I agree progress is being made - the Na'khul and their vomit cones are one of the most positional enemies in the game. Where you are and where you can get to in the next 6 seconds matter.
But there's still some room to retrofit older foes to require a similar degree of mindfulness if not in the exact same ways.
I would have much rather them add a bunch of boff abilities to enemy vessels and just have them cycle through said abilities. I think it would be more fun to face fewer vessels, but have said vessels be more difficult to kill and be able to cause more damage to the players.
The Na'Khul have new abilities and aren't just more sacks of hit points. The Battle of Procyon V, third phase, has Krenim and Na'Khul ships mixing in making it pretty much exactly what is being talked about. They are a lot different than, say, borg spheres.
Um I dunno...maybe I'm not paying enough attention, but the only thing I notice about the newer enemies that cryptic has released with the newer content is they generally give them one "super skill" that makes them slightly annoying.
I agree progress is being made - the Na'khul and their vomit cones are one of the most positional enemies in the game. Where you are and where you can get to in the next 6 seconds matter.
But there's still some room to retrofit older foes to require a similar degree of mindfulness if not in the exact same ways.
Retrofitting the old foes? Anyone remember the EptE spheres in ISA (or was it still ISE back then)
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
I agree progress is being made - the Na'khul and their vomit cones are one of the most positional enemies in the game. Where you are and where you can get to in the next 6 seconds matter.
But there's still some room to retrofit older foes to require a similar degree of mindfulness if not in the exact same ways.
Retrofitting the old foes? Anyone remember the EptE spheres in ISA (or was it still ISE back then)
That was a change to all Borg Sphere NPC's (not sure if it was to just advanced level or both normal and advanced I don't recall). The problem with the EP2E change was that the Borg Sphere's would just fly away randomly from the battlefield and not come back. They were too stupid to use the skill effectively.
They have shown how they will make enemies "more difficult" and that's by turning them into hit point sacks with high resistances.
Over the time I've been playing this game and reading these forums, I think that choice (high HP/resistance mobs) was made by Cryptic because it was the one that would probably cause the least uproar.
Whenever we got NPCs with unique abilities (Vaadwaur, Iconians, Terrans or Na'kuhl for example) you get a lot of complaints from players than x mob is too hard. Maybe Cryptic chose that route because it thought that was what the playerbase can cope with.
Just a thought... it's off topic anyway. I don't think making the mobs harder would help Engineers any more than it will help/hurt the other classes.
I don't think making the mobs harder would help Engineers any more than it will help/hurt the other classes.
While more difficult NPCs would give tanks a role to play in the game (which I'm all for), it probably won't change the fact that tacs and scis can both tank better than engineers can. Also, Miracle Worker would then even more need a buff because even currently without too many 'dangerous' NPCs in the game, it doesn't really make that much of a difference in your survival (especially in longer runs).
The recent The Show interview with @crypticrock touches a bit on the topic of NPC difficulty.
The earlier you encounter a foe in the game, the less likely it is he'll have fancy and particularly dangerous abilities, basically. Because newbies will have to deal with them and they are still learning the basics of how to fly their ship.
Enemies that they know will mostly be encountered in Queued content or similar endgame content will have more complex abilities and more difficult to deal with. (CrypticRock mentioned the SPhere Builders. I honestly have no idea what the sphere builder ships actually do anymore, since I barely played the new queues yet or looked at what they were doing.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Instead of trying to change the whole game to suit one class, accept that people really just want to be dps competitive in their favorite career path and adjust sci and eng accordingly.
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My first toon was tac - then I was persuaded to do some PvPs and died...so I made my first engineer. Engineers used to be my favourite PvP class - but the lessons I learnt about surviving helped me make Scis that could survive in PvP and annoy the enemy. Now PvP is dead and since then I have neglected my Engs and scis a bit.
Normal game is layed out in such a manner that you can do it with any Career. So why not take a tac that goes through enemies the fastest? Or a sci for crowd control? I feel that engineers sort of have lost their place in this game.
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
[quote="kelshando;13030762"]"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills.. [/quote]
Wrong, while there are many damage dealing (tac) and control/support abilities in the game, tac and scis remain unique in what they can do, as none of those abilities would make their captain abilities obsolete. For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha. However, miracle worker is consistently out healed by engineering team, RIF, continuity, desperate repairs, etc. Most of the engineering captain abilities are so weak that you cannot really build your ship around them. For examole the highest dps engineers right now still run multiple heal abilities as miracle worker is simply not enough to make it difference in most queues. Also any captain using energy weapons, regardless or engineering or not will have to use plasmonic leech+supremacy, or KCB+AM to keep weapon power up because nadion inversion and eps power transfer cannot maintain that high subsystem power levels for that long.
[quote="salazarraze;13030781"][quote="kelshando;13030762"]"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills.. [/quote] Really? What's the replicated ability for subnucleonic beam or go down fighting? [/quote]
While threre is a console that replicates go down fighting, it is overall weaker than its captain power equivalent. Unlike engineering captain abilities, tac and sci captain abilities are not outperformed by typical starship traits, boff abilities, specialization tree abilities, and consoles. My problem with the current engineering class is that all of its powers are weaker than their equivalents while they should actually be stronger
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
Wrong, while there are many damage dealing (tac) and control/support abilities in the game, tac and scis remain unique in what they can do, as none of those abilities would make their captain abilities obsolete. For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha. However, miracle worker is consistently out healed by engineering team, RIF, continuity, desperate repairs, etc. Most of the engineering captain abilities are so weak that you cannot really build your ship around them. For examole the highest dps engineers right now still run multiple heal abilities as miracle worker is simply not enough to make it difference in most queues. Also any captain using energy weapons, regardless or engineering or not will have to use plasmonic leech+supremacy, or KCB+AM to keep weapon power up because nadion inversion and eps power transfer cannot maintain that high subsystem power levels for that long.
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
Really? What's the replicated ability for subnucleonic beam or go down fighting?
While threre is a console that replicates go down fighting, it is overall weaker than its captain power equivalent. Unlike engineering captain abilities, tac and sci captain abilities are not outperformed by typical starship traits, boff abilities, specialization tree abilities, and consoles. My problem with the current engineering class is that all of its powers are weaker than their equivalents while they should actually be stronger
For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha.
That's what this is really all about. Attack Pattern Alpha. Not Miracle Worker. Not EPS Transfer. Both are fine abilities and do what they need to do and can work well in conjunction with some other stuff. Baseline, Engineering Captain abilities are fine. This is just another witch hunt for Attack Pattern Alpha.
It took me awhile to figure out the purpose of this thread. But when people started bringing up Subnucleonic Beam, that's when it all finally clicked into place for me.
This is a captain ability that most PVE teams (especially tanks) frown on people using. Because when you remove the Fire at Will buff that the borg target has, you mess up the tanking traits and feedback pulse damage the tank needs.
For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha.
That's what this is really all about. Attack Pattern Alpha. Not Miracle Worker. Not EPS Transfer. Both are fine abilities and do what they need to do and can work well in conjunction with some other stuff. Baseline, Engineering Captain abilities are fine. This is just another witch hunt for Attack Pattern Alpha.
It took me awhile to figure out the purpose of this thread. But when people started bringing up Subnucleonic Beam, that's when it all finally clicked into place for me.
This is a captain ability that most PVE teams (especially tanks) frown on people using. Because when you remove the Fire at Will buff that the borg target has, you mess up the tanking traits and feedback pulse damage the tank needs.
So we're back to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Awesome. I love how those threads go!
Nope, I just brang up Attack Pattern Alpha as an example of how engineering abilities have fallen behind all the others. The main purpose of this thread is still to discuss your thoughts on engineering captain abilities as a whole and how they should be changed to make them more effective in space combat. While EPS Power Transfer is not that bad (it's not too great either tbh), Miracle Worker is just straight out meh. Right now, it is outhealed (I'm talking HPS here btw) by: Regenerative Integrity Field (this console does more than 2x the HPS than Miracle Worker), Continuity, Desperate Repairs, even Engineering Team 3. Simply put, Captain abilities should be better than their console or trait equivalents, but right now, Miracle Worker is noticeably worse than all of the other major heal abilities in the game. Even with the Grace Under Fire trait, Miracle Worker only heals 30k hull every 90 seconds, and that's not going to make that much of a difference in combat. When you press the Miracle Worker button, you're supposed to feel a sense of relief like a miracle has taken place....but right now even a double tap miralce worker w/ Grace Under Fire is just delaying the inevitable fact that you'll die. Feel free to disagree though, I'm always welcome to new opinions on this matter.
For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha.
That's what this is really all about. Attack Pattern Alpha. Not Miracle Worker. Not EPS Transfer. Both are fine abilities and do what they need to do and can work well in conjunction with some other stuff. Baseline, Engineering Captain abilities are fine. This is just another witch hunt for Attack Pattern Alpha.
It took me awhile to figure out the purpose of this thread. But when people started bringing up Subnucleonic Beam, that's when it all finally clicked into place for me.
This is a captain ability that most PVE teams (especially tanks) frown on people using. Because when you remove the Fire at Will buff that the borg target has, you mess up the tanking traits and feedback pulse damage the tank needs.
So we're back to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Awesome. I love how those threads go!
Nope, I just brang up Attack Pattern Alpha as an example of how engineering abilities have fallen behind all the others. The main purpose of this thread is still to discuss your thoughts on engineering captain abilities as a whole and how they should be changed to make them more effective in space combat. While EPS Power Transfer is not that bad (it's not too great either tbh), Miracle Worker is just straight out meh. Right now, it is outhealed (I'm talking HPS here btw) by: Regenerative Integrity Field (this console does more than 2x the HPS than Miracle Worker), Continuity, Desperate Repairs, even Engineering Team 3. Simply put, Captain abilities should be better than their console or trait equivalents, but right now, Miracle Worker is noticeably worse than all of the other major heal abilities in the game. Even with the Grace Under Fire trait, Miracle Worker only heals 30k hull every 90 seconds, and that's not going to make that much of a difference in combat. When you press the Miracle Worker button, you're supposed to feel a sense of relief like a miracle has taken place....but right now even a double tap miralce worker w/ Grace Under Fire is just delaying the inevitable fact that you'll die. Feel free to disagree though, I'm always welcome to new opinions on this matter.
EPS Power Transfer is pretty good and does bring a lot to the table in power management of Beam Fire at Will. Even Nadion Inversion has an effect on that. Engineers still handle power management the best.
So I'm not real convinced that a lot needs to be done there. It isn't Attack Pattern Alpha, but never was. And it's not like that state of affairs has changed any recently. Attack Pattern Alpha has been as good as it is forever and ever. Which is why I still feel this discussion is a witch hunt for that ability, and using the red herring or Engineering Captain Abilities as the path to get there.
However, I guess this thread is also here to bash Miracle Worker.
So I'll just throw in my average tanking setup for most content: Miracle Worker, Temp Hit Points from Attack Pattern Beta and Aux to SIF III. That's it. That's all I use and all I need. Miracle Worker is traited to refresh fast enough that I don't need to rely on much else, but my main healing comes from Attack Pattern Beta and SIF III. I don't even need E-Team III. I have E-Team I and Miracle Worker for "Oh Noez!" moments.
This changes up with elite maps. But even so, Miracle Worker itself is a-OK. Because it's a captain ability. So it's always a supplement to whatever healing I normally would need. And since Grace Under Fire debuted, it's been a staple of my rotation. If I'm flying a cruiser and building a tank I'm going to have engineering BOFF abilities like E-Team or Aux to SIF. No matter what. And they are going to heal. But Miracle Worker is there to either supplement that or to replace one of them completely.
And as has been stated a few times in this thread, Miracle Worker heals shields and health.
Would I argue against a buff to it? No.
But I would not classify it as being bad, like I feel you are. I think you're overfocusing on individual comparisons here, and selling the effectiveness of tanking as an engineer short in doing so. I also think you're using a skill tree build that eschews a lot of points in the ENG tree and are not taking advantage of the ideas of the tree itself.
But power management as an engineer is robust. The compromises you might make to shave points out of the ENG tree make you rely more heavily on other sources (like Leech). Which is fine, but as the EPS is DPS movement has taught us, what with overcapping and all that, the Engineer can access more effective and efficient usage of weapons power when utilizing Beam Fire at Will. It's a tradeoff. My build won't have frenzy. But I already knew I was trading off when I made an ENG in the first place.
So I don't really buy into the idea that ENG is poor and the captain abilities are the culprit.
I feel it's far more the metagame itself. There isn't a lot of content that requires a dedicated tank. And the long term sustained damage that ENG has an advantage with because it manages power usage far better than any other setup ... doesn't produce results all that well in a metagame dominated by short runs.
Then again, no matter what happens, ENG captain abilities will always pale in comparison to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Personally I don't care. That's not what ENG is supposed to do anyways.
TLDR: I think it's awesome you're getting so much use out of engineering team 3, but I can heal just fine without it, and use the hell out of Miracle Worker. But I probably spent my skill points vastly differently. So there's that. Keep in mind when the skill tree revamp went live there was only ONE thread about going deep in ENG, and only ONE person trying to build it out that way to tank over in the build forum here. Everyone else went down tactical and science.
Also I'm guessing that the "GDF" console that you guys are referring to is the flagship console? If that's the case it's only usable on flagships which really doesn't do a good job matching GDF since it can't be used on 99% of ships.
When you see "TRIBBLE" in my posts, it's because I manually typed "TRIBBLE" and censored myself.
While I totally agree with @happyblobfish, after six years in development and seeing the direction this game has gone, (and I really hate to be this guy) unless it comes from a lockbox, it's not gonna happen.
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
Really? What's the replicated ability for subnucleonic beam or go down fighting?
There is an AoE SNB boff ability. Others mentioned the console for go down fighting.
Maybe I'm missing the SNB clone. I don't see it anywhere.
EDIT: Never mind. I found it. It's incredibly weak by comparison.
and my point stands...
There are DPS there are control/support and there are healing/tanking ability's, traits that go across all abilities no matter what type of captain you play. Whining about something that's not true gets you nowhere..
Now you can make a argument that in the games current meta that tanking roles are not really needed and that DPS and control/support are more effective in current games meta.. that is a valid argument and one that is unlikely to change for awhile.
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
Really? What's the replicated ability for subnucleonic beam or go down fighting?
There is an AoE SNB boff ability. Others mentioned the console for go down fighting.
There is a DOff that can remove certain BUffs from an enemy if hit with energy weapons.
There's subnucleonic (or so) wave
there is the Nukara mines
plenty of Options for subnucleonic beam
go down fighting - there's a Reputation trait that improves resistances as health goes down - which would add the trait that improves go down fighting, but not replicate the damage improvmemnt.
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
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
and my point stands...
There are DPS there are control/support and there are healing/tanking ability's, traits that go across all abilities no matter what type of captain you play. Whining about something that's not true gets you nowhere..
I'm not sure how many times I have to say this, but right now, engineering captain abilities are being outperformed by consoles, traits, and even boff abilities. While there are abilities that can mimic the function of tac and sci captain abilities, they do not completely outperform them. If you need proof, I would be happy to provide the parses.
Now you can make a argument that in the games current meta that tanking roles are not really needed and that DPS and control/support are more effective in current games meta.. that is a valid argument and one that is unlikely to change for awhile.
Even if tanking was made valid, it wouldn't change the fact that tacs and scis are able to tank better than engineers (due to a higher potential threat scale, and an almost even amount of healing)
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
and my point stands...
There are DPS there are control/support and there are healing/tanking ability's, traits that go across all abilities no matter what type of captain you play. Whining about something that's not true gets you nowhere..
I'm not sure how many times I have to say this, but right now, engineering captain abilities are being outperformed by consoles, traits, and even boff abilities. While there are abilities that can mimic the function of tac and sci captain abilities, they do not completely outperform them. If you need proof, I would be happy to provide the parses.
Now you can make a argument that in the games current meta that tanking roles are not really needed and that DPS and control/support are more effective in current games meta.. that is a valid argument and one that is unlikely to change for awhile.
Even if tanking was made valid, it wouldn't change the fact that tacs and scis are able to tank better than engineers (due to a higher potential threat scale, and an almost even amount of healing)
Threat scale.. in game issue that effects all captains the same... the issue is game mechanics vs the captain skills. ENG are about survivability and they do that better then ANY other captain.
Amount of the healing.. Eng captain's have more innate healing then any other other Captain... because its a FREE skills with the captain... just as DPS skills are free with tac... or debuff that's are free with sci.
Just as other captain's you can console and use boffs to compliment or shore up areas that you need...
The only reason TAC and SCI appear better is that in the current meta its all about dps...
"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
and my point stands...
There are DPS there are control/support and there are healing/tanking ability's, traits that go across all abilities no matter what type of captain you play. Whining about something that's not true gets you nowhere..
I'm not sure how many times I have to say this, but right now, engineering captain abilities are being outperformed by consoles, traits, and even boff abilities. While there are abilities that can mimic the function of tac and sci captain abilities, they do not completely outperform them. If you need proof, I would be happy to provide the parses.
Now you can make a argument that in the games current meta that tanking roles are not really needed and that DPS and control/support are more effective in current games meta.. that is a valid argument and one that is unlikely to change for awhile.
Even if tanking was made valid, it wouldn't change the fact that tacs and scis are able to tank better than engineers (due to a higher potential threat scale, and an almost even amount of healing)
Threat scale.. in game issue that effects all captains the same... the issue is game mechanics vs the captain skills. ENG are about survivability and they do that better then ANY other captain.
Amount of the healing.. Eng captain's have more innate healing then any other other Captain... because its a FREE skills with the captain... just as DPS skills are free with tac... or debuff that's are free with sci.
Just as other captain's you can console and use boffs to compliment or shore up areas that you need...
The only reason TAC and SCI appear better is that in the current meta its all about dps...
Sure, engineers are supposed to have great healing but to put it out plainly, Miracle Worker is pretty bad, and I've already explained why; it's simply too weak to be considered a competitive heal. Yes, it's a free skill, but at least the free skill should be on par with the other captain abilities in terms of power. I'm not wanting engineers to be dps monsters, because that role if for tacs. I just think engineer captain abilities should be buffed so that they are considered top tier again and actually make a large difference in advanced/elite content. Miracle Worker should be the best heal in the game (or close to it) but right now, it's around my 4th best heal and that's even with Grace Under Fire.
You however, keep ignoring my main point here. Captain abilities should not be completely overshadowed by consoles that to some extend 'mimic' the ability and they most definitely should not be outperformed by Lt. Cmdr Boff abilities.
Comments
But there's still some room to retrofit older foes to require a similar degree of mindfulness if not in the exact same ways.
Um I dunno...maybe I'm not paying enough attention, but the only thing I notice about the newer enemies that cryptic has released with the newer content is they generally give them one "super skill" that makes them slightly annoying.
I agree.
Retrofitting the old foes? Anyone remember the EptE spheres in ISA (or was it still ISE back then)
That was a change to all Borg Sphere NPC's (not sure if it was to just advanced level or both normal and advanced I don't recall). The problem with the EP2E change was that the Borg Sphere's would just fly away randomly from the battlefield and not come back. They were too stupid to use the skill effectively.
Over the time I've been playing this game and reading these forums, I think that choice (high HP/resistance mobs) was made by Cryptic because it was the one that would probably cause the least uproar.
Whenever we got NPCs with unique abilities (Vaadwaur, Iconians, Terrans or Na'kuhl for example) you get a lot of complaints from players than x mob is too hard. Maybe Cryptic chose that route because it thought that was what the playerbase can cope with.
Just a thought... it's off topic anyway. I don't think making the mobs harder would help Engineers any more than it will help/hurt the other classes.
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While more difficult NPCs would give tanks a role to play in the game (which I'm all for), it probably won't change the fact that tacs and scis can both tank better than engineers can.
The earlier you encounter a foe in the game, the less likely it is he'll have fancy and particularly dangerous abilities, basically. Because newbies will have to deal with them and they are still learning the basics of how to fly their ship.
Enemies that they know will mostly be encountered in Queued content or similar endgame content will have more complex abilities and more difficult to deal with. (CrypticRock mentioned the SPhere Builders. I honestly have no idea what the sphere builder ships actually do anymore, since I barely played the new queues yet or looked at what they were doing.)
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I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
Normal game is layed out in such a manner that you can do it with any Career. So why not take a tac that goes through enemies the fastest? Or a sci for crowd control? I feel that engineers sort of have lost their place in this game.
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'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
[/quote]
Wrong, while there are many damage dealing (tac) and control/support abilities in the game, tac and scis remain unique in what they can do, as none of those abilities would make their captain abilities obsolete. For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha. However, miracle worker is consistently out healed by engineering team, RIF, continuity, desperate repairs, etc. Most of the engineering captain abilities are so weak that you cannot really build your ship around them. For examole the highest dps engineers right now still run multiple heal abilities as miracle worker is simply not enough to make it difference in most queues. Also any captain using energy weapons, regardless or engineering or not will have to use plasmonic leech+supremacy, or KCB+AM to keep weapon power up because nadion inversion and eps power transfer cannot maintain that high subsystem power levels for that long.
[quote="salazarraze;13030781"][quote="kelshando;13030762"]"captain abilities can be replicated by a sci or tac by some way, shape, or fashion."
I'm sorry but this goes for any captain ability.... the difference is your not having to add traits or consoles for your innate skills..
[/quote]
Really? What's the replicated ability for subnucleonic beam or go down fighting?
[/quote]
While threre is a console that replicates go down fighting, it is overall weaker than its captain power equivalent. Unlike engineering captain abilities, tac and sci captain abilities are not outperformed by typical starship traits, boff abilities, specialization tree abilities, and consoles. My problem with the current engineering class is that all of its powers are weaker than their equivalents while they should actually be stronger
Wrong, while there are many damage dealing (tac) and control/support abilities in the game, tac and scis remain unique in what they can do, as none of those abilities would make their captain abilities obsolete. For example attack pattern omega offers a decent boost to damage but nothing like the magnitude of attack pattern alpha. However, miracle worker is consistently out healed by engineering team, RIF, continuity, desperate repairs, etc. Most of the engineering captain abilities are so weak that you cannot really build your ship around them. For examole the highest dps engineers right now still run multiple heal abilities as miracle worker is simply not enough to make it difference in most queues. Also any captain using energy weapons, regardless or engineering or not will have to use plasmonic leech+supremacy, or KCB+AM to keep weapon power up because nadion inversion and eps power transfer cannot maintain that high subsystem power levels for that long.
While threre is a console that replicates go down fighting, it is overall weaker than its captain power equivalent. Unlike engineering captain abilities, tac and sci captain abilities are not outperformed by typical starship traits, boff abilities, specialization tree abilities, and consoles. My problem with the current engineering class is that all of its powers are weaker than their equivalents while they should actually be stronger
Pretty sure there is a trait or something that increases damage in response to you taking damage, which is in the same vein as Go Down Fighting?
That's what this is really all about. Attack Pattern Alpha. Not Miracle Worker. Not EPS Transfer. Both are fine abilities and do what they need to do and can work well in conjunction with some other stuff. Baseline, Engineering Captain abilities are fine. This is just another witch hunt for Attack Pattern Alpha.
It took me awhile to figure out the purpose of this thread. But when people started bringing up Subnucleonic Beam, that's when it all finally clicked into place for me.
This is a captain ability that most PVE teams (especially tanks) frown on people using. Because when you remove the Fire at Will buff that the borg target has, you mess up the tanking traits and feedback pulse damage the tank needs.
So we're back to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Awesome. I love how those threads go!
Nope, I just brang up Attack Pattern Alpha as an example of how engineering abilities have fallen behind all the others. The main purpose of this thread is still to discuss your thoughts on engineering captain abilities as a whole and how they should be changed to make them more effective in space combat. While EPS Power Transfer is not that bad (it's not too great either tbh), Miracle Worker is just straight out meh. Right now, it is outhealed (I'm talking HPS here btw) by: Regenerative Integrity Field (this console does more than 2x the HPS than Miracle Worker), Continuity, Desperate Repairs, even Engineering Team 3. Simply put, Captain abilities should be better than their console or trait equivalents, but right now, Miracle Worker is noticeably worse than all of the other major heal abilities in the game. Even with the Grace Under Fire trait, Miracle Worker only heals 30k hull every 90 seconds, and that's not going to make that much of a difference in combat. When you press the Miracle Worker button, you're supposed to feel a sense of relief like a miracle has taken place....but right now even a double tap miralce worker w/ Grace Under Fire is just delaying the inevitable fact that you'll die. Feel free to disagree though, I'm always welcome to new opinions on this matter.
EPS Power Transfer is pretty good and does bring a lot to the table in power management of Beam Fire at Will. Even Nadion Inversion has an effect on that. Engineers still handle power management the best.
So I'm not real convinced that a lot needs to be done there. It isn't Attack Pattern Alpha, but never was. And it's not like that state of affairs has changed any recently. Attack Pattern Alpha has been as good as it is forever and ever. Which is why I still feel this discussion is a witch hunt for that ability, and using the red herring or Engineering Captain Abilities as the path to get there.
However, I guess this thread is also here to bash Miracle Worker.
So I'll just throw in my average tanking setup for most content: Miracle Worker, Temp Hit Points from Attack Pattern Beta and Aux to SIF III. That's it. That's all I use and all I need. Miracle Worker is traited to refresh fast enough that I don't need to rely on much else, but my main healing comes from Attack Pattern Beta and SIF III. I don't even need E-Team III. I have E-Team I and Miracle Worker for "Oh Noez!" moments.
This changes up with elite maps. But even so, Miracle Worker itself is a-OK. Because it's a captain ability. So it's always a supplement to whatever healing I normally would need. And since Grace Under Fire debuted, it's been a staple of my rotation. If I'm flying a cruiser and building a tank I'm going to have engineering BOFF abilities like E-Team or Aux to SIF. No matter what. And they are going to heal. But Miracle Worker is there to either supplement that or to replace one of them completely.
And as has been stated a few times in this thread, Miracle Worker heals shields and health.
Would I argue against a buff to it? No.
But I would not classify it as being bad, like I feel you are. I think you're overfocusing on individual comparisons here, and selling the effectiveness of tanking as an engineer short in doing so. I also think you're using a skill tree build that eschews a lot of points in the ENG tree and are not taking advantage of the ideas of the tree itself.
But power management as an engineer is robust. The compromises you might make to shave points out of the ENG tree make you rely more heavily on other sources (like Leech). Which is fine, but as the EPS is DPS movement has taught us, what with overcapping and all that, the Engineer can access more effective and efficient usage of weapons power when utilizing Beam Fire at Will. It's a tradeoff. My build won't have frenzy. But I already knew I was trading off when I made an ENG in the first place.
So I don't really buy into the idea that ENG is poor and the captain abilities are the culprit.
I feel it's far more the metagame itself. There isn't a lot of content that requires a dedicated tank. And the long term sustained damage that ENG has an advantage with because it manages power usage far better than any other setup ... doesn't produce results all that well in a metagame dominated by short runs.
Then again, no matter what happens, ENG captain abilities will always pale in comparison to Attack Pattern Alpha.
Personally I don't care. That's not what ENG is supposed to do anyways.
TLDR: I think it's awesome you're getting so much use out of engineering team 3, but I can heal just fine without it, and use the hell out of Miracle Worker. But I probably spent my skill points vastly differently. So there's that. Keep in mind when the skill tree revamp went live there was only ONE thread about going deep in ENG, and only ONE person trying to build it out that way to tank over in the build forum here. Everyone else went down tactical and science.
EDIT: Never mind. I found it. It's incredibly weak by comparison.
Actually, the FBP adjustment already happened with AoY, which was more of a bug-fix than anything else. I just couldn't remember the specifics.
and my point stands...
There are DPS there are control/support and there are healing/tanking ability's, traits that go across all abilities no matter what type of captain you play. Whining about something that's not true gets you nowhere..
Now you can make a argument that in the games current meta that tanking roles are not really needed and that DPS and control/support are more effective in current games meta.. that is a valid argument and one that is unlikely to change for awhile.
There is a DOff that can remove certain BUffs from an enemy if hit with energy weapons.
There's subnucleonic (or so) wave
there is the Nukara mines
plenty of Options for subnucleonic beam
go down fighting - there's a Reputation trait that improves resistances as health goes down - which would add the trait that improves go down fighting, but not replicate the damage improvmemnt.
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'm not sure how many times I have to say this, but right now, engineering captain abilities are being outperformed by consoles, traits, and even boff abilities. While there are abilities that can mimic the function of tac and sci captain abilities, they do not completely outperform them. If you need proof, I would be happy to provide the parses.
Even if tanking was made valid, it wouldn't change the fact that tacs and scis are able to tank better than engineers (due to a higher potential threat scale, and an almost even amount of healing)
Threat scale.. in game issue that effects all captains the same... the issue is game mechanics vs the captain skills. ENG are about survivability and they do that better then ANY other captain.
Amount of the healing.. Eng captain's have more innate healing then any other other Captain... because its a FREE skills with the captain... just as DPS skills are free with tac... or debuff that's are free with sci.
Just as other captain's you can console and use boffs to compliment or shore up areas that you need...
The only reason TAC and SCI appear better is that in the current meta its all about dps...
Sure, engineers are supposed to have great healing but to put it out plainly, Miracle Worker is pretty bad, and I've already explained why; it's simply too weak to be considered a competitive heal. Yes, it's a free skill, but at least the free skill should be on par with the other captain abilities in terms of power. I'm not wanting engineers to be dps monsters, because that role if for tacs. I just think engineer captain abilities should be buffed so that they are considered top tier again and actually make a large difference in advanced/elite content. Miracle Worker should be the best heal in the game (or close to it) but right now, it's around my 4th best heal and that's even with Grace Under Fire.
You however, keep ignoring my main point here. Captain abilities should not be completely overshadowed by consoles that to some extend 'mimic' the ability and they most definitely should not be outperformed by Lt. Cmdr Boff abilities.
Heh interesting... I was hoping it would be getting that "normalization" you mentioned.
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