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T6 Intel Ships: Useless specialization or am I missing something
astrorobla
Member Posts: 144 Arc User
I'm a bit dismayed that the Legendary D7 bundle is Intel-spec, but it's prompted me to ask whether I'm right in seeing this as by far the weakest of the T6 options?
Temporal - charge up a powerful weapon, some good BOFF abilities that synergize
Pilot - Some nice maneuverability buffs that recharge quickly, extra experimental weapon, a couple BOFF abilities that work well with escorts
MW - Flexible extra console slot, buffs that charge and deploy automatically while you fight
Command - Inspirations ability that charges automatically, benefits whole team, some good BOFF skills
Intel - power that you must trigger on a target, very slow to charge (so only gets used on dreads), once charged must choose to activate a debuff that is less powerful than most any modern console click ability, and a couple decent BOFF skills
Am I missing something about Intel? Every other category gives you real strategic advantages that can operate flexibly on a target of opportunity or on many targets, while the Intel one is too slow to be used on most targets, and is wasted if you don't remember to both activate, then use once charged.
Temporal - charge up a powerful weapon, some good BOFF abilities that synergize
Pilot - Some nice maneuverability buffs that recharge quickly, extra experimental weapon, a couple BOFF abilities that work well with escorts
MW - Flexible extra console slot, buffs that charge and deploy automatically while you fight
Command - Inspirations ability that charges automatically, benefits whole team, some good BOFF skills
Intel - power that you must trigger on a target, very slow to charge (so only gets used on dreads), once charged must choose to activate a debuff that is less powerful than most any modern console click ability, and a couple decent BOFF skills
Am I missing something about Intel? Every other category gives you real strategic advantages that can operate flexibly on a target of opportunity or on many targets, while the Intel one is too slow to be used on most targets, and is wasted if you don't remember to both activate, then use once charged.
Now a top-rated spotlight mission!
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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Comments
I've had fun with EM pulse probe.
My 5 EC (one per specialization) -
Temporal - some very good boff abilities that synergize, most often with science (Auxiliary power, EPG, Control & Drain X), no need to charge up anything aside from that heal.
Pilot - a few boff abilities that work well usually with escorts, nothing to do with experimental weapons.
MW - two very good boff abilities (Mixed Armaments Synergies, Narrow Sensor Bands), nothing to do with an extra console slot on non-MW ships (i.e. Jem'Hadar Vanguard Warship), buffs that charge and deploy automatically if you get lucky.
Command - Inspirations ability that charges automatically, benefits whole team, a few good boff abilities that were recently rebalanced.
Intel - gather intel then a debuff that you must trigger on a target but don't often use as the target is usually dead first, a few good boff abilities (i.e. Ionic Turbulence, Override Subsystem Safeties)
Perhaps since Command got rebalanced Intel is next up for a review?
I actualy prefer temporal (love my Vorral and Chargh) or MW.
Miracle worker is solid all around. Temporal is good. Command is decent thanks to the revamp but used to be utter trash. Intel is looking long in the tooth these days due to repeated nerfs and the introduction of MW and revamping of command. I'm still a bit of an OSS and Ionic Turbulence fan but OSS was severely nerfed a few years ago and things just aren't the same. For me, pilot is the clear worst. Outside of pilot maneuvers, anything else related to pilot is total garbage IMO. But pilot maneuvers are so fun that it completely makes up for the total uselessness of it's boff powers.
What command revamp are you talking about?
Command abilities and powers where revamped to be more effective, they are very good now.. not perfect, but good
When was this? I must have missed it.
My take is pilot boff abilities are really poor, while the pilot thrusters are rather OP.
Surgical strikes needs a really big buff to make it worth slotting.
The healing aspect of temporal also needs a revamp, it is truly awful having to scatter entropy to many targets around you to amplify it, and is rather consistent with engineering career and to some extent science being rather useless over the usual Star Tac Online.
I also find very little use for temporal on non-sci ships or ships I don't set to do EPG secondary, and it is disappointing the abilities do not trigger secondary deflectors.
Overall, specializations are in a bad spot as with the rest of the game, offering very little worth slotting, and I don't expect them to ever consider re-balancing anything as the focus remains do more DPS or GTFO, or space barbie where the game practically plays itself.
While the Gather Intel mechanic isn't useful against all enemies, I think now it would be more useful against high tier enemies like Dreadnoughts or Boss ships. And Intel has some nasty debuff capability. EMP Probe can shut down a target, leaving them defenseless, Subnuc Carrier Wave can frak with cooldowns, INCLUDING the ability that can clear it (Really irritating when that happens when I'm fighting Heralds), and Intel Team can make it harder for the enemy to hit you or an ally since its just like any other Team ability.
As far as Intel Powers, my personal favorites are probably Ionic Turbulence(AoE Resistance Debuff, anomaly synergy, periodic interrupts) and Intel Team(combat stealth). OSS(I've kind of fallen out love with it) and Electro-Pulse Probe(lots of AoE Interrupts/Disables) can be pretty decent to use as well. Evade Target Lock has some interesting synergies with some traits too.
I also really dig the Tripwire Drone and gas mines on my BOffs, but that's ground stuff and probably not particularly relevant to this discussion.
Also, a side note on Pilot powers since it was brought up: Pilot Team and Attack Pattern Lambda are pretty respectable. Pilot Team stacks with all the other teams and gives you both a movement boost and control immunity. APL applies a pretty beefy Perception debuff(meaning they cannot target you/anyone for weapons/abilities at range), along with an Accuracy De/buff(+crit on overflow for you/less incoming damage from them) and potential confusion(enemy damage/abilities goes to other enemies instead of you/friendlies).
Intel and Temporal, could use still a little tweaking of each of them; perhaps not as much as Command needed.
Though I think they all have PROs & CONs, and as @rattler2 says Intel does have some good abilities too.
It would be an improvement if you didn't need to toggle it. If charges built up automatically upon selecting a target, it would be more in line with the other specs' boosters.
Some have said they don't like the Intel Spec, yet it's still very close to the seating shown here, even if not identical yet look what I identified in blue below however:
Still that comment above is very fair criticism, while also pointing out it's not too shabby either.
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Vaadwaur_Miracle_Worker_Juggernaut
I can't say if having Intel Commander, and Miracle Worker Lt Cmdr will make a great difference or not, perhaps this was intentional however because Vaadwaur don't have Battle Cloak either! It may not be quite the same, but it has other similar higher Hull & Shield Modifiers as the Juggernaut, and also has twice the turn rate of 12 not 6. So individuals just need to decide if they like the Ship, and consider what's offered...
*sigh*
This is clearly a good ship, even if it's not the Kelvin or Disco variant.
Not (too) shabby definition is - fairly good or quite good. For how good however, I guess we'll have to wait...
I've found that even one temporal ability can be useful. Chronometric inversion field for example has a very useful debuffing component built-in. Causal reversion can be a nice way of adding another hull heal on a ship that doesn't have many Eng stations. Entropic redistribution can be useful if you've passed a target and don't want to turn your ship around to fire torpedoes at it to kill of the last couple of percentage point of their hull.
Anyway, I have a feeling that the OP wasn't so much arguing that one or the other type of Boff abilities are more or less useless. He's mostly talking about the passive boosters that build up over time and some other features that are tied to ships based on their type.
I also have the S31 Intel ship on another toon. Most of the time I don't bother with Gathering Intel, as
- most targets will be dead before the charges have built up (contrary to the MW or Command passives, which are tied to your boff abilities instead of a target, or Temporal, whose charges built up automatically based on time spent in Red alert - these charges don't get lost if a single target dies)
- I have to activate so many other things, that a single debuff that will most likely never be fully charged isn't a priority most of the time
Changing it such that charges build up automatically, or that they become tied to your ship (in the same way that the other boosters' charges are not dependent on the death of a single enemy), would fix the issue and make GI more useful.
https://sto.fandom.com/wiki/Ability:_Gather_Intelligence
That would be nice!
A lot of those boff powers could be declared respectable on paper. But in actual game scenarios, I'd struggle to choose them over existing standard boff powers. Most pilot ships are Tac heavy and there's no PVE scenario in which I'd choose AP Lambada or Pilot team over APB, Kemocite, CSV, TT, etc. They might have a PVP utility but I wouldn't know.
Intel is better because it shows up on all kinds of ships that are engineering and science heavy where you are more likely to slot it over a standard boff power. The useful intel powers also don't have shared cooldowns that interrupt my normally used boff powers so it doesn't impede normal operations.
I don't know...I personally think the only reason they revamped Command is because both the Zhat Vash Warbird and Janeway class were command based. Want more people to gamble on them.
People buying the D7 on the other hand is a given...so no need for them to buff anything. Besides they very rarely (actually have they ever?) go back and rebalance something they nerfed into the dust...when it's nerfed to death it's left for useless never to return.
Though I do agree with you, I think the D7 will do well. Good Day!
FWIW, I didn't phrase the subject line well as I intended to focus mainly on the intrinsic ship ability side of things (i.e. Gather Intel) especially in the context of "useless" ;-) but obviously the BOFF ability side of things is critical to the build as well.
Personally I do hope the devs take note of the suggestions to drop the click to gather intel part of the mechanic. It does feel exceptionally dated given that it was the first T6 mechanic introduced in the game back when most targets didn't poof into plasma in 2-3 seconds.
Having the charge-up be automatic would put it more in line with other ship specialty bonus abilities.
I went back and looked through the patch notes to find it, and aside from the inspiration change, I have to say it is underwhelming for a revamp. There are a number of other command powers that should have been tweaked as well and weren't.
I'd also say that despite this revamp, I've seen very few people use command since then, so either they are as unaware as I was, or it wasn't enough.
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