Why haven't there been any threads about these yet? These look awesome! Vascular regenerator on my tac or eng? Sheild recharge on my tac or sci? Finally, my sci's won't have to take shield charges into ground, or my eng's hypos, or my tac's both!
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!
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For which I'm grateful btw. I still think it's a bad idea to give each career access to other careers' kit powers. Difference in ground abilities is about the only reason to create an engineer or science character. If they're going to give each character access to grenades, heals and the ability to build turrets, there soon won't be any reason to have any other character than the standard Federation Tactical officer.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
On paper, yes, but:
Yeah, with the repel going on from elite tac drones and tholian bosses, not much fun doing melee, especially when an engineer is mostly planting things (and firing in the meantime, when he is on cd, else he would lose CD) and scis got so many -dmgres abilities they are better of with energyweapons and a TR-116b as secondary (both outclassing the shotgun depending on the specific mission)... not even mentioning the other missing buffs for melee...
Even for Tacs its only a convenience power. Especially since that stupid repel got out of hand (which nerfed melee and did nothing to the -at that point- already more versatile and against borg equally (and against anything else already more) powerful shooting-style)...
Been there, stabbed that. See, drones can't actually stop you from hitting them with melee. What they do is push you away when you are closer than a certain distance. Often this happens after you already hit them. And motion Accelerator makes you move faster so it has less chance to push you before you hit.
Actually, accelerator seems to boost ALL physical, not just melee weapon attacks. Granted, eng and sci don't get any options there except the shotgun, but it works. Also... Eng have several good reasons to do melee. One of my fave strats is to plant a mortar/turret, then melee an enemy to keep them from running from the mortar strike. Kinda works with Exo too. Although scis have a fun power that boosts physical melee damage as well as being a heal.
Also, sci -res powers work on physical resist too. So if I give you -20 res from dropping Endo and Hyperonic radiation on you, that increases the damage you take form me hitting you with a sword.
My character Tsin'xing
While true, they feature now also the quite powerful unstable dampers (the secondary activation gives you and your team a nifty energy damage buff) and the already build-in nanoprobe infestation (though CD is the limiting factor here), coupled with the mediocre shields most enemies posses gives energy weapons a certain edge, especially without the limiting range-factor.
And bigger enemies? Chain IF, add some Tachyon harmonic/concussion cascade and even the shieldpenetration-advantage of melee is gun.
Scis do have the Dylo, but then again, it still pales in comparasion. Melee, while still viable, is far from competetive in advanced (PvE) play compared to energy weapons.
If you had said mines, or bombs, yes. But mortars? While powerful, they take long. What you described seems kind of a funway, not an efficient way (and I go by efficiency. Blowing enemies up fast and chained is what I would describe as fun). Going with mines melee is quite useful to get enemies flanked (since laying on your back always gets you flanked). But then again, with the current CD-Reductions, you will be able to spam most kitpowers fast, and in the meantime (you have to switch places between group A and B often in PvE), your melee will be useless, while you can move at an efficient pace with pistoles/rifles (even though you will get faster to another group, you will lose some of the buff, and afterward it is again more efficient to keep spaming). So the time you can efficiently play melee (only efficient between planting times) is fairly limited, while energy weps (or TR116b) are more versatile.
Again, while still viable, its already seen its best days. Not to mention, that motion accel has an ridicolous CD without Tactical Initiative, even with all the CD-Reduction stuff avaiable. Now, if it would buff kinetic damage (mines, bombs, mortars) too, that would be a completly different matter...
I actually tend to switch between melee and ranged a lot. Shoot at things until something is in range, then weapon swap for stabby death.
My character Tsin'xing