Just changing the gather intel mechanic to auto-generation alone isn't enough - they also need to GREATLY reduce the time needed to generate enough stacks to unlock clickie use, and tie the time needed for it to ship rank - like, 2 seconds for rank 1, 4 for 2, 6 for 3 and 8 for 4 (and 5, of which only the Crystalline Entity is this rank - that I know of).
I believe it's already tied to rank.
Some ships like spheres require 10 charges. Others, like cubes, 15.
For me, they'd either need to make it auto-generate or reduce the amount of charges. Doing both might be too much, then GI would be much more potent than the other clicky abilities that take much longer to fill (1 minute for Temporal, something like 20-30 boff abilities for command).
Just changing the gather intel mechanic to auto-generation alone isn't enough - they also need to GREATLY reduce the time needed to generate enough stacks to unlock clickie use, and tie the time needed for it to ship rank - like, 2 seconds for rank 1, 4 for 2, 6 for 3 and 8 for 4 (and 5, of which only the Crystalline Entity is this rank - that I know of).
I believe it's already tied to rank.
Some ships like spheres require 10 charges. Others, like cubes, 15.
For me, they'd either need to make it auto-generate or reduce the amount of charges. Doing both might be too much, then GI would be much more potent than the other clicky abilities that take much longer to fill (1 minute for Temporal, something like 20-30 boff abilities for command).
But GI's Expose effects aren't all that impressive, regardless. They also only last 10 seconds at that. Compound that with the respective Expose cooldowns being long enough that you can't use the same one over and over.
There's just so much about Intel that's just not good. In fact, I'm trying to think of anything about Intel that I consider genuinely *good* and I'm drawing a blank.
Well, in that sense it's a good thing that it takes so long to build up. You're never going to need it more than 10 seconds once it's activated.
Seriously though, I agree. The effects may need some tweaking too. The only problem with discussing this, is that such tweaking needs to consider all characteristics (build-up time, size of the effect, cooldown, toggle or not and so on).
What I believe could work and still be reasonable:
- Auto-activate (no toggle required)
- Keep amount of charges required the same
- Slightly increase duration of effects (as the removal of the toggle will mean you build up charges sooner and more often, meaning that enemies will be around longer)
- Lower cooldowns
- Slightly tweak effects (depending on what is done with the other factors described here)
OR:
- No auto-activate (keep the toggle)
- Lower amount of charges required
- Increase the duration of effects significantly (as it will activate much faster, once you decide to use it, meaning the enemy will be around longer)
- Lower cooldowns significantly (as it will be used faster, once you decide to use it and it will be used more often)
- Slightly reduce intensity of effects (they'll be used more often, be active longer and be usable faster again)
OR yet another option:
- Simply change it to work like the Temporal ability, with charges being tied to your ship instead of a single enemy. That way you don't need to worry anymore about an enemy that gets killed just before the final charge is applied.
- In that case, also significantly increase the effect and duration.
As for intel abilities more broadly: Surgical strikes can be useful if you're mixing things like beams and cannons and you don't have too many tac stations on your ship. There are a few ships and builds where SuSt can help you save some rare tac boff seatings.
I've also got a toon who has access to the Son'a science ship trait - it increases crit chance based on the application of control abilities. In such a case, the probe thingy can be helpful.
These are obviously niches and not many people will find them useful. But then again, I'd argue that it's the same with many Command (never see many people use those either to be honest) and Pilot Boff abilities. These are specialisations after all, not everything needs to be a blunt damage increase thing. I think we've got plenty of those already.
I like intel ships, the Faeht being my favorite of the ones I have so far, but that is mainly because of the intel boff powers and the (very slight) increase in stealth at range.
I rarely use the GI track since (as many others have pointed out) even bosses rarely last long enough for it to be useful nowadays. Either it should be decoupled from the single-target mechanic and be applicable to another ship of the same class as the target when it is inevitably destroyed before GI is charged, or the stacks should be reduced or maybe even have it fire automatically at whatever the charge level is when the target gets below a certain health level or whatever.
I still think they will likely review Intel &/or Temporal as well, but I it may be a while; they don't need quite as much work as Command did. As people were asking for that to be revisited for 1-2 years or more. That comment you quoted had nothing to do with the D7 though, just a general thought replying to some concerns about Intel.
Though I do agree with you, I think the D7 will do well. Good Day!
I'm just saying that everything the devs do is driven by money...the buffing of Command is because currently the latest lock box and promo box ships have Command specialization. The devs also nerfed Intel into dust and I can't recall a single time where they nerfed something to oblivion and ever went back to rebalance it.
Besides this is a Klingon ship, that they know Klingon fans (And some Romulans) are going to want no matter what (which is also why it wasn't in the anniversary pack) There just isn't any profit in buffing Intel
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
Intel ships also come with Warp Signature Masking, which is a quasi-stealth that makes them untargetable at long range(8km+?).. for whatever that's worth. Hirogen ships natively get something similar from what I remember.
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.
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).
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.
For APL, that's entirely fair, because it does complete with APB(I do think people underestimate perception debuffs though - mobs basically become inactive when they don't have something they can target). Pilot Team, however, shares no cooldowns. It's "free" speed/turn and partial control immunity.
My high speed/strafing Acheros was my testbed for them, and after actually using them(and a few others I didn't find as compelling) in proper combat situations, I find both powers to be 'worth' slotting. (It's actually kind of dumb that I can circle-strafe things at point-blank range with my Acheros due to its poor inertia and over-tuned turn rate.)
Kind of makes me wish we had some Pilot Light Battlecruisers/Frigates in the game with really low inertia and pilot maneuvers..
Kemocite was recharged somewhat after it had been nerfed.
'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'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.
Clearly you haven't learned how to build around OSSIII...When you do you will find out that YES you are missing something. Having the extra miracle worker skills is good. with 27 of 47 plus OSS plus 1 or 2 miracle worker skills and then on top of that using best diplomat. Your power levels will always almost be full or over capped. You will have an even greater chance to keep power levels up based on how many tac skills you have on top of everything else I just said. My advice. Learn to build OSS correctly or don't buy the ship sir. Its that easy.
> @lianthelia said: > 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.
Science, at least I felt like it anyway, got a major nerf nuke, I want to say 8-9 years ago and didn't really become viable again until the last few years. The initial science console revamp was brutal and really hurt science builds initially. They got better, then they got worse again. Then they got better, and eventually overkill really good that we have now. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see EPG get a major nerf at some point down the road. ---------- Anyway, back to the topic at hand, For general use across the board, if I were ranking the primary specs, I'd probably go with Command>MW>Intel>Temporal>Pilot. Of the five, I do enjoy the most, though, but I do realize that Temporal does have a lot of pitfalls if used on something that's not science focused. Command and Miracle Worker I've used the most of by virtue that the two ships that I've played my 11 year old character in the last 6 years were Command and Miracle Worker cruisers. I get why people really like MW in regards to extra consoles amd the ability cycle, but as bridge officer abilities, I do think the most of the abilities make this really overrated when it's really just 2-3 abilities that are actually good. Command I feel like is more useful across the board, especially after the recent buff. Intel, I haven't really used enough of to have a solid opinion of, but what little I've used it, it does seem more useful than Temporal and Pilot on the surface. Yeah, the gather intel thing sucks if you do any decent amount of damage as you kill things quicker than it pops, but like itbers have said, for boss spawns it's fine. Intel also seems to cater more to lower damage players in it's current setup for the Gather Intel stuff. Pilot, that just feels super gimicky to me without much use on BOffs outside of for funsies stuff. Temporal is very combo focused and is one hardest, but one of the funner, ship specs to run with. Like what's already been said, Temporal shines the most with science, though I have a lot of fun with it on cruisers and escorts. From a purely for funsies stand point, Temporal is my go to, hands down, because it's more challenging. Pilot..... Pilot could really use some more love, imo.
> @cncshade said: > Clearly you haven't learned how to build around OSSIII...When you do you will find out that YES you are missing something. Having the extra miracle worker skills is good. with 27 of 47 plus OSS plus 1 or 2 miracle worker skills and then on top of that using best diplomat. Your power levels will always almost be full or over capped. You will have an even greater chance to keep power levels up based on how many tac skills you have on top of everything else I just said. My advice. Learn to build OSS correctly or don't buy the ship sir. Its that easy.
I'm going to counter this with not everyone wants to use the same copy & paste build of OSS every time. I did a Reroute Power from Life Support 3 and OSS 3 set up on the legendary Gal-X out of curiosity. Yeah, my power levels were nutso. Yeah, I could probably do something over the top with that. But will I? Probably not because that is not my play style for how I like to play this game. Would I do an OSS 3 setup on the D7, if I were to buy that? Maybe out of curiosity for 30 minutes before I'd go back to something that was more to my liking.
> @lianthelia said:
> 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.
Science, at least I felt like it anyway, got a major nerf nuke, I want to say 8-9 years ago and didn't really become viable again until the last few years. The initial science console revamp was brutal and really hurt science builds initially. They got better, then they got worse again. Then they got better, and eventually overkill really good that we have now. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see EPG get a major nerf at some point down the road.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, For general use across the board, if I were ranking the primary specs, I'd probably go with Command>MW>Intel>Temporal>Pilot. Of the five, I do enjoy the most, though, but I do realize that Temporal does have a lot of pitfalls if used on something that's not science focused. Command and Miracle Worker I've used the most of by virtue that the two ships that I've played my 11 year old character in the last 6 years were Command and Miracle Worker cruisers. I get why people really like MW in regards to extra consoles amd the ability cycle, but as bridge officer abilities, I do think the most of the abilities make this really overrated when it's really just 2-3 abilities that are actually good. Command I feel like is more useful across the board, especially after the recent buff. Intel, I haven't really used enough of to have a solid opinion of, but what little I've used it, it does seem more useful than Temporal and Pilot on the surface. Yeah, the gather intel thing sucks if you do any decent amount of damage as you kill things quicker than it pops, but like itbers have said, for boss spawns it's fine. Intel also seems to cater more to lower damage players in it's current setup for the Gather Intel stuff. Pilot, that just feels super gimicky to me without much use on BOffs outside of for funsies stuff. Temporal is very combo focused and is one hardest, but one of the funner, ship specs to run with. Like what's already been said, Temporal shines the most with science, though I have a lot of fun with it on cruisers and escorts. From a purely for funsies stand point, Temporal is my go to, hands down, because it's more challenging. Pilot..... Pilot could really use some more love, imo.
> @cncshade said:
> Clearly you haven't learned how to build around OSSIII...When you do you will find out that YES you are missing something. Having the extra miracle worker skills is good. with 27 of 47 plus OSS plus 1 or 2 miracle worker skills and then on top of that using best diplomat. Your power levels will always almost be full or over capped. You will have an even greater chance to keep power levels up based on how many tac skills you have on top of everything else I just said. My advice. Learn to build OSS correctly or don't buy the ship sir. Its that easy.
I'm going to counter this with not everyone wants to use the same copy & paste build of OSS every time. I did a Reroute Power from Life Support 3 and OSS 3 set up on the legendary Gal-X out of curiosity. Yeah, my power levels were nutso. Yeah, I could probably do something over the top with that. But will I? Probably not because that is not my play style for how I like to play this game. Would I do an OSS 3 setup on the D7, if I were to buy that? Maybe out of curiosity for 30 minutes before I'd go back to something that was more to my liking.
I mean thats fine. You are not complaining about a ship you DON'T have to get. You can build how you want. I was just telling the OP that he IS in FACT missing something. Also the build I posted is not copy and paste.
I had an idea that perhaps it could be changed to generating static counters (like "History Will Remember") that would give a small combat bonus, that remain until you leave the map... each counter would be earned by damaging a ship of the same faction, and only effective against that faction.
The concept being that the longer you fight them, the more you learn their weaknesses.
Yes something along that line would be nice to see. Intel would be good if identify weakness, not only helped against 1 target, but more applied as a (passive) to perhaps several of one Species/Class of enemy; that either undid some immunity or resistance while perhaps slightly boosting another consistent with Intel focus. I think many of the criticisms of Intel are fair, in that most never bother gathering Intel cause the Ship is gone, before they realize any benefit.
There's a number of ways they could address this and suspect they will, now that they've addressed the larger problem with Command.
I admit that's my opinion, yet I believe they'll strongly consider slightly revising Intel, and Temporal perhaps afterward. Yet it won't likely be anything that fast either...
Kind of makes me wish we had some Pilot Light Battlecruisers/Frigates in the game with really low inertia and pilot maneuvers..
I would support this. The Deleth light battlecruiser (and its Fed and KDF counterparts) is cool because it is a battlecruiser with a lt cmdr pilot seat, but it would be so much better if it was a cmdr eng/pilot seat with pilot maneuvers.
As far as I am aware, there are no full pilot spec ships that are not escorts. This makes Pilot the most unbalanced specialization in terms of ship choice.
Kind of makes me wish we had some Pilot Light Battlecruisers/Frigates in the game with really low inertia and pilot maneuvers..
I would support this. The Deleth light battlecruiser (and its Fed and KDF counterparts) is cool because it is a battlecruiser with a lt cmdr pilot seat, but it would be so much better if it was a cmdr eng/pilot seat with pilot maneuvers.
As far as I am aware, there are no full pilot spec ships that are not escorts. This makes Pilot the most unbalanced specialization in terms of ship choice.
The Jellyfish is a full-spec Science Ship. Honestly, I think Science ships/builds are a better fit for the Pilot Maneuvers than most DEW setups, because you can jump around for deflector powers and jump in/out for PBAoEs.
The working theory I have for the low inertia pilot cruisers would be they'd excel at power-drifting around(effectively rendering lock trajectory obsolete) and using the maneuvers to course-correct/rapidly reposition(low inertia also effects acceleration and braking, especially during turns/drifts).
I think pilot maneuvers are a problem because they are just so acrobatic. While there isn't a real reason they can't work on light cruisers or science ships, they already look a little silly on escorts, and only work because the ships they are on have a much more airplane style look.
If you imagine something like the New Orleans class doing a roll maneuver, with that galaxy-esque saucer. It would look awfully wrong, even though for the size of that ship it should be able to. Even a Nova class with its standard Starfleet ship layout, it would look really weird doing the rolls.
Kind of makes me wish we had some Pilot Light Battlecruisers/Frigates in the game with really low inertia and pilot maneuvers..
I would support this. The Deleth light battlecruiser (and its Fed and KDF counterparts) is cool because it is a battlecruiser with a lt cmdr pilot seat, but it would be so much better if it was a cmdr eng/pilot seat with pilot maneuvers.
As far as I am aware, there are no full pilot spec ships that are not escorts. This makes Pilot the most unbalanced specialization in terms of ship choice.
The Jellyfish is a full-spec Science Ship. Honestly, I think Science ships/builds are a better fit for the Pilot Maneuvers than most DEW setups, because you can jump around for deflector powers and jump in/out for PBAoEs.
The working theory I have for the low inertia pilot cruisers would be they'd excel at power-drifting around(effectively rendering lock trajectory obsolete) and using the maneuvers to course-correct/rapidly reposition(low inertia also effects acceleration and braking, especially during turns/drifts).
Point taken about low-inertia.
As for the Jellyfish, I tend not to count that ship because it is a nearly unobtainable promo ship.
I think pilot maneuvers are a problem because they are just so acrobatic. While there isn't a real reason they can't work on light cruisers or science ships, they already look a little silly on escorts, and only work because the ships they are on have a much more airplane style look.
If you imagine something like the New Orleans class doing a roll maneuver, with that galaxy-esque saucer. It would look awfully wrong, even though for the size of that ship it should be able to. Even a Nova class with its standard Starfleet ship layout, it would look really weird doing the rolls.
I think they need to redesign the pilot maneuvers so they are less "acrobatic", particularly the evade left and evade right maneuvers. They also need to change the controller key bind for them on Console, IMO.
Personally I love intel team with Exitus...minor boost to control and weapon damage...but most importantly, during PvP, this is a really annoying combo as you become untargetable to all those silly vape builds who ignore their aux for 9 out of 15 seconds.
Yup, Int and pilot (double Int team, double APL, plus Exitus) is my favorite combination. While it's more a PvP setup it works great for PvE as well, perhaps better since there's ways for players to overcome the combo, but AI isn't going to adapt. Only times I typically take a lot of damage in space TFOs is when my boff abilities get randomly dropped from the tray that are used in key binds... So annoying. Exitus isn't really a counter to vape builds, those were largely made obsolete by the Invincibility trait a long time ago. I'd say it's more a counter to typical aux2bat dog fighter builds that don't consider perception important.
Science, at least I felt like it anyway, got a major nerf nuke, I want to say 8-9 years ago and didn't really become viable again until the last few years. The initial science console revamp was brutal and really hurt science builds initially. They got better, then they got worse again. Then they got better, and eventually overkill really good that we have now. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see EPG get a major nerf at some point down the road.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, For general use across the board, if I were ranking the primary specs, I'd probably go with Command>MW>Intel>Temporal>Pilot. Of the five, I do enjoy the most, though, but I do realize that Temporal does have a lot of pitfalls if used on something that's not science focused. Command and Miracle Worker I've used the most of by virtue that the two ships that I've played my 11 year old character in the last 6 years were Command and Miracle Worker cruisers. I get why people really like MW in regards to extra consoles amd the ability cycle, but as bridge officer abilities, I do think the most of the abilities make this really overrated when it's really just 2-3 abilities that are actually good. Command I feel like is more useful across the board, especially after the recent buff. Intel, I haven't really used enough of to have a solid opinion of, but what little I've used it, it does seem more useful than Temporal and Pilot on the surface. Yeah, the gather intel thing sucks if you do any decent amount of damage as you kill things quicker than it pops, but like itbers have said, for boss spawns it's fine. Intel also seems to cater more to lower damage players in it's current setup for the Gather Intel stuff. Pilot, that just feels super gimicky to me without much use on BOffs outside of for funsies stuff. Temporal is very combo focused and is one hardest, but one of the funner, ship specs to run with. Like what's already been said, Temporal shines the most with science, though I have a lot of fun with it on cruisers and escorts. From a purely for funsies stand point, Temporal is my go to, hands down, because it's more challenging. Pilot..... Pilot could really use some more love, imo.
But Science was never useless it just got nerfed because of Tac players exploiting it
I'm talking about things that were powerful and the devs nerfed into total oblivion...like the embassy science console for example, it went from the most powerful science console slot bar none to nerfed into total uselessness
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
But Science was never useless it just got nerfed because of Tac players exploiting it
I'm talking about things that were powerful and the devs nerfed into total oblivion...like the embassy science console for example, it went from the most powerful science console slot bar none to nerfed into total uselessness
The problem with things like plasma exploders, feedback pulse, plasmonic leech, and similar is they became THE answer in all cases. If you wanted to do DPS, you got a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to tank you grabbed a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to do science, you got plasma exploders, a leech, and feedback pulse. If you wanted to do any semblance of anything, the general attitude was you were doing it wrong. Wasn't purely because of the Tac toons, though that was a good part of it.
"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
But Science was never useless it just got nerfed because of Tac players exploiting it
I'm talking about things that were powerful and the devs nerfed into total oblivion...like the embassy science console for example, it went from the most powerful science console slot bar none to nerfed into total uselessness
The problem with things like plasma exploders, feedback pulse, plasmonic leech, and similar is they became THE answer in all cases. If you wanted to do DPS, you got a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to tank you grabbed a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to do science, you got plasma exploders, a leech, and feedback pulse. If you wanted to do any semblance of anything, the general attitude was you were doing it wrong. Wasn't purely because of the Tac toons, though that was a good part of it.
Well back in the day when it originally got nerfed it was all Tac's fault. Back then it used to do exotic damage (before they changed it to kinetic that ignored shields) It got nerfed because tac players would get in science ships and just do tons of shield ignoring damage. (Back before we had hull or shield penetration, massive damage console stacking, or tons of crit)
Can't have a honest conversation because of a white knight with power
But Science was never useless it just got nerfed because of Tac players exploiting it
I'm talking about things that were powerful and the devs nerfed into total oblivion...like the embassy science console for example, it went from the most powerful science console slot bar none to nerfed into total uselessness
The problem with things like plasma exploders, feedback pulse, plasmonic leech, and similar is they became THE answer in all cases. If you wanted to do DPS, you got a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to tank you grabbed a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to do science, you got plasma exploders, a leech, and feedback pulse. If you wanted to do any semblance of anything, the general attitude was you were doing it wrong. Wasn't purely because of the Tac toons, though that was a good part of it.
Well back in the day when it originally got nerfed it was all Tac's fault. Back then it used to do exotic damage (before they changed it to kinetic that ignored shields) It got nerfed because tac players would get in science ships and just do tons of shield ignoring damage. (Back before we had hull or shield penetration, massive damage console stacking, or tons of crit)
All 3 professions were taking advantage of the consoles. Before their first change they used to add a plasma burn to everything, and buffed actual plasma weapons, hence the term plasma doping. Then it was changed to the shield ignoring explosion which made it worse if anything. Finally they were changed to what we know them as today. Tac wasn't the only profession doing this, tac just had the easiest time with it.
"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
I remember when feedback pulse was nerfed. It was at the center of my PvP sci dreadnaught build, and I was irritated at the time because the nerf made it impossible for me to compete with Tac's in 1v1 PvP. Before the nerf, it was easy to bait a Tac into trying to vape me, only to get vaped by their own weapons' feedback.
In retro spect, I think the nerfs were a good call. I think that forcing a player to use up a starship trait in order to use feedback pulse at full strength brings more balance to the skill. I still use plasma exploders on my eject warp plasma/coolant ignition build to double up on exotic plasma damage and EPG in one console. The plasma explosion proc is just a side bonus.
Comments
I believe it's already tied to rank.
Some ships like spheres require 10 charges. Others, like cubes, 15.
For me, they'd either need to make it auto-generate or reduce the amount of charges. Doing both might be too much, then GI would be much more potent than the other clicky abilities that take much longer to fill (1 minute for Temporal, something like 20-30 boff abilities for command).
Well, in that sense it's a good thing that it takes so long to build up. You're never going to need it more than 10 seconds once it's activated.
Seriously though, I agree. The effects may need some tweaking too. The only problem with discussing this, is that such tweaking needs to consider all characteristics (build-up time, size of the effect, cooldown, toggle or not and so on).
What I believe could work and still be reasonable:
- Auto-activate (no toggle required)
- Keep amount of charges required the same
- Slightly increase duration of effects (as the removal of the toggle will mean you build up charges sooner and more often, meaning that enemies will be around longer)
- Lower cooldowns
- Slightly tweak effects (depending on what is done with the other factors described here)
OR:
- No auto-activate (keep the toggle)
- Lower amount of charges required
- Increase the duration of effects significantly (as it will activate much faster, once you decide to use it, meaning the enemy will be around longer)
- Lower cooldowns significantly (as it will be used faster, once you decide to use it and it will be used more often)
- Slightly reduce intensity of effects (they'll be used more often, be active longer and be usable faster again)
OR yet another option:
- Simply change it to work like the Temporal ability, with charges being tied to your ship instead of a single enemy. That way you don't need to worry anymore about an enemy that gets killed just before the final charge is applied.
- In that case, also significantly increase the effect and duration.
I've also got a toon who has access to the Son'a science ship trait - it increases crit chance based on the application of control abilities. In such a case, the probe thingy can be helpful.
These are obviously niches and not many people will find them useful. But then again, I'd argue that it's the same with many Command (never see many people use those either to be honest) and Pilot Boff abilities. These are specialisations after all, not everything needs to be a blunt damage increase thing. I think we've got plenty of those already.
I rarely use the GI track since (as many others have pointed out) even bosses rarely last long enough for it to be useful nowadays. Either it should be decoupled from the single-target mechanic and be applicable to another ship of the same class as the target when it is inevitably destroyed before GI is charged, or the stacks should be reduced or maybe even have it fire automatically at whatever the charge level is when the target gets below a certain health level or whatever.
I'm just saying that everything the devs do is driven by money...the buffing of Command is because currently the latest lock box and promo box ships have Command specialization. The devs also nerfed Intel into dust and I can't recall a single time where they nerfed something to oblivion and ever went back to rebalance it.
Besides this is a Klingon ship, that they know Klingon fans (And some Romulans) are going to want no matter what (which is also why it wasn't in the anniversary pack) There just isn't any profit in buffing Intel
For APL, that's entirely fair, because it does complete with APB(I do think people underestimate perception debuffs though - mobs basically become inactive when they don't have something they can target). Pilot Team, however, shares no cooldowns. It's "free" speed/turn and partial control immunity.
My high speed/strafing Acheros was my testbed for them, and after actually using them(and a few others I didn't find as compelling) in proper combat situations, I find both powers to be 'worth' slotting. (It's actually kind of dumb that I can circle-strafe things at point-blank range with my Acheros due to its poor inertia and over-tuned turn rate.)
Kind of makes me wish we had some Pilot Light Battlecruisers/Frigates in the game with really low inertia and pilot maneuvers..
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.'
Clearly you haven't learned how to build around OSSIII...When you do you will find out that YES you are missing something. Having the extra miracle worker skills is good. with 27 of 47 plus OSS plus 1 or 2 miracle worker skills and then on top of that using best diplomat. Your power levels will always almost be full or over capped. You will have an even greater chance to keep power levels up based on how many tac skills you have on top of everything else I just said. My advice. Learn to build OSS correctly or don't buy the ship sir. Its that easy.
> 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.
Science, at least I felt like it anyway, got a major nerf nuke, I want to say 8-9 years ago and didn't really become viable again until the last few years. The initial science console revamp was brutal and really hurt science builds initially. They got better, then they got worse again. Then they got better, and eventually overkill really good that we have now. Wouldn't surprise me a bit to see EPG get a major nerf at some point down the road.
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Anyway, back to the topic at hand, For general use across the board, if I were ranking the primary specs, I'd probably go with Command>MW>Intel>Temporal>Pilot. Of the five, I do enjoy the most, though, but I do realize that Temporal does have a lot of pitfalls if used on something that's not science focused. Command and Miracle Worker I've used the most of by virtue that the two ships that I've played my 11 year old character in the last 6 years were Command and Miracle Worker cruisers. I get why people really like MW in regards to extra consoles amd the ability cycle, but as bridge officer abilities, I do think the most of the abilities make this really overrated when it's really just 2-3 abilities that are actually good. Command I feel like is more useful across the board, especially after the recent buff. Intel, I haven't really used enough of to have a solid opinion of, but what little I've used it, it does seem more useful than Temporal and Pilot on the surface. Yeah, the gather intel thing sucks if you do any decent amount of damage as you kill things quicker than it pops, but like itbers have said, for boss spawns it's fine. Intel also seems to cater more to lower damage players in it's current setup for the Gather Intel stuff. Pilot, that just feels super gimicky to me without much use on BOffs outside of for funsies stuff. Temporal is very combo focused and is one hardest, but one of the funner, ship specs to run with. Like what's already been said, Temporal shines the most with science, though I have a lot of fun with it on cruisers and escorts. From a purely for funsies stand point, Temporal is my go to, hands down, because it's more challenging. Pilot..... Pilot could really use some more love, imo.
> @cncshade said:
> Clearly you haven't learned how to build around OSSIII...When you do you will find out that YES you are missing something. Having the extra miracle worker skills is good. with 27 of 47 plus OSS plus 1 or 2 miracle worker skills and then on top of that using best diplomat. Your power levels will always almost be full or over capped. You will have an even greater chance to keep power levels up based on how many tac skills you have on top of everything else I just said. My advice. Learn to build OSS correctly or don't buy the ship sir. Its that easy.
I'm going to counter this with not everyone wants to use the same copy & paste build of OSS every time. I did a Reroute Power from Life Support 3 and OSS 3 set up on the legendary Gal-X out of curiosity. Yeah, my power levels were nutso. Yeah, I could probably do something over the top with that. But will I? Probably not because that is not my play style for how I like to play this game. Would I do an OSS 3 setup on the D7, if I were to buy that? Maybe out of curiosity for 30 minutes before I'd go back to something that was more to my liking.
I mean thats fine. You are not complaining about a ship you DON'T have to get. You can build how you want. I was just telling the OP that he IS in FACT missing something. Also the build I posted is not copy and paste.
Yes something along that line would be nice to see. Intel would be good if identify weakness, not only helped against 1 target, but more applied as a (passive) to perhaps several of one Species/Class of enemy; that either undid some immunity or resistance while perhaps slightly boosting another consistent with Intel focus. I think many of the criticisms of Intel are fair, in that most never bother gathering Intel cause the Ship is gone, before they realize any benefit.
There's a number of ways they could address this and suspect they will, now that they've addressed the larger problem with Command.
I admit that's my opinion, yet I believe they'll strongly consider slightly revising Intel, and Temporal perhaps afterward. Yet it won't likely be anything that fast either...
I would support this. The Deleth light battlecruiser (and its Fed and KDF counterparts) is cool because it is a battlecruiser with a lt cmdr pilot seat, but it would be so much better if it was a cmdr eng/pilot seat with pilot maneuvers.
As far as I am aware, there are no full pilot spec ships that are not escorts. This makes Pilot the most unbalanced specialization in terms of ship choice.
The Jellyfish is a full-spec Science Ship. Honestly, I think Science ships/builds are a better fit for the Pilot Maneuvers than most DEW setups, because you can jump around for deflector powers and jump in/out for PBAoEs.
The working theory I have for the low inertia pilot cruisers would be they'd excel at power-drifting around(effectively rendering lock trajectory obsolete) and using the maneuvers to course-correct/rapidly reposition(low inertia also effects acceleration and braking, especially during turns/drifts).
If you imagine something like the New Orleans class doing a roll maneuver, with that galaxy-esque saucer. It would look awfully wrong, even though for the size of that ship it should be able to. Even a Nova class with its standard Starfleet ship layout, it would look really weird doing the rolls.
Point taken about low-inertia.
As for the Jellyfish, I tend not to count that ship because it is a nearly unobtainable promo ship.
I think they need to redesign the pilot maneuvers so they are less "acrobatic", particularly the evade left and evade right maneuvers. They also need to change the controller key bind for them on Console, IMO.
Yup, Int and pilot (double Int team, double APL, plus Exitus) is my favorite combination. While it's more a PvP setup it works great for PvE as well, perhaps better since there's ways for players to overcome the combo, but AI isn't going to adapt. Only times I typically take a lot of damage in space TFOs is when my boff abilities get randomly dropped from the tray that are used in key binds... So annoying. Exitus isn't really a counter to vape builds, those were largely made obsolete by the Invincibility trait a long time ago. I'd say it's more a counter to typical aux2bat dog fighter builds that don't consider perception important.
But Science was never useless it just got nerfed because of Tac players exploiting it
I'm talking about things that were powerful and the devs nerfed into total oblivion...like the embassy science console for example, it went from the most powerful science console slot bar none to nerfed into total uselessness
The problem with things like plasma exploders, feedback pulse, plasmonic leech, and similar is they became THE answer in all cases. If you wanted to do DPS, you got a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to tank you grabbed a leech, plasma exploders and feedback pulse. You wanted to do science, you got plasma exploders, a leech, and feedback pulse. If you wanted to do any semblance of anything, the general attitude was you were doing it wrong. Wasn't purely because of the Tac toons, though that was a good part of it.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
Well back in the day when it originally got nerfed it was all Tac's fault. Back then it used to do exotic damage (before they changed it to kinetic that ignored shields) It got nerfed because tac players would get in science ships and just do tons of shield ignoring damage. (Back before we had hull or shield penetration, massive damage console stacking, or tons of crit)
All 3 professions were taking advantage of the consoles. Before their first change they used to add a plasma burn to everything, and buffed actual plasma weapons, hence the term plasma doping. Then it was changed to the shield ignoring explosion which made it worse if anything. Finally they were changed to what we know them as today. Tac wasn't the only profession doing this, tac just had the easiest time with it.
Star Trek Online volunteer Community Moderator
In retro spect, I think the nerfs were a good call. I think that forcing a player to use up a starship trait in order to use feedback pulse at full strength brings more balance to the skill. I still use plasma exploders on my eject warp plasma/coolant ignition build to double up on exotic plasma damage and EPG in one console. The plasma explosion proc is just a side bonus.