for following up with nasty hard hitting torps. Torp builds aren’t the only ones that will gain benefit though, AP builds that use 2 or more torpedoes and torp CD reducing doffs will be able to take advantage of this torp. There will also be niche sci builds that can make good use of it. Anyone else isn’t going to find this torpedo to be very valuable. So on the whole I think it is a good torpedo but it isn’t for everyone. If you ever have any questions you can always grab me in-game @wardcalis.
Post edited by wardcalis on
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Comments
1) Little off-topic, but can you explain what exactly a "Slammer build" is and how it differs from a normal torpedo build?
2) What special skill/item/play-style do you add/change?
I did hear this "shield slamming" term before, but hardly could think of any skill/item that would make sense to warrant such a name, so some explanation would be nice?
I currently fly a hybrid shield slammer - 4 torps and a dbb fore (fleet mogh), AP beam arrays on the rear, using the beam overload doffs to augment my shield slamming if they proc - its highly effective as now with a hyt3, I have two beam overloads, essentially
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thx for the info, but i have some questions
1) Isn't the minimal CD on torpedoes: 1s shared cooldown + 0.5s activation = 1.5s?
2) Does the BO doff actually increase shield damage or does it bypass the shield?
Can i get some napkin math example how this works, regarding the "massive bleedthrough"?
Can you give some examples how this is calculated together? Do you mean 100k boff ability damage (HY3/TS3) or 100k autofire dmg?
1) I'm not sure..someone mentioned to me a while back that the activation time of the next torp occurs before the gcd, hence its one second - its likely baloney, but It feels like that
2) It bypasses the shield, doing pure hull only damage of a certain percentage
edit - with multiple bo doffs, and a lot of luck, you can potentially 'stack' the bo doff procs, with all purples proccing achieving 100% penetration)
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Yeah, but i would not bet on a 2.7% chance every 15sec
Was referring to the 100% penetration case, which only has a 2,7% chance of occurrence.
How is this possible or do you mean 45-60k combined salvo damage? My numbers tell me that a HY3 using neutronic should deal around 14k at max. per torpedo, without any target debuffs. Where do the 300% dmg increase come from? It seems i may miss a massive damage multiplier somehow in my calculations?
I still don't understand how this is possible? "steady stream" suggests you talk about autofire none ability damage and i can't create a scenario, where autofire torpedoes hit for 100-200k unless they crit and i add unrealistically high target resistance debuffs.
If you're sci, with no skill point investment in projectiles, should you be using this Torp ?
I run an energy/PrtG build, with plasma beam arrays crtDx3 or Ap beam Arrays CrtDx3 CrtH
I'd be running my APs if I used this Torp of course..
Or even more simply, with no skills into projectiles, are they of any use ?
Haven't ever really made use of torps.. so just curious as to whether I should use this one, or another, or only my beam arrays and Cutting beam ?
Unfortunately the way it displays hits and abilities wont let me calculate how much per torpedo damage your HY1 actually does.
I have a simple question: What does your HY3 tooltip states on you neutronic and how do you get from this number to 45-60k, "Without anything else buffing it."?
Thanks, but I do have the AP exploiters at mk xiv. So that wouldn't be an issue.
The omega torps DoT being boosted by +pla consoles sounds like an interesting option (for my plasma setup). Normally Id probably use the Rom Torp for the hyperflux Beam overload set bonus.
Hadn't really considered the Omega Torp really, tbh, I fly science ships so I'm lucky to get 2-3 tac consoles.
Also to be considered, I'm usually running +400 prtG.
So any thoughts on using one of these vs using the Omega Torp;
Gravimetric
Neutronic
R&D plasma cloud Torp
Bounty Hunter Torp
Or is the Omega Torps boosted DoT still the most beneficial bonus to my build (no projectile skill) even considering high prtGs.
I only want to load 1 Torp, for gravity well'd clusters.
Torps are expensive to upgrade so thats why I want to find my best option.
I got the torp last week, but not had a chance to experiment with it.
After your review though, since I do have an AP build on one of my ships... i think i might take this torp out for a spin
Thanks again for investigations.
mhh, but thats a critical hit and includes debuffs/buffs on the target? Given a 188% critD multiplier this would be a 23k hit with buffs/debuffs.
So you were talking about critical hits for the numbers you noted? This makes more sense than and matches my calculations.
Not to get into a shipmeasuring contest but my KDF sci gets 39k in a sheshar. temptorp/gravtorp/rom hypertorp.
Sounds like we need a 5-man ISA Kinetic-fest. I'm in.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.
Finally someone around here that understands what this torpedo can do. It can do amazing things but as is the case with torpedoes in general, not all builds will find a use for it.
Hardcore Beamboaters, even Antiproton Beamboaters will not want this weapon.
1. It's a narrow arc weapon that can't fire while broadsiding
2. It means giving up Skillpoints for Projectile related ones. Those points have to come from somewhere else
3. Another TAC ability to throw on. Cruisers are the most popular Antiproton platform and their LtCdr TAC stations (at best) will be taxed enough. They already have to load TT, Beam ability, Attack Pattern. A Torp ability is another burden for limited TAC seats.
I prefer to fire the AP torp in HYT. I treat it exactly as another energy weapon spike. BO3 with Antiproton DBB and HYT3 with the AP Torp, boosted by APO3? On top of the APB that everyone spams? Yes please! Escorts have the BOFF seating to do that high powered, single target spike.
Neut shares the same GCD as other torps.
As to wanting numbers for comparison:
http://www.reddit.com/r/sto/comments/2v6g7d/i_will_need_volunteers_for_an_experiment/
The conditions are stated in the thread (No gear except for the torps and the gel pack, and max spec for torpedoes, using intel tree)
As for TDD and TriC, those two are monsters. TriC even moreso WHEN the mods are fixed for the torp.
If you have a high PrtG build (400's), I'd recommend the Particle Emission Plasma Torpedo. Hands down, THE BEST utility torp in the game, and phenomenally powerful for high PGen builds. While it's weak on kinetic, it's strong on the AoE cloud (which is boosted by PGen). Now that I've said that, watch Cryptic nerf the TRIBBLE out of it.
For right now, my signatures speak my mind.
Fleet Defiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support | Fleet Manticore Kinetic Strike Ship | Tactical Command Kinetic Siege Refit | Fleet Defiant Quantum Phase Escort | Fleet Valiant Kinetic Heavy Fire Support
Turning the Galaxy-X into a Torpedo Dreadnought & torpedo tutorial, with written torpedo guide.
"A good weapon and a great strategy will win you many battles." - Marshall
I knew using Kinetics would be playing the game on hard mode, but what I didn't realize was how bad the deck is stacked against Kinetics.