But engineers do have an ability to boost exotic. EPS power transfer gives +25 to all power. Exotic is boosted by aux.
Alright. Let's compare then, shall we?
APA +49.6% for 20 seconds.
EPS transfer is +25 to all power, of which Aux power gets +.5% for every point which works out to +12.5% damage, of which there's diminishing returns the higher you go so that +12.5% damage is actually lower than the flat ~+50% extra damage if I'm pushing it to 150 total Aux.
Man, I'm really glad I'm an Engineer now because that damage bonus EPS transfer gets me is GODLY. /s No, EPS transfer's "buff" doesn't match up to the flat bonus to damage that APA grants to EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DAMAGE. Even at 20 seconds that's more than long enough to fire off every Science skill on your bars at least once, maybe a few off multiple times if you're stacking certain doffs. In no way are Eng even close to Tac in the damage buff scenario with what EPS transfer does.
But engineers do have an ability to boost exotic. EPS power transfer gives +25 to all power. Exotic is boosted by aux.
Alright. Let's compare then, shall we?
APA +49.6% for 20 seconds.
EPS transfer is +25 to all power, of which Aux power gets +.5% for every point which works out to +12.5% damage, of which there's diminishing returns the higher you go so that +12.5% damage is actually lower than the flat ~+50% extra damage if I'm pushing it to 150 total Aux.
Man, I'm really glad I'm an Engineer now because that damage bonus EPS transfer gets me is GODLY. /s No, EPS transfer's "buff" doesn't match up to the flat bonus to damage that APA grants to EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DAMAGE. Even at 20 seconds that's more than long enough to fire off every Science skill on your bars at least once, maybe a few off multiple times if you're stacking certain doffs. In no way are Eng even close to Tac in the damage buff scenario with what EPS transfer does.
Very true. I think even if they removed the exotic boost to APA, it would still be useful for tac-exotic builds because of the crit boost.
The Good :
Easier to find the type of Marks you want to play for.
The Bad :
1. This may change with updates but to find the different difficulty settings you have to select Skill. Its not listing Advanced or Elites in certain Mark selections so a manual search is required.
2. You cannot change Skill to list only Advanced/Elite you have to select each PvE you wish to play and select the difficulty individually if Advanced/Elite are not already listed, if you happen to close the menu it returns to default. I would also assume it returns to default once a PvE is completed as the UI is closed and has to be reopened.
3. Instead of double clicking on the PvE you wish to run like in the current UI this one you have to tick the box next to selected PvE then Select Join x Selected Queue.
4. Currently there is nowhere that shows either how many other Players are queued for a PvE or the estimated wait time for a queue to pop. So now you have no idea if the queue you selected has other people waiting with you or the ability to see others joining that queue. So its now a case of sit around and wait not knowing if the match is ever going to pop.
5. Currently this UI has to many clicks required to jump into a match. Right now with the current UI on Holodeck I want to play CCA
I select PvE queues under the Mini Map and double click on CCA and hit engage when it pops.
That's 4 clicks of the mouse
With the new UI
I have to select PvE queues under mini map
Select Nukara Marks
Select Skill
Select Advanced
Tick the Join Box next to CCA
Then Select Join 1 Selected queue
Hit engage when it pops
That's 7 clicks of the mouse
Post edited by ussvaliant#6064 on
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
But engineers do have an ability to boost exotic. EPS power transfer gives +25 to all power. Exotic is boosted by aux.
Alright. Let's compare then, shall we?
APA +49.6% for 20 seconds.
EPS transfer is +25 to all power, of which Aux power gets +.5% for every point which works out to +12.5% damage, of which there's diminishing returns the higher you go so that +12.5% damage is actually lower than the flat ~+50% extra damage if I'm pushing it to 150 total Aux.
Man, I'm really glad I'm an Engineer now because that damage bonus EPS transfer gets me is GODLY. /s No, EPS transfer's "buff" doesn't match up to the flat bonus to damage that APA grants to EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DAMAGE. Even at 20 seconds that's more than long enough to fire off every Science skill on your bars at least once, maybe a few off multiple times if you're stacking certain doffs. In no way are Eng even close to Tac in the damage buff scenario with what EPS transfer does.
With the nerf to exotic damage EPS transfer will do very little to give the engineer sufficient damage to make him anything but dead last with exotic damage potential.
Engineer Captain abilities currently do nothing for torps. Science has sensor scan and subnuke now and tacs of course have quite a few options to aide in torp damage.
Engineering abilities revolve around energy damage and staying alive long enough to keep the pressure on to kill the opponent. With the 15% decrease in top line energy damage, engineers took a substantial hit in damage output which wasn't needed. The 150 max per subsystem buff to EPS is suppose to counter this but has a 25% uptime. Engineers kill with pressure and time unlike tacs and science who have very high damage spike potential. This is especially true in pvp.
With the new changes Engineers have just become even bigger tanks that have to be creative if they aim to kill anything. This was the opportunity to make all professions equally effective but it looks like one got left behind again.
They've nerfed gdf yes, but they've effectively buffed A Good Day to die as you get 50% dmg boost for 15 seconds every 45s.
The fact that there is a 50% block of dmg being available at 100% hull means you might as well name gdf with this trait another attack pattern alpha but with half the cooldown time! This trait is creating the problem whereby a tac doesn't need to drop hull hp to be able to do insane gdf dmg.
So I ask that you at least reduce the dmg bonus given at 100% hull when using this trait because it doesn't make sense to get a whopping entire half of the bonus when you're using an ability where you're expecting to die but still be at 100% hull.
buffed good day to die? have you tried to use good day to die on tribble while at full HP? it does +0% to damage buff, it's a useless trait now
GDF isn't applying the damage buff at all. In either case with or without Good Day to Die trait, GDF isn't applying its damage buff. It seems to be bugged.
I think Bort said something about this in another thread, implying it had something to do with how the ability had been "rebuilt". My guess is that if the buff isn't showing up on the tooltip, it has something to do with the self-adjustment that GDF now does. Find some situation, like a patrol, that you can run repeatedly, and do a run where you use GDF as well as one without. Or, pay attention to the general magnitude of damage floaters next time you use GDF on Tribble. The, at a minimum, 50% cat2 buff it gives you should be discernable.
roll back the buffs to drain abilities already jeez
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
roll back the buffs to drain abilities already jeez
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
roll back the buffs to drain abilities already jeez
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
Ok on holodeck rightnow lets say , someone unspecced into drainx in the skilltree for whatever reason, it takes 303 drainx with a tykens ii , energy siphon combo to drain them to 0 powerlevels , 460 drain or so to drain somebody with the points in the skill tree etc , - on tribble however 300 drainx is enough to drain somebody with 175 drainx to resist to 0 and even 300 drainx vs 300 drainx to 0 , even at 300 vs 486 drainx to 0 the drain abilities like tykens should be slightly increased yes but as they are now , its well too powerful
Please consider changing the Attack Pattern Alpha damage bonus so that it doesn't include Exotic damage.
I think that this will happen is pretty unlikely now. They removed Deflector Overcharge (among other reasons) also because it locked Science Captains into Science Vessels. Attack Pattern Alpha no longer buffing exotic damage means Tactical Captains shouldn't fly Science Vessels, because one of their key abilities is ineffective on them. (And if we still live in the horror world of DPS rules supreme, it just means that Science Vessels would be less powerful than before, and it would mean less reason to even bother playing them in the first place.)
So does that mean that Eng can get a skill that buffs Exotic damage just like APA? I
No, the Engineer has other types of buffs.
Like a way to boost power levels, including Aux, which buffs also science abilities and weapon abilities and his shield regeneration and hardness, his speed and turn rate.
Like Miracle Worker, that helps him repair his science vessel better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Like Rotate Shield Frequency, that helps him take more shield damage better than a Tac Captain can do it.
It's not an "extra" advantage by the Tactical Captain that he can buff exotic damage. His advantage is simply that if he deals damage, he has a way to deal more than others. Whether he deals his damage with weapons or with science magic doesn't matter for that. A Science Vessel can't deal as much damage with weapons as other ships, because it has less weapon slots and usually no access to cannons either. But it can deal more damage with science abilities, because it has higher level science slots. The tac Captain buffs both sources of damage, however, so he can fly an escort or cruiser and deal mostly weapon damage, or he can fly a science vessel and deal mostly exotic damage.
It's okay if you want to argue that Tactical Captain buffs are too strong overall. But it's wrong to say that he shouldn't deal more damage with exotics. His abilties are designed to let him deal more damage, why should he have to pick an Escort or Cruiser to deal more damage?
Should Science Captains not be able to remove enemy buffs when flying an escort or Cruiser? Should they not be able to debuff hull resistances against weapon damage, because they are supposed to only be good at exotics?
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
No, the Engineer has other types of buffs.
Like a way to boost power levels, including Aux, which buffs also science abilities and weapon abilities and his shield regeneration and hardness, his speed and turn rate.
Like Miracle Worker, that helps him repair his science vessel better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Like Rotate Shield Frequency, that helps him take more shield damage better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Except you just confirmed my point with yours. YOU don't think that Eng should do more damage but focus on healing and power management. (Which if you looked above you'd see I debunked as a viable "EPS damage bonus" because of diminishing returns that are currently on Tribble) You're trying to claim that Eng shouldn't work outside their intended focus but then turn around and want to say that Tac captains should get something outside of their focus which is Weapon Damage.
It's not an "extra" advantage by the Tactical Captain that he can buff exotic damage. His advantage is simply that if he deals damage, he has a way to deal more than others. Whether he deals his damage with weapons or with science magic doesn't matter for that. A Science Vessel can't deal as much damage with weapons as other ships, because it has less weapon slots and usually no access to cannons either. But it can deal more damage with science abilities, because it has higher level science slots. The tac Captain buffs both sources of damage, however, so he can fly an escort or cruiser and deal mostly weapon damage, or he can fly a science vessel and deal mostly exotic damage.
Yes it is an "extra" advantage. Tac captains should be using WEAPON DAMAGE as their main focus. If they want to fly any other type of ship they should incur the same disadvantages that the other captain types face if they use a ship that is not their "intended" type. The other two have to face this, TACTICAL DOES NOT. That's WRONG. You can try and tout that "they should do damage!" but every time people state that they somehow keep hammering the point home that the other two should "stay within their intended bubble but Tac is special and gets to drift outside of that because reasons." Science captains don't get to buff weapon damage directly in an Escort. Eng Captains don't get to buff Science effects directly in a Science ship. They both have to take other steps to do so. Tac captains getting to buff EPG damage standard, and at the amount that they can, is WRONG. Going by the same logic people like you keep using to defend Tac keeping it it's WRONG. Period. You can't have it one way and not another.
It's okay if you want to argue that Tactical Captain buffs are too strong overall. But it's wrong to say that he shouldn't deal more damage with exotics. His abilties are designed to let him deal more damage, why should he have to pick an Escort or Cruiser to deal more damage?
Should Science Captains not be able to remove enemy buffs when flying an escort or Cruiser? Should they not be able to debuff hull resistances against weapon damage, because they are supposed to only be good at exotics?
Then make the Tac EPG bonus equivalent to the bonus a Eng would get using EPS power transfer at any given amount of Aux. Just have the game calc out what the base bonus at current Aux power is, what the amount would be 25 points higher, and use that buff. That would make Tac and Eng equal at buffing EPG damage, something outside of their intended focus, but not give Tac a flat FIFTY PERCENT DAMAGE BONUS to it when Eng gets, at most in the right circumstances a 12.5%, less at higher amounts because "diminishing returns."
It's not wrong to say he shouldn't deal more exotic damage than an Eng captain. It's right to say both Tac and Eng should have the same amount of bonus damage to EPG based damage because that is not the focus of EITHER class. Drop the bonus damage of APA down to the same amount that Eng would get from EPS transfer at any given Aux amount and GDF to a slightly higher scaled amount and I'll let this go. Otherwise I'm going to keep hammering home the favoritism and the actual fallicies in people's arguments to keep it there. Either the EPG totally goes away or they get the same pitiful damage bonus to EPG damage as Eng.
I'm glad Deflector Overcharge is gone and SNB stays put.
Also hope Scattering Field no longer triggers red alert, as that was the biggest issue I had with the power for the longest time. Does it apply to pets and separated pets too?
The buffs to it and to SNB are also appreciated.
Devs: Provide the option to Turn OFF full screen flashes from enemy ship explosions
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Yes it is an "extra" advantage. Tac captains should be using WEAPON DAMAGE as their main focus.
Why?
All classes have access to the same skill tree. Nothing in any of the captain powers suggests that Tacticals should ONLY do weapon damage.
The issue is "how useful are the current set up of captain powers for completing the mission objectives?", which is predominantly "murder everything". Tactical captains shine, because the content plays to their strengths. So the real fix falls into two categories: 1) change mission objectives to be about "surviving" or "whatever the hell science captains are supposed to do with their grab bag of powers" or 2) increase the damage that engineering and science captains can do, so they are better equipped to handle the mission objective of "murder everything".
Engineering captains can increase their current and max power levels. Additionally, they can drastically reduce weapon drain so that each shot does more damage. These are a good start. As you pointed out, it is not parity with Tactical characters. The answer is probably to increase the power boost for engineers, or allow them to temporarily change the "power scaling" for subsystems so their higher power levels give more bang for the buck than another character with the same (or better) subsystem power.
Science captains now get a 25% All Damage bonus from Scattering Field. This is also a good start. Maybe Cryptic will introduce a Trait that allows the captain to gain an additional 15% bonus that others in the area of effect do not receive. That would go a long ways to off-setting the damage boost Tacticals get.
Telling a Tac player "you gimp yourself if you fly a science vessel" is not even addressing the issue. It is the Deflector Overcharge problem of telling a Science player "you gimp yourself if your ship does not have access to exotic powers and 3 or more science console slots".
Definitely a good idea to make mission objectives more interesting so that all pve players can enjoy using some skill instead of mindless tac captain abilities involving murdering everything. People have always said 'tac abilities op because my Sci or eng doesn't get anything like it' but this is largely to do with pve content objectives. If devs can make more of this competitive pve stuff that involves puzzle solving and survival then more people will play as eng and sci.
Definitely a good idea to make mission objectives more interesting so that all pve players can enjoy using some skill instead of mindless tac captain abilities involving murdering everything. People have always said 'tac abilities op because my Sci or eng doesn't get anything like it' but this is largely to do with pve content objectives. If devs can make more of this competitive pve stuff that involves puzzle solving and survival then more people will play as eng and sci.
Well, they would have to go back and change several story missions and PvE ques. It kinda sucks if there are only 3 or 4 que'd missions that play to engineer and science captain strengths. What would a Science captain's "strengths" be, anyway? Subnuc, Sensor Scan, Scattering Field and Photonic Fleet are such an eclectic collection of powers. It's not like an engineer who just activates everything and screams "Come at me, bro!" or a Tac who activates their powers and screams "FIRE EVERYTHING1!1!one!".
It is probably easier to change captain powers to do more damage than to change 2/3 of the objectives in the game. If they did choose this route, I'm all for variety.
No, the Engineer has other types of buffs.
Like a way to boost power levels, including Aux, which buffs also science abilities and weapon abilities and his shield regeneration and hardness, his speed and turn rate.
Like Miracle Worker, that helps him repair his science vessel better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Like Rotate Shield Frequency, that helps him take more shield damage better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Except you just confirmed my point with yours. YOU don't think that Eng should do more damage but focus on healing and power management. (Which if you looked above you'd see I debunked as a viable "EPS damage bonus" because of diminishing returns that are currently on Tribble)
What diminishing returns are you talking about? The reduction of damage dealt by exotic damage abilities hits Tacticals also, so singling out Engineers as being particularly hit by it seems odd.
You're trying to claim that Eng shouldn't work outside their intended focus but then turn around and want to say that Tac captains should get something outside of their focus which is Weapon Damage.
I disagree that their focus is weapon damage. I think it's damage.
Think about that for a moment.
Yes it is an "extra" advantage. Tac captains should be using WEAPON DAMAGE as their main focus. If they want to fly any other type of ship they should incur the same disadvantages that the other captain types face if they use a ship that is not their "intended" type. The other two have to face this, TACTICAL DOES NOT.
What Science Captain ability only helps well in Science Vessels? What ENgineering ability only helps well in a Cruiser?
Every career has buffs that are independent of the ship class they fly.
If I sit in an Escort as a Science Captain, I can use subnucleonic beam to remove all the enemies buffs, which allows my cannon rapid fire enhanced dual heavy cannons (and the rest of my team) to be more effective against my target.
If I use Sensor Scan, the targets suffer a hull resistance penalties. If I or my team deal hull damage, it hurts more, it doesn't matter whether someone flies a Cruiser, Escort, or Science Vessel, the target will take more damage.
If I activate Scattering Field, everyone in the radius will get a hull resistance buff, regardless of what ship they fly. (And with the latest patch, they'll also get a damage buff.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Definitely a good idea to make mission objectives more interesting so that all pve players can enjoy using some skill instead of mindless tac captain abilities involving murdering everything. People have always said 'tac abilities op because my Sci or eng doesn't get anything like it' but this is largely to do with pve content objectives. If devs can make more of this competitive pve stuff that involves puzzle solving and survival then more people will play as eng and sci.
Well, they would have to go back and change several story missions and PvE ques. It kinda sucks if there are only 3 or 4 que'd missions that play to engineer and science captain strengths. What would a Science captain's "strengths" be, anyway? Subnuc, Sensor Scan, Scattering Field and Photonic Fleet are such an eclectic collection of powers. It's not like an engineer who just activates everything and screams "Come at me, bro!" or a Tac who activates their powers and screams "FIRE EVERYTHING1!1!one!".
It is probably easier to change captain powers to do more damage than to change 2/3 of the objectives in the game. If they did choose this route, I'm all for variety.
I think the "theme" of the Science Captains abilities is assisting the team. Subnucleonic Beam removes all the enemies buffs. Assuming the enemy has any buffs that are worth removing, this will aid the team in being more dangerous to that target, while being less endangered by it.
Scattering Field is an AOE buff - so again, you get more out of a team.
Sensor Scan clearly helps the most if the Science Captain targets enemies that everyone else is shooting at, too.
Photonic Fleet is probably the least team-oriented buff, though it has at least some synergy with the other 3 abilities - the photonic fleet will get the same buff and benefit from the same debuffs. Kinda giving the Science Captain a team when he's flying solo.
The problems for SNB has always been that the enemies don't have enough buffs that are worth debuffing, and don't last all that long. The damage strength debuff ensures that it's at least something worthwhile to use against tougher foes. But the Dampening Field buff is probably more valuable to the Science Captain (and his team).
Also if people still think that the Tac Captain is too strong, I wouldn't bother with buffing the other classes. I'd really just nerf the Tac Captain. Slash 10-20 % off of Attack Pattern Alpha. Simpler then trying to find ways to make the other classes stronger, especially since the latter requires a lot of non-straightforward tweaks.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Also if people still think that the Tac Captain is too strong, I wouldn't bother with buffing the other classes. I'd really just nerf the Tac Captain. Slash 10-20 % off of Attack Pattern Alpha. Simpler then trying to find ways to make the other classes stronger, especially since the latter requires a lot of non-straightforward tweaks.
I'm not sure it is that simple. Attack Pattern Alpha has multiplicative synergy with Go Down Fighting. EPS Power Transfer has multiplicative synergy with Nadeon Inversion. None of the Science powers have that kind of force multiplying synergy. Closest would be Sensor Scan and the new Scattering Field, but that is single target, where the other careers have AoE synergy between powers. I know, Sensor Scan debuffs everything around it, but if you can't group up your enemies (Grav Well or Timeline Collapse, etc), it's a single target debuff. Science characters need some AoE synergy with their powers they can use on any ship.
Maybe if Sensor Scan turned into a debuffing non-damaging singularity thingy? Pull everyone into a small area and debuff everything within the AoE? Still goes with the theme of "support", since they are all now tightly packed, waiting to be summarily dispatched. Improve efficiency of AoE powers with a Science-y theme! It would certainly be a tasty force multiplier for Tyken's Rift!
What diminishing returns are you talking about? The reduction of damage dealt by exotic damage abilities hits Tacticals also, so singling out Engineers as being particularly hit by it seems odd.
Not in the same way that it hits an Engineer. A flat 50% damage buff is not the same as an increase in power levels. A direct damage buff is NOT affected by diminishing returns. A power level increase IS. THAT is the difference you're not seeing. It doesn't hit Tac as hard because that 50% damage buff they get from APA goes on AFTER Diminishing Returns takes effect so it's a flat +50% damage buff. You can't tell me that that is hard to understand at this point or try to claim it's "the same". It's not.
I disagree that their focus is weapon damage. I think it's damage.
Think about that for a moment.
I think that's the fundamental flaw in how you're viewing things. They're not about flat damage to everything. They've been about weapon damage for as long as I've been keeping tabs on the game, which has been since Beta. I may not have posted much until recently but that doesn't mean I didn't keep tabs on how things have gone over the course of the past few years, especially at the start when I was deciding if I wanted to play then or not.
What Science Captain ability only helps well in Science Vessels? What ENgineering ability only helps well in a Cruiser?
Every career has buffs that are independent of the ship class they fly.
If I sit in an Escort as a Science Captain, I can use subnucleonic beam to remove all the enemies buffs, which allows my cannon rapid fire enhanced dual heavy cannons (and the rest of my team) to be more effective against my target.
If I use Sensor Scan, the targets suffer a hull resistance penalties. If I or my team deal hull damage, it hurts more, it doesn't matter whether someone flies a Cruiser, Escort, or Science Vessel, the target will take more damage.
If I activate Scattering Field, everyone in the radius will get a hull resistance buff, regardless of what ship they fly. (And with the latest patch, they'll also get a damage buff.)
And once again you miss the point. Eng abilities are about healing. That's what they do, and you even pointed that out. Science abilities are about buffing/debuffing. That's what they do, and you even pointed that out. Tactical abilities should be about making their weapons do more damage. That's not what they're doing right now. Instead they just get a wholesale, "You get to do everything damage wise better!" when that's not how it should work. Unless a Dev wants to chime in and state that the things they've been doing in terms of "Tac's are all about getting the most out of their weapons" have changed you're not going to convince me that Tacs need to do more EPG than everyone else.
Are you saying that because science get conservation of energy only affecting exotic dmg, engineering captain get abilities only affecting energy dmg with a bit of aux ability, that tacticals should only affect weapon dmg?
Tacticals don't have tanking abilities, don't debuff, don't heal, don't strip buffs, don't do anything but increase their dps more so than other classes which is obviously fair. If the changes you suggest happened, tacticals would be pigeon holed into cruisers and escorts, making them next to useless in science ships.
That being said, engineers are pigeon holed into 4/4 energy weapon load out ships that make the most out of eps transfer and nadion inversion, and science pigeon holed into science ships because of conservation of energy making this the most beneficial. And tacticals would have been pigeon holed into escorts if it weren't for good day to die making it possible to have high captain ability dmg with no expense to survivability.
roll back the buffs to drain abilities already jeez
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
roll back the buffs to drain abilities already jeez
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
Ok on holodeck rightnow lets say , someone unspecced into drainx in the skilltree for whatever reason, it takes 303 drainx with a tykens ii , energy siphon combo to drain them to 0 powerlevels , 460 drain or so to drain somebody with the points in the skill tree etc , - on tribble however 300 drainx is enough to drain somebody with 175 drainx to resist to 0 and even 300 drainx vs 300 drainx to 0 , even at 300 vs 486 drainx to 0 the drain abilities like tykens should be slightly increased yes but as they are now , its well too powerful
Hmm, nope. The whole point of speccing into drain is to do exactly that, take the target to zero power. Since these abilities are mostly used vs. things that have larger power pools than players, they need to suck a lot of power. That, and since drain abilities don't really deal damage, they have to rely on the strength of their effect to be useful.
Also worth noting, assuming I was trying to drain you...what's the functional difference between draining 2 more power than you have and 20? Or 50?
What diminishing returns are you talking about? The reduction of damage dealt by exotic damage abilities hits Tacticals also, so singling out Engineers as being particularly hit by it seems odd.
Not in the same way that it hits an Engineer. A flat 50% damage buff is not the same as an increase in power levels. A direct damage buff is NOT affected by diminishing returns. A power level increase IS. THAT is the difference you're not seeing. It doesn't hit Tac as hard because that 50% damage buff they get from APA goes on AFTER Diminishing Returns takes effect so it's a flat +50% damage buff. You can't tell me that that is hard to understand at this point or try to claim it's "the same". It's not.
I disagree that their focus is weapon damage. I think it's damage.
Think about that for a moment.
I think that's the fundamental flaw in how you're viewing things. They're not about flat damage to everything. They've been about weapon damage for as long as I've been keeping tabs on the game, which has been since Beta. I may not have posted much until recently but that doesn't mean I didn't keep tabs on how things have gone over the course of the past few years, especially at the start when I was deciding if I wanted to play then or not.
Tacticals buffing exotic damage has been in the game since forever, too. You might be confusing tactical Captain abilities with Tactical Bridge Officer abilities. These are not the same. (And even there, Attack Pattern Beta, Delta and Omega buff all your damage directly or indirectly, regardless whether it is from a weapon or exotics.)
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
"I think Bort said something about this in another thread, implying it had something to do with how the ability had been "rebuilt". My guess is that if the buff isn't showing up on the tooltip, it has something to do with the self-adjustment that GDF now does. Find some situation, like a patrol, that you can run repeatedly, and do a run where you use GDF as well as one without. Or, pay attention to the general magnitude of damage floaters next time you use GDF on Tribble. The, at a minimum, 50% cat2 buff it gives you should be discernable."
I was observing the damage floaters when I brought the issue up. However, I did a controlled test today with a friend. I found that it is applying the damage buff, but it's not updating the tooltip. I've been a member of STO since its beginning, so I know that somethings may work and not show up on the tooltips. I should have tested it more thoroughly before I made my post, but I just didn't have the time. With that being said, I really do appreciate your advice though and welcome it in the future.
How about fixing the 'change' that occurred to the Boff Selection Screen with AoY. It used to be that if you picked a Doff to change the recommended Doff, the 'green' (needed) Specialization was at the top of the list of Specializations. Since AoY it is at the bottom of the list.
'But to be logical is not to be right', and 'nothing' on God's earth could ever 'make it' right!'
Judge Dan Haywood
'As l speak now, the words are forming in my head.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
"I think Bort said something about this in another thread, implying it had something to do with how the ability had been "rebuilt". My guess is that if the buff isn't showing up on the tooltip, it has something to do with the self-adjustment that GDF now does. Find some situation, like a patrol, that you can run repeatedly, and do a run where you use GDF as well as one without. Or, pay attention to the general magnitude of damage floaters next time you use GDF on Tribble. The, at a minimum, 50% cat2 buff it gives you should be discernable."
I was observing the damage floaters when I brought the issue up. However, I did a controlled test today with a friend. I found that it is applying the damage buff, but it's not updating the tooltip. I've been a member of STO since its beginning, so I know that somethings may work and not show up on the tooltips. I should have tested it more thoroughly before I made my post, but I just didn't have the time. With that being said, I really do appreciate your advice though and welcome it in the future.
Thanks...I only posted because I read the other thread in the Bug Reports section and was trying to think through why it might cause the effect you were seeing. Been here since f2p, but 5 years still isn't enough to know everything.
I have to say, there's some old design decisions in the game that have been removed/overturned that could still improve the situation we see today. At one point canons were plainly better than beams for doing damage, and what made Tac captains better at the job of 'DPSing' was less their every situation easy mode damage bonuses and more that they could make any ship more maneuverable... thus allowing them to capitalize on cannons better. That was a model actually suggested by and supported by canon, and might be something to look at reinstituting. So far it doesn't look like the FAW down-tuning and the Beam Overload changes are going to do much of anything to shift the entrenched 'beams uber alles' meta. Which is unfortunate, as outside of actual efficiency, cannon-boat captains simply feel more engaged with the game, as they're working harder to make their weapons pay off.
I also feel strongly that the 'value' the Science and Engineering professions are supposed to bring to play simply cannot exist while so much of the game is an easy-mode shooting gallery. We don't need survivability, heals, or crowd control in most scenarios. One basic, harkens back to the early days change that would help is re-applying a small (5-8 seconds?) shared cooldown between the "Team" abilities (Engineering, Science, Tactical, Intelligence, etc.). Putting players in a place where they have to make moment to moment decisions between more damage and easy heals (instead of the does-it-all ships we have now) makes base survivability from a profession a more meaningful and desirable quality.
Even with all the changes now on test, Tactical captains are still going to do 33-50% more damage than any other profession on its best day ever. If tactical captains were to die 5% more often while pulling those number we could at least pretend there's some sort of parity between the professions. If clicking Tactical Team came with a more tangible draw back in terms of survivability, we might actually see that.
Nerf everybody's survivability slightly. Engineers and Science can both overcome that kind of setback more readily, while making team red either have to play a bit better or see some value in having yellow and blue allies on the field.
I have to say, there's some old design decisions in the game that have been removed/overturned that could still improve the situation we see today. At one point canons were plainly better than beams for doing damage, and what made Tac captains better at the job of 'DPSing' was less their every situation easy mode damage bonuses and more that they could make any ship more maneuverable... thus allowing them to capitalize on cannons better. That was a model actually suggested by and supported by canon, and might be something to look at reinstituting. So far it doesn't look like the FAW down-tuning and the Beam Overload changes are going to do much of anything to shift the entrenched 'beams uber alles' meta. Which is unfortunate, as outside of actual efficiency, cannon-boat captains simply feel more engaged with the game, as they're working harder to make their weapons pay off.
I also feel strongly that the 'value' the Science and Engineering professions are supposed to bring to play simply cannot exist while so much of the game is an easy-mode shooting gallery. We don't need survivability, heals, or crowd control in most scenarios. One basic, harkens back to the early days change that would help is re-applying a small (5-8 seconds?) shared cooldown between the "Team" abilities (Engineering, Science, Tactical, Intelligence, etc.). Putting players in a place where they have to make moment to moment decisions between more damage and easy heals (instead of the does-it-all ships we have now) makes base survivability from a profession a more meaningful and desirable quality.
Even with all the changes now on test, Tactical captains are still going to do 33-50% more damage than any other profession on its best day ever. If tactical captains were to die 5% more often while pulling those number we could at least pretend there's some sort of parity between the professions. If clicking Tactical Team came with a more tangible draw back in terms of survivability, we might actually see that.
Nerf everybody's survivability slightly. Engineers and Science can both overcome that kind of setback more readily, while making team red either have to play a bit better or see some value in having yellow and blue allies on the field.
Changing the cd on team abilities may have some affect on survivability. However, currently there is a load of healing abilities that can easily be added to any ship.
Science and Tactial Captains easily can get 95% the survivability of engineers with things like Synergistic Restoration, Rally Point, ablative shell, a pletora of boff abilities, immunities etc... The list goes on so it just depends on what you want to add to your ship that day.
In general the healing/tanking powers that have been added to the game have twice the strength of damage dealing abilities that have been added. This makes damage dealing captain powers invaluable in STO.
Prime example of the tanking/damage mismatch is Dyson Tier 4 Reputation ability. Adaptive Hull Hardening gives up to 75 resist as the hull decreases but Tactical advantage only gives -20 resist to the target you are attacking as their hull decreases.
If you want to make survivability a engineering thing you will have to go power by power and bring tanking abilities inline with damage counterparts.
It kinda was before DR wasn't it? I used to be able to take chunks out of cruisers but actually taking them down required help or waiting for them to make a mistake.
I have to say, there's some old design decisions in the game that have been removed/overturned that could still improve the situation we see today. At one point canons were plainly better than beams for doing damage, and what made Tac captains better at the job of 'DPSing' was less their every situation easy mode damage bonuses and more that they could make any ship more maneuverable... thus allowing them to capitalize on cannons better. That was a model actually suggested by and supported by canon, and might be something to look at reinstituting. So far it doesn't look like the FAW down-tuning and the Beam Overload changes are going to do much of anything to shift the entrenched 'beams uber alles' meta. Which is unfortunate, as outside of actual efficiency, cannon-boat captains simply feel more engaged with the game, as they're working harder to make their weapons pay off.
In terms of what the canon of the show actually suggested is that cannons in just pure raw damage could do more than beams, BUT required an ultra fast ship or the enemy to be still in order to make use of them. Beams were used on the big cruisers because they offered the largest targeting arc which was important to cruisers that weren't moving anywhere fast. The canon story also made clear that beams were just as devastating in the hands of a cruiser as cannons were to escorts, perhaps even more so. Cannons were always shown to be greater at burst damage since they fire in the form of a bolt where as the beams can be just as nasty but require the full beam to deal damage. In fact in the DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels we see 2 Galaxy classes lay the smackdown to a Galor as though it was nothing. Each of the Galaxy Class ships put 3 shots each into the Galor. The first 3 shots put the Galor down disabling the ship outright, and the final 3 shots from the second Galaxy class made sure it wasn't getting up again. The Defiant which was loaded with cannons was only ever shown to have that kind of firepower against birds of prey or similar type ships. The Defiant cannons pack a punch, but they can't deliver the same amount of knockdown power that a Galaxy class with such a massive warp core can deliver. If anything it suggests that the firepower of the weapon types are pretty much the same with cannons taking a slight edge due to burst damage potential.
Cannons already, or should have a slight edge against beams in terms of damage output in game. Cannons also have the drawback of the ship needing to be very maneuverable to make efficient use of them, otherwise you're wasting your time. I can see a bit of a penalty to using firing modes like FAW and Scatter Volley as you're pretty much trying to smack anything in range at that point as fast as you can. So instead of trying to nerf beams, why not focus on buffing cannons. As far as to the current meta of beams, this happens because of how various powers interact with cannons vs beams. About the only way you're going to fix this without completely TRIBBLE over beam users, would be to equalize the dropoff between cannons and beams, and give a slight buff to the base damage of cannons.
I also feel strongly that the 'value' the Science and Engineering professions are supposed to bring to play simply cannot exist while so much of the game is an easy-mode shooting gallery. We don't need survivability, heals, or crowd control in most scenarios. One basic, harkens back to the early days change that would help is re-applying a small (5-8 seconds?) shared cooldown between the "Team" abilities (Engineering, Science, Tactical, Intelligence, etc.). Putting players in a place where they have to make moment to moment decisions between more damage and easy heals (instead of the does-it-all ships we have now) makes base survivability from a profession a more meaningful and desirable quality.
At the lower difficulties and with certain missions you are correct that heavy survival or cc ability isn't needed. However go into a Hive Space Elite, Korfez, Procyon V, or similar type of mission and see if you still think some survivability isn't needed. The shared cooldown on team abilities was removed because it made no sense and did more to harm than it did help. It made no sense to use a tactical team ability, yet my science and engineering teams both go on cooldown. These ships in Trek canon have several teams operating around the ships at once.
One of the appeals that has always been great about STO is that any of the 3 captain types can do fairly well at any role in game without being pigeonholed into a specific type of ship or specific type of playing. If I want to tank as a tac captain, then I can do it, but I will have more innate abilities to work with as an engineer. If I want to throw exotic type abilities around I can do it but sci has/should have the advantage in that department. Tac needs to have a decent amount of survival just as the other 2 do, but survival is not the primary focus of the tactical captain. Each of the 3 captains should be able to accomplish the base roles in game with reasonable efficiency but each of the captains should also have an edge in their respective roles.
Tac should have an edge in dealing damage with weapons and energy based attacks.
Sci should have the edge in use of science powers and exotic type damage
Engineering should have the edge in use of engineering powers and keeping the ship from blowing apart.
To give an edge to one of the captain types in a specific area is not a bad thing when done correctly. At the same time you can't give one an edge to the point it screws over the other 2 captain types.
Even with all the changes now on test, Tactical captains are still going to do 33-50% more damage than any other profession on its best day ever. If tactical captains were to die 5% more often while pulling those number we could at least pretend there's some sort of parity between the professions. If clicking Tactical Team came with a more tangible draw back in terms of survivability, we might actually see that.
Nerf everybody's survivability slightly. Engineers and Science can both overcome that kind of setback more readily, while making team red either have to play a bit better or see some value in having yellow and blue allies on the field.
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem? If the buffs to exotic damage were removed from most tac abilities, save a very select few, that would go a long way to close that gap. The chief issue is that science and engineering don't have as many innate damage increasing abilities as tac does. All 5 of the tac captain abilities are geared strictly towards upping damage. Science and engineering don't have that kind of tool set. What they need is some type of damage increases that allows them to keep up with tac. All you're going to do with what you're suggesting is cause alot of tac players to quit playing the game. And no before you say it, it wouldn't be because we can't top the charts or whatever, it would be that we were screwed over to appease science and engineers when the sci and engineers should've been buffed to be within range of our level. Each captain should have about an edge of about 5-10% in their respective areas as just one hypothetical set of numbers.
I've agreed that removing the exotic boosts from tac powers is an option that can be utilized as exotic powers should never have been our primary focus. A tac should be able to use a gravity well for decent control and damage, but a grav well fired by a science toon should absolutely outperform that of the tac.
"Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment, because it will never come again." - Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek Generations
Hmm, nope. The whole point of speccing into drain is to do exactly that, take the target to zero power. Since these abilities are mostly used vs. things that have larger power pools than players, they need to suck a lot of power. That, and since drain abilities don't really deal damage, they have to rely on the strength of their effect to be useful.
Also worth noting, assuming I was trying to drain you...what's the functional difference between draining 2 more power than you have and 20? Or 50?
You are not understanding . Tykens did not need a 200% increase buff to make drain builds more effective in any situation .
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem?
Why? Because the profession GROSSLY outperforms all other options. Tactical is begging for a nerf, it practically screams for one. In a live game rather than a land of pure theory, its easier to present that nerf as a global reduction in survivability than a targeted hack off the end of the single dimension Tacticals use to measure everything - DPS. If you penalize everyone, there's less complaint than if you go after the golden child of the system. It has the appearance of being less punitive. Given the huge number of Tactical captains in the playing population, maintaining that appearance is not trivial. That the change happens to hit them harder is something most people won't even realize, and some might even grudgingly accept as establishing the place in the game Engineering and Science have long needed. Either as the captain that can take those hits and keep dishing damage, or as the guy that can keep you alive while you burn the enemy to ash.
I'm with @darkbladejk in this one. Tactical captains must have the ability to deal greater burst damage in their class. Whereas engineer should be better at surviving and supporting the team and science at controlling and debuffing. Granted, this kind of play doesn't satisfy everyone's need for DPS and to be the hero but it is very effective. Players also forget that there are 2 main ways of dealing damage in STO, wether it's weapons or sci voodoo.
Spike damage and pressure damage.
Tac captains excel at spike damage. It's what makes an alphastrike so deadly and gives tactical captains the edge. However, the drawback is a lack of survival (immunities unfortunately unbalance this a bit) and being extremely prone to science debuffs and control effects.
Engineers excell at pressure damage. Their innate ability to maintain high power levels and resist power drain to an insane degree makes them deadly to anything but another engineer. Even in a PvP match with alphastrikers or vapers zooming around, it was often the case that a tactical captain in an escort would get more kills than anybody else but the engineering captains in cruisers would put down the most damage in total, way more in fact. Tactical captains in an escort used to struggle, and still do, to deal with pressure damage due to only being able to carry a couple of heals. Having to carefully choose when to use them, risking getting taken out, because a low health target screams for an alpha or simply having to leave the fight and run.
But... playing tactical lets you be the hero in PvE so therefore everyone plays it without realising that the other 2 classes trump tactical especially in PvP. Bumping up the damage of the other 2 classes is shortsighted and will throw balance out of the window (research zombie tank A2B builds, they used to crush vapers in season 7-8).
Comments
Alright. Let's compare then, shall we?
APA +49.6% for 20 seconds.
EPS transfer is +25 to all power, of which Aux power gets +.5% for every point which works out to +12.5% damage, of which there's diminishing returns the higher you go so that +12.5% damage is actually lower than the flat ~+50% extra damage if I'm pushing it to 150 total Aux.
Man, I'm really glad I'm an Engineer now because that damage bonus EPS transfer gets me is GODLY. /s No, EPS transfer's "buff" doesn't match up to the flat bonus to damage that APA grants to EVERY SINGLE TYPE OF DAMAGE. Even at 20 seconds that's more than long enough to fire off every Science skill on your bars at least once, maybe a few off multiple times if you're stacking certain doffs. In no way are Eng even close to Tac in the damage buff scenario with what EPS transfer does.
Very true. I think even if they removed the exotic boost to APA, it would still be useful for tac-exotic builds because of the crit boost.
The Good :
Easier to find the type of Marks you want to play for.
The Bad :
1. This may change with updates but to find the different difficulty settings you have to select Skill. Its not listing Advanced or Elites in certain Mark selections so a manual search is required.
2. You cannot change Skill to list only Advanced/Elite you have to select each PvE you wish to play and select the difficulty individually if Advanced/Elite are not already listed, if you happen to close the menu it returns to default. I would also assume it returns to default once a PvE is completed as the UI is closed and has to be reopened.
3. Instead of double clicking on the PvE you wish to run like in the current UI this one you have to tick the box next to selected PvE then Select Join x Selected Queue.
4. Currently there is nowhere that shows either how many other Players are queued for a PvE or the estimated wait time for a queue to pop. So now you have no idea if the queue you selected has other people waiting with you or the ability to see others joining that queue. So its now a case of sit around and wait not knowing if the match is ever going to pop.
5. Currently this UI has to many clicks required to jump into a match. Right now with the current UI on Holodeck I want to play CCA
I select PvE queues under the Mini Map and double click on CCA and hit engage when it pops.
That's 4 clicks of the mouse
With the new UI
I have to select PvE queues under mini map
Select Nukara Marks
Select Skill
Select Advanced
Tick the Join Box next to CCA
Then Select Join 1 Selected queue
Hit engage when it pops
That's 7 clicks of the mouse
Hello rubber banding my old friend, time to bounce around the battlezone again, where are all my bug reports going?, out of love with this game I am falling, As Cryptic fail to acknowledge a problem exists, Shakes an angry fist, And from Support all I'm hearing are the sounds of silence.
With the nerf to exotic damage EPS transfer will do very little to give the engineer sufficient damage to make him anything but dead last with exotic damage potential.
Engineer Captain abilities currently do nothing for torps. Science has sensor scan and subnuke now and tacs of course have quite a few options to aide in torp damage.
Engineering abilities revolve around energy damage and staying alive long enough to keep the pressure on to kill the opponent. With the 15% decrease in top line energy damage, engineers took a substantial hit in damage output which wasn't needed. The 150 max per subsystem buff to EPS is suppose to counter this but has a 25% uptime. Engineers kill with pressure and time unlike tacs and science who have very high damage spike potential. This is especially true in pvp.
With the new changes Engineers have just become even bigger tanks that have to be creative if they aim to kill anything. This was the opportunity to make all professions equally effective but it looks like one got left behind again.
I think Bort said something about this in another thread, implying it had something to do with how the ability had been "rebuilt". My guess is that if the buff isn't showing up on the tooltip, it has something to do with the self-adjustment that GDF now does. Find some situation, like a patrol, that you can run repeatedly, and do a run where you use GDF as well as one without. Or, pay attention to the general magnitude of damage floaters next time you use GDF on Tribble. The, at a minimum, 50% cat2 buff it gives you should be discernable.
Besides Tyken's, which other ones have seen a notable buff? Subsystem targeting's total drain is a bit higher, sure, but it doesn't seem like pure drain is overperforming (especially in PvE). Like any other sci skill, you have to almost cripplingly overspecialize the build to get the most out of it. The performance level of drain abilities should be the reward for this degree of specialization.
Ok on holodeck rightnow lets say , someone unspecced into drainx in the skilltree for whatever reason, it takes 303 drainx with a tykens ii , energy siphon combo to drain them to 0 powerlevels , 460 drain or so to drain somebody with the points in the skill tree etc , - on tribble however 300 drainx is enough to drain somebody with 175 drainx to resist to 0 and even 300 drainx vs 300 drainx to 0 , even at 300 vs 486 drainx to 0 the drain abilities like tykens should be slightly increased yes but as they are now , its well too powerful
Like a way to boost power levels, including Aux, which buffs also science abilities and weapon abilities and his shield regeneration and hardness, his speed and turn rate.
Like Miracle Worker, that helps him repair his science vessel better than a Tac Captain can do it.
Like Rotate Shield Frequency, that helps him take more shield damage better than a Tac Captain can do it.
It's not an "extra" advantage by the Tactical Captain that he can buff exotic damage. His advantage is simply that if he deals damage, he has a way to deal more than others. Whether he deals his damage with weapons or with science magic doesn't matter for that. A Science Vessel can't deal as much damage with weapons as other ships, because it has less weapon slots and usually no access to cannons either. But it can deal more damage with science abilities, because it has higher level science slots. The tac Captain buffs both sources of damage, however, so he can fly an escort or cruiser and deal mostly weapon damage, or he can fly a science vessel and deal mostly exotic damage.
It's okay if you want to argue that Tactical Captain buffs are too strong overall. But it's wrong to say that he shouldn't deal more damage with exotics. His abilties are designed to let him deal more damage, why should he have to pick an Escort or Cruiser to deal more damage?
Should Science Captains not be able to remove enemy buffs when flying an escort or Cruiser? Should they not be able to debuff hull resistances against weapon damage, because they are supposed to only be good at exotics?
Except you just confirmed my point with yours. YOU don't think that Eng should do more damage but focus on healing and power management. (Which if you looked above you'd see I debunked as a viable "EPS damage bonus" because of diminishing returns that are currently on Tribble) You're trying to claim that Eng shouldn't work outside their intended focus but then turn around and want to say that Tac captains should get something outside of their focus which is Weapon Damage.
Yes it is an "extra" advantage. Tac captains should be using WEAPON DAMAGE as their main focus. If they want to fly any other type of ship they should incur the same disadvantages that the other captain types face if they use a ship that is not their "intended" type. The other two have to face this, TACTICAL DOES NOT. That's WRONG. You can try and tout that "they should do damage!" but every time people state that they somehow keep hammering the point home that the other two should "stay within their intended bubble but Tac is special and gets to drift outside of that because reasons." Science captains don't get to buff weapon damage directly in an Escort. Eng Captains don't get to buff Science effects directly in a Science ship. They both have to take other steps to do so. Tac captains getting to buff EPG damage standard, and at the amount that they can, is WRONG. Going by the same logic people like you keep using to defend Tac keeping it it's WRONG. Period. You can't have it one way and not another.
Then make the Tac EPG bonus equivalent to the bonus a Eng would get using EPS power transfer at any given amount of Aux. Just have the game calc out what the base bonus at current Aux power is, what the amount would be 25 points higher, and use that buff. That would make Tac and Eng equal at buffing EPG damage, something outside of their intended focus, but not give Tac a flat FIFTY PERCENT DAMAGE BONUS to it when Eng gets, at most in the right circumstances a 12.5%, less at higher amounts because "diminishing returns."
It's not wrong to say he shouldn't deal more exotic damage than an Eng captain. It's right to say both Tac and Eng should have the same amount of bonus damage to EPG based damage because that is not the focus of EITHER class. Drop the bonus damage of APA down to the same amount that Eng would get from EPS transfer at any given Aux amount and GDF to a slightly higher scaled amount and I'll let this go. Otherwise I'm going to keep hammering home the favoritism and the actual fallicies in people's arguments to keep it there. Either the EPG totally goes away or they get the same pitiful damage bonus to EPG damage as Eng.
Also hope Scattering Field no longer triggers red alert, as that was the biggest issue I had with the power for the longest time. Does it apply to pets and separated pets too?
The buffs to it and to SNB are also appreciated.
All classes have access to the same skill tree. Nothing in any of the captain powers suggests that Tacticals should ONLY do weapon damage.
The issue is "how useful are the current set up of captain powers for completing the mission objectives?", which is predominantly "murder everything". Tactical captains shine, because the content plays to their strengths. So the real fix falls into two categories: 1) change mission objectives to be about "surviving" or "whatever the hell science captains are supposed to do with their grab bag of powers" or 2) increase the damage that engineering and science captains can do, so they are better equipped to handle the mission objective of "murder everything".
Engineering captains can increase their current and max power levels. Additionally, they can drastically reduce weapon drain so that each shot does more damage. These are a good start. As you pointed out, it is not parity with Tactical characters. The answer is probably to increase the power boost for engineers, or allow them to temporarily change the "power scaling" for subsystems so their higher power levels give more bang for the buck than another character with the same (or better) subsystem power.
Science captains now get a 25% All Damage bonus from Scattering Field. This is also a good start. Maybe Cryptic will introduce a Trait that allows the captain to gain an additional 15% bonus that others in the area of effect do not receive. That would go a long ways to off-setting the damage boost Tacticals get.
Telling a Tac player "you gimp yourself if you fly a science vessel" is not even addressing the issue. It is the Deflector Overcharge problem of telling a Science player "you gimp yourself if your ship does not have access to exotic powers and 3 or more science console slots".
Definitely a good idea to make mission objectives more interesting so that all pve players can enjoy using some skill instead of mindless tac captain abilities involving murdering everything. People have always said 'tac abilities op because my Sci or eng doesn't get anything like it' but this is largely to do with pve content objectives. If devs can make more of this competitive pve stuff that involves puzzle solving and survival then more people will play as eng and sci.
It is probably easier to change captain powers to do more damage than to change 2/3 of the objectives in the game. If they did choose this route, I'm all for variety.
I disagree that their focus is weapon damage. I think it's damage.
Think about that for a moment.
What Science Captain ability only helps well in Science Vessels? What ENgineering ability only helps well in a Cruiser?
Every career has buffs that are independent of the ship class they fly.
If I sit in an Escort as a Science Captain, I can use subnucleonic beam to remove all the enemies buffs, which allows my cannon rapid fire enhanced dual heavy cannons (and the rest of my team) to be more effective against my target.
If I use Sensor Scan, the targets suffer a hull resistance penalties. If I or my team deal hull damage, it hurts more, it doesn't matter whether someone flies a Cruiser, Escort, or Science Vessel, the target will take more damage.
If I activate Scattering Field, everyone in the radius will get a hull resistance buff, regardless of what ship they fly. (And with the latest patch, they'll also get a damage buff.)
I think the "theme" of the Science Captains abilities is assisting the team. Subnucleonic Beam removes all the enemies buffs. Assuming the enemy has any buffs that are worth removing, this will aid the team in being more dangerous to that target, while being less endangered by it.
Scattering Field is an AOE buff - so again, you get more out of a team.
Sensor Scan clearly helps the most if the Science Captain targets enemies that everyone else is shooting at, too.
Photonic Fleet is probably the least team-oriented buff, though it has at least some synergy with the other 3 abilities - the photonic fleet will get the same buff and benefit from the same debuffs. Kinda giving the Science Captain a team when he's flying solo.
The problems for SNB has always been that the enemies don't have enough buffs that are worth debuffing, and don't last all that long. The damage strength debuff ensures that it's at least something worthwhile to use against tougher foes. But the Dampening Field buff is probably more valuable to the Science Captain (and his team).
Also if people still think that the Tac Captain is too strong, I wouldn't bother with buffing the other classes. I'd really just nerf the Tac Captain. Slash 10-20 % off of Attack Pattern Alpha. Simpler then trying to find ways to make the other classes stronger, especially since the latter requires a lot of non-straightforward tweaks.
Maybe if Sensor Scan turned into a debuffing non-damaging singularity thingy? Pull everyone into a small area and debuff everything within the AoE? Still goes with the theme of "support", since they are all now tightly packed, waiting to be summarily dispatched. Improve efficiency of AoE powers with a Science-y theme! It would certainly be a tasty force multiplier for Tyken's Rift!
Thoughts?
Not in the same way that it hits an Engineer. A flat 50% damage buff is not the same as an increase in power levels. A direct damage buff is NOT affected by diminishing returns. A power level increase IS. THAT is the difference you're not seeing. It doesn't hit Tac as hard because that 50% damage buff they get from APA goes on AFTER Diminishing Returns takes effect so it's a flat +50% damage buff. You can't tell me that that is hard to understand at this point or try to claim it's "the same". It's not.
I think that's the fundamental flaw in how you're viewing things. They're not about flat damage to everything. They've been about weapon damage for as long as I've been keeping tabs on the game, which has been since Beta. I may not have posted much until recently but that doesn't mean I didn't keep tabs on how things have gone over the course of the past few years, especially at the start when I was deciding if I wanted to play then or not.
And once again you miss the point. Eng abilities are about healing. That's what they do, and you even pointed that out. Science abilities are about buffing/debuffing. That's what they do, and you even pointed that out. Tactical abilities should be about making their weapons do more damage. That's not what they're doing right now. Instead they just get a wholesale, "You get to do everything damage wise better!" when that's not how it should work. Unless a Dev wants to chime in and state that the things they've been doing in terms of "Tac's are all about getting the most out of their weapons" have changed you're not going to convince me that Tacs need to do more EPG than everyone else.
Are you saying that because science get conservation of energy only affecting exotic dmg, engineering captain get abilities only affecting energy dmg with a bit of aux ability, that tacticals should only affect weapon dmg?
Tacticals don't have tanking abilities, don't debuff, don't heal, don't strip buffs, don't do anything but increase their dps more so than other classes which is obviously fair. If the changes you suggest happened, tacticals would be pigeon holed into cruisers and escorts, making them next to useless in science ships.
That being said, engineers are pigeon holed into 4/4 energy weapon load out ships that make the most out of eps transfer and nadion inversion, and science pigeon holed into science ships because of conservation of energy making this the most beneficial. And tacticals would have been pigeon holed into escorts if it weren't for good day to die making it possible to have high captain ability dmg with no expense to survivability.
^^ should call this trait A Good Day to Live.
Hmm, nope. The whole point of speccing into drain is to do exactly that, take the target to zero power. Since these abilities are mostly used vs. things that have larger power pools than players, they need to suck a lot of power. That, and since drain abilities don't really deal damage, they have to rely on the strength of their effect to be useful.
Also worth noting, assuming I was trying to drain you...what's the functional difference between draining 2 more power than you have and 20? Or 50?
April 19
"I think Bort said something about this in another thread, implying it had something to do with how the ability had been "rebuilt". My guess is that if the buff isn't showing up on the tooltip, it has something to do with the self-adjustment that GDF now does. Find some situation, like a patrol, that you can run repeatedly, and do a run where you use GDF as well as one without. Or, pay attention to the general magnitude of damage floaters next time you use GDF on Tribble. The, at a minimum, 50% cat2 buff it gives you should be discernable."
I was observing the damage floaters when I brought the issue up. However, I did a controlled test today with a friend. I found that it is applying the damage buff, but it's not updating the tooltip. I've been a member of STO since its beginning, so I know that somethings may work and not show up on the tooltips. I should have tested it more thoroughly before I made my post, but I just didn't have the time. With that being said, I really do appreciate your advice though and welcome it in the future.
l don't know.
l really don't know what l'm about to say, except l have a feeling about it.
That l must repeat the words that come without my knowledge.'
Thanks...I only posted because I read the other thread in the Bug Reports section and was trying to think through why it might cause the effect you were seeing. Been here since f2p, but 5 years still isn't enough to know everything.
I also feel strongly that the 'value' the Science and Engineering professions are supposed to bring to play simply cannot exist while so much of the game is an easy-mode shooting gallery. We don't need survivability, heals, or crowd control in most scenarios. One basic, harkens back to the early days change that would help is re-applying a small (5-8 seconds?) shared cooldown between the "Team" abilities (Engineering, Science, Tactical, Intelligence, etc.). Putting players in a place where they have to make moment to moment decisions between more damage and easy heals (instead of the does-it-all ships we have now) makes base survivability from a profession a more meaningful and desirable quality.
Even with all the changes now on test, Tactical captains are still going to do 33-50% more damage than any other profession on its best day ever. If tactical captains were to die 5% more often while pulling those number we could at least pretend there's some sort of parity between the professions. If clicking Tactical Team came with a more tangible draw back in terms of survivability, we might actually see that.
Nerf everybody's survivability slightly. Engineers and Science can both overcome that kind of setback more readily, while making team red either have to play a bit better or see some value in having yellow and blue allies on the field.
Changing the cd on team abilities may have some affect on survivability. However, currently there is a load of healing abilities that can easily be added to any ship.
Science and Tactial Captains easily can get 95% the survivability of engineers with things like Synergistic Restoration, Rally Point, ablative shell, a pletora of boff abilities, immunities etc... The list goes on so it just depends on what you want to add to your ship that day.
In general the healing/tanking powers that have been added to the game have twice the strength of damage dealing abilities that have been added. This makes damage dealing captain powers invaluable in STO.
Prime example of the tanking/damage mismatch is Dyson Tier 4 Reputation ability. Adaptive Hull Hardening gives up to 75 resist as the hull decreases but Tactical advantage only gives -20 resist to the target you are attacking as their hull decreases.
If you want to make survivability a engineering thing you will have to go power by power and bring tanking abilities inline with damage counterparts.
In terms of what the canon of the show actually suggested is that cannons in just pure raw damage could do more than beams, BUT required an ultra fast ship or the enemy to be still in order to make use of them. Beams were used on the big cruisers because they offered the largest targeting arc which was important to cruisers that weren't moving anywhere fast. The canon story also made clear that beams were just as devastating in the hands of a cruiser as cannons were to escorts, perhaps even more so. Cannons were always shown to be greater at burst damage since they fire in the form of a bolt where as the beams can be just as nasty but require the full beam to deal damage. In fact in the DS9 episode Sacrifice of Angels we see 2 Galaxy classes lay the smackdown to a Galor as though it was nothing. Each of the Galaxy Class ships put 3 shots each into the Galor. The first 3 shots put the Galor down disabling the ship outright, and the final 3 shots from the second Galaxy class made sure it wasn't getting up again. The Defiant which was loaded with cannons was only ever shown to have that kind of firepower against birds of prey or similar type ships. The Defiant cannons pack a punch, but they can't deliver the same amount of knockdown power that a Galaxy class with such a massive warp core can deliver. If anything it suggests that the firepower of the weapon types are pretty much the same with cannons taking a slight edge due to burst damage potential.
Cannons already, or should have a slight edge against beams in terms of damage output in game. Cannons also have the drawback of the ship needing to be very maneuverable to make efficient use of them, otherwise you're wasting your time. I can see a bit of a penalty to using firing modes like FAW and Scatter Volley as you're pretty much trying to smack anything in range at that point as fast as you can. So instead of trying to nerf beams, why not focus on buffing cannons. As far as to the current meta of beams, this happens because of how various powers interact with cannons vs beams. About the only way you're going to fix this without completely TRIBBLE over beam users, would be to equalize the dropoff between cannons and beams, and give a slight buff to the base damage of cannons.
At the lower difficulties and with certain missions you are correct that heavy survival or cc ability isn't needed. However go into a Hive Space Elite, Korfez, Procyon V, or similar type of mission and see if you still think some survivability isn't needed. The shared cooldown on team abilities was removed because it made no sense and did more to harm than it did help. It made no sense to use a tactical team ability, yet my science and engineering teams both go on cooldown. These ships in Trek canon have several teams operating around the ships at once.
One of the appeals that has always been great about STO is that any of the 3 captain types can do fairly well at any role in game without being pigeonholed into a specific type of ship or specific type of playing. If I want to tank as a tac captain, then I can do it, but I will have more innate abilities to work with as an engineer. If I want to throw exotic type abilities around I can do it but sci has/should have the advantage in that department. Tac needs to have a decent amount of survival just as the other 2 do, but survival is not the primary focus of the tactical captain. Each of the 3 captains should be able to accomplish the base roles in game with reasonable efficiency but each of the captains should also have an edge in their respective roles.
Tac should have an edge in dealing damage with weapons and energy based attacks.
Sci should have the edge in use of science powers and exotic type damage
Engineering should have the edge in use of engineering powers and keeping the ship from blowing apart.
To give an edge to one of the captain types in a specific area is not a bad thing when done correctly. At the same time you can't give one an edge to the point it screws over the other 2 captain types.
Why should I as a tactical player have to eat a survivability nerf when the damage numbers themselves are the problem? If the buffs to exotic damage were removed from most tac abilities, save a very select few, that would go a long way to close that gap. The chief issue is that science and engineering don't have as many innate damage increasing abilities as tac does. All 5 of the tac captain abilities are geared strictly towards upping damage. Science and engineering don't have that kind of tool set. What they need is some type of damage increases that allows them to keep up with tac. All you're going to do with what you're suggesting is cause alot of tac players to quit playing the game. And no before you say it, it wouldn't be because we can't top the charts or whatever, it would be that we were screwed over to appease science and engineers when the sci and engineers should've been buffed to be within range of our level. Each captain should have about an edge of about 5-10% in their respective areas as just one hypothetical set of numbers.
I've agreed that removing the exotic boosts from tac powers is an option that can be utilized as exotic powers should never have been our primary focus. A tac should be able to use a gravity well for decent control and damage, but a grav well fired by a science toon should absolutely outperform that of the tac.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Why? Because the profession GROSSLY outperforms all other options. Tactical is begging for a nerf, it practically screams for one. In a live game rather than a land of pure theory, its easier to present that nerf as a global reduction in survivability than a targeted hack off the end of the single dimension Tacticals use to measure everything - DPS. If you penalize everyone, there's less complaint than if you go after the golden child of the system. It has the appearance of being less punitive. Given the huge number of Tactical captains in the playing population, maintaining that appearance is not trivial. That the change happens to hit them harder is something most people won't even realize, and some might even grudgingly accept as establishing the place in the game Engineering and Science have long needed. Either as the captain that can take those hits and keep dishing damage, or as the guy that can keep you alive while you burn the enemy to ash.
Tactical captains must have the ability to deal greater burst damage in their class. Whereas engineer should be better at surviving and supporting the team and science at controlling and debuffing.
Granted, this kind of play doesn't satisfy everyone's need for DPS and to be the hero but it is very effective.
Players also forget that there are 2 main ways of dealing damage in STO, wether it's weapons or sci voodoo.
Spike damage and pressure damage.
Tac captains excel at spike damage. It's what makes an alphastrike so deadly and gives tactical captains the edge. However, the drawback is a lack of survival (immunities unfortunately unbalance this a bit) and being extremely prone to science debuffs and control effects.
Engineers excell at pressure damage. Their innate ability to maintain high power levels and resist power drain to an insane degree makes them deadly to anything but another engineer. Even in a PvP match with alphastrikers or vapers zooming around, it was often the case that a tactical captain in an escort would get more kills than anybody else but the engineering captains in cruisers would put down the most damage in total, way more in fact.
Tactical captains in an escort used to struggle, and still do, to deal with pressure damage due to only being able to carry a couple of heals. Having to carefully choose when to use them, risking getting taken out, because a low health target screams for an alpha or simply having to leave the fight and run.
But... playing tactical lets you be the hero in PvE so therefore everyone plays it without realising that the other 2 classes trump tactical especially in PvP. Bumping up the damage of the other 2 classes is shortsighted and will throw balance out of the window (research zombie tank A2B builds, they used to crush vapers in season 7-8).