The solution to an environment that only favors one playstyle is not to adapt all classes to that playstyle, but to adapt the gameplay environment to favor no playstyle.
There's nothing wrong with the Engineer career itself. Its job is defense and tanking, and it does them well. We just need to make tanking more valuable in the metagame.
Exactly. i hate it when i read that Engineers, Science officers, Sci ships and Cruisers are no good and the only acceptable playstyle is as a Tac in an Escort. ACruiser can take more damage, Beams have a better firing Arc, I can use EPtWII and III and AP Beta, i can reduce energy drain to 0. Cruisers and Engineers are Amazing.
The only thing this Game needs is that Cryptic stops ruining it with their insane love for DPS.
I use Cruisers and Escorts on both, my Engineer and my Tac Officer. I prefer Cruisers or Battlecruisers and my Engineer
Exactly. i hate it when i read that Engineers, Science officers, Sci ships and Cruisers are no good and the only acceptable playstyle is as a Tac in an Escort. ACruiser can take more damage, Beams have a better firing Arc, I can use EPtWII and III and AP Beta, i can reduce energy drain to 0. Cruisers and Engineers are Amazing.
The only thing this Game needs is that Cryptic stops ruining it with their insane love for DPS.
I use Cruisers and Escorts on both, my Engineer and my Tac Officer. I prefer Cruisers or Battlecruisers and my Engineer
Couldn't agree more.
I said it before, and I'll say it again. The Mirror Invasion revamp is definitely on the right track. It's the only instance where my lowest-DPS ships could not only contribute the most, but actually carry everyone through a pug of it single-handedly. No, that's not hyperbole.
I think simplest would be to change EPS so that it can "overcharge" ship systems considerably, maybe add +25 cap fo all subsystems during the duration.
Making it more unique and thematic rather than using flat out buffs or debuffs like tactical and sci.
I mean lets face it, both Sci and Tacs bring something unique and useful to any ship class, be it escorts, cruisers or science ships.
I think simplest would be to change EPS so that it can "overcharge" ship systems considerably, maybe add +25 cap fo all subsystems during the duration.
Making it more unique and thematic rather than using flat out buffs or debuffs like tactical and sci.
I mean lets face it, both Sci and Tacs bring something unique and useful to any ship class, be it escorts, cruisers or science ships.
Exactly, an eng brings nothing unique whatsoever to any ship class.
The question remains, why doesn't Cryptic DO something about it?
Exactly, an eng brings nothing unique whatsoever to any ship class.
The question remains, why doesn't Cryptic DO something about it?
By default an engineer's ship should run the smoothest of any ship in the fleet.
The question is how do you translate that to gameplay?
I mean how well would it go over for engineers to by virtue of being engineers have vessels with superior performance?
Let's look at what they've already got.
Rotate Shield Frequency- Sure we see Engineers in the show do it all the time.
Sensor Scan- Perfectly logical.
Attack Pattern Alpha- Makes sense.
So that's a shield hardness and regen increase, a general debuff to the target's damage resistance and stealth detection buff, and an increase to damage, crit, and turn rate.
Personally I think that Rotating Shield Frequencies should also break tractor beams. That was the first time we ever heard about shield frequencies, when the Enterprise was trying to break a Borg Tractor beam. If there was actually a mechanic in this game to manipulate, interfere with, or otherwise try to bypass shields via their frequencies, then this could be a much more important ability to auto-cancel such abilities.
Next...
EPS Power transfer- I love this ability, great in a pinch.
Subnucleonic Beam- I hate this ability...getting hit by it that is.
Fire on My Mark- Honestly at the modern point in this game...seems more like a Command ability, which makes sense as Tactical and Command are pretty much the same thing in truth.
I have no issues with EPS. Subnuke is overpowered and I don't see how it related to the actual Subnucleonic beam which was an all penetrating scan. It should guarantee a subsystem knock out and critical on the next attack, but I don't see how it knocks out all buffs in one shot. Fire on my Mark is yet another resistance debuff and stealth impediment.
Next up...
Nadion Inversion- Reduces energy drain across the board. I don't use it that much.
Scattering Field- Outstanding, love popping it to support the team.
Tactical Initiative- A free Photonic Officer ability, reduces cooldowns, excellent.
Nadion Inversion is rather underwhelming. It would be better as a passive honestly. A trait that kicks in when your power is being drained too fast.
NEXT!
The Top of the heap, as the Fleet abilities are perfectly fine and balanced to me.
Miracle Worker- SCOTTY!
Photonic Fleet- The Doctor
Go Down Fighting- "You must have Klingon Blood."
These all make sense and are useful. The only thing I would say is that in addition to the massive shield and hull heal that can pull you from the jaws of death with a golden hyperspanner, there should probably be a bit more. A power level boost, I mean this is the miracle so it should also have the power of increasing power levels...OR automatically recharge the EPS power.
But what does that really do for the ship itself. I mean an engineer would have a couple of tricks up their sleeve for an emergency...but they would also have tinkered with their ship, and made upgrades. Like Geordi's mid-range phase adjuster.
Or be able to push systems longer and harder as like Scotty they know that the official specs are always a weeeee bit conservative.
An engineer is the guy who's always going to be tinkering with his ship. Making adjustments. Tweaks.
Honestly this game isn't in depth enough to truly duplicate all the things that an engineer would do.
I want to say that engineers would be the class that would have the easiest time crafting, reduced costs, or the ability to select modifications. But sadly that would probably drastically upset the games economy since everyone can craft. Engineers therefore get no advantage in that field since everyone can craft. If Engineers got the ability to select mods on engineering or shipboard equipment while Sci and Tac got to select mods in their respective arenas then it might be something.
Anyone else got any ideas?
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
I have a question for all of you guys asking for a boost???
How much DPS would you expect an Engineer in a Cruiser to do to be effective for his team????
While still being able to tank?
I want to see what people's expectations are.
Your ability to "tank effectively" is going to vary based on who you play with, as you need to generate enough threat to outpace everyone else on the team. A good starting point would probably be 5k-6k damage output balanced with solid heals and a fair amount of threat gen. With the players I usually play with, I feel I'm a fairly effective tank (combat parser logs me usually taking at least 40% of all incoming attacks, still working on increasing that). I've parsed around 8k in a Sarr Theln (not counting pets since they don't contribute to my threat) and around 9k in a Fleet Assault Cruiser Refit T5U in solo content, usually higher if the team I'm with has debuffs.
Another big part of tanking effectively is your AoE potential. In fights with more than one target, you need to be getting aggro from all of them, so abilities that strike multiple targets are important. Fire At Will is of course an excellent choice, Scatter Volley and Torpedo Spread can also do the job if you position yourself correctly, Gravity Well can be good if you can fit it on your ship.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Engineers get Miracle Worker and Rotate Shield Frequency as recovery abilities. The latter doesn't stand up to pressure damage, and the former basically lets you recover from one or two spikes.
The choice of ship is considerably more important.
A Tac in an Oddy would lose RSF and MW, but have a considerably easier time grabbing aggro and still have a ton of healing abilities from being in a cruiser with a lot of Engineering stations.
Engineers get Miracle Worker and Rotate Shield Frequency as recovery abilities. The latter doesn't stand up to pressure damage, and the former basically lets you recover from one or two spikes.
The choice of ship is considerably more important.
A Tac in an Oddy would lose RSF and MW, but have a considerably easier time grabbing aggro and still have a ton of healing abilities from being in a cruiser with a lot of Engineering stations.
Nobody ever listens to me when I say that, and I've been saying it for years. Ship choice is significantly more important than career in space. Yes, some captain abilities can make a difference in a major fight, but ship choice makes a difference in everything you do in space.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
I have a question for all of you guys asking for a boost???
How much DPS would you expect an Engineer in a Cruiser to do to be effective for his team????
While still being able to tank?
I want to see what people's expectations are.
Based on the DPS leauge and HSE table, it is around 50k dps or above at ISA. From what I know, I can see a dedicated Eng toon who have done HSE and parsed 50k+ at ISA. The highest dedicated Eng toon i know in the HSE table has done 60k+ at ISA.
Based on the DPS leauge and HSE table, it is around 50k dps or above at ISA. From what I know, I can see a dedicated Eng toon who have done HSE and parsed 50k+ at ISA. The highest dedicated Eng toon i know in the HSE table has done 60k+ at ISA.
HSE needs DPS and Tank capabilities.
I've never parsed but I could see that. I have an eng in a fleet excel and stuff melts all around it.
I'd honestly like to compare the dps potential of tac/engi/sci All with similar optimal builds..
But from my experience attack pattern alpha, and most of the other abilities tactical captains have improve dps far more then any engineer has, heck even science can get great exotic damage to compliment weapon damage.
But I would have to say engineers in space, even their many of their boff abilities, do not feel like engineers. They just don't seem as adaptable as the engineers in trek seemed. While their ground abilities seem very adaptable. Their abilities shift to slowly, and seem to much focused on rotations.
Their abilities need to be made to feel, like you are adapting against your enemies attack strategies. Being able to push your ship's abilities to their max. From out maneuvering your enemy to adapting your weapons to your enemies defenses.
Things like directed energy modulation should work less like a buff, and more like a attack which each volley has higher and higher chance to completely penetrate shielding. Think a cycle attack like fire at will, with a stacking chance to penetrate shields completely. With also a minor hull resistance ignore which strength is increased depending rank. As well as a increase in stack chance for complete penetration of shields.
It should disable other energy attacks from being activated, but doesn't put them on cooldown.
There is also another reason why there is almost no reason to pick a engineering captain rather then tact or science. A lot of their special abilities simply got marginalized, warp cores a equipment piece engineers that should be a big thing for them, it ended up just giving the other classes more access to the power levels engineers could only get to. Along with plasmonic leech.
Engineering powers need to be more linked with warp cores, as they are the core tech to any starship, and thematically it only makes sense for them to be the masters of their ship's main tech.
The strange thing about comparing ground and space is that Engineer and Science kind of.. trade doctrines.
On ground, Engineers are the ones with all the AoE buffs and summons; in Space, Science Captains are the ones who do that. Conversely, Engineers can bridge someone back to fighting form from the brink of death in space.. as a Science Captain could on the ground.
The strange thing about comparing ground and space is that Engineer and Science kind of.. trade doctrines.
On ground, Engineers are the ones with all the AoE buffs and summons; in Space, Science Captains are the ones who do that. Conversely, Engineers can bridge someone back to fighting form from the brink of death in space.. as a Science Captain could on the ground.
Just to drop numbers, As of today:
ISA
Top Sci toon in DPS is 77k DPS
Top Eng toon in DPS is 79k DPS
HSE
Top Eng Toon is 29k DPS top 10
Top Sci Toon is 25k top 16
BHE
Top 4 are Eng toons
Sci toon not even in Top 15
NTTE
2 Eng toons at Top 15
Sci toon not even in Top 15
So there is literally a Space DPS competition between Sci and Eng. Ground is not even a competition. Because of these numbers, now I wonder if Eng is getting the worst of the dps stick or is it Sci.
Based on the DPS leauge and HSE table, it is around 50k dps or above at ISA. From what I know, I can see a dedicated Eng toon who have done HSE and parsed 50k+ at ISA. The highest dedicated Eng toon i know in the HSE table has done 60k+ at ISA.
HSE needs DPS and Tank capabilities.
You're absolutely right about HSE - that map punishes teams that cannot survive (0 DPS when you're dead), and a team's survivability will naturally scale better when you have a skilled dedicated tank. There's not a lot of content that punishes low survivability like HSE does, but they doesn't mean tanks have nothing to add outside of HSE, either.
The thing about tanking in this game is that in order to generate threat (i.e., draw fire onto yourself and away from your allies), you need to deal damage. Hence, you'll find that most of the highly-successful tanks will actually run high-DPS builds, but will trade highest-percentile damage for extra survivability (e.g., trading EPtW3 for ET3).
Engineers get additional survivability toys in RSF3, EF3, and MW3 double-taps; but they also get DPS (pressure) toys since in the current meta, more power generally leads to more DPS, too.
But Tactical captains can tank too! They don't explicitly get survivability toys, but having their extra damage toys means that Tacs can still afford to make the aforementioned damage/survivability bridge officer station trade-offs without diminishing their DPS as much as an Engineer would.
That said, Engineers, I think, gravitate towards tanking for two reasons - their explicit team buffs (which is really only EF3) increases survivability, their self-powers increase survivability, and you just bring more to a PVE team by being a DPS/Tank than if you were to pull off a Heal/Turtle - it's sort of your most efficient option from a min-maxing perspective. Sure, an Engineer's power manipulation might allow her to slide into a broader spectrum of roles than a Tactical or Science captain can, but she will likely never excel at a single (effective) role outside of playing a dedicated tank, probably.
So Engineers end up as a jack-of-all, master-of-none, character in space.
But they absolutely obliterate ground content. So there's that.
Deals 100/150/200 of the energy damage inflicted by the ship it is affecting back the ship (no shield pen). Clean with He.
Extend shields:
Ramp up the shield heal massively.
Warp plasma: Needs to be able to be set on more fire.
New ability:
Saturated Barrage:
for 5 seconds, all outgoing energy damage is collected in a pool (66%/90%/110% for lt, lt com and com slots) and then released on the current target in one burst. Should be a massive beam.
Numbers open for discussion.
All emergencypower to- abilities should be toggles that pulse.
Deals 100/150/200 of the energy damage inflicted by the ship it is affecting back the ship (no shield pen). Clean with He.
Extend shields:
Ramp up the shield heal massively.
Warp plasma: Needs to be able to be set on more fire.
New ability:
Saturated Barrage:
for 5 seconds, all outgoing energy damage is collected in a pool (66%/90%/110% for lt, lt com and com slots) and then released on the current target in one burst. Should be a massive beam.
Numbers open for discussion.
All emergencypower to- abilities should be toggles that pulse.
But Why? Everyone has access to this. This means that Tac will have access to this as well.
For Aceton Beam and Warp Plasma, for PvE, the space they would occupy is currently been occupied by a dual Dem and/or EPTW which is more than sufficient for DPS.
If they want to buff Engineer, they need to buff the captain's powers. EPS power transfer perhaps be like OSS not only buffing the current power but also the max power since plasmonic leech+supremacy trait has taken out any power advantage Eng have over Tac and Sci. While there is no in game trait or console that would give the same as an APA.
I sometimes use Aceton Beam simply because of how few Comm skill choices there are. AB is more of a debuff since it is a pitiful DoT, but it does give a hefty debuff.
But Why? Everyone has access to this. This means that Tac will have access to this as well.
For Aceton Beam and Warp Plasma, for PvE, the space they would occupy is currently been occupied by a dual Dem and/or EPTW which is more than sufficient for DPS.
If they want to buff Engineer, they need to buff the captain's powers. EPS power transfer perhaps be like OSS not only buffing the current power but also the max power since plasmonic leech+supremacy trait has taken out any power advantage Eng have over Tac and Sci. While there is no in game trait or console that would give the same as an APA.
You can have these powers be not buffable by AP.
And i disagree, the engineer abilities do need some that are directly meant to deal damage, just as sci needs those.
You can have these powers be not buffable by AP.
And i disagree, the engineer abilities do need some that are directly meant to deal damage, just as sci needs those.
Its a dps race.
Again but why? Are you aiming for DPS prime in the DPS league? Are you unsatisfied with 79k DPS that Eng toon can currently achieve? Both Sci and Eng toons are more than capable of doing DPS for end game content.
Like I said, there are already Eng BoFF abilities that deal dps. So why ask for something that already fills that spot.
My main is an Engineer and in looking into how to improve my damage I have to agree that if I want to do damage as in huge crits, you have to be tactical or science. To top it off and make matters worse, I am a KDF engineer so the selection of ships is limited. In looking at Ezri Ryan's posts on youtube as well as reading crit posts on reddit which pointed me there in the first place I have learned a whole lot. Sci captains get significant debuffs and can jack their sci abilities to have huge crits with deflector abilities and clicky consoles as well as boff skills.
Sure an engineer can boost his skills too but the innate sci skills aka debuffs, make these skills crit for deliciousness. 14k damage every second over the course of phaser lance and stuff the Feds get don't hurt either. Tacs get buffs, debuffs, and huge damage buffs, along with go down fighting.. which brings me to my main point. Guess what? Real dps Tacs DONT want to get healed, its called "go down fighting" and any real tac that you heal as an Engineer is going to be pretty darn mad if they play their class right. By being an engineer in some cases, without communication, such as a pug, your actually HURTING your teams dps. How is that for a slap in the face. Sci don't need heals either because they generally have that covered. So it really only benefits yourself.
These "traits" like hull heal on engineering team, and 20% extra hull heals for biotech patch are equally useless for the very same reason, that is unless your soloing an stf yourself, but surprise surprise, if you don't put out major dps, you can't solo it anyway. The game is damage over heals, Ezri's posts prove that, at least in short duration stf, but probably applies to most things in game. Its kill or be killed. You just cant out tank NPC's now, since their HP bufff far outweighs yours.
Engineers useless in space? Only if your doing anything other than solo content, or if its a very prolonged battle, which 90% of the population will skip for that very reason. Time is money.
On ground things are a bit different but our advantages are slowly being given to the tacs and sci if they want to use them for toys. Shield drone for sci, polaron blast for tac, basically mimic our own powers, although admittedly at the cost of a very limited kit slot.
Melee, which is my favorite. Is also gimped for the Engineer. Tacs get a self heal for melee kit power and also many other skills to benefit melee as in enhanced melee damage %. Sci toons get Hypospray Dylovene, a nice OP melee 30%+ buff. (not to mention debuffs which make a huge difference) Engineers get... well.. squat in the melee dpt.
Ground needs a huge revamp anyway and hardly anyone really plays it much accept for a few of us who love it, this further makes the only slight edge we have be a bit pointless. Ground has needed a dedicated melee slot in addition to the two other weapon slots anyway.
I always figured hey, a dead captain does no dps, this is why I chose Engineer. However not only do I see tacs holding up fine and sci is a given, sometimes I might even die sooner, because I have to sacrifice healing abilities that benefit no one else but me (tac don't want em, sci don't need em) to push my dps to offer "something" to the team as a whole.
Now will I switch my Engineer to a tac or a sci because of it? I seriously consider it at times, but the specialization grind is really killing the game for me and to do it all over again would be just too much work and not enough fun to make rolling a new toon "enjoyable".
I came here to post my own topic about these shortcomings and maybe made a few engineers aware how their heals can actually hurt the team. I saw this post on turning absorbed damage into dps and thought this was a very valid idea and solved multiple problems with minimal work for the development team.
As it stands, Engineers are not needed in a group, even unwanted. They offer no significant debuffs like sci, tacs can stack beta on a target so even sci is sometimes meh.. but nice to have around for secondary deflector, phaser lance of doom sci on crack crits and debuffs as a bonus (yes looking at you feds, and yes looking at you devs for shunting the KDF).
A team of all tacs? no problem.
Maybe a team of mostly tacs and max of two sci? no problem.
Engineer? offer nothing to the group but keep them alive, but engineer is not needed, because if he is not there, the group has better dps, the mission is done faster, and heals are never needed.
I love my Engineer probably for the same reason I love the KDF, both highly neglected, perhaps this is why I do ground too? I do like to figure out how to make things better and one up the underdog, but in this case, this is in cryptics' court.
Sure an engineer can boost his skills too but the innate sci skills aka debuffs, make these skills crit for deliciousness. 14k damage every second over the course of phaser lance and stuff the Feds get don't hurt either. Tacs get buffs, debuffs, and huge damage buffs, along with go down fighting.. which brings me to my main point. Guess what? Real dps Tacs DONT want to get healed, its called "go down fighting" and any real tac that you heal as an Engineer is going to be pretty darn mad if they play their class right. By being an engineer in some cases, without communication, such as a pug, your actually HURTING your teams dps. How is that for a slap in the face. Sci don't need heals either because they generally have that covered. So it really only benefits yourself.
In paper, maybe the engineer looks the worse among the three toons in space. In practice, its a neck to neck race in Space dps with Sci toons. In record, Engineers have currently a slight advantage over Sci toons on Space DPS.
I dont know how you are hurting the team unless you are not doing DPS at all with your Eng. It is either the player has a wrong build or bad piloting.
Melee, which is my favorite. Is also gimped for the Engineer. Tacs get a self heal for melee kit power and also many other skills to benefit melee as in enhanced melee damage %. Sci toons get Hypospray Dylovene, a nice OP melee 30%+ buff. (not to mention debuffs which make a huge difference) Engineers get... well.. squat in the melee dpt.
Ground needs a huge revamp anyway and hardly anyone really plays it much accept for a few of us who love it, this further makes the only slight edge we have be a bit pointless. Ground has needed a dedicated melee slot in addition to the two other weapon slots anyway.
Why are you forcing melee on the Engineer? You are not suppose to melee on Engineer, its all about pets and demolitions in the ground for Engineer.
The question is, why not for melee on an engineer? The same reason why ground turrets medical/shield generators, and mostly even mortars have gone out the window for engineeers: Just too slow.
By the time you set up your turret, generator, med generator, support drone (all of which are obsolete, how many eng powers is that wasted?) the game is over. You kill, you move fast, and you keep on moving. Aside from mines, and the occasional orbital strike, and to a lesser extent cover shield if you have the + resistance, the rest of the engineers skills are obsolete on ground. The question is here, why is melee viable for a science toon, and tac, but not for a engineer?
Science is the healer class but engineers if used as supposedly "designed", spend more time in a healing support role than the typical "healer class" in game. Sitting around doing nothing. That is, if you play it to Cryptic's "standards". Real engineers are dropping mines on the go and that is about the only emplacement we use. You have to go go go, or else your not contributing anything. You can supplement these shortcomings with intel kit skills, but any class can have the same benefit if they chose. In my case, mines are my only engineer skill still left in my kit. You could ad command skills but those are an epic failure as they fall into the same category as old obsolete engineering skills, just stand around the battlefiled raising your hand and spamming everyone with pretty visual particles and floating armor, your dps goes out the window and your standing around on a battlefield alone because your team is progressing through the map without you. Off on a tangent but yes ground gap is now closed as well. Why force melee on an engineer? I'm KDF I melee. It should be viable for everyone and its really not. Its not for anybody really until they put a dedicated slot for a melee weapon and a special configurable hotkey seperate from the "z" select of the two that should be for rifles or handguns. Some people are new and some people were new when they created an engineer. Sure I can lunge as a tac, ok. I can heal as a science or debuff, well I'll choose engineer. Surely everyone can swing a sword right? Only to find out later when you learn about the game, that its not so true.
The question is, why not for melee on an engineer? The same reason why ground turrets medical/shield generators, and mostly even mortars have gone out the window for engineeers: Just too slow.
By the time you set up your turret, generator, med generator, support drone (all of which are obsolete, how many eng powers is that wasted?) the game is over. You kill, you move fast, and you keep on moving. Aside from mines, and the occasional orbital strike, and to a lesser extent cover shield if you have the + resistance, the rest of the engineers skills are obsolete on ground. The question is here, why is melee viable for a science toon, and tac, but not for a engineer?
Science is the healer class but engineers if used as supposedly "designed", spend more time in a healing support role than the typical "healer class" in game. Sitting around doing nothing. That is, if you play it to Cryptic's "standards". Real engineers are dropping mines on the go and that is about the only emplacement we use. You have to go go go, or else your not contributing anything. You can supplement these shortcomings with intel kit skills, but any class can have the same benefit if they chose. In my case, mines are my only engineer skill still left in my kit. You could ad command skills but those are an epic failure as they fall into the same category as old obsolete engineering skills, just stand around the battlefiled raising your hand and spamming everyone with pretty visual particles and floating armor, your dps goes out the window and your standing around on a battlefield alone because your team is progressing through the map without you. Off on a tangent but yes ground gap is now closed as well. Why force melee on an engineer? I'm KDF I melee. It should be viable for everyone and its really not. Its not for anybody really until they put a dedicated slot for a melee weapon and a special configurable hotkey seperate from the "z" select of the two that should be for rifles or handguns. Some people are new and some people were new when they created an engineer. Sure I can lunge as a tac, ok. I can heal as a science or debuff, well I'll choose engineer. Surely everyone can swing a sword right? Only to find out later when you learn about the game, that its not so true.
Telling me that turrets and drones are slow is a bit for the lolz...More like the player is too slow.
Never had any DPS problem with my pets. Collectively, Pets should be giving you 200-500 DPS. So you must be doing something awefully wrong.
Engineers are not obsolete in the ground. They are still top tier DPS ground. Demolitions and turrets are still the way to go in the ground for Engineers.
Odyssey Operations Cruiser needs to keep its current console layout, but please add two more Tactical Consoles for it stock. Granted my is setup to tank damage, which its really, really, good at. Plus however, I want more DPS! Also give the Odysseys and the Vesta three special console slots, where the stuff for them Ship specific kits can go.
Proud Trekkie Favorite episode from TOS is The Doomsday Machine TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise VOY: Endgame part 1 and 2 DS9: Emissary ENT: Assmilation
The strange thing about comparing ground and space is that Engineer and Science kind of.. trade doctrines.
On ground, Engineers are the ones with all the AoE buffs and summons; in Space, Science Captains are the ones who do that. Conversely, Engineers can bridge someone back to fighting form from the brink of death in space.. as a Science Captain could on the ground.
What ? what engineer have you been playing they don't get any team heals ? Yes boff abilities have them but not the captian class in space.
Nadeon inversion needs to be brought down in cooldown, and eps needs to given a temporary boast to max power like +10 to all levels, maybe not even the full duration of the buff.
I also think leech console has been the go to console for too long. It shouldn't be that especially since its a zen bought klingon console. I'm sorry but i think it needs to be nerfed hard or completely changed, to temp power steal no near 100% up time. Let Power siphon for science slots do that.
Odyssey Operations Cruiser needs to keep its current console layout, but please add two more Tactical Consoles for it stock. Granted my is setup to tank damage, which its really, really, good at. Plus however, I want more DPS! Also give the Odysseys and the Vesta three special console slots, where the stuff for them Ship specific kits can go.
You need to get the tactical oddy if you want 4 tact consoles, there is your ops oddy with two more tact consoles.
I would love if ALL ships got the ability to 3 or 4 Special unique ability based console slots, the one's that come with zen ships. I just want to play with them without the lose of max stats. Change them all from consoles to a type a of kit you can attach to a ship. To give some flavor to ships.
I wouldn't mind if the Odyssey Operations Cruiser got the Tactical Odyssey Console layout stock, because two tactical consoles really hurts your DPS potinetial. Or better yet, since its a command ship give five Engineer consoles, four science, and four tactical. The upgrades will just increase the rank of the bridge slots.
Proud Trekkie Favorite episode from TOS is The Doomsday Machine TNG: Yesterday's Enterprise VOY: Endgame part 1 and 2 DS9: Emissary ENT: Assmilation
Comments
Exactly. i hate it when i read that Engineers, Science officers, Sci ships and Cruisers are no good and the only acceptable playstyle is as a Tac in an Escort. ACruiser can take more damage, Beams have a better firing Arc, I can use EPtWII and III and AP Beta, i can reduce energy drain to 0. Cruisers and Engineers are Amazing.
The only thing this Game needs is that Cryptic stops ruining it with their insane love for DPS.
I use Cruisers and Escorts on both, my Engineer and my Tac Officer. I prefer Cruisers or Battlecruisers and my Engineer
I said it before, and I'll say it again. The Mirror Invasion revamp is definitely on the right track. It's the only instance where my lowest-DPS ships could not only contribute the most, but actually carry everyone through a pug of it single-handedly. No, that's not hyperbole.
Helpful Tools: Dictionary.com - Logical fallacies - Random generator - Word generator - Color tool - Extra Credits - List of common English language errors - New T6 Big booty tutorial
Making it more unique and thematic rather than using flat out buffs or debuffs like tactical and sci.
I mean lets face it, both Sci and Tacs bring something unique and useful to any ship class, be it escorts, cruisers or science ships.
Exactly, an eng brings nothing unique whatsoever to any ship class.
The question remains, why doesn't Cryptic DO something about it?
By default an engineer's ship should run the smoothest of any ship in the fleet.
The question is how do you translate that to gameplay?
I mean how well would it go over for engineers to by virtue of being engineers have vessels with superior performance?
Let's look at what they've already got.
Rotate Shield Frequency- Sure we see Engineers in the show do it all the time.
Sensor Scan- Perfectly logical.
Attack Pattern Alpha- Makes sense.
So that's a shield hardness and regen increase, a general debuff to the target's damage resistance and stealth detection buff, and an increase to damage, crit, and turn rate.
Personally I think that Rotating Shield Frequencies should also break tractor beams. That was the first time we ever heard about shield frequencies, when the Enterprise was trying to break a Borg Tractor beam. If there was actually a mechanic in this game to manipulate, interfere with, or otherwise try to bypass shields via their frequencies, then this could be a much more important ability to auto-cancel such abilities.
Next...
EPS Power transfer- I love this ability, great in a pinch.
Subnucleonic Beam- I hate this ability...getting hit by it that is.
Fire on My Mark- Honestly at the modern point in this game...seems more like a Command ability, which makes sense as Tactical and Command are pretty much the same thing in truth.
I have no issues with EPS. Subnuke is overpowered and I don't see how it related to the actual Subnucleonic beam which was an all penetrating scan. It should guarantee a subsystem knock out and critical on the next attack, but I don't see how it knocks out all buffs in one shot. Fire on my Mark is yet another resistance debuff and stealth impediment.
Next up...
Nadion Inversion- Reduces energy drain across the board. I don't use it that much.
Scattering Field- Outstanding, love popping it to support the team.
Tactical Initiative- A free Photonic Officer ability, reduces cooldowns, excellent.
Nadion Inversion is rather underwhelming. It would be better as a passive honestly. A trait that kicks in when your power is being drained too fast.
NEXT!
The Top of the heap, as the Fleet abilities are perfectly fine and balanced to me.
Miracle Worker- SCOTTY!
Photonic Fleet- The Doctor
Go Down Fighting- "You must have Klingon Blood."
These all make sense and are useful. The only thing I would say is that in addition to the massive shield and hull heal that can pull you from the jaws of death with a golden hyperspanner, there should probably be a bit more. A power level boost, I mean this is the miracle so it should also have the power of increasing power levels...OR automatically recharge the EPS power.
But what does that really do for the ship itself. I mean an engineer would have a couple of tricks up their sleeve for an emergency...but they would also have tinkered with their ship, and made upgrades. Like Geordi's mid-range phase adjuster.
Or be able to push systems longer and harder as like Scotty they know that the official specs are always a weeeee bit conservative.
An engineer is the guy who's always going to be tinkering with his ship. Making adjustments. Tweaks.
Honestly this game isn't in depth enough to truly duplicate all the things that an engineer would do.
I want to say that engineers would be the class that would have the easiest time crafting, reduced costs, or the ability to select modifications. But sadly that would probably drastically upset the games economy since everyone can craft. Engineers therefore get no advantage in that field since everyone can craft. If Engineers got the ability to select mods on engineering or shipboard equipment while Sci and Tac got to select mods in their respective arenas then it might be something.
Anyone else got any ideas?
Your ability to "tank effectively" is going to vary based on who you play with, as you need to generate enough threat to outpace everyone else on the team. A good starting point would probably be 5k-6k damage output balanced with solid heals and a fair amount of threat gen. With the players I usually play with, I feel I'm a fairly effective tank (combat parser logs me usually taking at least 40% of all incoming attacks, still working on increasing that). I've parsed around 8k in a Sarr Theln (not counting pets since they don't contribute to my threat) and around 9k in a Fleet Assault Cruiser Refit T5U in solo content, usually higher if the team I'm with has debuffs.
Another big part of tanking effectively is your AoE potential. In fights with more than one target, you need to be getting aggro from all of them, so abilities that strike multiple targets are important. Fire At Will is of course an excellent choice, Scatter Volley and Torpedo Spread can also do the job if you position yourself correctly, Gravity Well can be good if you can fit it on your ship.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Engineers get Miracle Worker and Rotate Shield Frequency as recovery abilities. The latter doesn't stand up to pressure damage, and the former basically lets you recover from one or two spikes.
The choice of ship is considerably more important.
A Tac in an Oddy would lose RSF and MW, but have a considerably easier time grabbing aggro and still have a ton of healing abilities from being in a cruiser with a lot of Engineering stations.
Nobody ever listens to me when I say that, and I've been saying it for years. Ship choice is significantly more important than career in space. Yes, some captain abilities can make a difference in a major fight, but ship choice makes a difference in everything you do in space.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Based on the DPS leauge and HSE table, it is around 50k dps or above at ISA. From what I know, I can see a dedicated Eng toon who have done HSE and parsed 50k+ at ISA. The highest dedicated Eng toon i know in the HSE table has done 60k+ at ISA.
HSE needs DPS and Tank capabilities.
I've never parsed but I could see that. I have an eng in a fleet excel and stuff melts all around it.
Vanilla Ground PvP information
But from my experience attack pattern alpha, and most of the other abilities tactical captains have improve dps far more then any engineer has, heck even science can get great exotic damage to compliment weapon damage.
But I would have to say engineers in space, even their many of their boff abilities, do not feel like engineers. They just don't seem as adaptable as the engineers in trek seemed. While their ground abilities seem very adaptable. Their abilities shift to slowly, and seem to much focused on rotations.
Their abilities need to be made to feel, like you are adapting against your enemies attack strategies. Being able to push your ship's abilities to their max. From out maneuvering your enemy to adapting your weapons to your enemies defenses.
Things like directed energy modulation should work less like a buff, and more like a attack which each volley has higher and higher chance to completely penetrate shielding. Think a cycle attack like fire at will, with a stacking chance to penetrate shields completely. With also a minor hull resistance ignore which strength is increased depending rank. As well as a increase in stack chance for complete penetration of shields.
It should disable other energy attacks from being activated, but doesn't put them on cooldown.
There is also another reason why there is almost no reason to pick a engineering captain rather then tact or science. A lot of their special abilities simply got marginalized, warp cores a equipment piece engineers that should be a big thing for them, it ended up just giving the other classes more access to the power levels engineers could only get to. Along with plasmonic leech.
Engineering powers need to be more linked with warp cores, as they are the core tech to any starship, and thematically it only makes sense for them to be the masters of their ship's main tech.
On ground, Engineers are the ones with all the AoE buffs and summons; in Space, Science Captains are the ones who do that. Conversely, Engineers can bridge someone back to fighting form from the brink of death in space.. as a Science Captain could on the ground.
Just to drop numbers, As of today:
ISA
Top Sci toon in DPS is 77k DPS
Top Eng toon in DPS is 79k DPS
HSE
Top Eng Toon is 29k DPS top 10
Top Sci Toon is 25k top 16
BHE
Top 4 are Eng toons
Sci toon not even in Top 15
NTTE
2 Eng toons at Top 15
Sci toon not even in Top 15
So there is literally a Space DPS competition between Sci and Eng. Ground is not even a competition. Because of these numbers, now I wonder if Eng is getting the worst of the dps stick or is it Sci.
You're absolutely right about HSE - that map punishes teams that cannot survive (0 DPS when you're dead), and a team's survivability will naturally scale better when you have a skilled dedicated tank. There's not a lot of content that punishes low survivability like HSE does, but they doesn't mean tanks have nothing to add outside of HSE, either.
The thing about tanking in this game is that in order to generate threat (i.e., draw fire onto yourself and away from your allies), you need to deal damage. Hence, you'll find that most of the highly-successful tanks will actually run high-DPS builds, but will trade highest-percentile damage for extra survivability (e.g., trading EPtW3 for ET3).
Engineers get additional survivability toys in RSF3, EF3, and MW3 double-taps; but they also get DPS (pressure) toys since in the current meta, more power generally leads to more DPS, too.
But Tactical captains can tank too! They don't explicitly get survivability toys, but having their extra damage toys means that Tacs can still afford to make the aforementioned damage/survivability bridge officer station trade-offs without diminishing their DPS as much as an Engineer would.
That said, Engineers, I think, gravitate towards tanking for two reasons - their explicit team buffs (which is really only EF3) increases survivability, their self-powers increase survivability, and you just bring more to a PVE team by being a DPS/Tank than if you were to pull off a Heal/Turtle - it's sort of your most efficient option from a min-maxing perspective. Sure, an Engineer's power manipulation might allow her to slide into a broader spectrum of roles than a Tactical or Science captain can, but she will likely never excel at a single (effective) role outside of playing a dedicated tank, probably.
So Engineers end up as a jack-of-all, master-of-none, character in space.
But they absolutely obliterate ground content. So there's that.
Deals 100/150/200 of the energy damage inflicted by the ship it is affecting back the ship (no shield pen). Clean with He.
Extend shields:
Ramp up the shield heal massively.
Warp plasma: Needs to be able to be set on more fire.
New ability:
Saturated Barrage:
for 5 seconds, all outgoing energy damage is collected in a pool (66%/90%/110% for lt, lt com and com slots) and then released on the current target in one burst. Should be a massive beam.
Numbers open for discussion.
All emergencypower to- abilities should be toggles that pulse.
But Why? Everyone has access to this. This means that Tac will have access to this as well.
For Aceton Beam and Warp Plasma, for PvE, the space they would occupy is currently been occupied by a dual Dem and/or EPTW which is more than sufficient for DPS.
If they want to buff Engineer, they need to buff the captain's powers. EPS power transfer perhaps be like OSS not only buffing the current power but also the max power since plasmonic leech+supremacy trait has taken out any power advantage Eng have over Tac and Sci. While there is no in game trait or console that would give the same as an APA.
My character Tsin'xing
You can have these powers be not buffable by AP.
And i disagree, the engineer abilities do need some that are directly meant to deal damage, just as sci needs those.
Its a dps race.
Again but why? Are you aiming for DPS prime in the DPS league? Are you unsatisfied with 79k DPS that Eng toon can currently achieve? Both Sci and Eng toons are more than capable of doing DPS for end game content.
Like I said, there are already Eng BoFF abilities that deal dps. So why ask for something that already fills that spot.
Sure an engineer can boost his skills too but the innate sci skills aka debuffs, make these skills crit for deliciousness. 14k damage every second over the course of phaser lance and stuff the Feds get don't hurt either. Tacs get buffs, debuffs, and huge damage buffs, along with go down fighting.. which brings me to my main point. Guess what? Real dps Tacs DONT want to get healed, its called "go down fighting" and any real tac that you heal as an Engineer is going to be pretty darn mad if they play their class right. By being an engineer in some cases, without communication, such as a pug, your actually HURTING your teams dps. How is that for a slap in the face. Sci don't need heals either because they generally have that covered. So it really only benefits yourself.
These "traits" like hull heal on engineering team, and 20% extra hull heals for biotech patch are equally useless for the very same reason, that is unless your soloing an stf yourself, but surprise surprise, if you don't put out major dps, you can't solo it anyway. The game is damage over heals, Ezri's posts prove that, at least in short duration stf, but probably applies to most things in game. Its kill or be killed. You just cant out tank NPC's now, since their HP bufff far outweighs yours.
Engineers useless in space? Only if your doing anything other than solo content, or if its a very prolonged battle, which 90% of the population will skip for that very reason. Time is money.
On ground things are a bit different but our advantages are slowly being given to the tacs and sci if they want to use them for toys. Shield drone for sci, polaron blast for tac, basically mimic our own powers, although admittedly at the cost of a very limited kit slot.
Melee, which is my favorite. Is also gimped for the Engineer. Tacs get a self heal for melee kit power and also many other skills to benefit melee as in enhanced melee damage %. Sci toons get Hypospray Dylovene, a nice OP melee 30%+ buff. (not to mention debuffs which make a huge difference) Engineers get... well.. squat in the melee dpt.
Ground needs a huge revamp anyway and hardly anyone really plays it much accept for a few of us who love it, this further makes the only slight edge we have be a bit pointless. Ground has needed a dedicated melee slot in addition to the two other weapon slots anyway.
I always figured hey, a dead captain does no dps, this is why I chose Engineer. However not only do I see tacs holding up fine and sci is a given, sometimes I might even die sooner, because I have to sacrifice healing abilities that benefit no one else but me (tac don't want em, sci don't need em) to push my dps to offer "something" to the team as a whole.
Now will I switch my Engineer to a tac or a sci because of it? I seriously consider it at times, but the specialization grind is really killing the game for me and to do it all over again would be just too much work and not enough fun to make rolling a new toon "enjoyable".
I came here to post my own topic about these shortcomings and maybe made a few engineers aware how their heals can actually hurt the team. I saw this post on turning absorbed damage into dps and thought this was a very valid idea and solved multiple problems with minimal work for the development team.
As it stands, Engineers are not needed in a group, even unwanted. They offer no significant debuffs like sci, tacs can stack beta on a target so even sci is sometimes meh.. but nice to have around for secondary deflector, phaser lance of doom sci on crack crits and debuffs as a bonus (yes looking at you feds, and yes looking at you devs for shunting the KDF).
A team of all tacs? no problem.
Maybe a team of mostly tacs and max of two sci? no problem.
Engineer? offer nothing to the group but keep them alive, but engineer is not needed, because if he is not there, the group has better dps, the mission is done faster, and heals are never needed.
I love my Engineer probably for the same reason I love the KDF, both highly neglected, perhaps this is why I do ground too? I do like to figure out how to make things better and one up the underdog, but in this case, this is in cryptics' court.
In paper, maybe the engineer looks the worse among the three toons in space. In practice, its a neck to neck race in Space dps with Sci toons. In record, Engineers have currently a slight advantage over Sci toons on Space DPS.
I dont know how you are hurting the team unless you are not doing DPS at all with your Eng. It is either the player has a wrong build or bad piloting.
Why are you forcing melee on the Engineer? You are not suppose to melee on Engineer, its all about pets and demolitions in the ground for Engineer.
By the time you set up your turret, generator, med generator, support drone (all of which are obsolete, how many eng powers is that wasted?) the game is over. You kill, you move fast, and you keep on moving. Aside from mines, and the occasional orbital strike, and to a lesser extent cover shield if you have the + resistance, the rest of the engineers skills are obsolete on ground. The question is here, why is melee viable for a science toon, and tac, but not for a engineer?
Science is the healer class but engineers if used as supposedly "designed", spend more time in a healing support role than the typical "healer class" in game. Sitting around doing nothing. That is, if you play it to Cryptic's "standards". Real engineers are dropping mines on the go and that is about the only emplacement we use. You have to go go go, or else your not contributing anything. You can supplement these shortcomings with intel kit skills, but any class can have the same benefit if they chose. In my case, mines are my only engineer skill still left in my kit. You could ad command skills but those are an epic failure as they fall into the same category as old obsolete engineering skills, just stand around the battlefiled raising your hand and spamming everyone with pretty visual particles and floating armor, your dps goes out the window and your standing around on a battlefield alone because your team is progressing through the map without you. Off on a tangent but yes ground gap is now closed as well. Why force melee on an engineer? I'm KDF I melee. It should be viable for everyone and its really not. Its not for anybody really until they put a dedicated slot for a melee weapon and a special configurable hotkey seperate from the "z" select of the two that should be for rifles or handguns. Some people are new and some people were new when they created an engineer. Sure I can lunge as a tac, ok. I can heal as a science or debuff, well I'll choose engineer. Surely everyone can swing a sword right? Only to find out later when you learn about the game, that its not so true.
Telling me that turrets and drones are slow is a bit for the lolz...More like the player is too slow.
Never had any DPS problem with my pets. Collectively, Pets should be giving you 200-500 DPS. So you must be doing something awefully wrong.
Engineers are not obsolete in the ground. They are still top tier DPS ground. Demolitions and turrets are still the way to go in the ground for Engineers.
What ? what engineer have you been playing they don't get any team heals ? Yes boff abilities have them but not the captian class in space.
Nadeon inversion needs to be brought down in cooldown, and eps needs to given a temporary boast to max power like +10 to all levels, maybe not even the full duration of the buff.
I also think leech console has been the go to console for too long. It shouldn't be that especially since its a zen bought klingon console. I'm sorry but i think it needs to be nerfed hard or completely changed, to temp power steal no near 100% up time. Let Power siphon for science slots do that.
You need to get the tactical oddy if you want 4 tact consoles, there is your ops oddy with two more tact consoles.
I would love if ALL ships got the ability to 3 or 4 Special unique ability based console slots, the one's that come with zen ships. I just want to play with them without the lose of max stats. Change them all from consoles to a type a of kit you can attach to a ship. To give some flavor to ships.