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Replacing Subnucleonic Beam with Deflector Overchage - what do you think?
mustrumridcully0
Member Posts: 12,963 Arc User
A significant change in the rebalance that Cryptic is working on and iterating on Tribble is to replace Subnucleonic Beam, the Science Captain ability, with a new ability, called Deflector Overcharge. Subnucleonic Beam is turned into a Science bridge officer ability available with a Lt.Cmdr or higher Science slot.
Deflector Overcharge (as in its current iteration on Tribble) could be described as a "sciency" Attack Pattern Alpha. It buffs exotic damage, shield healing, control expertise and drain expertise, so it buffs a lot of abilities that way.
Especially if you've been playing Science Captains before:
How do you feel about the idea of replacing the Science Captain's Subnucleonic Beam with Shield Overcharge
Be it the general idea or the specific implementation of Shield Overcharge.
I really want to know how people feel about that, so consider skipping over reading my own opinion down below.
Personally, I find it really hard to wrap my head around such a fundamental change to my character.
Now, I am definitely of the opinion that Subnucleonic Beam is not useful enough in PvE. There are very few enemies that have buffs that are worth stripping. But back in the old days (even before the Romulan expansion), I used to PvP a lot, and Subnucleonic Beam was a crucial power and it made playing a Science Captain a unique role, and it was a role absolutely independent of what ship you flew
For me, SNB is an identifying trait of my Science characters. So I find it really hard to imagine playing a Science Captain without it, it seems a part of my character's core identity is gone.
I kinda would have preferred if Cryptic had changed PvE so that buff stripping would be more valuable, but I suppose that would require changing so much about how NPCs work and each individual critter group in the game that it's impractical.
The second best thing to me would have been adding some kind of buff to SNB that is relevant in PvE. Maybe the targeted enemy gets stunned, or suffers a massive resistance penalty, or a massive damage strength reduction. It could only affect NPCs, and not affect players at all. (Stripping buffs is pretty much the same as giving a player character a massive resistance penalty or a massive damage strength reduction.)
I don't know if there is even such an option on the table in the first place, however, so that might be an ultimately pointless brainstorming exercise.
So, let's say it's Deflector Overcharge... I worry it's still pigeonholing the Science Captain stronger into the Science Vessel Captain role.
Science Vessels have all the powers buffed by Deflector Overcharge in droves, but other ships can have more trouble finding suitable powers.
I suppose it would help if Deflector Overcharge would also buff hull healing, then at least Cruisers would definitely also be well covered. It would not be optimal for Escorts, since their high tier powers will probably never be heals, drain, crowd control or exotic damage. Maybe it could also grant an accuracy buff, that would indirectly buff weapon damage, too.
I don't really have a final opinion yet, but I know what my concerns and reservations are. Experimenting with the ability and seeing how future Tribble patches change things based on our feedback.
Deflector Overcharge (as in its current iteration on Tribble) could be described as a "sciency" Attack Pattern Alpha. It buffs exotic damage, shield healing, control expertise and drain expertise, so it buffs a lot of abilities that way.
Especially if you've been playing Science Captains before:
How do you feel about the idea of replacing the Science Captain's Subnucleonic Beam with Shield Overcharge
Be it the general idea or the specific implementation of Shield Overcharge.
I really want to know how people feel about that, so consider skipping over reading my own opinion down below.
Personally, I find it really hard to wrap my head around such a fundamental change to my character.
Now, I am definitely of the opinion that Subnucleonic Beam is not useful enough in PvE. There are very few enemies that have buffs that are worth stripping. But back in the old days (even before the Romulan expansion), I used to PvP a lot, and Subnucleonic Beam was a crucial power and it made playing a Science Captain a unique role, and it was a role absolutely independent of what ship you flew
For me, SNB is an identifying trait of my Science characters. So I find it really hard to imagine playing a Science Captain without it, it seems a part of my character's core identity is gone.
I kinda would have preferred if Cryptic had changed PvE so that buff stripping would be more valuable, but I suppose that would require changing so much about how NPCs work and each individual critter group in the game that it's impractical.
The second best thing to me would have been adding some kind of buff to SNB that is relevant in PvE. Maybe the targeted enemy gets stunned, or suffers a massive resistance penalty, or a massive damage strength reduction. It could only affect NPCs, and not affect players at all. (Stripping buffs is pretty much the same as giving a player character a massive resistance penalty or a massive damage strength reduction.)
I don't know if there is even such an option on the table in the first place, however, so that might be an ultimately pointless brainstorming exercise.
So, let's say it's Deflector Overcharge... I worry it's still pigeonholing the Science Captain stronger into the Science Vessel Captain role.
Science Vessels have all the powers buffed by Deflector Overcharge in droves, but other ships can have more trouble finding suitable powers.
I suppose it would help if Deflector Overcharge would also buff hull healing, then at least Cruisers would definitely also be well covered. It would not be optimal for Escorts, since their high tier powers will probably never be heals, drain, crowd control or exotic damage. Maybe it could also grant an accuracy buff, that would indirectly buff weapon damage, too.
I don't really have a final opinion yet, but I know what my concerns and reservations are. Experimenting with the ability and seeing how future Tribble patches change things based on our feedback.
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More generally, it seems to me that subnuc should remain a sci captain ability, with DO as a new boff ability...
This is exactly as I see it. I rarely even bother to click it most of the time - though sometimes I do and mostly to see its pretty purple color (i'm being serious).
So I look forward to this attack pattern science!
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The clone ability of Na'kuhl ships for example, is in fact a buff that can be removed. Meaning you can just ignore the clone after using SNB on the real ship.
I haven't used it against Tzenkethi yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if it works well there too. Anyway, I think it will be much more useful having this as a Boff power, also in these situations. As a captain power with a three minute cooldown, it was indeed not interesting enough.
Sure, Subnuc is a much more situational power and not as useful as it should be in PvE(content developers fault), but quite frankly I use it a lot more than I see myself using the Deflector Overcharge, since my Science captain does not fly science ships.
It would be even nicer if the buff came in different flavours and you chose which one was slotted - healers, partgeners, drainers, debuffers and controllers could each get a performance spike but no one become wonderous and at all things.
Deflector Overcharge is going to give you a buff to all your science stuff, So shield heals, and exotic damage are going to be buffed. It buffs drains and control powers too, meaning it's also going to buff resistance to control and drain, since that is folded into the control and drain expertise skills. Every ship can take advantage of shield healing and resistance to control and drain.
Imagine that, science abilities that make you do science better!?
What's all this mean? Deflector Overcharge is basically a good offensive and defensive buff that Science has been waiting for for years. The very idea that someone would prefer never-used-except-pvp Subnucleonic Beam, over this is kind of ridiculous. Especially since you can still get access to Subnucleonic Beam in those situations where you might want it.
Science captains being good at Science is a good thing.
If I had the choice between Deflector overcharge and sub nuc as science exclusive ability I would always chose the former without hesitation.
This is false as: Science Captain =/= science ship/build.
I like the more generalist approach to captain abilities that has always existed and I don't appreciate being pigeonholed to a particular type of build and playstyle.
Losing a generalist power that any type of ship may find useful at some point such as the Subnucleonic Beam in favor of a heavily science-centric power is just terrible.
Especially for the poor klingon and romulan scis who only have the one non-event/lockbox T6 science ship option.
I also agree with the point being made.
I would also point out that the Klingons and Romulans have two T6 science vessels available. the one from the bundle that has the T6 Nebula in it and the multimission explorer.
I feel that the captain powers were great in the sense that they were indeed universal. There isn't much a sci captain can get from DO in an escort or cruiser. Ironically the universal aspect is also a great argument for APA buffing all damage and not just weapons, that would also limit it's use on some ships or rather builds.
And while I'm rambling, Subnuke also increases the cooldown of powers, so it's not just useful for stripping buffs in Pve.
the bio-molecular proc certainly wasn't when it first came out, though it might've been changed to be affected by EPG when the skill revamp happened
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
AKA Didn't read beyond the quoted section of my post.
Also, Imagine that? Science captains having abilities that make them good at SCIENCE...
It's almost like wizards being good at magic or something...
Now there would be a worthy thing to revamp. Info pages/tooltips. Start by listing all the keywords that apply to particular item/ability/effect/proc/etc so players don't have to guess WTF does "exotic" damage, what counts as a "disable" and so on.
it's going to take a while
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
I'm not a mechanics hound nor have I tested on Tribble so I can't speak to how extensive "control" is as a term but from the sound of things Deflector Overcharge will have numerous applications outside pure Science.
I Support Disco | Disco is Love | Disco is Life
I agree with maerikcharon, I like DO.
I already showed a build on the tribble thread involving a Valiant Class ship, which is a extremely tac focused ship and how it can make good use of DO.
There are console powers, tac powers, eng powers, sci powers, temporal powers that can benifit from DO. Possibly some others as well.
Intel ships also have Lt Subnucleonic Carrier Wave which is similar to SNB and also goes all the way up to CMD, scaling only with Aux still. Since SNB boff stun effect doesn't really work, might as well slot this in Lt seat of intel seating Sci ships over SNB.
Overall, I don't like effectively losing SNB on my Sci captains, and conversely gaining access to it on my Engis and Scis that have a LtC sci seating ship, but neither did the ability do much in PvE. Still, I'd rather they have kept things the same and make SNB have more of an impact and role in PvE.
In the upcoming SCI Captain's revamp, can the SCI Captain say the same? No. Not before the change, not after.