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Beams vs cannons vs torps
hugin1205
Member Posts: 489 Arc User
Unfortunately if you want to make a high damage build, your options are limited.
admintedly I do not have great experience with torpedo builds, but I do less than half the damage as I would in a dual beam bank ship.
Same holds true for cannons - my damage output with cannons is significantly lower than beams or beam Banks.
Now one could argue that beams are better for DPS and cannons are better for burst damage. Best way to test that is PvP. Enemy players heal faster than NPCs. So burst damage is better to kill off enemies. And even here, cannons are nowhere near a beam bank ship as surgical strikes deals more damage than rapid fire/ scatter volley.
I still have a few cannon builds and one Torpedo build for fun and missions. But I find that this Highlights one Problem of this game: you don't have the choice, you have to know which skills / weapons work best.
essentially there is a ranking in most parts of this games:
Beams over cannons over Torpedos
Intel over Command over Pilot
fire at will over beam overload
aux2bat over photonic officer
a bit more balance would give players more options. As it is now, some skills and weapons are just redundant.
admintedly I do not have great experience with torpedo builds, but I do less than half the damage as I would in a dual beam bank ship.
Same holds true for cannons - my damage output with cannons is significantly lower than beams or beam Banks.
Now one could argue that beams are better for DPS and cannons are better for burst damage. Best way to test that is PvP. Enemy players heal faster than NPCs. So burst damage is better to kill off enemies. And even here, cannons are nowhere near a beam bank ship as surgical strikes deals more damage than rapid fire/ scatter volley.
I still have a few cannon builds and one Torpedo build for fun and missions. But I find that this Highlights one Problem of this game: you don't have the choice, you have to know which skills / weapons work best.
essentially there is a ranking in most parts of this games:
Beams over cannons over Torpedos
Intel over Command over Pilot
fire at will over beam overload
aux2bat over photonic officer
a bit more balance would give players more options. As it is now, some skills and weapons are just redundant.
18 characters
KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
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KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
I'd go Drake over both of those out of my personal preference. But more generally speaking, there's a lot more flexibility right now with traits and the new skill system revamp to get cooldown management to work with just about any build you can think of. In terms of choices/variability/flexibility I think Aux2Batt has seen its day in the sun long past and Photonic Officer takes up too valuable a BOFF slot when your readiness skills, traits and DOFFs can compensate much easier for cooldown issues.
Traits, Skills, DOffs and Krenim BOffs over Aux2Bat, at least in the PvE meta, with Hybrid slots being one of the few reasons to actually bother with Aux2Bat's limitations.
Probably hard to separate out, as DRB is nice debuff, as is the new Control Amplification effects on things like Gravity Well. So, just looking at a parser's torpedoes did X DPS would not be indicative what they are without the Sci abilities backing them up. Also, most of the popular torps on torp builds have one or more components that scale with Science skills, like Neutronic and DrainX, or Particle Emission Projectile clouds and EPG.
if you look at the high DPS builds (150k+) they all use beams. Not saying you cannot make a working build otherwise - just DPS is all beams and FAW...
KDF: 2 tacs, 2 engs, 3 scis
KDF Roms: 3 tacs, 1 eng, 1 scis
FED: 2 tacs, 1 eng, 2 scis
TOS: 1 tac
all on T5 rep (up to temporal)
all have mastered Intel tree (and some more specs Points)
highest DPS: 60.982
Just want to reiterate what's been said about that particular power a bunch of times in the past ... FAW is not the sole reason the DPS number is that high. In fact, beams have a lot more to do with "EPS is DPS" than "FAW+SpacebarFTW"
I'm not saying FAW is innocent here. Or that it needs to be ignored by the devs in terms of a balance pass. But I think we need to keep the full context in mind. And understand the mechanics of how beam boats work and why they are able to pump out that much damage. It's not just FAW.
The four main existing mechanics issues that torp boats have to deal with:
1) Shields ignore 75% of the kinetic damage that you could do to the target, yet generate threat as if you did 100% of the potential damage prior to shield negation. When you start hitting in the 300K+ range per torp, you'll see this. Prior to 11.5, threat generation was your #1 killer. Now, so long as someone else is running Threatening Stance and not completely failing, you can turn your threat off and not worry as much. Still, having 75% of your damage not even register against shielded targets is a huge pain, which is amplified further by the other items listed here.
2) Only one torpedo can fire at any one time. I'm not talking about BOff abilities working on all torpedoes, I am talking about single shot only. Torps (and moreso mines) have to deal with long cooldowns, and adding a 1 second penalty to a target that swings into your firing arc before you can fire that torpedo adds to that. Furthermore, the same crafted types of torps have a shared cd, further limiting how many you can fire in that "one at a time" scenario. You do not see this happening w/ beams or cannons.
3) Travel time (especially for heavies) is, quite frankly, ridiculous in this age of powerCreep Online, where the target can be dead before a torpedo fired from 3km away even lands. The ability to change the travel time is there, but is the willingness to do so? Not even factoring some of the bugs w/ heavy torps, but the ease by which they are shot down by both players and NPC warrants a closer look at the archaic mechanic.
4) Having to work out when a lower rank power does more damage over a higher rank power. Yes, you read that right. Prior to S11.5, salvo torps fired under a lower rank of TS/HY could do more damage than a higher rank of TS/HY ~1/3 of the time IF you had over ~200% critD. The probability mathematics was done by @jarvisandalfred , and he checked my work to make sure I didn't have a mental breakdown of some sort. With 11.5 and the Science Ultimate, I can completely ignore critH, focus on critD to sit at 198% critD, use HY1, and spam that on targets inside and outside of the Sci Ultimate, and enjoy big booms. Now, the probability mathematics need to be done, but initial (and limited) testing has me dropping HY3 (to slot a debuff/buff ability) from my salvo builds and slotting HY1 and firing away w/ Concentrate Firepower if/when I have it. Having a lower rank power being able to out-perform a higher rank power is mind-bending. The mechanic needs to be re-done.
**NOTE** #4 does not apply to "heavy" torps (HY Gravimetric, Tricobalt, or any single object with a very high blast yield). You want as much critH and critD as possible, but if you're launching under the Sci Ultimate, stack the critD from all sources except for the Tac Optional in the Spec tree.
In an of themselves, the three issues aren't necessarily a problem individually, SO LONG AS THERE AREN'T ANY GLARING BUGS affecting them. Since there are, there's a problem.
Part of being a good torpedo ship pilot is knowing the issues and the bugs, and trying to work around them. It would be good gameplay if there were drawbacks for all types of weapons, be they energy or kinetic, so that skillful players can utilize both and be prosperous. As it is, the Development has heavily favored energy weapons (re: beams) prior to S11, showed some love to torps in S11 (while handing energy users the single best space rep weapon in the game), then nerfed two major torps 1/2 way through S11, and then introduced some more oddities for Kinetic users to work through in 11.5.
That's the state of torps, sans the laundry list of bugs.
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.
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Second'd. FaW, in and of itself, isn't the sole issue to blame. It's all the supporting mechanics (intended or not), plus the multitude of Dev designs to enhance energy weapon usage exclusively, such as haste, the vast majority of traits, old mechanics, etc.
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.
This is my way to get torps to work for me. Self-Modulating Fire On outgoing Critical Hits, your energy weapons and projectiles gain +50% Shield Penetration for 10 sec (Can trigger once every 45 sec), Trait: Kinetic Precision, Projectiles gain +10% Shield Bleedthrough, Trait: Omega Kinetic Shearing, Torpedoes and Mines deal an additional 40% of their outgoing kinetic damage as a shield-penetrating DoT over 6 seconds. Trait Projectile Training +5% Projectile Weapon Damage. vTrait: Fleet Coordinator +2% All Damage per Team member (Self included), up to 10%. Trait: Auxiliary Power Configuration - Offense In space combat you gain a damage and accuracy boost based on your Auxiliary Power Level./
So I just crit hit a target with beam overload first then high yeild torp III, all my torps do 75% shield penetration plus and additional 40% of their outgoing kinetic damage as a shield-penetrating DoT over 6 seconds
Currently running a front neutronic torpedo with 10,700 kinetic damage and quantum phase torpedo with 8,700 kinetic damage and an aft omega torp 3,100 kinetic damage each shotx5.
so with a crit hit followed by High Yield III with neutronic I'm doing 31,500 kinetic damage 75% shield penetration followed by quantum phase torpedo with 8,700 kinetic damage 75% shield pen, an another neurotic torp usually fires before 10,700 kinetic damage 10,700 kinetic damage 75% shield penetration and Isokinetic Cannon as part of the neutroni set 9.400 kinetic damage 100% shield pen , and can pop off one or 2 omega torp while I pass over the target before the 10 seconds runs out so thats an extra 3,100 kinetic damage shield.All of this is through shield damge on my first voloy not counting my beams not to mention I use the overwhelming force trait and a few othes that boost torp damge.. I understand torps have some draw backs but if you add too much more ontop them it would be overkill for people that know how to use them. Unless its a ship with over 60,00k hull its dead with my first shot at them. also using trait Trait: Load Viral Torpedo aoctivating Engineering, Science, Tactical and Intelligence Team now loads a Viral Torpedo. This causes your next Torpedo attack to disable your target(s) for a short period of time. This can occur once every 20 seconds.Activating this trait causes your next Torpedo attack to disable your target(s) for a 5 seconds.
I could boost my build some more by using torpedo barrage and some other traits
the only thing that kind of bugs me is Travel time that I can move faster than my torps when flying at a target sometimes but that has its pros and cons for combat and you can make it work for you if they changed that then they would have to nerf torps and every weapon in the game with the Self-Modulating Fire trait or else you could just be killing everything far to easy
(Edit) I also use two duffs that a add a chance for an extra extra 35% and 30% shield pen with beam overload and use duffs with cooldown time for toprs. so thats also a big factor for torp effectiveniss. There are so many ways you can boost weapons in this game and anything can be very deadly with the right setup
"Intel over Command over Pilot ; fire at will over beam overload" ALso wrong wrong wrong. Just completely with an absolute wrong.
You're new here judging by your post count, I will excuse this post for ignorance.
Was that finally fixed? It wasn't working right for the longest time and I finally gave up keeping tabs on it.
I don't think so...but then again I was like you...I gave up on it after so long of it being nothing more than a pathetic glob fly bite of a DoT.
Here is some hard Data.
- Since 11.5 I play ISA at least 3 times a day on a cannon build and out-DPS 99/100 of parsed beam players. (Highest Personal DPS record is currently 168k DPS in an L->R ISA pug)
- @spencerb96 recently achieved a ISA DPS record of 246k DPS with cannons placing him on #4 of the highest ever recorded DPS on that map (salute sir and gz on that one!)
- @ezriryan recently managed an HSE solo using a cannon setup.
Now while I doubt that an all cannon team will outperform an all beam team in ISA due to the map composition (left/right generator stages are most difficult with cannons) I highly question that single cannon players in a beam team are not able to out-DPS the beam users of that group. It is my opinion that the general consensus that beams would be superior to cannons led to a massive lack of active, experienced and out geared cannon players which are in a position to prove otherwise.
In short
Do we know?
My only issue with cannons currently is the ability CSV compared to BFAW. From the looks of it it only scatters to three targets at most independent of how many targets you have in your arc.
Why @borticuscryptic ?
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Works fine for me.
Back in the old days, when men were men and furry creatures from alpha centauri were furry creatures from alpha centauri, it was relatively common knowledge that the 7th or8th beam would barely add to your damage output since the energy drain was so severe. Replacing 2 regular beams with dual beams or with torpedoes was more efficient (the dual beams don't fire on the broadside, but add to your frontal damage. The torpedoes don't drain energy and don't need the energy either.)
But once you add in overcapping with EPS and weapon drain reduction abilities, this is no longer true.
As it is written, no. It calculates the damage that makes it to hull (not outgoing damage), then takes 40% of it and adds that as a DoT (it CANNOT crit) and applies it against the target. vs shielded targets, you won't see much unless you hit REALLY HARD and/or have a lot of bleedthrough/shieldPen.
If it was actual outgoing damage, I'd be jumping for joy and never take it off. Sadly, w/ powerCreep11.5 in play, most high-powered ISA runs don't warrant the ability slotted. Almost all targets don't last longer than 3 seconds.
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.
Which reputation weapon are you referencing?
does it matter?? 80K is impressive
1) Do not post in threads that have been innactive for more than 1 month. This is considered necroing and is against the forum rules.
2) To answer your question, he's talking about the Terran rep disruptor beam array from the munitions set.
3) Help @pwlaughingtrendy ! Save us from the undead hoard!
Support 90 degree arc limitation on BFaW! Save our ships from looking like flying disco balls of dumb!