Unless of course its a PvP torpedo boat. ^^ 60% res and 100k torpedo hits aren't enough.
This is true, though Id have to say cloakers can run like the lows they are, as well youd have to atleast HOPE they are smart enough to avoid a gravity well. Mmm and how about that 40km stealth detection, am I right
Fox Hunting? It was a sport chasing down cloakers, and doing things that killed their cloaks and/or hampered or killed their movement. It was glorious fun chasing down a panicked cloaker as you deprive their means of concealment and escape. You could taste that panic from kilometers away as you ride them down. Or you kill them while their cloaks are still up.
Old school B'Rel/T'Varo Snooper Builds was funny too back then. Detecting some Romulan sitting in cloaks while he was eyeing a target. Then you maneuver in position under your own cloaks, then firing off a TS3+APO3 of Quantum Torps for good measure
What about limiting the amount of energy weapons which can be fitted on a given ship?
Nothing overly drastic but on average if there are N weapon slots, only allow N-1 energy weapons. 7 weapon slot ships can have 6 energy weapons, 8 weapon slot ships can have 7 energy weapons, probably let 6 weapon ships have their 6 energy weapons if they want to - their primary damage is being split over science skills, hanger bays or torp builds anyway.
Maximum combo-ness achievable with pure energy weapon builds would decrease slightly and as people would be forced to equip a projectile, some thought into deciding which one to use and which play styles would impede the ability to use the selected projectile would come into effect.
I'm not saying there should be no ships capable of pure energy weapon builds but the ships that do allow it should have some sort of penalty in exchange for the novelty.
One of the vast issues, is that torpedoes are highly effective against players if timed right but, takes far more effort when involving npc's with huge inflated hp, as it takes more dedication and, more invested to be highly effective in most cases.
A simple fix, would be for them to potentially increase torpedoes dmg vs npc's, while keeping them as is for pvp purposes.
That would be a step into the right direction imo.
Since it's obviously not possible to reconcile PvE and PvP requirements, i think that sollution would be a practical idea.
@vireos
The problem is, if you start making things mandatory people will oppose it, understandably.
Another possibility would be to create a additional -torpedo only- weapon slot.
That weapon slot could also allow further extras, like a enhanced fireing arc for slower turning ships (depending on how slow they turn), for example.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
@yreodred: People oppose everything. Especially internet people. On MMO forums. A possibility would be to add an additional Tac-console slot which could only slot Projectile type consoles (not even universal) to every ship in the game.
I prefer the idea of placing a slight limitation to giving another weapon slot though. As a pure energy weapon boat with a heck load of expensive optimizations is currently the dps king, reducing the amount of energy weapons each ship could wield by one would hit people less the less optimized they were for FAW-ing. In fact, people who were already using any sort of projectile wouldn't be nerfed in any way at all - they'd just suddenly be doing slightly closer damage to the elite pvpers. (Slightly)
Plus, giving another slot for projectiles would put torp-boats even further behind.
First of all, we know torps are harder to use than beams.
The question now does beams have a wide margin advantage over torps to justify changes? a T1 Torp boat can do 77k DPS. Thats not even an optimal ship for torp.
Those thinking that torps needs buff at the optimal levels need to reach optimal levels of both beams and torps to actually have a say on this.
Otherwise, you should just accept that you are not skilled enough to pilot a torp due to the level of difficulty a torp presents over beams or simply dont have the support group to run a torp boat. Beams are just so popular due to ease of use.
All these random opinions on torps over beams have no idea what are the optimal levels of torp especially now that a T1 just did a 77k DPS run on torp to justify any changes on the current mechanics.
Since beginning of STO torpedoes are overshadowed by energy weapons.
Except for more or less exotic torpedo boat builds they have almost no use, although in "real" Star Trek most bigger ships (bigger than a runabout ) did have a certain quantity of torpedoes at hand.
Energy weapons rule the game, if it's DHCs or FAW builds doesn't matter.
The problem is that Shields have a 75% Kinetic damage reduction, affecting all torpedoes.
This makes Energy Weapons the weapons of choice against everything.
In order to give both weapons types a function, Hull should get a higher base damage reduction to energy weapons.
The idea is: Energy weapons -> Strong against shields -> weak against hull Torpedoes -> Strong against hull -> weak against shields
The advantage of this would be that both weapon types would had their advantages, but none would be powerful enough to ignore the other.
The goal is to make people use both types of weapons, pure energy weapon or torpedo builds wouldn't be desireable anymore.
Thoughts?
Excellent.
This is exactly how it should be, then the game could be balanced around more than energy spam.
Since beginning of STO torpedoes are overshadowed by energy weapons.
Let me help.
NPC's don't have any resistances. At least no one has claimed that they do.
Giving them just one point of positive resistance rating would change the game in very measurable, and positive ways. Honest.
Anyways...
The big booms of torpedoes were meant for burst damage. They do burst damage to hulls like nothing else. That's what they were designed to do. Beam Overload is right up there also.
And they do that now.
Honestly I'm not quite sure what you're after. For 'normal' game play I use a mixed build and it has hit 18k. On different ships in different groups it averages 12k. That's like what an average player can easily get. Once you start getting over 20k you're looking at more pretty and special gear in specialized configurations.
And that T1 torp boat wasn't doing 70k off of torpedoes. Put that away right there. Don't even go skewing that.
But, back on topic, what is it you want torpedoes to do, in what damage range, that they aren't doing right now? Cause I'm not seeing it. I'm slow tonight, whatever.
EDIT: Oh I think I get it. You want to make pure builds non viable.
There's something wrong where Tac Cubes and "bosses" can have their hull eaten alive in less than 1 minute via beams and plasma explosions, and they die just as their shields turn yellow. Something is very wrong w/ that mechanic.
With that said, forcing/restricting loadouts isnt a creative method for dealing with this situation.
...The big booms of torpedoes were meant for burst damage. They do burst damage to hulls like nothing else. That's what they were designed to do. Beam Overload is right up there also.
And they do that now.
The problem is that Energy Weapons are strong enough against hulls to make torpedoes not worth using for most players. (especially on slow turning ships)
Sure torpedoes do some burst damage, but a FAW build is still more effective. (because you don't have to maneuver the ship, CrtD and things like that)
But if any ships Hull would have a inherent energy damage reduction, similar like shields have against kinetic (or even more), it would make more sense (or better said necessary) to use torpedoes against a enemies ship hull.
Sure you could FAW on a enemy ships hull for some more time, but the trick should be that torpedoes should make a much bigger bang against hulll than just FAWing it.
Maybe my idea to accomplish that wasn't the best, i'm curious to hear other ideas of course.
Oh.. i forgot, i must say my suggestion is only intended for PvE gameplay.
As shadowwraith77 suggested, a differentiation between PvE and PvP would be appropriate. (sorry for that, i didn't considered that from the beginning)
EDIT: Oh I think I get it. You want to make pure builds non viable.
Not necessarily non viable, but i would like to see that a mix of Torpedo/Energy weapon being more effective than a pure energy/torpedo build.
Sorry if i'm a bit unclear it's been a really long day.
"...'With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured...the first thought forbidden...the first freedom denied--chains us all irrevocably.' ... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. I fear that today--"
- (TNG) Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie
The idea is: Energy weapons -> Strong against shields -> weak against hull Torpedoes -> Strong against hull -> weak against shields
...already exists.
But....that's spike????
Well, let's see...we've got weapons that:
1) have a CD from 6 to 30 seconds.
2) cannot fire simultaneously - there's at least a 1.5 second CD between them.
3) have Weapon Enhancement Abilities that apply to a single weapon.
What else would we be talking about? They're not designed as DPS weapons. Sure, folks can pull off some pretty nifty DPS with them compared to the average player - but they're not designed as DPS weapons so they're not going to compete with DPS weapons.
And well, pointing to FAW for a comparison...guess what, yeah?
BO doesn't compare with FAW.
CSV doesn't compare with FAW.
CRF doesn't compare with FAW.
Surgical doesn't compare with FAW.
Nothing compares with FAW.
Outside of the changes to the color palette for ship customization, what thread/discussion can't be traced back to FAW?
Perhaps it's not the 9001 other things that are broken and underperforming...
...perhaps it's FAW is overperforming.
Course, each time somebody tries to tell Cryptic that...they just buff it more. I mean, seriously, did they really need to troll folks by changing Beam Barrage so FAW could stack it too?
EDIT: Oh I think I get it. You want to make pure builds non viable.
If it were a case of going back in time, before the game launched...I would have made pure builds not possible.
I'd have pissed off all sorts of folks!
One Torpedo fore.
One Projectile aft.
Want a pure Energy build? Sorry.
Want more than one Projectile fore or aft? Sorry, we'll thinking about including Weapon Consoles for you.
Would it have been more restrictive? Sure, but this is Star Trek Online...not Super Generic Space Kite Fighting Online. (yes, I'm kind of stuck on that)
If it were a case of going back in time, before the game launched...I would have made pure builds not possible.
I'd have pissed off all sorts of folks!
One Torpedo fore.
One Projectile aft.
Want a pure Energy build? Sorry.
Want more than one Projectile fore or aft? Sorry, we'll thinking about including Weapon Consoles for you.
Would it have been more restrictive? Sure, but this is Star Trek Online...not Super Generic Space Kite Fighting Online. (yes, I'm kind of stuck on that)
You can build something like this if your sense for RP is that strong. Thats the strong point of STO: Many, many viable Possibilies.
What about limiting the amount of energy weapons which can be fitted on a given ship?
Nothing overly drastic but on average if there are N weapon slots, only allow N-1 energy weapons. 7 weapon slot ships can have 6 energy weapons, 8 weapon slot ships can have 7 energy weapons, probably let 6 weapon ships have their 6 energy weapons if they want to - their primary damage is being split over science skills, hanger bays or torp builds anyway.
Maximum combo-ness achievable with pure energy weapon builds would decrease slightly and as people would be forced to equip a projectile, some thought into deciding which one to use and which play styles would impede the ability to use the selected projectile would come into effect.
I'm not saying there should be no ships capable of pure energy weapon builds but the ships that do allow it should have some sort of penalty in exchange for the novelty.
Nope, the solution is KCB and most dps builds use it anyway.
A Turret boat with FAW and TS is viable in this game...competitive is another matter. Which gets to a lack of balance...
Now compared to your suggestion that picture is way out of the bounds. A turret boat with turret enhancing abilities still can perform well. If you want to sabotage it like this by using the wrong BO-Abilities this another matter.
Not everything is to be competetive for the dps top10. As you said yourself many times: You dont need that much dps, you need 8-10k for advance and everything will be fine.
Player A) 12,031
Player 10,768
Player C) 10,445 Willard the Rat) 9,526*
Player E) 3,338
% Damage In/BaseDamage In/Deaths**
Player A) 0.89% / 1.244% / 0
Player 22.057% / 22.319% / 3
Player C) 21.064% / 21.028% / 4 Willard the Rat) 54.363% / 53.881% / 2
Player E) 1.627% / 1.527% / 0
% Attacks In
Player A) 1.284%
Player 22.291%
Player C) 15.6% Willard the Rat) 59.25%
Player E) 1.574%
Heal Out (%) / Heal In (%)
Player A) 3,647 (0.115%) / 21,647 (0.684%)
Player 494,530 (15.636%) / 922,657 (29.165%)
Player C) 659,244 (20.844%) / 564,179 (17.814%) Willard the Rat) 1,991,780 (62.975%) / 1,632,285 (51.541%)
Player E) 13,611 (0.43%) / 25,219 (0.796%)
Only one UR13 weapon, the other 5 Turrets and KCB were VR12.
2x UR14 Phaser Locators, VR14 Multi-Relay (including 2pc w/ Heavy Bio Phaser) were the three of five Tac consoles.
Note: I saw the reply while doing the post, so I added it in there. Lol, it took longer to put the build together on STOAcademy than the ISA run took...heh.
Now compared to your suggestion that picture is way out of the bounds. A turret boat with turret enhancing abilities still can perform well. If you want to sabotage it like this by using the wrong BO-Abilities this another matter.
Not everything is to be competetive for the dps top10. As you said yourself many times: You dont need that much dps, you need 8-10k for advance and everything will be fine.
A lot of the folks out there aren't happy from a competitive standpoint with just being viable. I don't have the competitive thing going for me these days (never really had it outside of PvP, but even there - I'd lost that edge before coming back to STO with the F2P conversion)...I'm not an achiever.
I do like balance though...I argue for things to be buffed and for things to be nerfed...where I see balance inequities. So I'm going to grumble about FAW left, right, and center.
As for the "RP" thing and so forth, heh...it's simply more of a functional thing tied to the series/movies. Boats having that mix of energy/projectile...was pretty much what it was. It's not a case of wanting to "RP" anything...it's a case that the game got installed cause it was Star Trek Online - not Super Generic Space Kite Fighting Online.
And well, getting back to that viable vs. competitive...I mean, really, should that boat have been able to put out the DPS it did? I'm a crappy pilot. It was a crappy build. Imagine somebody that's not a crappy pilot and tweaking the build so it wasn't so crappy.
HSA? Nope. It was just ISA. But there are more Advanceds like ISA than there are HSA.
Viable doesn't really mean squat, imho, in this game...cause one has to try to find something that's not viable. It's an uber casual super friendly game...as long as the player leaves the spawn, remembers to fire their weapons, and doesn't try to fly in reverse from engagement to engagement...they're going to be the hero!
The competitive/balanced thing...is not going to be found in ISA. Content favors certain things.
But if you took the top 5 players...had them run Beams, Cannons, Projectiles in three different queues where in each of those queues what they found to be best changed...then it would be a case of having some sort of competitive/balance thing going, yeah? It used to be a bit more like that, no? Heh, not necessarily for Projectiles...lol...but Beams and Cannons, no?
Meh, doesn't matter...it's not going to change. These threads aren't new and each time these threads come up, lol, Cryptic actually creates more imbalance. It's like folks complaining about the Dil Refine Cap...so Cryptic adds even more Dil. They be trolling...
Out of curiosity, when was the last time you ran this test? Does it still hold true? If so, now factor the various secondary effects that are available to both......
.... now, compare both to FaW vs 1 target.
See other responses below for why this becomes relevant.
1) have a CD from 6 to 30 seconds.
2) cannot fire simultaneously - there's at least a 1.5 second CD between them.
3) have Weapon Enhancement Abilities that apply to a single weapon.
Seems like an archaic system for the current environment. I need only mention Plasmonic Leech (and Supremacy by relation) to show how that single console bypassed what was once a core mechanic of this game; power management.
Also, wouldn't BO also fall under #3 to some degree?
Not everything is to be competetive for the dps top10. As you said yourself many times: You dont need that much dps, you need 8-10k for advance and everything will be fine.
But that changes when one goes into Elite, where, depending on the map, you either overpower smaller targets via crits and buffs with non-beam weapons, or hope that none of your shieldPen abilities and secondary effects don't bug out on your "boss" level targets.
Meanwhile, you have energy weapons (read beams) using multiple shield bypass mechanics that do not require DOff's for RNG (extra specialization) literally killing targets before the shields are down..... Seems WaI, right? /sarcasm
When I argued against the nature of the Embassy consoles, I argued against the shieldPen mechanic, because it will set in motion an acceleration of an arms race between bigger damage sponges and one method of effectively dealing with the damage sponges and their juiced-up abilities. Now, we have multiple methods of ensuring that FaW is the only way to go for new Elite's. I thought HSE was painful for non-FaW builds. Try the new Herald Elites. As it stands now, I can take my build into any Adv queue, and see a slight variation in effectiveness. I can take the same build into any Elite queue, and go from good to decent to near useless in the same queue, and near useless in the new queues.
Throw in chain-immunities (to sell ships and to deal with NPC's hitting harder and w/ more abilities now), and what do we have here?
There is already someone at the current DPS Prime who does a mix Energy and torp build.
It is definitely not easier to pilot than your pure energy bfaw build.
So, I go back again to my issue of skill problem. Is this just a problem of skill or a problem of mechanics?
IMHO, I say both. I'd welcome a mechanic that rewards the player for applying skill to a weapon system and watch the performance of the weapon system improve based on the applied skill.
****************
Virus is absolutely right about one thing: the moment one mentions something broken about FaW, they buff it some more. Conversely, the moment someone mentions something broken about TS, incoming nerf/partial "fix" that cripples the torpedo(es) overall. I cite these forums and patch notes for case history.
There is already someone at the current DPS Prime who does a mix Energy and torp build.
It is definitely not easier to pilot than your pure energy bfaw build.
So, I go back again to my issue of skill problem. Is this just a problem of skill or a problem of mechanics?
It's a problem of skill in regard to some folks might see somebody better than them doing something and expect to be able to do the same. Heh, I don't have that problem...folks doing better than me are simply doing better than me.
Even in getting into specifics of types of builds...I really suck at Tac. I might suck at Sci and Eng...but I really suck at Tac. I'm going to outperform a Tac with an Eng or Sci. I just don't have the experience playing a Tac to make the most of it.
It's like DHCs, years ago I talked about how I liked to fly Torp Boats rather than DHCs...cause I could swing a 90 arc, but I was just too crappy of a pilot to handle the 45. Heh, years later, I haven't made much progress there...lol.
Finding skill defects with me is like finding hay in a haystack.
I didn't have TS on the BOFF I used, so it was HY3/FAW2 on my Hazari Turret boat with Willard (a Sci).
/snip
Only one UR13 weapon, the other 5 Turrets and KCB were VR12.
2x UR14 Phaser Locators, VR14 Multi-Relay (including 2pc w/ Heavy Bio Phaser) were the three of five Tac consoles.
Comments
Fox Hunting?
Old school B'Rel/T'Varo Snooper Builds was funny too back then. Detecting some Romulan sitting in cloaks while he was eyeing a target. Then you maneuver in position under your own cloaks, then firing off a TS3+APO3 of Quantum Torps for good measure
Nothing overly drastic but on average if there are N weapon slots, only allow N-1 energy weapons. 7 weapon slot ships can have 6 energy weapons, 8 weapon slot ships can have 7 energy weapons, probably let 6 weapon ships have their 6 energy weapons if they want to - their primary damage is being split over science skills, hanger bays or torp builds anyway.
Maximum combo-ness achievable with pure energy weapon builds would decrease slightly and as people would be forced to equip a projectile, some thought into deciding which one to use and which play styles would impede the ability to use the selected projectile would come into effect.
I'm not saying there should be no ships capable of pure energy weapon builds but the ships that do allow it should have some sort of penalty in exchange for the novelty.
Since it's obviously not possible to reconcile PvE and PvP requirements, i think that sollution would be a practical idea.
@vireos
The problem is, if you start making things mandatory people will oppose it, understandably.
Another possibility would be to create a additional -torpedo only- weapon slot.
That weapon slot could also allow further extras, like a enhanced fireing arc for slower turning ships (depending on how slow they turn), for example.
I prefer the idea of placing a slight limitation to giving another weapon slot though. As a pure energy weapon boat with a heck load of expensive optimizations is currently the dps king, reducing the amount of energy weapons each ship could wield by one would hit people less the less optimized they were for FAW-ing. In fact, people who were already using any sort of projectile wouldn't be nerfed in any way at all - they'd just suddenly be doing slightly closer damage to the elite pvpers. (Slightly)
Plus, giving another slot for projectiles would put torp-boats even further behind.
The question now does beams have a wide margin advantage over torps to justify changes? a T1 Torp boat can do 77k DPS. Thats not even an optimal ship for torp.
Those thinking that torps needs buff at the optimal levels need to reach optimal levels of both beams and torps to actually have a say on this.
Otherwise, you should just accept that you are not skilled enough to pilot a torp due to the level of difficulty a torp presents over beams or simply dont have the support group to run a torp boat. Beams are just so popular due to ease of use.
All these random opinions on torps over beams have no idea what are the optimal levels of torp especially now that a T1 just did a 77k DPS run on torp to justify any changes on the current mechanics.
Excellent.
This is exactly how it should be, then the game could be balanced around more than energy spam.
Let me help.
NPC's don't have any resistances. At least no one has claimed that they do.
Giving them just one point of positive resistance rating would change the game in very measurable, and positive ways. Honest.
Anyways...
The big booms of torpedoes were meant for burst damage. They do burst damage to hulls like nothing else. That's what they were designed to do. Beam Overload is right up there also.
And they do that now.
Honestly I'm not quite sure what you're after. For 'normal' game play I use a mixed build and it has hit 18k. On different ships in different groups it averages 12k. That's like what an average player can easily get. Once you start getting over 20k you're looking at more pretty and special gear in specialized configurations.
And that T1 torp boat wasn't doing 70k off of torpedoes. Put that away right there. Don't even go skewing that.
But, back on topic, what is it you want torpedoes to do, in what damage range, that they aren't doing right now? Cause I'm not seeing it. I'm slow tonight, whatever.
EDIT: Oh I think I get it. You want to make pure builds non viable.
With that said, forcing/restricting loadouts isnt a creative method for dealing with this situation.
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.
Sure torpedoes do some burst damage, but a FAW build is still more effective. (because you don't have to maneuver the ship, CrtD and things like that)
But if any ships Hull would have a inherent energy damage reduction, similar like shields have against kinetic (or even more), it would make more sense (or better said necessary) to use torpedoes against a enemies ship hull.
Sure you could FAW on a enemy ships hull for some more time, but the trick should be that torpedoes should make a much bigger bang against hulll than just FAWing it.
Maybe my idea to accomplish that wasn't the best, i'm curious to hear other ideas of course.
Oh.. i forgot, i must say my suggestion is only intended for PvE gameplay.
As shadowwraith77 suggested, a differentiation between PvE and PvP would be appropriate. (sorry for that, i didn't considered that from the beginning)
Not necessarily non viable, but i would like to see that a mix of Torpedo/Energy weapon being more effective than a pure energy/torpedo build.
Sorry if i'm a bit unclear it's been a really long day.
BO3 w/ 0x Tac Consoles > HY3 Quantums w/ 5x Tac Consoles vs. Shields
Suggests that...
...already exists.
But....that's spike????
Well, let's see...we've got weapons that:
1) have a CD from 6 to 30 seconds.
2) cannot fire simultaneously - there's at least a 1.5 second CD between them.
3) have Weapon Enhancement Abilities that apply to a single weapon.
What else would we be talking about? They're not designed as DPS weapons. Sure, folks can pull off some pretty nifty DPS with them compared to the average player - but they're not designed as DPS weapons so they're not going to compete with DPS weapons.
And well, pointing to FAW for a comparison...guess what, yeah?
BO doesn't compare with FAW.
CSV doesn't compare with FAW.
CRF doesn't compare with FAW.
Surgical doesn't compare with FAW.
Nothing compares with FAW.
Outside of the changes to the color palette for ship customization, what thread/discussion can't be traced back to FAW?
Perhaps it's not the 9001 other things that are broken and underperforming...
...perhaps it's FAW is overperforming.
Course, each time somebody tries to tell Cryptic that...they just buff it more. I mean, seriously, did they really need to troll folks by changing Beam Barrage so FAW could stack it too?
If it were a case of going back in time, before the game launched...I would have made pure builds not possible.
I'd have pissed off all sorts of folks!
One Torpedo fore.
One Projectile aft.
Want a pure Energy build? Sorry.
Want more than one Projectile fore or aft? Sorry, we'll thinking about including Weapon Consoles for you.
Would it have been more restrictive? Sure, but this is Star Trek Online...not Super Generic Space Kite Fighting Online. (yes, I'm kind of stuck on that)
You can build something like this if your sense for RP is that strong. Thats the strong point of STO: Many, many viable Possibilies.
A Turret boat with FAW and TS is viable in this game...competitive is another matter. Which gets to a lack of balance...
Nope, the solution is KCB and most dps builds use it anyway.
Now compared to your suggestion that picture is way out of the bounds. A turret boat with turret enhancing abilities still can perform well. If you want to sabotage it like this by using the wrong BO-Abilities this another matter.
Not everything is to be competetive for the dps top10. As you said yourself many times: You dont need that much dps, you need 8-10k for advance and everything will be fine.
There is already someone at the current DPS Prime who does a mix Energy and torp build.
It is definitely not easier to pilot than your pure energy bfaw build.
So, I go back again to my issue of skill problem. Is this just a problem of skill or a problem of mechanics?
I didn't have TS on the BOFF I used, so it was HY3/FAW2 on my Hazari Turret boat with Willard (a Sci).
Here's the quick fail build (thrown together after that last post): http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=turzari_5343
Here's the log (just a random public pug): https://www.dropbox.com/s/vtbzn4hlkx8v8tc/upload_Infected_Space_31-05-2015_05-06.log?dl=0
DPS
Player A) 12,031
Player
Player C) 10,445
Willard the Rat) 9,526*
Player E) 3,338
% Damage In/BaseDamage In/Deaths**
Player A) 0.89% / 1.244% / 0
Player
Player C) 21.064% / 21.028% / 4
Willard the Rat) 54.363% / 53.881% / 2
Player E) 1.627% / 1.527% / 0
% Attacks In
Player A) 1.284%
Player
Player C) 15.6%
Willard the Rat) 59.25%
Player E) 1.574%
Heal Out (%) / Heal In (%)
Player A) 3,647 (0.115%) / 21,647 (0.684%)
Player
Player C) 659,244 (20.844%) / 564,179 (17.814%)
Willard the Rat) 1,991,780 (62.975%) / 1,632,285 (51.541%)
Player E) 13,611 (0.43%) / 25,219 (0.796%)
Only one UR13 weapon, the other 5 Turrets and KCB were VR12.
2x UR14 Phaser Locators, VR14 Multi-Relay (including 2pc w/ Heavy Bio Phaser) were the three of five Tac consoles.
*Breakdown of Willard's DPS
Phased Biomatter Turret: 32.027%
Pets (Sum): 23.865%
Cutting Beam: 12.067%
Heavy Bio-Molecular Phaser Turret: 8.797%
Gravity Well I: 8.392%
Phaser Turret: 7.991%
Plasma Explosion: 3.436%
Refracting Tetryon Cascade: 2.335%
Chromoelectric Pulse: 0.645%
Biomatter Needle Burst: 0.345%
Bio-Molecular Incubation: 0.101%
From Phaser Turrets: 48.815%
**Only one death wasn't a Plasma Torp hit.
Note: I saw the reply while doing the post, so I added it in there. Lol, it took longer to put the build together on STOAcademy than the ISA run took...heh.
A lot of the folks out there aren't happy from a competitive standpoint with just being viable. I don't have the competitive thing going for me these days (never really had it outside of PvP, but even there - I'd lost that edge before coming back to STO with the F2P conversion)...I'm not an achiever.
I do like balance though...I argue for things to be buffed and for things to be nerfed...where I see balance inequities. So I'm going to grumble about FAW left, right, and center.
As for the "RP" thing and so forth, heh...it's simply more of a functional thing tied to the series/movies. Boats having that mix of energy/projectile...was pretty much what it was. It's not a case of wanting to "RP" anything...it's a case that the game got installed cause it was Star Trek Online - not Super Generic Space Kite Fighting Online.
And well, getting back to that viable vs. competitive...I mean, really, should that boat have been able to put out the DPS it did? I'm a crappy pilot. It was a crappy build. Imagine somebody that's not a crappy pilot and tweaking the build so it wasn't so crappy.
HSA? Nope. It was just ISA. But there are more Advanceds like ISA than there are HSA.
Viable doesn't really mean squat, imho, in this game...cause one has to try to find something that's not viable. It's an uber casual super friendly game...as long as the player leaves the spawn, remembers to fire their weapons, and doesn't try to fly in reverse from engagement to engagement...they're going to be the hero!
The competitive/balanced thing...is not going to be found in ISA. Content favors certain things.
But if you took the top 5 players...had them run Beams, Cannons, Projectiles in three different queues where in each of those queues what they found to be best changed...then it would be a case of having some sort of competitive/balance thing going, yeah? It used to be a bit more like that, no? Heh, not necessarily for Projectiles...lol...but Beams and Cannons, no?
Meh, doesn't matter...it's not going to change. These threads aren't new and each time these threads come up, lol, Cryptic actually creates more imbalance. It's like folks complaining about the Dil Refine Cap...so Cryptic adds even more Dil. They be trolling...
Out of curiosity, when was the last time you ran this test? Does it still hold true? If so, now factor the various secondary effects that are available to both......
.... now, compare both to FaW vs 1 target.
See other responses below for why this becomes relevant.
Seems like an archaic system for the current environment. I need only mention Plasmonic Leech (and Supremacy by relation) to show how that single console bypassed what was once a core mechanic of this game; power management.
Also, wouldn't BO also fall under #3 to some degree?
But that changes when one goes into Elite, where, depending on the map, you either overpower smaller targets via crits and buffs with non-beam weapons, or hope that none of your shieldPen abilities and secondary effects don't bug out on your "boss" level targets.
Meanwhile, you have energy weapons (read beams) using multiple shield bypass mechanics that do not require DOff's for RNG (extra specialization) literally killing targets before the shields are down..... Seems WaI, right? /sarcasm
When I argued against the nature of the Embassy consoles, I argued against the shieldPen mechanic, because it will set in motion an acceleration of an arms race between bigger damage sponges and one method of effectively dealing with the damage sponges and their juiced-up abilities. Now, we have multiple methods of ensuring that FaW is the only way to go for new Elite's. I thought HSE was painful for non-FaW builds. Try the new Herald Elites. As it stands now, I can take my build into any Adv queue, and see a slight variation in effectiveness. I can take the same build into any Elite queue, and go from good to decent to near useless in the same queue, and near useless in the new queues.
Throw in chain-immunities (to sell ships and to deal with NPC's hitting harder and w/ more abilities now), and what do we have here?
Where's the skill in that?
We haven't even touched PvP yet.
IMHO, I say both. I'd welcome a mechanic that rewards the player for applying skill to a weapon system and watch the performance of the weapon system improve based on the applied skill.
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Virus is absolutely right about one thing: the moment one mentions something broken about FaW, they buff it some more. Conversely, the moment someone mentions something broken about TS, incoming nerf/partial "fix" that cripples the torpedo(es) overall. I cite these forums and patch notes for case history.
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.
It's a problem of skill in regard to some folks might see somebody better than them doing something and expect to be able to do the same. Heh, I don't have that problem...folks doing better than me are simply doing better than me.
Even in getting into specifics of types of builds...I really suck at Tac. I might suck at Sci and Eng...but I really suck at Tac. I'm going to outperform a Tac with an Eng or Sci. I just don't have the experience playing a Tac to make the most of it.
It's like DHCs, years ago I talked about how I liked to fly Torp Boats rather than DHCs...cause I could swing a 90 arc, but I was just too crappy of a pilot to handle the 45. Heh, years later, I haven't made much progress there...lol.
Finding skill defects with me is like finding hay in a haystack.
But that doesn't exclude mechanics and content...
They still haven't fixed the FAW1 issue with weapon rarity though...hrmm.
If you listen to Spencer and Snipey, it's because I use it
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.
I'm confused FAW is not supposed to affect the KCB or turrets so why use that over CSV?
He's intentionally trolling his own build to prove this point (and maybe proc Inspirational Leader if he has that trait.)
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.
Aye, the "don't even need to use the right weapon enhancement abilities while using turrets" to be viable thing.
No, Inspirational...but did have All Hands.
I just disappointed you didn't go 100% Skittles Boat.
Wait... does that mean damage from rarity or does it ignore the actual mods on the weapon?
Thanks!
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