-snip- I am vehemently oppossed to limiting their damage buffs to only weapons as it would make that career choice useless for anything but a weapon focussed build. Tactical captains would be useless for EPG or Temporal builds not to mention Radiation and countless other sources of damage in the game. The whole point is that career choice shouldn't pigeon-hole you into playing one particular way and that change would accomplish only that. It is and always will be a stupid idea.
So, you don't want TAC to be closer to being as "useless" as SCI and ENG?
Because even just the weapon damage buff would still put them ahead of both. All ships do have weapons.
Using your argument, TAC should be nerfed into oblivion, because it pigeonholes everyone to have to use TAC, if they want to have the best chance of success. The other two aren't even close, in any measurable way, for PVE content.
It's rather clear the problem with this particular dialogue is that your opinion is completely disconnected from reality.
No one is getting penalized, what is broken is getting fixed. You don't fix something that's broken by breaking everything else.
If you're that indignant that your unintended, unfair advantage is being taken away, resolving that emotion is a problem only you can fix yourself. If playing this game will be too hard for you after the broken things are fixed, maybe you might want to go to Amazon and order Candyland or Hungry Hungry Hippos.
So neither of you are interested in a discussion, you just want those filthy cheating Tacs to get some come-uppance. Seems to be the case with most of this thread, really.
You've repeatedly made it clear that's what you heard, despite the fact that it's not what anyone said.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
I'd be ok with them reducing the damage boosts of some tactical skills if neccesary but i still think the main issue is a poorly designed trinity. I am vehemently oppossed to limiting their damage buffs to only weapons as it would make that career choice useless for anything but a weapon focussed build. Tactical captains would be useless for EPG or Temporal builds not to mention Radiation and countless other sources of damage in the game. The whole point is that career choice shouldn't pigeon-hole you into playing one particular way and that change would accomplish only that. It is and always will be a stupid idea.
It IS a poorly designed trinity, when only one choice is the right choice. That's the exact opposite of what an RPG is supposed to be.
No one is saying a Tac captain should be disallowed the option of using a science ship or doing damage via EPG-enhanced skills. You shouldn't be able to do it better than a Science captain though, and there should be a penalty for your dabbling, not a never-ending stack of advantages to everything you do.
We understand you'd gladly eat an enormous slice of pie when everyone else has crumbs. Everyone else thinks it'd be fair if we all got our slice of equal size though.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
APA is neither too powerful nor too weak, it is just right how it is.
I give 4/10 for feeble trolling. Get a new account or something. you've burned out this one.
You're more generous than I am. Good trolling should be clever and get under people's skin, and the man is not even trying. That's on the level of a six year old pulling his sister's pig tails. Sorry, the free market decided: you can't troll. Go home Druk, you're drunk.
"I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am."
Me, I'm used to it, and am not complaining. But saying that the massive imbalance doesn't exist is false. Pointing out a disparity =/= whining/complaining/bemoaning, just pointing out a (quite obvious) fact.
Well, take the stats for what they are. Ie. High-end DPS checks. Where I'm at (middle) my ENG/TAC/SCI parse pretty close to each other. TAC still wins out but I've never found a difference as high as 60% between my builds (20-40%, with noticeable trade-offs in "how often my TAC explodes" and "how easy is it to complete objectives.") That's just to point out that if you move the player range lower or higher and the balance of the game changes as ships, equipment, and abilities shift with available resources and know-how. I don't think it ever totally flips but the scale of profession imbalance (in my experience) does. So if you attack the problem as being at the magnitude of 60%, then you could overshoot the rebalance and push TAC below ENG/SCI for other groups (for whom the other benefits of ENG/SCI tend to matter more.)
That's just to add a note of caution to the current discussion. Yes, there's an imbalance but taking "massive imbalance" as a universal fact could lead to problems. I think we really need to think about how TAC gets the numbers it does at the high-end and see if there are certain additive effects (ex. exotic buffing) which are multiplying out what should be a more moderate DPS boost, and also think about what isn't working for ENG/SCI at the same level (ex. ENG's power buffing and tanking). That can then lead to some idea of how this might play out without common min-max strategies.
ie. take everything together, rather than simplifying down to just one number (since in working towards a min-max solution more needs to be considered.)
Bipedal mammal and senior Foundry author.
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Me, I'm used to it, and am not complaining. But saying that the massive imbalance doesn't exist is false. Pointing out a disparity =/= whining/complaining/bemoaning, just pointing out a (quite obvious) fact.
Well, take the stats for what they are. Ie. High-end DPS checks. Where I'm at (middle) my ENG/TAC/SCI parse pretty close to each other. TAC still wins out but I've never found a difference as high as 60% between my builds (20-40%, with noticeable trade-offs in "how often my TAC explodes" and "how easy is it to complete objectives.") That's just to point out that if you move the player range lower or higher and the balance of the game changes as ships, equipment, and abilities shift with available resources and know-how. I don't think it ever totally flips but the scale of profession imbalance (in my experience) does. So if you attack the problem as being at the magnitude of 60%, then you could overshoot the rebalance and push TAC below ENG/SCI for other groups (for whom the other benefits of ENG/SCI tend to matter more.)
That's just to add a note of caution to the current discussion. Yes, there's an imbalance but taking "massive imbalance" as a universal fact could lead to problems. I think we really need to think about how TAC gets the numbers it does at the high-end and see if there are certain additive effects (ex. exotic buffing) which are multiplying out what should be a more moderate DPS boost, and also think about what isn't working for ENG/SCI at the same level (ex. ENG's power buffing and tanking). That can then lead to some idea of how this might play out without common min-max strategies.
ie. take everything together, rather than simplifying down to just one number (since in working towards a min-max solution more needs to be considered.)
My experience drastically differs, also at the low-middle end. My TAC captains get to 75k DPS so easily I forget to upgrade things, or even work on them, unless I make a point to do so- which is rare. I hadn't bothered even playing a TAC (I have 2) before bonus marks for ages. Not so with SCI and ENG captains. Although, I admit I don't worship at the altar of the meta, and don't really build for raw DPS, and my highest is...95k? I don't remember. I do know that the same exact ship, same exact build, is far FAR more effective if using a TAC captain. It's enough to easily notice even without checking DPS first. That 95k (a SCI captain) would easily be over 150k if it were a TAC.
I take the numbers I posted as a "ceiling" for the 3 options- I feel it's a decent frame of reference. The (estimated) best possible current scenario for each career. I mentioned a 10-15% possible hit to TAC if the buffs only affected weapons. If this is a lot (it is), then the 25%+ hit to make them only +30k DPS above #2 in term of effectiveness (ENG) is ridiculously high.
The specific buffs SCI and ENG captains receive are not enough to make either outperform TAC captains running the same builds, even if TAC buffs only applied to weapons.
Saying "I don't want you to nerf my build" is what everyone saying "There's no disparity" is actually saying. If not, they don't know what they're talking about. However, I actually see that as a viable argument, though I'm thinking the developers don't- which is likely why people are making those claims, unless they actually don't know.
That is libel. I have never "trolled" a day in my life.
It is objectively true that APA is just fine where it is. Any weaker and it would be too weak, any stronger and it would be too strong.
No, you're pretty obviously trolling right now. You're just not as good at it as you think you are and the typical troll "teflon" doesn't seem to work for you. APA is not fine as it is. Then again you could try and cry about how Sci and Eng are calling for nerfs as a way to try and distract from APA which has fallen flat in every other thread you've tried that in. It seems to be the only line you're capable of using to have an argument.
Tac captains are overpowered. There's no two ways about that. They're better at everything than either of the other two which is flat out wrong from a design point of view. Trying to skirt around that fact and claim that nerfing everyone else because they called for nerfs is the answer and Tac is perfectly fine doesn't magically make Tac captains any less broken. In fact it just calls more attention to the issue because you are consciously making an effort to try and hide the issue and push the attention somewhere else. Telling people there's nothing behind the curtain, when there obviously is, doesn't make people less curious. It just makes them want to look even more. Telling people Tac captains are fine and it's everyone else who needs nerfs doesn't make it less obvious that Tac captains are OP, it just makes people look even more at the numbers and what effects they currently have access to in order to better call for more pointed nerfs.
Actually, saying all that, feel free to keep saying Tac is fine. Please post in every thread possible because it'll do more to get Tac taken down a few pegs to where they need to be than most other things.
With the new Balance pass for space to come, I definitely would like Cryptic to make it so that Tac captain buffs apply only to tac abilities. It is silly that they buff everything. Make it so! I am just returning to the game and it seems that Tac captains are the jack-of-all trades - fly a tac in a tac ship - awesome - fly a tac in a science ship- also awesome. Something not right there.
Unless this has been thought of already - thanks.
Oh god this again? Instead of Tac lets nerf Sci and Eng (powers?) that make them pretty much
unkillable.
Genuinely curious what abilities you think we non-tacs have that rate all the way up at "unkillable". Scattering Field? Cat1 armor whose resist still caps at 75%. Science Fleet? Relatively weak shield HoT, with some decent skill boosts. Rotate Shield Frequency? Non-transferable shield buff approximate to Extend Shields, both of which fall by the wayside in the modern era of shield and hull armor penetration. Miracle Worker? Even with double-tap, it still won't prevent a stray embassy console proc from undoing all it's work.
Tacs, with APA/GDF and damage-dependent sources of healing for both hull and shields still trump both other careers in practical difficulty to kill, coupled with the higher outgoing damage making it harder in PvP to survive long enough for differences to matter. The best abilities non-tacs have in PvP (imo) are not their heals, but stuff like Nadion Inversion, Photonic Fleet, and Subnucleonic Beam.
Oh the PVP nugget rises again. Wake up PVP is DEAD.
I find it hilarious people bemoan the disparity when
A. All of those DPSs are so large as to make nothing in the game matter
B. Tacs SHOULD do more damage then the other classes, just like a warrior should do more damage then a mage in an MMO
Those are the pinnacle. One could use those, as I did, to show maximum potential, not the norm- because everyone knows they're not averages. Not sure why you thought I was representing them as such. Perhaps I was unclear.
TAC should do the most raw damage. With weapons. But when a SCI captain boosted by 60% is still behind, something is obviously askew.
Sci should NEVER do the same Damage weapon wise as Tac. That said they should be harder to hit and more accurate in dealing System crippling Damage that takes things off line and have the time of that system disabled extended. The chance of taking a sytem off line needs to be buffed for a Sci ship. This is where Sci needs a redo not in Raw Damage! When you can take Shields off line what difference does it make if you don't deal the same DPs as Tac? Really when a ship has no shields or weapons to defend or hit back with your lower DPS doesn't matter.
People against a change to having Tac captain powers only effect Weapon damage are just saying they want their Tac to do everything. That is not how the game was set up. Tac has gotten out of control. Will edit OP, but I think 2 things are clear:
1.change so Tac captain buffs only weapons damage
2. Reduce the percentage of the buffs. With all the upgraded gear and powers, one can say those percentage multipliers are too high now from when they were first put in place
Instead of that why not just increase the Buffs and Chances that Sci gives? You would be happy, Tac would be happy everyone wins and nobody gets nerfed.
People against a change to having Tac captain powers only effect Weapon damage are just saying they want their Tac to do everything. That is not how the game was set up. Tac has gotten out of control. Will edit OP, but I think 2 things are clear:
1.change so Tac captain buffs only weapons damage
2. Reduce the percentage of the buffs. With all the upgraded gear and powers, one can say those percentage multipliers are too high now from when they were first put in place
Instead of that why not just increase the Buffs and Chances that Sci gives? You would be happy, Tac would be happy everyone wins and nobody gets nerfed.
So your solution to power creep or leap, as it is in STO - is to Buff some more?? No, I think a balance pass where Tacs are not the superior choice in every pve situation is in order. Unfortunately the game has become a DPS race. There is no reason that Tac captain abilities should boost exotic damage, other than: "I want my Tac to be able to be the best damage dealing class in every possible situation!!"
Just for full disclosure - I have 40 toons - approx 15 tac, 15 science and 10 engineer. Although I primarily use a Temporal Tac or a Join Trill Sci. Don't use the Eng any more for space as they are mostly useless now. I am currently bring an old Joined Trill Tac from 50 to 60. I see putting her in a Sci ship and she will outdo my Joined Trill Sci in the same ship very soon. Unless we get some adjustments to TAC - which I hope.
People against a change to having Tac captain powers only effect Weapon damage are just saying they want their Tac to do everything. That is not how the game was set up. Tac has gotten out of control. Will edit OP, but I think 2 things are clear:
1.change so Tac captain buffs only weapons damage
2. Reduce the percentage of the buffs. With all the upgraded gear and powers, one can say those percentage multipliers are too high now from when they were first put in place
Instead of that why not just increase the Buffs and Chances that Sci gives? You would be happy, Tac would be happy everyone wins and nobody gets nerfed.
Two words: Power Spiral.
Tac IS getting nerfed. So the real work is figuring out what it can give up and not lose its essential flavor and style. And since right now it's style is "roll over everything with impunity" it's probably not keeping that either.
I agree, when all is said an done, Tac should do more damage than either of the other roles. But it's NOT going to be by the current 60%. Put that sad state of affairs out of your mind right now. Personally I feel after ALL the changes are in, Tac captains out damaging the other two profession by around 20% is reasonable - IF, and ONLY IF more is done to increase the other-than-raw-DPS performance of Science and Engineering captains. That probably means making control effects less of a sad joke, and making Engineers already existing survivability tools more valuable by nerfing EVERYONE'S base survivability slightly.
Tac captains should be looking on in ENVY of some of the Engineering abilities and Science abilities, while those two continue to look on in envy of the best of the Tac captain tricks. When all parties think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you're moving towards the sweet spot. But that shared sweet spot is still probably going to be closer to 100-150k as the maximum possible damage, not 500+
Tactical captains never were about only dps. they were about buffing team dps at least as much as they were about doing dps themselves.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
The division between careers (Engineer/Science/Tactical) is based on a broken paradigm in STO: Tanking, healing, crowd control, damage are not rewarded equally throughout the game; rewards for cooperative gameplay are often allocated based solely on damage (as far as I can tell) instead of mission contribution. For example, I can routinely solo a zone in the various battlezones and end up with a Tier II reward (not that I care about the meager rewards from the battlezone tiers). Power creep and lazy design has turned STO into a boring DPS fest. Do not expect interesting gameplay when the only metric is how much damage you can do.
I look forward to the announced balance changes. I hope that there will be more incentives for exploring alternate solutions to missions and a more equitable metric for measuring contributions in cooperative gameplay.
And, yeah, Tac powers boosting damage on non-Tac abilities makes no sense.
I am vehemently oppossed to limiting their damage buffs to only weapons as it would make that career choice useless for anything but a weapon focussed build. Tactical captains would be useless for EPG or Temporal builds not to mention Radiation and countless other sources of damage in the game.
They won't be any more useless as an Engineer in an Escort, or a Sci captain in a Cruiser. Sci ships still have weapons afterall.
IMO I think moving Tactical captain skills to buff only weapon damage is a good first step to bringing balance across the classes. IMO this should be done before any BOff ability, trait or ship equipment nerf too. That way, you don't overdo it and gimp the other 2 classes.
Tactical is supposed to do damage though, so their abilities should do as much as possible to buff all forms of damage.
Sci is meant to do crowd control, not damage. it's unbalanced for them to do both.
Dental member nothing to see here moving on.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
For me I would have rather seen them take the career specific abilities, and then using the career sub-trees (science, engineer, tactical) augment them via how deep the player invests in the different trees. So base-line a tactical in this example might only have their damage buffing career abilities affect weapon damage, but oif you invested in science they might begin to also improve the damage of non-weapon damage as well, while if you invested heavily in engineering it might be more of a defensive boost that is tagged onto the career abilities. This could also allow both engineering an science captain careers to gain a good amount of damage buff via gaining addition damage or other buffs from speccing into tactical or science deeply.
The idea of this is that each career might have a general knowledge of each other's methods, and how they do things in their career. Yet that does not mean a science officer is going to be as good at combat or combat maneuvers as say a tactical officer, or that a science officer is not going to understand howto manage the engineering systems of a starship like the engineer, just like a tactical officer is not going understand the finer points of a science captains career unless they take the time to study that career more (via the fact of spending points into that career's sub-tree.). You could have that tactical's damage buff might affect non-weapon based damage on a small degree than weapon damage, till they invest in the science tree to gain an increased buff to that damage source while sacrificing some of their potential damage buffs from specing deep into tactical.
I made a quick list of possible changes to space captain abilities. Of course this is just my opinion, and this is just a simple way to try to fix some game balance. There could be some larger scale changes that they have planned.
Engineering Rotate Shield Frequency (30 sec): * +Shield Heal Over Time * +Shield Hardness * Immune to all shield bypassing damage * Possibly make this a team ability by ordering your allies to rotate their shield frequency as well. EPS Power Transfer (30 sec): * +All Power * +Maximum Power Levels * +Power Transfer Rate * +Turn Rate and Flight Speed Nadion Inversion (30 sec): * +Shield and Energy Drain Resistance * -Energy Weapon Power Cost * +All Energy Damage Miracle Worker (30 sec): * Large Shield and Hull Heal * +Hull and Shield Heal Over Time * +Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Hardness * +All Power * Removes a debuff once per second Engineering Fleet (30 sec): * +Hull Regeneration * +All Damage Resistance * +All Healing * +All Power
Science Sensor Scan (30 sec): * -All Damage Resistance (Target * +Stealth Detection * +Control Effectiveness Subnucleonic Beam (30 sec): * Removes All Buffs (Target) * -Power Recharge Speed (Target) * +Drain Effectiveness Scattering Field (30 sec): * +All Damage Resistance * Reduces damage of all enemies within 10km * Immune to control effects Photonic Fleet: * Spawns 3 NPC ships * These ships can use self buffs and buff allies * They also fight nearby enemies Science Fleet (30 sec): * +Shield Regeneration * +Shield Hardness * +EPG Damage * +Control Effectiveness * +Drain Effectiveness
Tactical Attack Pattern Alpha (30 sec): * +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage * +Critical Severity * +Critical Chance * +Flight Speed and Turn Rate Fire on My Mark (30 sec): * -All Damage Resistance (Target) * +Hull Penetration * +Accuracy Tactical Initiative (30 sec): * +Tactical Power Recharge Speed * +Flight Speed and Turn Rate * +Defense Go Down Fighting (30 sec): * +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage * +Flight Speed and Turn Rate * +Critical Chance * +Critical Severity Tactical Fleet (30 sec): * +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage * +Flight Speed and Turn Rate * +Accuracy * +Defense
No, Tac characters DO NOT need a nerf' if ANYTHING, SCIs need a nerf, engineers need a severe buff. Don't just nerf one class to put it on level with the other two classes eventhough the class theyre nerfing is the wrong one! Tac officers are fine, Sci officers need a nerf, and Engineers need a near complete overhaul and SEVERE buff. To me this just sounds like people complaining that Tacs can call in more TRIBBLE than they can (lookin at you whining, ground-loving engineers in the corner). Tacs are fine, leave them alone. Debuff the minor thing or two, but otherwise, theyre fine. In about 95 percemt of the ISAs i have run today ALONE, a SCI is always the highest parse, not a tac.
Comments
So, you don't want TAC to be closer to being as "useless" as SCI and ENG?
Because even just the weapon damage buff would still put them ahead of both. All ships do have weapons.
Using your argument, TAC should be nerfed into oblivion, because it pigeonholes everyone to have to use TAC, if they want to have the best chance of success. The other two aren't even close, in any measurable way, for PVE content.
You've repeatedly made it clear that's what you heard, despite the fact that it's not what anyone said.
It IS a poorly designed trinity, when only one choice is the right choice. That's the exact opposite of what an RPG is supposed to be.
No one is saying a Tac captain should be disallowed the option of using a science ship or doing damage via EPG-enhanced skills. You shouldn't be able to do it better than a Science captain though, and there should be a penalty for your dabbling, not a never-ending stack of advantages to everything you do.
We understand you'd gladly eat an enormous slice of pie when everyone else has crumbs. Everyone else thinks it'd be fair if we all got our slice of equal size though.
I give 4/10 for feeble trolling. Get a new account or something. you've burned out this one.
You're more generous than I am. Good trolling should be clever and get under people's skin, and the man is not even trying. That's on the level of a six year old pulling his sister's pig tails. Sorry, the free market decided: you can't troll. Go home Druk, you're drunk.
Well, take the stats for what they are. Ie. High-end DPS checks. Where I'm at (middle) my ENG/TAC/SCI parse pretty close to each other. TAC still wins out but I've never found a difference as high as 60% between my builds (20-40%, with noticeable trade-offs in "how often my TAC explodes" and "how easy is it to complete objectives.") That's just to point out that if you move the player range lower or higher and the balance of the game changes as ships, equipment, and abilities shift with available resources and know-how. I don't think it ever totally flips but the scale of profession imbalance (in my experience) does. So if you attack the problem as being at the magnitude of 60%, then you could overshoot the rebalance and push TAC below ENG/SCI for other groups (for whom the other benefits of ENG/SCI tend to matter more.)
That's just to add a note of caution to the current discussion. Yes, there's an imbalance but taking "massive imbalance" as a universal fact could lead to problems. I think we really need to think about how TAC gets the numbers it does at the high-end and see if there are certain additive effects (ex. exotic buffing) which are multiplying out what should be a more moderate DPS boost, and also think about what isn't working for ENG/SCI at the same level (ex. ENG's power buffing and tanking). That can then lead to some idea of how this might play out without common min-max strategies.
ie. take everything together, rather than simplifying down to just one number (since in working towards a min-max solution more needs to be considered.)
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Looking for something new to play? I've started building Foundry missions again in visual novel form!
My experience drastically differs, also at the low-middle end. My TAC captains get to 75k DPS so easily I forget to upgrade things, or even work on them, unless I make a point to do so- which is rare. I hadn't bothered even playing a TAC (I have 2) before bonus marks for ages. Not so with SCI and ENG captains. Although, I admit I don't worship at the altar of the meta, and don't really build for raw DPS, and my highest is...95k? I don't remember. I do know that the same exact ship, same exact build, is far FAR more effective if using a TAC captain. It's enough to easily notice even without checking DPS first. That 95k (a SCI captain) would easily be over 150k if it were a TAC.
I take the numbers I posted as a "ceiling" for the 3 options- I feel it's a decent frame of reference. The (estimated) best possible current scenario for each career. I mentioned a 10-15% possible hit to TAC if the buffs only affected weapons. If this is a lot (it is), then the 25%+ hit to make them only +30k DPS above #2 in term of effectiveness (ENG) is ridiculously high.
The specific buffs SCI and ENG captains receive are not enough to make either outperform TAC captains running the same builds, even if TAC buffs only applied to weapons.
Saying "I don't want you to nerf my build" is what everyone saying "There's no disparity" is actually saying. If not, they don't know what they're talking about. However, I actually see that as a viable argument, though I'm thinking the developers don't- which is likely why people are making those claims, unless they actually don't know.
No, you're pretty obviously trolling right now. You're just not as good at it as you think you are and the typical troll "teflon" doesn't seem to work for you. APA is not fine as it is. Then again you could try and cry about how Sci and Eng are calling for nerfs as a way to try and distract from APA which has fallen flat in every other thread you've tried that in. It seems to be the only line you're capable of using to have an argument.
Tac captains are overpowered. There's no two ways about that. They're better at everything than either of the other two which is flat out wrong from a design point of view. Trying to skirt around that fact and claim that nerfing everyone else because they called for nerfs is the answer and Tac is perfectly fine doesn't magically make Tac captains any less broken. In fact it just calls more attention to the issue because you are consciously making an effort to try and hide the issue and push the attention somewhere else. Telling people there's nothing behind the curtain, when there obviously is, doesn't make people less curious. It just makes them want to look even more. Telling people Tac captains are fine and it's everyone else who needs nerfs doesn't make it less obvious that Tac captains are OP, it just makes people look even more at the numbers and what effects they currently have access to in order to better call for more pointed nerfs.
Actually, saying all that, feel free to keep saying Tac is fine. Please post in every thread possible because it'll do more to get Tac taken down a few pegs to where they need to be than most other things.
Oh the PVP nugget rises again. Wake up PVP is DEAD.
Sci should NEVER do the same Damage weapon wise as Tac. That said they should be harder to hit and more accurate in dealing System crippling Damage that takes things off line and have the time of that system disabled extended. The chance of taking a sytem off line needs to be buffed for a Sci ship. This is where Sci needs a redo not in Raw Damage! When you can take Shields off line what difference does it make if you don't deal the same DPs as Tac? Really when a ship has no shields or weapons to defend or hit back with your lower DPS doesn't matter.
Instead of that why not just increase the Buffs and Chances that Sci gives? You would be happy, Tac would be happy everyone wins and nobody gets nerfed.
So your solution to power creep or leap, as it is in STO - is to Buff some more?? No, I think a balance pass where Tacs are not the superior choice in every pve situation is in order. Unfortunately the game has become a DPS race. There is no reason that Tac captain abilities should boost exotic damage, other than: "I want my Tac to be able to be the best damage dealing class in every possible situation!!"
Just for full disclosure - I have 40 toons - approx 15 tac, 15 science and 10 engineer. Although I primarily use a Temporal Tac or a Join Trill Sci. Don't use the Eng any more for space as they are mostly useless now. I am currently bring an old Joined Trill Tac from 50 to 60. I see putting her in a Sci ship and she will outdo my Joined Trill Sci in the same ship very soon. Unless we get some adjustments to TAC - which I hope.
Two words: Power Spiral.
Tac IS getting nerfed. So the real work is figuring out what it can give up and not lose its essential flavor and style. And since right now it's style is "roll over everything with impunity" it's probably not keeping that either.
I agree, when all is said an done, Tac should do more damage than either of the other roles. But it's NOT going to be by the current 60%. Put that sad state of affairs out of your mind right now. Personally I feel after ALL the changes are in, Tac captains out damaging the other two profession by around 20% is reasonable - IF, and ONLY IF more is done to increase the other-than-raw-DPS performance of Science and Engineering captains. That probably means making control effects less of a sad joke, and making Engineers already existing survivability tools more valuable by nerfing EVERYONE'S base survivability slightly.
Tac captains should be looking on in ENVY of some of the Engineering abilities and Science abilities, while those two continue to look on in envy of the best of the Tac captain tricks. When all parties think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you're moving towards the sweet spot. But that shared sweet spot is still probably going to be closer to 100-150k as the maximum possible damage, not 500+
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
I look forward to the announced balance changes. I hope that there will be more incentives for exploring alternate solutions to missions and a more equitable metric for measuring contributions in cooperative gameplay.
And, yeah, Tac powers boosting damage on non-Tac abilities makes no sense.
They won't be any more useless as an Engineer in an Escort, or a Sci captain in a Cruiser. Sci ships still have weapons afterall.
IMO I think moving Tactical captain skills to buff only weapon damage is a good first step to bringing balance across the classes. IMO this should be done before any BOff ability, trait or ship equipment nerf too. That way, you don't overdo it and gimp the other 2 classes.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
Dental member nothing to see here moving on.
"He shall be my finest warrior, this generic man who was forced upon me.
Like a badass I shall make him look, and in the furnace of war I shall forge him.
he shall be of iron will and steely sinew.
In great armour I shall clad him and with the mightiest weapons he shall be armed.
He will be untouched by plague or disease; no sickness shall blight him.
He shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best him in battle.
He is my answer to cryptic logic, he is the Defender of my Romulan Crew.
He is Tovan Khev... and he shall know no fear."
red shirts... die?
if I stop posting it doesn't make you right it. just means I don't have enough rum to continue interacting with you.
The idea of this is that each career might have a general knowledge of each other's methods, and how they do things in their career. Yet that does not mean a science officer is going to be as good at combat or combat maneuvers as say a tactical officer, or that a science officer is not going to understand howto manage the engineering systems of a starship like the engineer, just like a tactical officer is not going understand the finer points of a science captains career unless they take the time to study that career more (via the fact of spending points into that career's sub-tree.). You could have that tactical's damage buff might affect non-weapon based damage on a small degree than weapon damage, till they invest in the science tree to gain an increased buff to that damage source while sacrificing some of their potential damage buffs from specing deep into tactical.
Engineering
Rotate Shield Frequency (30 sec):
* +Shield Heal Over Time
* +Shield Hardness
* Immune to all shield bypassing damage
* Possibly make this a team ability by ordering your allies to rotate their shield frequency as well.
EPS Power Transfer (30 sec):
* +All Power
* +Maximum Power Levels
* +Power Transfer Rate
* +Turn Rate and Flight Speed
Nadion Inversion (30 sec):
* +Shield and Energy Drain Resistance
* -Energy Weapon Power Cost
* +All Energy Damage
Miracle Worker (30 sec):
* Large Shield and Hull Heal
* +Hull and Shield Heal Over Time
* +Hull Damage Resistance and Shield Hardness
* +All Power
* Removes a debuff once per second
Engineering Fleet (30 sec):
* +Hull Regeneration
* +All Damage Resistance
* +All Healing
* +All Power
Science
Sensor Scan (30 sec):
* -All Damage Resistance (Target
* +Stealth Detection
* +Control Effectiveness
Subnucleonic Beam (30 sec):
* Removes All Buffs (Target)
* -Power Recharge Speed (Target)
* +Drain Effectiveness
Scattering Field (30 sec):
* +All Damage Resistance
* Reduces damage of all enemies within 10km
* Immune to control effects
Photonic Fleet:
* Spawns 3 NPC ships
* These ships can use self buffs and buff allies
* They also fight nearby enemies
Science Fleet (30 sec):
* +Shield Regeneration
* +Shield Hardness
* +EPG Damage
* +Control Effectiveness
* +Drain Effectiveness
Tactical
Attack Pattern Alpha (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Critical Severity
* +Critical Chance
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
Fire on My Mark (30 sec):
* -All Damage Resistance (Target)
* +Hull Penetration
* +Accuracy
Tactical Initiative (30 sec):
* +Tactical Power Recharge Speed
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Defense
Go Down Fighting (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Critical Chance
* +Critical Severity
Tactical Fleet (30 sec):
* +Torpedo, Mine, and Energy Weapon Damage
* +Flight Speed and Turn Rate
* +Accuracy
* +Defense