If you are statisfied with "just" doing 20k-30k dps (which no content in the entire game can even come close to "needing" that) a partgen build is relatively cheap to accomplish, even without graga (you don't use TBR then, of course, or you just use it as a sledgehammer against stationary targets in STFs).
From this point of view - yes, a cheap partgen build is viable.
I'm not telling that it is impossible, my point is really somewhat different. It's just when we are talking about "pure" Energy weapons build vs Exotic damage build, we should talk about in comparable terms. If you're after energy damage only, you can do way above 10k without any Reputation sets (or even "free" sets from Events/Featured Episodes) at all - with the right skill sets, right piloting, right abilities activation. Just the way it is with the "cheap" Part gens build.
But if we start include things like Borg set or Plasmonic Leech into picture for Energy weapons build, then we MUST include their equivalents for the the Exotic damage build. For the comparison to be correct.
If you dont like the immunities, dont play with them. I am sure you dont anyway, which is why you are taking issue with them. There is nothing broken about the immunity mechanic, in fact, they are about the only thing that makes playing an escort viable these days. Before the buildup of immunities were an option, almost everyone just played a cruiser beam/faw faceroll build because escorts were the equivilent of glass cannons. In fact most still do. I rarely see more than 1 escort in a stf, sometimes I see none. At the same time, not everyone has the ec/dil/time to aquire the best gear, upgrade it, and make their ship indestructable while maintaining dps without using the immunity mechanic. It has just become another option to use to meet the same ends.
Honestly, if an escort is "tanking" and you think you should be, you need to look at your skills. There are abilities and skills specifically for building threat. Use them, or fix your dps, or both.
Pvp is really just an STO hobby, about as important to the balance of the game as your tribble collection. Only a small dedicated crowd cares about pvp. Hardly anyone ques for pvp. Is it even worth mentioning when bringing up "balance?" Probably not. It is not a priority to most people, and its not a priority to the devs. Instead of complaining about a mechanic just because you feel like its OP, I suggest you try and adapt. Adjust your tactics. Life isnt fair. If you find that spamming faw suddenly doesnt work for you, maybe its time to try something different.
I think the only way to achieve balance is to make PvP occur in preset ships (like the missions where you test drive ships) with limited abilities. There's no way of balancing PvP when there's a buy to win element (as new items drive sales).
I agree completely. I suppose that you brought up this topic right after our 5v5 encounter we had some hours ago. Me, Rrulok, Sherlock, Wastee and Slinat against you and other random people. GG on that, it was a good fight.
Despite our victory (gonna admit it, we were all on TS lol) throughout the match we kept discussing how immunities reached the ridiculous. Subnuke, immunity, subnuke, immunity and heal, it's just cheap, there's kind of no way to get through that, hence why immunities should last way less than right now.
I need to get to him. I can't just leave him out there alone. - Sometimes you've got to makes sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone. - I know about sacrifices. - No, you know about loss. Sacrifice is a choice you make. Loss is a choice made for you. - I can't choose to let him die, Roth.
I think the only way to achieve balance is to make PvP occur in preset ships (like the missions where you test drive ships) with limited abilities. There's no way of balancing PvP when there's a buy to win element (as new items drive sales).
New items drive sales but arent a sure thing as "buy to win." Closest Ive seen for that is when Surgical strikes was big (kinda wish they bring that back even tho i never used it only had it used on me). People bought an intel vaper, loaded up on crit chance consoles and then, with OSS+Ionic, did SS3 really shine..But The only pay potion of it was the ship...the rest had to be earned...
I cant say its pay to win with Command or Pilot ships..Yes they have some nice things but its not a sure thing in PVP.Other wise youd only see the latest and greatest in Kerrat as #1 all the time (which isnt the case)
I think the only way to achieve balance is to make PvP occur in preset ships (like the missions where you test drive ships) with limited abilities. There's no way of balancing PvP when there's a buy to win element (as new items drive sales).
Interesting, I read the exact same shortly after STO went F2P. Since then pvp was greatly unbalanced and near-dead (said the forum). PvP is just THE special snowflake of sto^^
I think the only way to achieve balance is to make PvP occur in preset ships (like the missions where you test drive ships) with limited abilities.
No. One of the best things of PvP is that you get to build your own ship, make it do x, y and z while countering a, b and c. Plus, Cryptic ignores what "ship building" is, like how Smirk used to run Boarding Party on a Xindi, or have the Pathfinder without boffs: he didn't even know how to outfit it.
I need to get to him. I can't just leave him out there alone. - Sometimes you've got to makes sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone. - I know about sacrifices. - No, you know about loss. Sacrifice is a choice you make. Loss is a choice made for you. - I can't choose to let him die, Roth.
It plainly is, and then tries to close by saying it's also a PvE issue, though I don't see how.
PvE doesn't even need immunities. Guess what.
I need to get to him. I can't just leave him out there alone. - Sometimes you've got to makes sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone. - I know about sacrifices. - No, you know about loss. Sacrifice is a choice you make. Loss is a choice made for you. - I can't choose to let him die, Roth.
New items drive sales but arent a sure thing as "buy to win." Closest Ive seen for that is when Surgical strikes was big (kinda wish they bring that back even tho i never used it only had it used on me). People bought an intel vaper, loaded up on crit chance consoles and then, with OSS+Ionic, did SS3 really shine..But The only pay potion of it was the ship...the rest had to be earned...
I cant say its pay to win with Command or Pilot ships..Yes they have some nice things but its not a sure thing in PVP.Other wise youd only see the latest and greatest in Kerrat as #1 all the time (which isnt the case)
and you see only latest greatest pilot shipts there if someone fly's escort.
The only reason there are few others who dont use them its because they treat all dmg immunity as noob pve gimmick and dont want to get down to the unskilled lvl of pve noobs who cand win vs easy pve queyes as its to hard to read abilities discription they use on their boffs.
The "solution" if one is even needed is blindingly obvious. Simply make "Immunity" half duration vs. player like every other power is for the PvP people.
"Go play with your DPS in the corner, I don't care how big it is." ~ Me "There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
The amount of time that you can be immune is just ridiculous - nearly 30% of combat time. It would be one thing if you were granted high defense or resistance for a few seconds, but this is literally Godmode for entirely too much time, way too often.
Rock N Roll - 4-5 seconds.
Thick of It (Pilot Spec) - 4 seconds
Temporal Insight - 4 seconds
Destabilizing Phase Array (Ico Rep, T4) - 3 seconds
Pilot Manuvers - 2 seconds with only a 10 second CD.
That's 17 seconds per minute (28%) right there. And I'm not even sure if I've included all possible sources.
Suggestion: Either include hard CDs for all sources of immunity (if you're immune by any source, you can not be granted immunity for another 45-60 seconds from any source), or have a cap on how much time you can spend immune (no more than 5-10 seconds per minute). Or, as others have suggested in this thread, switch it out to a high Defense and/or Resist.
EDIT: For those of you that think that this is OK, why do you feel so? Don't just say things like "WELL I'M GLAD THE DEVS DON'T TAKE ADVICE FROM THE FORUMS" or "LOL PVP" (because this is both a PvE and PvP issue), please justify why you believe that almost 20 seconds of immunity every minute is OK.
From a PVE perspective: There is a catch to using all that Immunity oriented stuff. In my eyes, equipping more and more of that Immunity stuff kills offensive capability. IMHO, a balance needs to be struck for defense, offense, and immunities. Less than half-a-handful of seconds of Damage Immunity is completely irrelevant when the player has zero control over their use. The only Immunity related things that are truly strong is Rock & Roll and Pilot Ship Maneuvers. Thick of It is wonderful though and would, IMO, shine on any ship, not just Pilot Ships & Escorts. The rest is RNG with Zero Player Control and makes them irrelevant.
From a PVP perspective: It's an entirely different ballgame. Not to mention the increased methods of hazard clearing. But to get more of that stuff, you still need to sacrifice build space. Personally, I'm not worried about the Immunities in PVP. Because there's many workarounds to get a player to burn their Immunities (some of which are out of their control). The Auto-Hazard Clears are a far larger impact, IMO.
So the PVE qeues are to difficult yet the Power creep is making the game too easy, before it was Romulan Vapers now defensive capabilities are too high?
Who's to say that Romulan Vaper can't have high Defensive Capabilities and these Immunities? A decloaking Ha'nom can slam you with so many Exotic Damage attacks and still have very high defense and immunities. I'd like to point out that Rom Republic BOFF traits like to stack lots and lots of defense, not to mention SRO. And sporting "Rock & Roll" is perfectly feasible
PVPers, if you really want "a fair fight" how about asking for queues where all consoles, traits and spec points are disabled? Maybe even all doffs?
Isn't worth the effort.
It would need a progression system internal to PvP, which means more work, and compared to the likely return, it just isn't worth the effort.
Well, the initial idea of giving everyone the same basic ship loadout could probably be done easily enough, but there's no guarantee the PvP community would find it appealing, or find it appealing for long. Or that it would attract new players to it.
"Tolerance and apathy are the last virtues of a dying society." - Aristotle
It would need a progression system internal to PvP, which means more work, and compared to the likely return, it just isn't worth the effort.
Well, the initial idea of giving everyone the same basic ship loadout could probably be done easily enough, but there's no guarantee the PvP community would find it appealing, or find it appealing for long. Or that it would attract new players to it.
There was this thing called Vanilla PvP several months ago that created a set of rules for private matches. The rules limited stuff to the basics: Mk XI gear max, basic T5 ships, no Rep or fleet or crafting stuff, no traits, etc. It actually worked pretty well and was going great.
Then Delta Rising came along and murdered it with Specializations (always on power creep).
Somebody, someday, will have to explain me why PvErs dislike PvPers. All the elitism I see comes, as far as I see it, from those who cannot fight against a human being and grieve over those who can.
It's not even a balance issue anymore, because if it was we'd be seeing threads left and right praying to take care about a neglected part of the game. It's just the same old propaganda, PvPers are X/Y/Z bad all the times, everytime.
I need to get to him. I can't just leave him out there alone. - Sometimes you've got to makes sacrifices, Lara. You can't save everyone. - I know about sacrifices. - No, you know about loss. Sacrifice is a choice you make. Loss is a choice made for you. - I can't choose to let him die, Roth.
Comments
I'm not telling that it is impossible, my point is really somewhat different. It's just when we are talking about "pure" Energy weapons build vs Exotic damage build, we should talk about in comparable terms. If you're after energy damage only, you can do way above 10k without any Reputation sets (or even "free" sets from Events/Featured Episodes) at all - with the right skill sets, right piloting, right abilities activation. Just the way it is with the "cheap" Part gens build.
But if we start include things like Borg set or Plasmonic Leech into picture for Energy weapons build, then we MUST include their equivalents for the the Exotic damage build. For the comparison to be correct.
/end thread.
Honestly, if an escort is "tanking" and you think you should be, you need to look at your skills. There are abilities and skills specifically for building threat. Use them, or fix your dps, or both.
Pvp is really just an STO hobby, about as important to the balance of the game as your tribble collection. Only a small dedicated crowd cares about pvp. Hardly anyone ques for pvp. Is it even worth mentioning when bringing up "balance?" Probably not. It is not a priority to most people, and its not a priority to the devs. Instead of complaining about a mechanic just because you feel like its OP, I suggest you try and adapt. Adjust your tactics. Life isnt fair. If you find that spamming faw suddenly doesnt work for you, maybe its time to try something different.
This. Just this.
I think the only way to achieve balance is to make PvP occur in preset ships (like the missions where you test drive ships) with limited abilities. There's no way of balancing PvP when there's a buy to win element (as new items drive sales).
I had much more fun some seasons ago...
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Despite our victory (gonna admit it, we were all on TS lol) throughout the match we kept discussing how immunities reached the ridiculous. Subnuke, immunity, subnuke, immunity and heal, it's just cheap, there's kind of no way to get through that, hence why immunities should last way less than right now.
this^
No one is forcing you to use the powers, and if someone else if using them...why do you care?
unless of course this a PvP complaint...
New items drive sales but arent a sure thing as "buy to win." Closest Ive seen for that is when Surgical strikes was big (kinda wish they bring that back even tho i never used it only had it used on me). People bought an intel vaper, loaded up on crit chance consoles and then, with OSS+Ionic, did SS3 really shine..But The only pay potion of it was the ship...the rest had to be earned...
I cant say its pay to win with Command or Pilot ships..Yes they have some nice things but its not a sure thing in PVP.Other wise youd only see the latest and greatest in Kerrat as #1 all the time (which isnt the case)
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
Interesting, I read the exact same shortly after STO went F2P. Since then pvp was greatly unbalanced and near-dead (said the forum). PvP is just THE special snowflake of sto^^
No. One of the best things of PvP is that you get to build your own ship, make it do x, y and z while countering a, b and c. Plus, Cryptic ignores what "ship building" is, like how Smirk used to run Boarding Party on a Xindi, or have the Pathfinder without boffs: he didn't even know how to outfit it.
PvE doesn't even need immunities. Guess what.
and you see only latest greatest pilot shipts there if someone fly's escort.
The only reason there are few others who dont use them its because they treat all dmg immunity as noob pve gimmick and dont want to get down to the unskilled lvl of pve noobs who cand win vs easy pve queyes as its to hard to read abilities discription they use on their boffs.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
From a PVE perspective: There is a catch to using all that Immunity oriented stuff. In my eyes, equipping more and more of that Immunity stuff kills offensive capability. IMHO, a balance needs to be struck for defense, offense, and immunities. Less than half-a-handful of seconds of Damage Immunity is completely irrelevant when the player has zero control over their use. The only Immunity related things that are truly strong is Rock & Roll and Pilot Ship Maneuvers. Thick of It is wonderful though and would, IMO, shine on any ship, not just Pilot Ships & Escorts. The rest is RNG with Zero Player Control and makes them irrelevant.
From a PVP perspective: It's an entirely different ballgame. Not to mention the increased methods of hazard clearing. But to get more of that stuff, you still need to sacrifice build space. Personally, I'm not worried about the Immunities in PVP. Because there's many workarounds to get a player to burn their Immunities (some of which are out of their control). The Auto-Hazard Clears are a far larger impact, IMO.
PVPers, if you really want "a fair fight" how about asking for queues where all consoles, traits and spec points are disabled? Maybe even all doffs?
That's probably more feasible than asking the devs to nerf and buff every little thing just so, with no one agreeing on what "just so" should be.
Newsflash: PvP'rs have asked for that. Newsflash: the devs never listen to PvP'rs, despite what most people seem to think.
Who's to say that Romulan Vaper can't have high Defensive Capabilities and these Immunities? A decloaking Ha'nom can slam you with so many Exotic Damage attacks and still have very high defense and immunities. I'd like to point out that Rom Republic BOFF traits like to stack lots and lots of defense, not to mention SRO. And sporting "Rock & Roll" is perfectly feasible
It would need a progression system internal to PvP, which means more work, and compared to the likely return, it just isn't worth the effort.
Well, the initial idea of giving everyone the same basic ship loadout could probably be done easily enough, but there's no guarantee the PvP community would find it appealing, or find it appealing for long. Or that it would attract new players to it.
There was this thing called Vanilla PvP several months ago that created a set of rules for private matches. The rules limited stuff to the basics: Mk XI gear max, basic T5 ships, no Rep or fleet or crafting stuff, no traits, etc. It actually worked pretty well and was going great.
Then Delta Rising came along and murdered it with Specializations (always on power creep).
Well now the thread has been properly labelled as a PvP thread, carry on complaining.
They don't want to find a new scapegoat for Devs fixing godmode powers.
It's not even a balance issue anymore, because if it was we'd be seeing threads left and right praying to take care about a neglected part of the game. It's just the same old propaganda, PvPers are X/Y/Z bad all the times, everytime.