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The Engineer class from a different point of view.
natorepublic
Member Posts: 4 Arc User
For those that don’t know me from the game, I am a dyed in the wool engy cruiser pusher. I have been flying around in my excelsior class in one form or another for going on three years. I have flown and gotten working to some degree every cruiser in the game (even the old fleet Cheyenne class back in the day). A lot of the discussion I am reading is talking about buffing engineer class, and I believe that might be attacking the symptom rather than the real problem. Right now as an engy doing your tanking job is pretty much useless, and all of us engineers often feel like the third wheel when running with our fleet mates. A lot of people are saying that the engineers need a DPS buff, I honestly think we as tanks should not be entering the DPS horse races. The way I have my ships set up is that I do about ½-2/3rds the DPS of decently fitted tac captian in an escort, also pull ALL the agro. People in the Fed Alliance that fly with me regularly can attest to fact that the rarely have to ever hit a heal if I am flying with them, more than a few have 2 load outs one for when they are doing pug runs and one for when they are flying with myself or the other dedicated engy. I believe the root of the problem is that the ways the STFs are designed there is no real place for us alongside the DPS monsters and the debuff/control guys. I believe that the solution to this is twofold, first make the enemies in advanced and above queues hit a lot harder 30-50% harder, and secondly in the advanced and above queues dying needs to mean a lot more than just waiting a few seconds to hit respawn. Personally I think if the first die respawn was 45-60 seconds, and the ship damage more disabling than it currently is (and couldn’t be repaired until you were on a social map) would be a good fix. Having us enter the DPS race is not the answer, making us useful as the big slow impossible to kill targets we are, is. I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and hope to see you in game.
-@NatoRepublic
-@NatoRepublic
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Please format your post next time reading wall text especially on these new forums is blinding almost.
You've hit upon the fact that a good tank can draw and hold aggro for the DPS players, allowing them to potentially do more DPS than they could do otherwise. Tanking requires a balance of DPS (to help generate threat), threat modifiers (to boost threat being generated from DPS and other factors), heals and resists. Oddly, as the tank DPS increases and the DPS of the team increases, you actually need less healing. EPS transfer3 helps boost damage output, but nothing like attack pattern alpha and/ or go down fighting can do. The limit to holding aggro is around 4-5 times above your tank DPS, with 3 times as a good and easier mark to find reliably possible for many players.
As for NPCs hitting harder, we already have those STFs. HSE is already a good example of where a tank can be useful, even to high DPS players. An adjustment to the spawn timer would make a huge difference in team DPS with "glass cannon" builds, and make tanking have a more easily viewed purpose, though it isn't necessary.
The main issue to consider is the mindset of players with respect to playing roles other than strictly damage dealers. There is a very vocal populace of players who emphatically state that you not only do not need to do anything but damage output, but that any other role is useless. There are also those players that see value in the diversity.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums#/discussion/1189840/introduction-to-space-pve-tanking-in-sto
i.e.:
Rotate Shield Frequency - add an effect like "+X% All Damage for 15 seconds when receiving damage, stacks Y times."
EPS Power Transfer - something to buff power cap based on number of nearby enemies "+1 Current and Max All Power Setting per Enemy with 10km, stacks upto 10 times."
Nadion Inversion - "Reflects X% of Damage taken in a 5km PBAoE", (or swap this and RSF's additional effects?)
Miracle Worker - not really sure what could be added to this that would make it tankier or help offense... maybe "-X% Recharge Time to all Bridge Officer Powers?"
As they stand now, Eng capt powers don't encourage you to wade into the middle combat...but you have to anyways or who just end up playing a career with no Capt abilites...
If you setup for tanking, your purpose is to wade into the middle of combat to get as much aggro as possible to help draw it to yourself. Granted, you wouldn't do so without a plan to it, a plan that involves the remaining team. It's about the only "selfish" thing a tank can do that's really not selfish in the long run since it helps the team not have to take lots of fire and they can do their best damage without needing to disengage from combat as often or at all. It also does not directly enhance any player's performance, so it's less likely to be viewed as cheating by some players. Since engineering captains have the best captain skills overall to do tanking, if you focus on tanking properly, I don't understand how you wouldn't wade into the middle of combat to do what you can do better than other captain classes would do.
Just find a balance between staying alive and doing damage and you'll be better off.
Also, Science builds are not to be underestimated, one good science ship in the team and everyone's dps is higher.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
High DPS players have recently been using tykens rift, not for the DPS, but to help strip shields on tac cubes, etc. faster to do DPS that is resisted less than shields. Yes, do not underestimate sci abilities. Another thing is the latest winter and summer event ships, sarr theln and nandi, are both a decent mix of tac/ sci ships or can be setup that way.
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With adequate threat, a tank does not need to get in the line of fire to protect a teammate, nor do they even want to reduce their tanking to selecting a single target. Now, given that so many tactical players are using their skills better these days, it isn't as easy to tank for the entire team. Also, the team spreads out more often these days doing their individual things, making it harder for tanks to "protect" their teammates by holding aggro. Tanks can only hold aggro in a 20km sphere, with movement by the tank and the delay of baddies switching aggro to another player extending that 20km out somewhat further, and can't hold aggro or heal folks staying ahead or behind the tank. So few folks want to work with tanks these days that the concepts of staying together and even letting the tank lead the team into the next area are lost to most.
In the past, the engineer class was the one that could adequately keep power levels high for long periods of time, allowing their weapons to have the power reserves to not drop DPS as fast. Tac captains had GDF, alpha and tac team to boost damage output. Nowadays, even romulan warbirds, with 40 points less in base power, can have 100 power in all 4 subsystems for long stretches with Tac and Sci toons and nearly constant with engineers. That is the reason so many folks just run Tac toons these days, because one of the old limitations isn't a limitation at all anymore. So, what was once the domain of the engineer class, something unique to their class, isn't unique anymore. Engineers still have rotate shield frequency and miracle worker, but the power levels aren't unique anymore. It's like KDF used to be the only faction with the leech and feds with reciprocity.....
The space eng is just plain boring. He has nothing. Noone needs MW or power transfer when there are so many other sources for the same thing. NI is completely useless.
Engs should be able to place turrets or hyperbombs just like on ground and do their dmg that way instead of just with beams/torps/whatever.
Same goes to some extend for sci which should have some reactionary healing like on ground while the rest of the captain abilities are more or less okay. Although photonic fleet doesnt seem to take as much aggro ad it should to be a good skill. And scatter field could do a bit more towards beam resist.
Otherwise its not that far away from having a fair setup for all classes just completely rework all eng captain space abilities and we good to go:))
I disagree that the engineer class is boring. Maybe I use what the class has going for it differently than you do.
This is what I wrote about someone calling tanking boring:
Is tanking boring? Trying to stay in range of bad guys to get and hold aggro, keeping your own damage output going as best as possible, taking constant pounding that seems to never let up but varies randomly in intensity, leaving you wondering if heal/ resist A should be used now, or B now, send heal to TAC player who got knocked down to 20% health after taking a warp core breach and hope miracle worker is going to be enough to keep you alive to keep the attack going or hold the heal back from the tac player with low health and hope you manage the incoming damage while holding aggro to keep the potential damage from hurting them, with you wondering which will benefit the team more.....and hoping some kind soul in the team might send a heal your way if you have no heals available for 5 more seconds since they don't need the heal for themselves.....that's not boring, it's an incredible rush when you go through those moments and succeed.
Some folks get a rush from going toe to toe with a tac cube and blowing it up before it blows them up. There is something fun about finding that you can do something, get a rush from it, and still be some measure of effective.
Also I dont wanna take away the fun you're having - I personally love my engs a lot - and I have one of the bet equipped engs put there. Jut its still terribly ineffective. Even a Sci could do better and be more useful than the eng.
I'm happy for everyone enjoying his engs its just I dont but would love to:)
I definitely won't be doing as much damage as my teammates but I can at least help them survive long enough to throw their DPS at the enemies' faces, which is enjoyable enough for me. I know my role as an engineer. If I want bigger yellow numbers floating above my target's head, I can easily switch characters.
My personal philosophy so to maximize damage as much as possible without sacrificing survival. Having Miracle worker makes more room for area control or offensive abilities. It also enhances the survival of Raptors such as the Mat'Ha. Yes I am a primarily KDF player, my ENG are all KDF or a Fed allied Reman.
Engineers are the jack of all trades, master of survival. At least that is my style. You can Augment a build to offset shortcomings with an ENG.
However I am very strongly of the opinion that EPS should give a flat raise of at least 10 to power level caps. Power management is a core engineering theme just as much as tanking, but just having power is nothing special in today's game.
The only other change would be to Nadion, but I don't even have an idea what it could be myself. It is a powerful ability in mid range ships to be sure, but it needs something to keep it relevant on high builds that don't need more drain resist.
Engineers really need a little love to be back in their element (power management, tanking), and I agree with what @mreeves7a said about the captain ability reworking. As it stands right now, there isn't any reason to play engineers except for the variety (from where I'm standing, coming from an engineering main).
Alternatively, nadion inversion could be turned into a toggle (like cloak is a toggle) and be described as an engineer's trick that substantially increases the ship's power signature and thus increases threat. Giving engineers a native ability that allows them to unquestionably draw aggro with 100% certainty when they want to would certainly improve the engineer's tanking ability no matter what ship they are in without having to worry about their DPS+threat modifiers being able to outmatch uber DPSers.
Frankly, there is a role for engineers/tanks in the game already, just you will rarely find people in those queues because people like to head for the easy/quick queues to grind out daily dil caps or whatever. Hive onslaught advanced/elite benefits marvelously from a tank.
Making NPCs hit harder to try and make the engineer more necessary will also make random teams far more difficult and discourage casual players which cryptic/pwe can't afford to alienate any further than they already have with the epic grind.
I think the DPS parser craze has simply made other roles under appreciated because no one posts a tanking parser or a healing parser, as far as I know, there's no summary that says kaptain kerk held 90% of the aggro for the team and absorbed a bajillion damage so team mates can give them a pat on the back or that Beaverly Croosher healed x team mate for 100k, y team mate for 500k, and z team mate for 200k.
It seems to me that in pve the roles seem to get lost, but in the wildly unpopular pvp people know who are the epic healers keeping the team alive and who's the tank that's annoying enough to draw attention but no one can kill and who's the dpser getting the kills.
I think part of the problem is that NPC's are just dumb meat sacks that take heaps of DPS to take down, they aren't clever, they don't use formations or help each other in any meaningful way, they don't heal, they don't usually use too many abilities. If all the enemies in the game were more like the ones from the mirror event where the enemies actually heal themselves and eachother, if they used more clever skills like the voth do (subnuke might be a bit too far) then people might appreciate a healer and a tank more.
Though I think some content would have to be reworked, the voth seemed so horribly OP when they were introduced, not only because they were clever and used abilities on you that messed you up in non-dps ways, but those missions split up your team which meant a tank couldn't take the beating for the team and a healer couldn't heal away damage/effects, so people just cried for a nerf.
Having rewards determined by time limits that require high dps to meet also discourages other roles. If there were also rewards for no one dying or some other metrics for success aside from "blow everything away as quick as possible" that could help too.
And while it would likely be difficult to implement in a way that isn't horribly annoying, making all the queues have a similar degree of difficulty, at the very least take the same amount of time to complete or have adjusted rewards making the more difficult/time consuming queues desirable enough to be worth the effort/planning would help those queues that would actually benefit from good healers and tanks be more appealing. Not to mention better team finding functionality that allows teams to post that they need a tank/healer/CCer/DPS. Especially if the system could rate one's tanking/healing/dps ability in a reasonably reliable way so you can say we need a Class A tank and people who have met that metric would be the only ones able to accept a posted role.
Also, if the devs actually built a parser into the game and made one with tanking and healing recognition that auto posted at the end of a match, perhaps people would start to see those other contributions and value them more. But because npcs are dumb and there's no parsing for other roles, the ultimate crowd control is dead enemies, and the best defense is a good offense (dead enemies=0dps=less healing)
The Nebula-configured Odyssey needs to be a thing.
Now realise that none of those things are exclusive to engineers.
Aggro-wise, engineers have nothing at all that helps. Aggro comes mainly from the cruiser command, threat consoles and hitting multiple targets at close range. Tacs will actually aggro better by being able to output additional dps.
For tanking, all careers now have access to a huge range of powerful heals, resists, HP boosts and even immunities. Engineers have just Miracle Worker and RSF. The former has been eclipsed by the Kobali console, Hold Together, boosted Aux2Sif and many other heals. The latter is inferior to RSP in every way.
Power management, well where do we start? A well built tac can maintain maxed levels through a range of different power boosts and usage cost decreases. One can stack leech and supremacy, use the Arbiter Trait, weapon cruiser command, EPS consoles and the spire core and never even get close to going below 125 weapons power during FAW.
Engineers need something useful that makes them stand out. The only other option is to start restricting the aforementioned abilities so that tacs cannot do everything an engineer can do, but better.
Even if I could change for free, I doubt I would. Oh, and nadion inversion stops weapon drain so you can use it as a dps boost of sorts.
Hits in percentage is there in CLR and in SCM, 2 of the popular parsers. You can basically tell who had aggro that way. You can see who resisted and healed more as well. Speaking of healing, how about heals in and heals out? It's there, you just may not be looking well enough, or using something that's not updated as frequently. I highly recommend the Combat Log Reader or the STO Combat Meter parsers. SCM is the newbie of the two, but has quickly become comparable to CLR and possibly better in some respects.
If you want to know a little more about tanking, I have some information on other threads, or just ask away on these forums or other good ones like reddit's ship build forums.
Kinetic (torpedoes and/ or mines) builds were underappreciated for a long time, but seem to be gaining more folks using kinetics. It's entirely possible that roles like tanks and even healers could see a surge in use too.
So we have an ability whose only redeeming quality is one that you essentially have to be told about by older players, and that is seemingly counter to the design philosophy of the engineer as not damage focused - NI is a straight damage buff and nothing else. Even the Tac damage buffs come with extra effects like turn rate. And here is the worst part: even as a pure damage ability, it isn't nearly as good as any straight damage boost that tacs have, and it scales much worse to player equipment.
That first part is actually fine; tac damage buffs should be better than an engineer's. But the scaling part is a major problem. APA works equally well on the most overpowered super ships as it does on a starting frigate. NI on the other hand is barely noticeable on extremely high end ships because they already have amazing weapon power management.
I say the devs need to take a serious look at this ability. Is it really within the design philosophy for the engineer to have a power that boosts damage and nothing else? If no, there are a million things that could be added to it to make it interesting. If yes, you HAVE to do something to let it scale effectively on top tier builds.
I'm saying, to my knowledge, there seems to be no simple heal/tank/CC parser summary, or if there is one, no one posts it into chat to help people see who's being epic at those things.
I am not sure what gave you the impression in my little novel that I don't know how to tank or need help with tanking...
I doubt tanks will see a resurgence unless the devs make content that people can't avoid to get whatever it is they are after and that content requires a tank... even then it can probably be done by a tac tank so it wouldn't necessarily be a boon for engineers. And without some rather substantial tweaks I don't see healers becoming much of a thing either. You can either go with lower damage and have some heals or you can go for max damage and kill everything dead within seconds so no one really needs much healing AND you can make optional. Additionally, the faster you kill, the less the tank has to tank. So all around full power to offense usually wins out.
The Nebula-configured Odyssey needs to be a thing.
There is no "Tanking" parser, because tanking is not measured solely by a single statistic, though hits in percentage is as close to a single metric as you can get. Since the hits in percentage is available in the CLR and SCM, there is no need to reinvent the wheel, just use the current system better. Most tanks have to install the parser so they can see the stats that mean more to them.
There is content that is very hard to do without a tank, but focusing hard on increasing DPS mitigates the need for tanks. When running with folks who don't have the higher end DPS, tanks can be very useful. I've held aggro for a player trying to break the 50k DPS barrier, only for them to get 64k. I firmly believe that by gathering the aggro I did, and sending a heal to that player at the right times, my tank made going from below 50k DPS to nearly 65k DPS possible.That player get's the accolades of DPS, but it's a team effort.
Most folks only look at DPS as their measuring stick, and tanking done right shouldn't have as good of DPS as properly setup teammates focused on DPS. Therefore, there is a LOT of misplaced feelings for tanking, usually due to ignorance. You can use the link provided below to a tanking thread I started and see that some folks have a very "interresting" opinion of tanking. If you ask the high end players, even they will tell you that a tank can be a big difference in certain situations, such as Hive Onslaught Elite, though pure DPS can often overcome the need to have the tank role.
It's honestly about how the team is made up and how folks have to adjust to make good use of what the team brings to an STF. If everyone brings DPS only, it's easy, everyone does the same stuff. If the team has folks with different roles or qualities than just DPS, then everyone has to think more about what everyone is doing and should be doing to make best use of the team's strengths.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline/#/discussion/1189840/introduction-to-space-pve-tanking-in-sto/p1
I still don't know why you keep trying to "here's a link to learn how to tank." I know how to tank, and I'm not sure what I could have possibly said that keeps you responding to me with "learn to tank" messages. When I am not messing around with trying to polish my intrepid to shine as brightly as it can because voyager was my favorite series, I'm almost always flying a tank with decent dps and I know that my tanking is what is keeping half of these pugs alive who don't know their fore from their aft.
The point is that you're never going to find a DPS league person posting into chat a summary of how kaptain kerk held the most agro and took the most damage and never died and thus helped keep the team alive. You'll never see a summary posted of Dooktor Krusher did the most cross healing support so people can see who was keeping others alive. And the POINT of that is, that without people having that ego stroking display like the DPSers do, without people popping that in there to be all "good job, kaptain kerk, thanks for tanking all that mess for us." Without posting that in and being all "Thanks Dooktor Krusher, you really saved our bacon" those roles don't have the same opportunity to be appreciated.
I already mentioned that there is content in the game where tanking can come in handy, but that most people avoid those queues because they are more difficult for casuals, usually require some planning for success unless you just luck into a good pug or are leet enough to carry the team all by your lonesome, and generally take longer without offering a substantially/proportionally higher reward. For example, hive onslaught advanced who's queue is almost always empty as opposed to crystalline catastrophe advanced or infected space advanced who's queues are constantly popping cause they're pretty quick and easy and give you the most bang for your time invested.
Those queues are going to remain underutilized unless the devs find some way of evening out the time involved in each queue so that there are not obvious superior choices for getting your dill cap done fastest, or so that DPS to the max doesn't blow through the content better faster stronger/isn't the only metric by which one gets bonus rewards. Crystalline took a step in that direction by taking healing into consideration, and if the game could recognize tanking roles by who's holding aggro and staying alive for the team, detecting who's cross healing and providing support, it could reward people for filling those roles giving people a personal reward for it, and if the game actually posted these things for people to see, they could also be community recognition for "Nice, I got in with that epic healer." or "YUS! I've seen that tank before, he always takes the tanking reward and keeps my aft alive." Or could at the very least give us another race to participate in other than the DPS race.
I have a friend in game who's always talking about the DPS, and when he's parsing and telling me how I'm doing, and telling me how the way I'm flying/the gear I'm using/etc isn't the most epic DPS stuff I could be using, and commenting about how while I'm doing "pretty good" dps, he's busy beating his record. He doesn't seem to grasp that the reason why he's beating his usual record for DPS is because my tanking is keeping him alive to do that damage and my faw betas are spreading debuffs that help him go even higher. So do I understand that these other roles do have a place and can in fact help others to shine brighter? Yeah, of course, that's why I'm not always just trying to personally top the DPS charts but trying to find interesting "other" ways of doing things that doesn't just help me but helps the team. But what I'm saying is that the existence of the DPS league and absence or at least unseen presence of a "tanking league" or "healing league" and parsers that measure everyone according to DPS and creates a little summary to post into chat for some ego stroking but doesn't rank people based on how good of a tank they are or how good of a healer they are or their epic CC capabilities means that the community doesn't have the same opportunity to recognize and appreciate these other roles' performance.
The Nebula-configured Odyssey needs to be a thing.
I wasn't providing a link to a post attempting to tell you how to tank. I wanted you to see that as a fellow tanker, we have to deal with folks that have very intense negative feelings about running roles other than solely focusing on DPS, and that there are also other players that support it. Even among the high DPS folks in DPS league, even high calibre players, not only understand that value of other roles like a tank, but sometimes organize a group to take advantage of those roles.
Tanks are like centers in football. The sports media rarely has much time to talk about a good center, no matter how well they kept the defense from getting to the QB or the holes they opened for the running back to go through, but those media folks will gush about a wide receiver who makes 2 catches all day, but one happens to be the winning touchdown. Tanks rarely get any accolades from the general populace of players, because our contribution is less of a direct one to the goals of the mission or STF, it's an indirect one. Our contribution can have a significant influence that we may understand, while others do not.
I understand your frustration.