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Why force the Ensign slot?

SystemSystem Member, NoReporting Posts: 178,019 Arc User
I just tested the MVAM ship on Tribble. It has an ensign tac slot...which I totally do not like.

Why not give us that slot as universal so we can put it on eng or sci instead if we want to?

At any rate, I've decided not to buy this ship as I can't run Eng Team, EP to Shields, and EP to Weapons like I can on my Fleet Escort.

This ship doesn't fit my play style.

Comments are welcome.
Post edited by Unknown User on

Comments

  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    ThetaNine wrote:
    I just tested the MVAM ship on Tribble. It has an ensign tac slot...which I totally do not like.

    Why not give us that slot as universal so we can put it on eng or sci instead if we wan to?

    At any rate, I've decided not to buy this ship as I can't run Eng Team, EP to Shields, and EP to Weapons like I can on my Fleet Escort.

    This ship doesn't fit my play style.

    Comments are welcome.


    Welcome to the World of the kdf raptor.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Well, the RA Advanced Escort has the Ensign on Science. You're honestly just trading one for the other.

    Mind you, it's annoying to buy the whole ship for the console and then stick it in the RA Advanced, but apparently that's the way it works for now.

    Also, if the Advanced Escort could serve as a Fleet Escort then there wouldn't be any need for a Fleet Escort, then would there? OTOH, maybe the Fleet Escort could be given a MVAM so it could take the console?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Better yet, collapse the Advanced Escort and Fleet Escort into just being Escorts with different designs and a universal slot.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I often see this complaint and I do, really wonder why it keeps coming up regarding escorts, especially with the massive buff to tactical team...

    I see 3 powers that are useful within the ensign spot if you're playing an escort with just cannons and torp...

    Tactical team
    Torpedo spread
    High yield Torpedo

    Tactical team has had a massive buff recently that makes it worth it's weight in gold, definitely worth taking
    Torpedo Spread, situational usage, but still nice for those few occasions where people cluster up, does trigger a 15s global cooldown on HYT, but if you're still waiting for your hyt to come off it's own cooldown, give it a shot.
    High Yield Torpedo, pretty obvious how good this skill is, from HYT1 all the way up to 3. Even if you already have a higher tier version of this skill it's still worth taking the ensign slot version due to the 15s global coodown compared to the 30s cooldown if you just took the one higher tier version. It could even be argued that you could equip 2 ensign HYTs (firing one every 15s) and cut out the higher tier version to make room for another cannon skill or attack pattern.

    If you're playing an escort with a mix of beams, cannons and torps then your options go up even further...

    Beam:Fire at will
    Beam Overload
    Beam:Target Subsystem X


    Fire at will is great for clearing out pet/mine spam even at lower tiers.
    Overload is always good f against hull, pull the shields down with your cannons and then hit with a combo of beam overload and HYT for massive damage, even cruisers should have trouble shrugging off the damage of this combo, even with the ensign tier

    Same thing regarding global cooldowns apply to all these powers, they share a 15s global cooldown so it's never worth taking more than 2, unless you plan on using one under very specific circumstances.

    There's really only a couple of combos where an ensign slot could be useless... A heavy mine build or a Tric build. Sure, for these builds the ensign slot might not be useful, but every now and then you have to make a trade off... In the case of a Tric build, the trade off is that you have a super powerful torp/mine that can only be fired once a minute (I believe, not equipped a tric mine/torp in a loooooooong time) but makes most of the tactical abilities useless to you.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    ThetaNine wrote:
    I just tested the MVAM ship on Tribble. It has an ensign tac slot...which I totally do not like.

    Why not give us that slot as universal so we can put it on eng or sci instead if we want to?

    At any rate, I've decided not to buy this ship as I can't run Eng Team, EP to Shields, and EP to Weapons like I can on my Fleet Escort.

    This ship doesn't fit my play style.

    Comments are welcome.

    In case you haven't noticed, every Fed Ship Class has 3 versions, each of which are set up to add an additional boost to either Tac, Eng or Sci. The Advanced MVAM is the Science version, offering a LtC. Science BOFF slot over the other two Escorts.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Blayyde wrote:
    Well, the RA Advanced Escort has the Ensign on Science. You're honestly just trading one for the other.

    Mind you, it's annoying to buy the whole ship for the console and then stick it in the RA Advanced, but apparently that's the way it works for now.

    Also, if the Advanced Escort could serve as a Fleet Escort then there wouldn't be any need for a Fleet Escort, then would there? OTOH, maybe the Fleet Escort could be given a MVAM so it could take the console?
    The problem is that an Ensign Sci or Eng slot is infinitely more valuable if you're running cannons (as most escorts do) than a Tactical. The only things you can really put there are beam powers, Tactical Team (which you probably already have on the Commander-level tactical slot) or torpedo powers. I can't speak for anyone else, but my HYT3 resets before I would even need to use a HYT1, so that's worthless, and Spread is never really useful. So basically there is nothing available for that slot. Even still, having a repeated HYT is infinitely less useful than any number of possible Sci or Eng powers at the Ensign level.

    So really the problem is less about "why do we have this Tactical Ensign slot?" and more about "Why is there only one viable Ensign skill for the most common build type, Cannon-focused?" I don't think there's much argument that Tactical ensign powers are by far the weakest of the three in terms of variability and usefulness.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I'd disagree, Personally I'd look at Engineers for the weakest of the 3 at ensign... they have a total of 5 skills that can be trained, 4 of which share a global cooldown, and the 5th one shares a global cooldown with two other very useful skills... :eek:
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    I don't get the problem. Get the console, put it on your old advanced escort...problem solved. No?
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    Personally, I like it allot better. The LTC Science allows for more flex ability I think. As for the tactical ensign, I did like did on my defiant retrofit and use torpedo spread or Hi Yield 1
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    ThetaNine wrote:
    I just tested the MVAM ship on Tribble. It has an ensign tac slot...which I totally do not like.

    Why not give us that slot as universal so we can put it on eng or sci instead if we want to?

    At any rate, I've decided not to buy this ship as I can't run Eng Team, EP to Shields, and EP to Weapons like I can on my Fleet Escort.

    This ship doesn't fit my play style.

    Comments are welcome.

    Dude, a lot of people have been asking for an esign uni slot for the Tactical Escort-R for quite some time. I can safely say that I feel your pain.
  • Archived PostArchived Post Member Posts: 2,264,498 Arc User
    edited March 2011
    adohi wrote:
    Welcome to the World of the kdf raptor.
    This. This right here.
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