I think a lot of the problem, with cannon builds for me right now is that I have no easy access to turrets or 360 beams. Fed players on PS4 have to dish out a ton of credits to find phaser turrets for the rear hardpoints, and there's no 360 beams because crafting/R&D isnt in the game yet. I really hate using any setup where my rear hardpoints are essentially useless 90% of the time.
for now, I'm running an advanced escort with 2 beam arrays forward, 3 backward, quad cannons forward, and a torpedo forward. I can broadside with up to 5 beam arrays/fire at will, but I have a decent amount of forward firepower with the torpedo and quad cannons (plus two beams). Running 2 copies of fire at will, 2 copies of torp spread, and 1 copy of cannon scatter volley, along with omega 1/3. Also have tach beam on one of my science ensign slots, for some extra forward shield drain ability.
Eventually I'll be able to either craft 360 beams for the rear hardpoints, at which point I'll switch to dual beam banks forward, or I'll have enough money to get phaser turrets for the rear hardpoints and will be able to go cannons forward.
An easy solution to the cannon/beam debate would be for PWE/C to introduce new consoles for negating the arc penalty for cannons, such as a 360 cannon mount. Just add a new console that allows players to use cannons as 360 degree turret and voila!
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts but hey, beam users have a lot of different platforms/consoles to utilize for application of damage currently.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
Personally I'd prefer dual beam banks over cannons, as I think they look better and fit federation ships better (cannons were only used on the defiant as far as I'm aware). I dont like mixing types much though, and going with dual beam banks plus turrets ends up looking odd.
I just hope that I can get access to the 360 beam turrets on console soon. I never even knew they existed on PC (been gone for a while, must be something they added in the past year or so).
I ended up leveling my AoY captain with a pair of mine racks in the trunk. The Hot Pursuit Trait makes them exceptionally funny, but they can be pretty satisfying in general if you take the time to rip a shield quadrant open right before they hit.
I would much rather see them just buff the firing arc of just the dual cannons to being comparable to dual beam banks, even if it is merely 5-10 degrees less so making it that dual cannons have 75-80ish degree firing arc compared to the the 90 degree firing arc of dual beam banks, than see them make a console that improves the firing arc of cannons by slotting it. Though I could not mind seeing a mode that cruisers that are capable to use dual cannons can enter into, which would improve their cannons (single to dual heavy cannons specifically) firing arc while in that mode, but also has some kinda of drawback to compensate for having that mode.
I would not mind seeing them make a type of heavy/dual turret variant, which would work like the omni-arrays for turrets being a more powerful type that is limited to one per ship (like the Undine rep's heavy phaser/disruptor turret), but that also another type of turret called a beam-turret would be brought in that would be largely turret that works with beam abilities though could have a smaller number of shots fired making the damage per shot higher. This might help dual beam banks be more viable to run even prior to getting access to the omni-arrays, as without having access to omni-arrays it is more viable damage-wise to run all arrays.
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts
When was the last time that was the meta though? It's been years.
I think (F2P) 2012 to early 2013 was Escorts online.
2013 - most likely just prior to Delta Rising (2014) was Aux to Batt Online,
late 2014 - 2016, most likely still happening now: Beam Fire at will online
However, there are two things.
People blame Beam Fire at Will, however, most experience captains know it isn't solely Beam fire at will that is the "primary" cause of its own meta. It is simply because of queue types, new abilities and consoles, and a whole host of other areas that mean beams and beams fire at will are a most effective delivery method of delivering those abilities, consoles and passives to the target/s. Compared to other AoE's and weapon types abilities.
Like back in the day. With the extremely few abilities, consoles, reputation items and passives that we had. While we had a lot of queues that favored AoE, we simply didn't have the contents compared to cannons and escorts to deliver damage capabilities to single or multiple targets.
Second, with the skill point change, some newer queues, and other things coming, I feel the meta is starting to shift. However, shift to what is a unknown quantity at this time.
For those wanting a straight up nerf or abrupt change to Beams & Beam Fire at Will. You simply cannot do that (note, I have 6 toons, who use a mix of BFAW, Cannons, exotic and expiremental build types) for one simply reason. Game changes like that, need to be measured and done at a decent pace, and not abrupt where possible. Only when there is a massive OP ability (not BFAW) or exploitable ability, are drastic changes needed.
I think the new meta will shift to threat builds with a mix of beams and exotic damage. The Haste coming from Temporal Cross Wiring will make beam ships much stronger (provided you can take the fire). An example of this is @iusasset's newest build which makes use of Eject Warp Plasma, Endothermic Inhibitor Beam and Structural Integrity Collapse in his Eng seats to compliment FBP and TBR in his Science stations.
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts
When was the last time that was the meta though? It's been years.
I think (F2P) 2012 to early 2013 was Escorts online.
2013 - most likely just prior to Delta Rising (2014) was Aux to Batt Online,
late 2014 - 2016, most likely still happening now: Beam Fire at will online
However, there are two things.
People blame Beam Fire at Will, however, most experience captains know it isn't solely Beam fire at will that is the "primary" cause of its own meta. It is simply because of queue types, new abilities and consoles, and a whole host of other areas that mean beams and beams fire at will are a most effective delivery method of delivering those abilities, consoles and passives to the target/s. Compared to other AoE's and weapon types abilities.
Like back in the day. With the extremely few abilities, consoles, reputation items and passives that we had. While we had a lot of queues that favored AoE, we simply didn't have the contents compared to cannons and escorts to deliver damage capabilities to single or multiple targets.
Second, with the skill point change, some newer queues, and other things coming, I feel the meta is starting to shift. However, shift to what is a unknown quantity at this time.
For those wanting a straight up nerf or abrupt change to Beams & Beam Fire at Will. You simply cannot do that (note, I have 6 toons, who use a mix of BFAW, Cannons, exotic and expiremental build types) for one simply reason. Game changes like that, need to be measured and done at a decent pace, and not abrupt where possible. Only when there is a massive OP ability (not BFAW) or exploitable ability, are drastic changes needed.
Sir how DARE you say such heretical things, Cryptic will have you know that "BFaW is the best skill ever ,and the players love it", for such blasphemy you ae required to hit yourself on the head with a plank over and over again and say "ALL HAIL BFAW ALL PRAISE THE FAW!!"
Then do 900 no 1000 hail BFaWs (Which is like a hailmay expect only with BFaW).
dunno about meta but cryptic isn't sticking to canon when it comes to some faction weapons such as
romulans should be using disruptors by default, the only plasma weapons they used was torpedoes
polaron weapons should be light-blue not purple, only the dominion ships were purple especially the nacells
Draal - FED, Saurian, LV60 - TAC
Mirak - FED 23c, Vulkan, LV60 - TAC
Ascaran Bloodclaw - KDF, Gorn, Lv18 - TAC
Melchiah - KDF, Gorn, LV60 - TAC
Ne'roon - KDF,Lethian, L60, TAC
Turel - ROM-KDF, Reman, 30, TAC
Elric - ROM-Fed, Romulan, L60, TAC
Richtor Belmont - FED 23c, Human,LV20, SCI
G'Kar - KDF, Gorn, L10
USS Sharlin NCC79713 B (part of sheridans access code) - T6, Hestia Class Advanced Escort
USS Babylon IV - T6 Krenim Science Vessel
USS Brakiri - T6 Elachi Escort
"I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star."
"We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light."
dunno about meta but cryptic isn't sticking to canon when it comes to some faction weapons such as
romulans should be using disruptors by default, the only plasma weapons they used was torpedoes
polaron weapons should be light-blue not purple, only the dominion ships were purple especially the nacells
-> That's not legit, mate. Romulans from the STO era are post-Empire Romulans. They use Plasma. The Tal-Shiar and Pre-STO era Romulans used disruptors, so you will notice Tal Shiar NPC's using disruptor weaponry as well as Remans from SP.
-> Polaron is purple. Just dominion's polaron should be blueish due to its shield-shredding effect (tetryon-like proc added).
2, The beams are meta due to simple logic facts
- It's easier to pilot a heavy ship while broadsiding.
- They're difficult to cover compared to cannons/dual cannons/dual heavy cannons and turrets as far as weapons power recovery, so they require a heavy investment on weapons power management and they're mostly canon-wise. Most of the ships in the Star Trek Universe had beams.
- The top bursts and DPS builds now have embraced the dual cannons for CRF and the dual heavy cannons for RF. Beam can ensure DPS success, but it is no longer the apex. The cannon-weaponry got its teeth back.
- For people who get the short stick as far as low performance issues and freezing during STF's, trying to reset position is hard. So broadsiding allows them staying relevant to team-dps effort, even when their computer is failing on them.
- They're classy and beautiful.
3. Some people just rant, regardless of the efforts of these people do balance the game and get the best out of the available mechanics options. Now most of the weaponry is viable, so the multitude of the builds available has exponentially grown. Before 11.5, beams were the meta. Now... opinions are shared.
Was looking at Beam overload and honestly though that it would be interesting to see it changed into a form of toggle, which had a more variable level of power based on if you had a single beam array/bank or multiple beam arrays/banks slotted. This idea would go as fallows, and tried to work in a way of making it that Beam overload would become more usable than it currently is (not saying it is not usable, but merely that it could be better.).
Beam Overload changes
First big change would be to change it from a single use ability that affects one of your beam arrays/banks, to more of a toggle ability that affects all of your slotted array/banks. While to keep the idea of it being more potent of a ability when used with a single bank/array slotted on your ship, when compared to a ship that have several arrays/banks which would have the effect of the ability divided up between those same arrays/banks.
Second than I would have the damage buff given be based on the weapon power level you have, plus a baseline bonus based on the rank of the beam overload. So you might have a baseline boost of 20-40% damage, which is then buffed further by 1% per 2-3 points of weapon power you have. Now the idea here is that for a single beam array/bank slotted on a ship it would gain a buff of 80-100% boost to damage, but than you would have it that if you wanted to use more beam banks/arrays that buff to damage would be divided between those slotted banks.
Third I could also see that as a second bonus to make using this with more than a single beam bank/array would be that it would grant a boost to both the critical hit chance, as well as the critical severity of your slotted beam array/banks. This would mean that yes using a single beam bank/array would give you higher spike damage output, but that also using it with several slotted beam banks/arrays you could get a higher sustained dps on a single target too.
Now for the draw back I would say you could go one of two ways. The first is that it would increase the weapon power cost of your beam banks/arrays while it is toggle on, and that it has a internal cooldown of 15 seconds before it can be toggled back on after being toggled off. THough I could also see that it might give you a stacking debuff (weapon-power conduit burnout) which either might give you a 1% damage reduction to weapon damage per three seconds you have beam-overload toggled on with damage reduction applied upon toggling beam-overload off, which also lasts for 1 second per 5 seconds you have beam-overload actively toggled on. A third option could be a a stacking debuff that gives you a 1% change per 3 seconds you have beam overload actively toggled on to knock-offline your weapon power for 10-15 seconds (maybe longer as a balancing measure.).
Mind you this is an idea that if applied would need the devs to rework how some of the ship traits work as well. Like maybe that with the starship traits like super-weapon ingenuity it might have a low chance while toggled on to fire additional free overloaded shots at a rank of one. Same could be done for with hanger pets that there is a chance per shot fired while beam overload is active to have your pets fire beam overload rank one for free.
This is just a concept I think would be fun an interesting to play with, as well as use that could also be useful in the same vain as a mirror of bfaw just skewed towards single target over multi-target. As I could see it being stackable with bfaw, since the fact of firing so much quicker would compound both the onuses gained an the penalties incurred as well.
We could fix ISA and go via the same route as some other STF's and time gate the objectives
1. Kill the initial guards you have 2 mins. But killing them doesn't end the timer you have to wait for it to run down as the transformers are shielded
2. Kill the left transformer before Nanites get there to heal it you have 3 mins to obtain objective. Killing it however doesn't end the timer as you have to wait for it to run out before the being able to shoot the other side as its shielded for that 3 min period.
3. Kill right transformer within 3 mins. Unable to shoot gate unless transformer is killed within 3 min objective timer or transformer is killed after 3 mins due to failed objective.
4. Kill gate and final cube.
Lol good way to kill a queue. Hope no Dev's are reading and take this as a serious suggestion as it is NOT
Just bring back the Borg STF Elites and put them on par with the Nah'kul. Then watch all the DPSer's cry as they're DPS becomes less important.
Which is why they removed them. They require you to do more than press the space bar. But long gone are the days of good STFs. I remember the day of people screaming "they're to hard." Yet, both my Fed Tac and Fed Sci, which I played at the time, was geared with all the Mk XII gear and could tank Aramek in The Cure Applied(Hardest Borg Ground STF).
Right now the only difficult ones would really be the Shuttle ones. Not as hard as they use to be. But, enough to present a challenge. This is because you're limited in the amount of consoles and weapons you can use. Start taking those away from players and they avoid the STFs. Not that once you've hit T5 rep and have everything you want from the it, the same thing happens.
To revive the STF front, they're going to need to ramp up the difficulty of them all, return the old borg Elites, and remove the various ways one can get dilithium. Return to, you want dil, you run STFs. But this would be returning to the pre-rep era of 2013 and before.
yeah but with a cannon build you have to.. you know.. FLY the thing
This is true. With cannons you do have to do more than park and press the spacebar.
You do know if you sit and park, +bfaw... that is not good strategy unless you have the "Anchored" trait ? Right ?
Sorry, not trying to argue with you, but it drives me crazy when someone implies this is all you have to do with a beam FAW build.
1. When parked you have negative defense.
2. When parked your sub systems levels are penalized.
3. Binding all your attacks/buffs to space bar is one of the stupidest things anyone could do with their keybinds/macros.
I realize you probably only say that in jest. But I hate when people get the idea that is all a beams build has to do, park and hit space bar.
I use a speed/beam build on one of my toons, so not only does 1-3 come into play, I also get penalized when sitting still (Imp.Pedal 2 the Metal / Subwarp sheath +[Pen] scales to your speed).
The last thing I do with that toons is park and fire off bfaw.
I suppose I could get away with it, if I wanted to gimp myself, and play like a complete zombie idiot.
Sorry to single you out for it, because a lot of people will say that, but that mindset really triggers me lol.
Also, I don't keybind/macro anything, so try flying at full speed, keeping your eyes on targets and the battle, while also trying to click off about 5-6 abilities from the tray, over and over. Its actually not that easy to do effectively.
Glance at the tray too long, you're out of range or the shield facing that is down eludes you. Focus too much on the battle, you miss up-time on your ability uses.
Oh, I never park. The only thing I have bound to spacebar are my energy weapons. I don't even have a macro. So I have to manually activate every ability. It's just something I see way to often, is the park and shoot. I've been running escorts and sci ships since before the reps even came in to play. Long before the "cruiser" became the coffee table for every living room.
ISA as it is now, isn't even worth mentioning as an Advanced. It's as easy as normal, just the NPCs have marginally more health. People use it as a "DPS Standard". But then again, it's an advanced. Not even worth mentioning the amount of DPS you do in it.
Which is why I say bring back the elites. Then we can sit back and watch the DPSer's get ate as they try to dps their way through it.
Which is why I do advocate a change. Everything, as it is now, from episode to STF, is nothing more than mindless pewpew. Which is why you find a lot of the older ques to be empty. People can't mindlessly pewpew, their way through them. It's also the reason why the Borg Elites got removed. They were to "hard" for people to do, because they couldn't mindlessly pewpew through them. Yet, I have every accolade for them, including the Elites. This was done before fleet ships and reputations were a thing. Where the best ship you could get was the T4.5 Mirror Versions.
Back in that day and age, we had a trinity of sorts. Cruisers were generally used as tanks. Escorts were you go to for damage. Sci Ships, Primarily Crowd Control with healing abilities and debuffs. This also meant you had to think and know the tactics of the STF in question.
But thanks to those that just want to mindlessly pewpew in their pretty ship and Cryptics ability to give it to them. We have what we do now. Thankfully, the new STFs with AoY do have some tactics. Well except Miner Instabilities. it's just a kill everything in sight and nothing else. The only STF of old that was marginally this way was Breaking the Planet. Guess this makes Miner Instabilities the 5 man version of Breaking the Planet.
As for how the meta goes. While I do find the BFAW part an annoyance. Technically there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, I'd make it have a consequence of use. Not really something to hinder the player. More something to make them think about what they're doing. Perhaps, making it generate 100%, or more, Threat.
An easy solution to the cannon/beam debate would be for PWE/C to introduce new consoles for negating the arc penalty for cannons, such as a 360 cannon mount. Just add a new console that allows players to use cannons as 360 degree turret and voila!
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts but hey, beam users have a lot of different platforms/consoles to utilize for application of damage currently.
Well I wouldn't go 360 for cannons. I'd at most extend this out to maybe 180. That and dropping the cannon skills down to the same rank structure as beams. If you take the cannons from a battleship we have today. They have 180 degree firing arc.
For this I wouldn't say make it a console. More of a design for cannons. Perhaps an [Arc] mod that increased firing arc. Which I do believe we have, not sure though. Haven't really paid much attention to the crafting system. The main problem is the skills themselves. RF/SV III is a Commander ability. BFAW/BO III is a LTC Ability. This has an impact on a cannon build. Since you only get 1 Commander Boff. This is what gives beams an advantage. They can get BFAW/BO III and still have that Com skill for an Attack Pattern. Where as a cannoneer that wants to use RF/SV III has to give up the Com skill, that would have been used for an Attack Pattern, for it.
An easy solution to the cannon/beam debate would be for PWE/C to introduce new consoles for negating the arc penalty for cannons, such as a 360 cannon mount. Just add a new console that allows players to use cannons as 360 degree turret and voila!
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts but hey, beam users have a lot of different platforms/consoles to utilize for application of damage currently.
Well I wouldn't go 360 for cannons. I'd at most extend this out to maybe 180. That and dropping the cannon skills down to the same rank structure as beams. If you take the cannons from a battleship we have today. They have 180 degree firing arc.
For this I wouldn't say make it a console. More of a design for cannons. Perhaps an [Arc] mod that increased firing arc. Which I do believe we have, not sure though. Haven't really paid much attention to the crafting system. The main problem is the skills themselves. RF/SV III is a Commander ability. BFAW/BO III is a LTC Ability. This has an impact on a cannon build. Since you only get 1 Commander Boff. This is what gives beams an advantage. They can get BFAW/BO III and still have that Com skill for an Attack Pattern. Where as a cannoneer that wants to use RF/SV III has to give up the Com skill, that would have been used for an Attack Pattern, for it.
I agree all cannon/beam/torpedo/mine augmenting abilities should start at ensign, with maybe the dispersal pattern for mines could stay at starting in the Lt slot. Though I could actually see maybe making a new attack pattern that might improve your slotted beam/torpedo/beam weapons firing arc, rate of fire, as well as travel time while it is active, which could be nice overall for all three weapon types as the increased travel speed would impact torpedos vastly more than the other two, while also improving other lacking areas of the other two weapon types.
Also yes we do have the Arc mod though it is only on the wide arc dual heavy cannons, and the omni beam array, but is also a one per for crafted kinds (another one from the story mission so you can have two omni-arrays of a given type.). THis is partly why I would not mind seeing dual cannons being upped to a 75-90 degree firing arc while keeping dual heavy cannons at a 45 degree, as than you could use them on slower turning ships (like if you don't have or want to use a lot of turn rate increasing consoles) as well as mix well with a wide arc dual heavy cannon giving both types of cannons a niche they work in well (dual cannons more for dual cannon capable cruisers/dreads.science ships, while dual heavies for the more nimble escorts/bop/destroyers.). Also single cannons could use a bit of a buff to be more competitive with beam arrays, nothing huge just a small set of buffs to make them at least worth considering using like on a science ship for example as that would fit with how many of thier science abilities are not over a 180 degree firing arcs.
it also depends on your starship as well as your beam accuracy on hits, i've played escorts with beams and 60% of the time my beams without at least 1 [acc] don't hit with my faw 3, on a cruiser though its a little easier to hit stuff being the fact i don't move so fast, not saying my beams don't miss on a cruiser but thats not the point, my T6 sci oddy can still pack a punch with faw phasers just as well as an escort but i do find cannons on an escorts better than beams even if some escorts like the Blockade runner escort look and perform better with beams lol
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
i actually agree with this!
this could probably improve the game however this does break the point of fire at will and the definition of FAW lol as fire at will just literally means fire at what you like
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
I don't see how any of your suggestion change the fact that beams are the "meta".
And re: 360 "spam" shots.... at least you *get* 360 chance with beams... cannons are stuck to a much smaller arc. While it may be a point of contention, it sounds a lot like "First World Problems" to cannon users, considering there's still an imbalance.
Even with your suggestion of an "overload" ability for cannons, it doesn't change the fact that it's till limited in arc.
It's not you- it's me. I just need my space.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
I don't see how any of your suggestion change the fact that beams are the "meta".
And re: 360 "spam" shots.... at least you *get* 360 chance with beams... cannons are stuck to a much smaller arc. While it may be a point of contention, it sounds a lot like "First World Problems" to cannon users, considering there's still an imbalance.
Even with your suggestion of an "overload" ability for cannons, it doesn't change the fact that it's till limited in arc.
I am not sure why you are worried about arcs? Arcs get compensated by a higher base damage for the weapon. It's not job of the bridge officer skills to solve any imbalances there, if they exist.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
I don't see how any of your suggestion change the fact that beams are the "meta".
And re: 360 "spam" shots.... at least you *get* 360 chance with beams... cannons are stuck to a much smaller arc. While it may be a point of contention, it sounds a lot like "First World Problems" to cannon users, considering there's still an imbalance.
Even with your suggestion of an "overload" ability for cannons, it doesn't change the fact that it's till limited in arc.
i'm a cannon user on my T6 defiant and i deal decent damage alone with 3 fwd DHCs, 1 fwd QC, 2 aft turrets and 1 omni phaser beam, i can also swap a turret for the cutting beam if i need to.
its not really the weapons that are the problem its just the over usage of beam arrays + FAW with many many CD reductions.
i can easily deal 70k damage in my defiant but get out performed by Beam users based on the fact that they can hit more targets. not to mention i do have a BO build that can deal around 65k too.
so even with the imbalances its all down to the pilot/player not the abilities in general.
I'm starting to reach the conclusion that I do not like fire at will, at least not in multi-target scenarios. It seems to dampen my firepower too much: all my damage gets spread out between everything around me. With cannon scatter volley I cant hit as many enemies at once, but I'm dealing more damage to the ones I do hit, and it meshes very well with torpedo spread. Open up with C:SV and then hit a torp spread and their shields end up being down by the time the torpedoes get there. Has been working out well in deep space encounters.
We could fix ISA and go via the same route as some other STF's and time gate the objectives
1. Kill the initial guards you have 2 mins. But killing them doesn't end the timer you have to wait for it to run down as the transformers are shielded
2. Kill the left transformer before Nanites get there to heal it you have 3 mins to obtain objective. Killing it however doesn't end the timer as you have to wait for it to run out before the being able to shoot the other side as its shielded for that 3 min period.
3. Kill right transformer within 3 mins. Unable to shoot gate unless transformer is killed within 3 min objective timer or transformer is killed after 3 mins due to failed objective.
4. Kill gate and final cube.
Lol good way to kill a queue. Hope no Dev's are reading and take this as a serious suggestion as it is NOT
Just bring back the Borg STF Elites and put them on par with the Nah'kul. Then watch all the DPSer's cry as they're DPS becomes less important.
Which is why they removed them. They require you to do more than press the space bar. But long gone are the days of good STFs. I remember the day of people screaming "they're to hard." Yet, both my Fed Tac and Fed Sci, which I played at the time, was geared with all the Mk XII gear and could tank Aramek in The Cure Applied(Hardest Borg Ground STF).
Right now the only difficult ones would really be the Shuttle ones. Not as hard as they use to be. But, enough to present a challenge. This is because you're limited in the amount of consoles and weapons you can use. Start taking those away from players and they avoid the STFs. Not that once you've hit T5 rep and have everything you want from the it, the same thing happens.
To revive the STF front, they're going to need to ramp up the difficulty of them all, return the old borg Elites, and remove the various ways one can get dilithium. Return to, you want dil, you run STFs. But this would be returning to the pre-rep era of 2013 and before.
yeah but with a cannon build you have to.. you know.. FLY the thing
This is true. With cannons you do have to do more than park and press the spacebar.
You do know if you sit and park, +bfaw... that is not good strategy unless you have the "Anchored" trait ? Right ?
Sorry, not trying to argue with you, but it drives me crazy when someone implies this is all you have to do with a beam FAW build.
1. When parked you have negative defense.
2. When parked your sub systems levels are penalized.
3. Binding all your attacks/buffs to space bar is one of the stupidest things anyone could do with their keybinds/macros.
I realize you probably only say that in jest. But I hate when people get the idea that is all a beams build has to do, park and hit space bar.
I use a speed/beam build on one of my toons, so not only does 1-3 come into play, I also get penalized when sitting still (Imp.Pedal 2 the Metal / Subwarp sheath +[Pen] scales to your speed).
The last thing I do with that toons is park and fire off bfaw.
I suppose I could get away with it, if I wanted to gimp myself, and play like a complete zombie idiot.
Sorry to single you out for it, because a lot of people will say that, but that mindset really triggers me lol.
Also, I don't keybind/macro anything, so try flying at full speed, keeping your eyes on targets and the battle, while also trying to click off about 5-6 abilities from the tray, over and over. Its actually not that easy to do effectively.
Glance at the tray too long, you're out of range or the shield facing that is down eludes you. Focus too much on the battle, you miss up-time on your ability uses.
Oh, I never park. The only thing I have bound to spacebar are my energy weapons. I don't even have a macro. So I have to manually activate every ability. It's just something I see way to often, is the park and shoot. I've been running escorts and sci ships since before the reps even came in to play. Long before the "cruiser" became the coffee table for every living room.
ISA as it is now, isn't even worth mentioning as an Advanced. It's as easy as normal, just the NPCs have marginally more health. People use it as a "DPS Standard". But then again, it's an advanced. Not even worth mentioning the amount of DPS you do in it.
Which is why I say bring back the elites. Then we can sit back and watch the DPSer's get ate as they try to dps their way through it.
Which is why I do advocate a change. Everything, as it is now, from episode to STF, is nothing more than mindless pewpew. Which is why you find a lot of the older ques to be empty. People can't mindlessly pewpew, their way through them. It's also the reason why the Borg Elites got removed. They were to "hard" for people to do, because they couldn't mindlessly pewpew through them. Yet, I have every accolade for them, including the Elites. This was done before fleet ships and reputations were a thing. Where the best ship you could get was the T4.5 Mirror Versions.
Back in that day and age, we had a trinity of sorts. Cruisers were generally used as tanks. Escorts were you go to for damage. Sci Ships, Primarily Crowd Control with healing abilities and debuffs. This also meant you had to think and know the tactics of the STF in question.
But thanks to those that just want to mindlessly pewpew in their pretty ship and Cryptics ability to give it to them. We have what we do now. Thankfully, the new STFs with AoY do have some tactics. Well except Miner Instabilities. it's just a kill everything in sight and nothing else. The only STF of old that was marginally this way was Breaking the Planet. Guess this makes Miner Instabilities the 5 man version of Breaking the Planet.
As for how the meta goes. While I do find the BFAW part an annoyance. Technically there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, I'd make it have a consequence of use. Not really something to hinder the player. More something to make them think about what they're doing. Perhaps, making it generate 100%, or more, Threat.
Yeah I just started with f2p so you've seen far more cycles then I.
And good post.
In regards to making a player "think", I always thought more enemies should have FBP and use it frequently.
Would require an energy build to carry more resistance abilities or resistance consoles. And would be especially punishing to BFAW builds (a fair trade off for cannons being inherently more difficult to use/pilot).
This would be a small change to make, but would go a long way in making a player think twice about min/maxing DPS.
I think this would be a good start. And wouldn't create a lot of work for Devs.
On moving cannon boff abilities down a notch; I worry the boost cannons would get from this would be way too huge. Already as it is, the top DPS guys are using cannons again.
So I don't think that's needed necessarily.
I've got one ship on my Fed main that uses BFAW grudgingly, an Acheros Battlecruiser and the only reason I use it because it's literally the only rapid fire beam skill.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
Beam Overload - high powered, single weapon shot designed to drop a shield facing or outright kill an unshielded target.
Beam Fire At Will - low powered AOE spam shots from all weapons to clear the map of spam like fighters, mines, hvy torps.
Beam Rapid Fire (NEW) - same as CRF, allows all beams to fire faster for x-seconds but at their normal power. Good for concentrating on a single target, or killing one and switching to the next if you're lucky.
Cannon Rapid Fire - rapid fire for all cannon weapons, leave it as it is.
Cannon Scatter Volley - leave it as it is, no issues here.
Cannon Overload (NEW) - same as BO but for a cannon. A single massive shot designed to kill a weak target or knock out a shield.
Surgical Strikes - only for intel ships but it fulfills a decent role for energy weapons, the extra slow firing but highly damaging all weapon attack.
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
I don't see how any of your suggestion change the fact that beams are the "meta".
And re: 360 "spam" shots.... at least you *get* 360 chance with beams... cannons are stuck to a much smaller arc. While it may be a point of contention, it sounds a lot like "First World Problems" to cannon users, considering there's still an imbalance.
Even with your suggestion of an "overload" ability for cannons, it doesn't change the fact that it's till limited in arc.
But if every weapon type has an ability for each situation then it gets rid of the ridiculous situation we have these days of a ship going into the middle of a fight and just spamming one ability and nuking everything. It "might" even add a bit of variety to builds again
What's happening is happening because it's just about the only way to play beams without going more specialized by using DBB's (which is almost like playing with cannons).
So if the game provides players with abilities that actually serve the purpose they require then hopefully everyone is better off.
There's nothing wrong with people using beams if that's what they want but the current situation is ridiculous, because there is practically no other set-up that can do as much damage to so many targets. New players don't even bother to learn the mechanics, or try new things; they just listen to the overwhelming force of people who swear by BFAW to win any situation.
As for arcs, that is not the issue i'm addressing really. Well it is in as much as certain abilities should have access to 360 degree shots, but only for specific uses. The current BFAW has literally no drawbacks (apart from too much aggro if you're not ready for it), I know of no other game where an AOE attack does as much damage to every target as the more specialized single target attacks. It's like playing Call of Duty and only using a shotgun because it's better at everything than all the other guns, it just makes no sense.
Cannon users know how to handle their guns, they accept the smaller arc because they can potentially do more damage. But a BFAW attacker doesn't even need to think, he just spams shots all over the place and does more damage.
The difference is like a rapier and a broadsword. The rapier can only do real dame with a thrust, like the cannons. the broadsword can cut and bludgeon in all directions as fast as you can swing it, like the beams. Beams do less damage, but you can ALWAYS hit without having to swing around again.
I think the balance right now is pretty good. The cruisers with beams are supposed to be attacking everything and drawing aggro, while the lighter escorts shoot in and shoot out on one target at a time.
It's a matter of playing your role and not trying to min/max against the world.
Nothing breaks the tension better than a tankard of warnog - except maybe a good brawl...
No i just like the term, I used to fly a neghvar and that definitely describes what happens with that ship.
But but...terrible movie is terrible.
Also drifting is stupid...why take a corner fast with the ability to make adjustments when you can go slow without the ability to make adjustments because you are in the wrong gear? I mean seriously?!? Drifting is the bullshido of racing. It's showy and looks cool(ish) to 10 year olds...but utterly stupid (much like most things that looks cool to 10 year olds).
Matter of perspective on all of this.
1. I haven't seen the racing movie, so I don't feel one way or another about it. The term has been used for similar tactics in other games, such as certain Azir mechanics in League of Legends.
2. Improved Pedal to the Metal. Also Pilot primary spec.
3. Because I can. RCS consoles+a Conductive RCS w/ [Turn], along w/ EP2E and frequent use of evasive maneuvers. If I wanted cookie cutter, I'd roll fed, with beam arrays to the gills, BFaW, and all the other **** to go with it.
4. Again, a matter of perspective. Qu'Daj variant Negh'var(loving the fleet T6 version) is my favorite ship look, and feels right to me. Some people enjoy BoPs, others their Scimitars or Temporal ships. Also a roleplayer, so having a heavy battlecruiser that pushes close to 100 degrees/sec for turning regularly works when interacting with other fellow RPers.
5. All depends on the pilot whether it works, and the mind willing to test new things out.
6. Age has nothing to do with it. I'm middle-aged, and find fun in all sorts of things, from seeing a lumbering ship that turns really well, to dark humor.
7. A normal person just drives a car, or flies their ship. A car guy, or a captain bonds with their vehicle, while learning new things about it each day, and coming up with ways to push the limits.
To quote Clown from Spawn, "Why ask why, when how is so much more fun?" I love it when people assume they're the authority on how to "play the right way."
Just trying to understand why everyone is saying beams are better than cannons right now. Need to pick a setup for my ship.
Used to be that cannons were always better, but I've been out of the game for a long time.
Cannons are still better at spikes, but the major 3 things (I know, I know...it's been covered upthread) are:
1: Larger arcs and thus more uptime and more damage over the course of a bit of content
2: More buffs unique to them (e.g. Beam School trait from crafting)
3: Presence of omni beams, which have higher base damage then turrets while still offering the full 360 arc
...etc.
That said, I have multiple escorts that do all or mostly DHCs, some mixing in quads and torps, and the shining example among them being my 50k t5u Khyzon with the kumari wing cannons in place of a dhc, a torp up front, and flown by an engineer.
My fact with wanting to see dual cannons get an increased firing arc is more to deal with the fact that when comparing dual cannons to dual heavies, that it feels like you gimp yourself going with the dual cannons as you are dealing less damage an having lower critical serviety (as dual heavies have that innate critical severity on it.). So why have a inferior weapon type in the same firing arc as the superior variant? Now if you increased the dual cannons firing arc to fill that huge gap in firing arcs between single an dual cannons it would actually give them some degree of pro an con as well seperation of their niche. Ie dual heavies are more for the nimble escorts/destroyers/bop, and the dual cannons are are more apt to work better on dual cannon capable cruisers an science ship. Now you could still make the dual heavies work on a dual cannon capable cruisers/science ship via using things like turn rate bonuses, and power-sliding/drifting, but it would not be fully needed either as you would have the larger arc of the dual cannons that allows you to slot things
I would love to see them make a heavy or dual turret that can be made in crafting that would sit as something like the omn-array, which would either have a higher an increase shots per cycle or merely higher damage output than normal cannons (while also having a limit of one crafted per type on a ship limit like omni array have). Though I would also not mind if they put into the game a beam-variant of the turrets that would have slightly higher damage, yet slower firing speed than cannon turrets, and would work with beam augmenting abilities (this would make beam banks more viable on ships with more than 2-3 aft slots.).
I kinda agree that daft cannonier (bonus to turn rate and Inertia after using cannon abilities) is a bit lackluster compared to beam barrage (stacking bonus to beam damage after using beam abilities), I can see where daft cannonier could be nice like on slower turning ships using cannons. I would not mind though seeing something like a very small chance on daft cannonier to buff either damage output or firng rate of your cannons after using cannon abilities, something like 10-20 percent per use of a cannon ability to gain .5-1 percent damage or rate of fire increase stacking up to 3 times.
Comments
for now, I'm running an advanced escort with 2 beam arrays forward, 3 backward, quad cannons forward, and a torpedo forward. I can broadside with up to 5 beam arrays/fire at will, but I have a decent amount of forward firepower with the torpedo and quad cannons (plus two beams). Running 2 copies of fire at will, 2 copies of torp spread, and 1 copy of cannon scatter volley, along with omega 1/3. Also have tach beam on one of my science ensign slots, for some extra forward shield drain ability.
Eventually I'll be able to either craft 360 beams for the rear hardpoints, at which point I'll switch to dual beam banks forward, or I'll have enough money to get phaser turrets for the rear hardpoints and will be able to go cannons forward.
Ofc, then we'll be back to the "ZOMG ESCORTS ONLINE!!!!" posts but hey, beam users have a lot of different platforms/consoles to utilize for application of damage currently.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I just hope that I can get access to the 360 beam turrets on console soon. I never even knew they existed on PC (been gone for a while, must be something they added in the past year or so).
When was the last time that was the meta though? It's been years.
I would not mind seeing them make a type of heavy/dual turret variant, which would work like the omni-arrays for turrets being a more powerful type that is limited to one per ship (like the Undine rep's heavy phaser/disruptor turret), but that also another type of turret called a beam-turret would be brought in that would be largely turret that works with beam abilities though could have a smaller number of shots fired making the damage per shot higher. This might help dual beam banks be more viable to run even prior to getting access to the omni-arrays, as without having access to omni-arrays it is more viable damage-wise to run all arrays.
I think (F2P) 2012 to early 2013 was Escorts online.
2013 - most likely just prior to Delta Rising (2014) was Aux to Batt Online,
late 2014 - 2016, most likely still happening now: Beam Fire at will online
However, there are two things.
People blame Beam Fire at Will, however, most experience captains know it isn't solely Beam fire at will that is the "primary" cause of its own meta. It is simply because of queue types, new abilities and consoles, and a whole host of other areas that mean beams and beams fire at will are a most effective delivery method of delivering those abilities, consoles and passives to the target/s. Compared to other AoE's and weapon types abilities.
Like back in the day. With the extremely few abilities, consoles, reputation items and passives that we had. While we had a lot of queues that favored AoE, we simply didn't have the contents compared to cannons and escorts to deliver damage capabilities to single or multiple targets.
Second, with the skill point change, some newer queues, and other things coming, I feel the meta is starting to shift. However, shift to what is a unknown quantity at this time.
For those wanting a straight up nerf or abrupt change to Beams & Beam Fire at Will. You simply cannot do that (note, I have 6 toons, who use a mix of BFAW, Cannons, exotic and expiremental build types) for one simply reason. Game changes like that, need to be measured and done at a decent pace, and not abrupt where possible. Only when there is a massive OP ability (not BFAW) or exploitable ability, are drastic changes needed.
We're entering the Sci-Beam online era.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Sir how DARE you say such heretical things, Cryptic will have you know that "BFaW is the best skill ever ,and the players love it", for such blasphemy you ae required to hit yourself on the head with a plank over and over again and say "ALL HAIL BFAW ALL PRAISE THE FAW!!"
Then do 900 no 1000 hail BFaWs (Which is like a hailmay expect only with BFaW).
USS Sharlin NCC79713 B (part of sheridans access code) - T6, Hestia Class Advanced Escort
USS Babylon IV - T6 Krenim Science Vessel
USS Brakiri - T6 Elachi Escort
"We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light."
– Grey Council greeting
1.
-> That's not legit, mate. Romulans from the STO era are post-Empire Romulans. They use Plasma. The Tal-Shiar and Pre-STO era Romulans used disruptors, so you will notice Tal Shiar NPC's using disruptor weaponry as well as Remans from SP.
-> Polaron is purple. Just dominion's polaron should be blueish due to its shield-shredding effect (tetryon-like proc added).
2, The beams are meta due to simple logic facts
- It's easier to pilot a heavy ship while broadsiding.
- They're difficult to cover compared to cannons/dual cannons/dual heavy cannons and turrets as far as weapons power recovery, so they require a heavy investment on weapons power management and they're mostly canon-wise. Most of the ships in the Star Trek Universe had beams.
- The top bursts and DPS builds now have embraced the dual cannons for CRF and the dual heavy cannons for RF. Beam can ensure DPS success, but it is no longer the apex. The cannon-weaponry got its teeth back.
- For people who get the short stick as far as low performance issues and freezing during STF's, trying to reset position is hard. So broadsiding allows them staying relevant to team-dps effort, even when their computer is failing on them.
- They're classy and beautiful.
3. Some people just rant, regardless of the efforts of these people do balance the game and get the best out of the available mechanics options. Now most of the weaponry is viable, so the multitude of the builds available has exponentially grown. Before 11.5, beams were the meta. Now... opinions are shared.
Beam Overload changes- First big change would be to change it from a single use ability that affects one of your beam arrays/banks, to more of a toggle ability that affects all of your slotted array/banks. While to keep the idea of it being more potent of a ability when used with a single bank/array slotted on your ship, when compared to a ship that have several arrays/banks which would have the effect of the ability divided up between those same arrays/banks.
- Second than I would have the damage buff given be based on the weapon power level you have, plus a baseline bonus based on the rank of the beam overload. So you might have a baseline boost of 20-40% damage, which is then buffed further by 1% per 2-3 points of weapon power you have. Now the idea here is that for a single beam array/bank slotted on a ship it would gain a buff of 80-100% boost to damage, but than you would have it that if you wanted to use more beam banks/arrays that buff to damage would be divided between those slotted banks.
- Third I could also see that as a second bonus to make using this with more than a single beam bank/array would be that it would grant a boost to both the critical hit chance, as well as the critical severity of your slotted beam array/banks. This would mean that yes using a single beam bank/array would give you higher spike damage output, but that also using it with several slotted beam banks/arrays you could get a higher sustained dps on a single target too.
- Now for the draw back I would say you could go one of two ways. The first is that it would increase the weapon power cost of your beam banks/arrays while it is toggle on, and that it has a internal cooldown of 15 seconds before it can be toggled back on after being toggled off. THough I could also see that it might give you a stacking debuff (weapon-power conduit burnout) which either might give you a 1% damage reduction to weapon damage per three seconds you have beam-overload toggled on with damage reduction applied upon toggling beam-overload off, which also lasts for 1 second per 5 seconds you have beam-overload actively toggled on. A third option could be a a stacking debuff that gives you a 1% change per 3 seconds you have beam overload actively toggled on to knock-offline your weapon power for 10-15 seconds (maybe longer as a balancing measure.).
Mind you this is an idea that if applied would need the devs to rework how some of the ship traits work as well. Like maybe that with the starship traits like super-weapon ingenuity it might have a low chance while toggled on to fire additional free overloaded shots at a rank of one. Same could be done for with hanger pets that there is a chance per shot fired while beam overload is active to have your pets fire beam overload rank one for free.
This is just a concept I think would be fun an interesting to play with, as well as use that could also be useful in the same vain as a mirror of bfaw just skewed towards single target over multi-target. As I could see it being stackable with bfaw, since the fact of firing so much quicker would compound both the onuses gained an the penalties incurred as well.
Oh, I never park. The only thing I have bound to spacebar are my energy weapons. I don't even have a macro. So I have to manually activate every ability. It's just something I see way to often, is the park and shoot. I've been running escorts and sci ships since before the reps even came in to play. Long before the "cruiser" became the coffee table for every living room.
ISA as it is now, isn't even worth mentioning as an Advanced. It's as easy as normal, just the NPCs have marginally more health. People use it as a "DPS Standard". But then again, it's an advanced. Not even worth mentioning the amount of DPS you do in it.
Which is why I say bring back the elites. Then we can sit back and watch the DPSer's get ate as they try to dps their way through it.
Which is why I do advocate a change. Everything, as it is now, from episode to STF, is nothing more than mindless pewpew. Which is why you find a lot of the older ques to be empty. People can't mindlessly pewpew, their way through them. It's also the reason why the Borg Elites got removed. They were to "hard" for people to do, because they couldn't mindlessly pewpew through them. Yet, I have every accolade for them, including the Elites. This was done before fleet ships and reputations were a thing. Where the best ship you could get was the T4.5 Mirror Versions.
Back in that day and age, we had a trinity of sorts. Cruisers were generally used as tanks. Escorts were you go to for damage. Sci Ships, Primarily Crowd Control with healing abilities and debuffs. This also meant you had to think and know the tactics of the STF in question.
But thanks to those that just want to mindlessly pewpew in their pretty ship and Cryptics ability to give it to them. We have what we do now. Thankfully, the new STFs with AoY do have some tactics. Well except Miner Instabilities. it's just a kill everything in sight and nothing else. The only STF of old that was marginally this way was Breaking the Planet. Guess this makes Miner Instabilities the 5 man version of Breaking the Planet.
As for how the meta goes. While I do find the BFAW part an annoyance. Technically there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, I'd make it have a consequence of use. Not really something to hinder the player. More something to make them think about what they're doing. Perhaps, making it generate 100%, or more, Threat.
Well I wouldn't go 360 for cannons. I'd at most extend this out to maybe 180. That and dropping the cannon skills down to the same rank structure as beams. If you take the cannons from a battleship we have today. They have 180 degree firing arc.
For this I wouldn't say make it a console. More of a design for cannons. Perhaps an [Arc] mod that increased firing arc. Which I do believe we have, not sure though. Haven't really paid much attention to the crafting system. The main problem is the skills themselves. RF/SV III is a Commander ability. BFAW/BO III is a LTC Ability. This has an impact on a cannon build. Since you only get 1 Commander Boff. This is what gives beams an advantage. They can get BFAW/BO III and still have that Com skill for an Attack Pattern. Where as a cannoneer that wants to use RF/SV III has to give up the Com skill, that would have been used for an Attack Pattern, for it.
I agree all cannon/beam/torpedo/mine augmenting abilities should start at ensign, with maybe the dispersal pattern for mines could stay at starting in the Lt slot. Though I could actually see maybe making a new attack pattern that might improve your slotted beam/torpedo/beam weapons firing arc, rate of fire, as well as travel time while it is active, which could be nice overall for all three weapon types as the increased travel speed would impact torpedos vastly more than the other two, while also improving other lacking areas of the other two weapon types.
Also yes we do have the Arc mod though it is only on the wide arc dual heavy cannons, and the omni beam array, but is also a one per for crafted kinds (another one from the story mission so you can have two omni-arrays of a given type.). THis is partly why I would not mind seeing dual cannons being upped to a 75-90 degree firing arc while keeping dual heavy cannons at a 45 degree, as than you could use them on slower turning ships (like if you don't have or want to use a lot of turn rate increasing consoles) as well as mix well with a wide arc dual heavy cannon giving both types of cannons a niche they work in well (dual cannons more for dual cannon capable cruisers/dreads.science ships, while dual heavies for the more nimble escorts/bop/destroyers.). Also single cannons could use a bit of a buff to be more competitive with beam arrays, nothing huge just a small set of buffs to make them at least worth considering using like on a science ship for example as that would fit with how many of thier science abilities are not over a 180 degree firing arcs.
All i want to be able to do it pick a target and broadside it whilst doing rapid fire with my beam arrays, i don't want all the other "spam" shots that aggro up the whole goddamned map in a 360 degree arc round my ship. The speed of fire of the ability is great but the randomness and the fact you can't really target it is what puts me off it most of the time.
Truth is that their should be several additional abilities for energy weapons to fill all the niches rather than just letting BFAW do all of them better than everything else.
- Where's there beam rapid fire ability, for taking out a single target with multiple weapons like CRF does?
- Where's the cannon overload shot for dropping a shield facing like BO does?
I've said it loads of times it should be like this:
The reason BFAW gets such bad press is because it is literally the only option for beam ships to use for most things and it happens to be better at everything than even the abilities designed with specific roles in mind.
Give the players the tools they need rather than just some lazy "one ability to rule them all" meta.
i actually agree with this!
this could probably improve the game however this does break the point of fire at will and the definition of FAW lol as fire at will just literally means fire at what you like
I don't see how any of your suggestion change the fact that beams are the "meta".
And re: 360 "spam" shots.... at least you *get* 360 chance with beams... cannons are stuck to a much smaller arc. While it may be a point of contention, it sounds a lot like "First World Problems" to cannon users, considering there's still an imbalance.
Even with your suggestion of an "overload" ability for cannons, it doesn't change the fact that it's till limited in arc.
Being critical doesn't take skill. Being constructively critical- which is providing alternative solutions or suggestions to a demonstrated problem, however, does.
I am not sure why you are worried about arcs? Arcs get compensated by a higher base damage for the weapon. It's not job of the bridge officer skills to solve any imbalances there, if they exist.
i'm a cannon user on my T6 defiant and i deal decent damage alone with 3 fwd DHCs, 1 fwd QC, 2 aft turrets and 1 omni phaser beam, i can also swap a turret for the cutting beam if i need to.
its not really the weapons that are the problem its just the over usage of beam arrays + FAW with many many CD reductions.
i can easily deal 70k damage in my defiant but get out performed by Beam users based on the fact that they can hit more targets. not to mention i do have a BO build that can deal around 65k too.
so even with the imbalances its all down to the pilot/player not the abilities in general.
Yeah I just started with f2p so you've seen far more cycles then I.
And good post.
In regards to making a player "think", I always thought more enemies should have FBP and use it frequently.
Would require an energy build to carry more resistance abilities or resistance consoles. And would be especially punishing to BFAW builds (a fair trade off for cannons being inherently more difficult to use/pilot).
This would be a small change to make, but would go a long way in making a player think twice about min/maxing DPS.
I think this would be a good start. And wouldn't create a lot of work for Devs.
On moving cannon boff abilities down a notch; I worry the boost cannons would get from this would be way too huge. Already as it is, the top DPS guys are using cannons again.
So I don't think that's needed necessarily.
But if every weapon type has an ability for each situation then it gets rid of the ridiculous situation we have these days of a ship going into the middle of a fight and just spamming one ability and nuking everything. It "might" even add a bit of variety to builds again
What's happening is happening because it's just about the only way to play beams without going more specialized by using DBB's (which is almost like playing with cannons).
So if the game provides players with abilities that actually serve the purpose they require then hopefully everyone is better off.
There's nothing wrong with people using beams if that's what they want but the current situation is ridiculous, because there is practically no other set-up that can do as much damage to so many targets. New players don't even bother to learn the mechanics, or try new things; they just listen to the overwhelming force of people who swear by BFAW to win any situation.
As for arcs, that is not the issue i'm addressing really. Well it is in as much as certain abilities should have access to 360 degree shots, but only for specific uses. The current BFAW has literally no drawbacks (apart from too much aggro if you're not ready for it), I know of no other game where an AOE attack does as much damage to every target as the more specialized single target attacks. It's like playing Call of Duty and only using a shotgun because it's better at everything than all the other guns, it just makes no sense.
Cannon users know how to handle their guns, they accept the smaller arc because they can potentially do more damage. But a BFAW attacker doesn't even need to think, he just spams shots all over the place and does more damage.
I think the balance right now is pretty good. The cruisers with beams are supposed to be attacking everything and drawing aggro, while the lighter escorts shoot in and shoot out on one target at a time.
It's a matter of playing your role and not trying to min/max against the world.
Matter of perspective on all of this.
1. I haven't seen the racing movie, so I don't feel one way or another about it. The term has been used for similar tactics in other games, such as certain Azir mechanics in League of Legends.
2. Improved Pedal to the Metal. Also Pilot primary spec.
3. Because I can. RCS consoles+a Conductive RCS w/ [Turn], along w/ EP2E and frequent use of evasive maneuvers. If I wanted cookie cutter, I'd roll fed, with beam arrays to the gills, BFaW, and all the other **** to go with it.
4. Again, a matter of perspective. Qu'Daj variant Negh'var(loving the fleet T6 version) is my favorite ship look, and feels right to me. Some people enjoy BoPs, others their Scimitars or Temporal ships. Also a roleplayer, so having a heavy battlecruiser that pushes close to 100 degrees/sec for turning regularly works when interacting with other fellow RPers.
5. All depends on the pilot whether it works, and the mind willing to test new things out.
6. Age has nothing to do with it. I'm middle-aged, and find fun in all sorts of things, from seeing a lumbering ship that turns really well, to dark humor.
7. A normal person just drives a car, or flies their ship. A car guy, or a captain bonds with their vehicle, while learning new things about it each day, and coming up with ways to push the limits.
To quote Clown from Spawn, "Why ask why, when how is so much more fun?" I love it when people assume they're the authority on how to "play the right way."
Cannons are still better at spikes, but the major 3 things (I know, I know...it's been covered upthread) are:
1: Larger arcs and thus more uptime and more damage over the course of a bit of content
2: More buffs unique to them (e.g. Beam School trait from crafting)
3: Presence of omni beams, which have higher base damage then turrets while still offering the full 360 arc
...etc.
That said, I have multiple escorts that do all or mostly DHCs, some mixing in quads and torps, and the shining example among them being my 50k t5u Khyzon with the kumari wing cannons in place of a dhc, a torp up front, and flown by an engineer.
I would love to see them make a heavy or dual turret that can be made in crafting that would sit as something like the omn-array, which would either have a higher an increase shots per cycle or merely higher damage output than normal cannons (while also having a limit of one crafted per type on a ship limit like omni array have). Though I would also not mind if they put into the game a beam-variant of the turrets that would have slightly higher damage, yet slower firing speed than cannon turrets, and would work with beam augmenting abilities (this would make beam banks more viable on ships with more than 2-3 aft slots.).
I kinda agree that daft cannonier (bonus to turn rate and Inertia after using cannon abilities) is a bit lackluster compared to beam barrage (stacking bonus to beam damage after using beam abilities), I can see where daft cannonier could be nice like on slower turning ships using cannons. I would not mind though seeing something like a very small chance on daft cannonier to buff either damage output or firng rate of your cannons after using cannon abilities, something like 10-20 percent per use of a cannon ability to gain .5-1 percent damage or rate of fire increase stacking up to 3 times.