Rapid-Fire Transphasics have been buffed! But does that make them useful?

System · May 2011

Copied from the tribble forums, here are the new stats:

[Transphasic Torpedo Launcher Mk XI] on the Holodeck server:

Common Ship Weapon
Bind On Pickup

Transphasic Torpedo

Kinetic Damage with 20% Bonus Shield Penetration
90' Targeting Arc
2055 Kinetic Damage (196 DPS) (normalized)
- Value: 9,730 EC
  - More Information:
    
    Transphasic torpedoes have an additional 20% shield penetration. Torpedoes are high damage projectiles that are effective against ship hulls, but shields absorb most of the impact.
    - 0.1 Energy
    - Targets Foe (10 max)
    - 90' targeting arc
    - 10 kilometer range; 0.3 kilometer sphere
    - 0.5 sec activate
    - 10 sec recharge
  - Attributes that affect this skill;
    - Starship Projectile Weapons Training
    - Starship Torpedo Weapons
    - Starship Transphasic Projectiles

Here's the OLD stats of the [Rapid Fire Transphasic Torpedo Launcher Mk XI] on the Holodeck server:

Very Rare Ship Weapon
Bind On Pickup

Rapid Fire Transphasic Torpedo

Kinetic Damage with 20% Bonus Shield Penetration
90' Targeting Arc
1660 Kinetic Damage (195 DPS) (normalized)
- Value: 38,918 EC
  - More Information:
    
    Transphasic torpedoes have an additional 20% shield penetration. Torpedoes are high damage projectiles that are effective against ship hulls, but shields absorb most of the impact.
    - 0.1 Energy
    - Targets Foe (10 max)
    - 90' targeting arc
    - 10 kilometer range; 0.3 kilometer sphere
    - 0.5 sec activate
    - 8 sec recharge
  - Attributes that affect this skill;
    - Starship Projectile Weapons Training
    - Starship Torpedo Weapons
    - Starship Transphasic Projectiles

Here's the NEW stats of the [Rapid Fire Transphasic Torpedo Launcher Mk XI] on the Holodeck server:

Very Rare Ship Weapon
Bind On Pickup

Rapid Fire Transphasic Torpedo

Kinetic Damage with 20% Bonus Shield Penetration
90' Targeting Arc
2055 Kinetic Damage (242 DPS) (normalized)
+20% Critical Severity (normalized)
+10% Accuracy (normalized)
- Value: 38,918 EC
  - More Information:
    
    Transphasic torpedoes have an additional 20% shield penetration. Torpedoes are high damage projectiles that are effective against ship hulls, but shields absorb most of the impact.
    - 0.1 Energy
    - Targets Foe (10 max)
    - 90' targeting arc
    - 10 kilometer range; 0.3 kilometer sphere
    - 0.5 sec activate
    - 8 sec recharge
  - Attributes that affect this skill;
    - Starship Projectile Weapons Training
    - Starship Torpedo Weapons
    - Starship Transphasic Projectiles

Archived Post · May 2011

As you can see, the new RF transphasic does the same base damage as a standard transphasic, but with the 8 second cooldown. They have slightly better DPS than chronitons, slightly worse than plasmas now. The extra critical and accuracy are nice too.

Since all torpedoes only have value as burst damage weapons due to global cooldown and high yield being the only torpedo power with a damn, this improvement doesn't help that much.

Perhaps if one fit three rapid fire transphasics (to fire off one every three seconds), fit two out of the three of the breen set (for the transphasic bonus) and had nothing but transphasic compressors for tactical consoles, might they do some decent damage?

I will be throwing away my last free respec tomorrow to test this hypothesis.

Archived Post · May 2011

Yea, you would do decent damage, but still not as effective as a HY chain of quantums. Even with the shield penetration your not going to do enough hull damage to matter. If they just got rid of the global cooldown for torps, or made it like 1-2 seconds, an all torp or mostly torp build could work.

Archived Post · May 2011

JojoTheIndianCircusBoy wrote:

Yea, you would do decent damage, but still not as effective as a HY chain of quantums.

Well If I hit first with a HY3 chain of transphasics then followed up every 3 seconds with another transphasic. I want to see if that would work. I'd be flying my Excelsior and tanking/turning to keep my forward arc toward the target. Excelsior has the turn rate to do that pretty well.

Archived Post · May 2011

Copy your character to tribble and use the respec there first. This kind of experimentation is perfect for tribble.

Archived Post · May 2011

I use the transphasics, but I don't have Hi yield 3 and haven't been able to get it. Still patching so I'll get back on it laters.

Archived Post · May 2011

videm wrote:

Copy your character to tribble and use the respec there first. This kind of experimentation is perfect for tribble.

^^This!

Its what I do when testing anything ingame.

Archived Post · May 2011

JojoTheIndianCircusBoy wrote:

Yea, you would do decent damage, but still not as effective as a HY chain of quantums. Even with the shield penetration your not going to do enough hull damage to matter. If they just got rid of the global cooldown for torps, or made it like 1-2 seconds, an all torp or mostly torp build could work.

I think thats what Cryptic trying to keep from happening.

Could you imagine what space combat would be like if there was no global cool down on torpedo weapons?

Wed be at the mercy of every Tactical Captain flying an Escort.

Fore Weapons:
2 x Quantum Torpedo
2 x Dual Heavy Cannon

Aft Weapons
2 x Quantum Torpedo

Commander Tactical Station:
THY1, RF1 THY3, APO3
Lt. Commander Tactical Station
TT1, THY2, THY3

Im sure that someone that specializes in Escorts could come up with a much more potent build.

Dont get me wrong; I think it would be great to have an all torpedo build; however, Escorts are already little death machines and theyd be the only class vessel that could really benefit from a no or reduced global cool down on torpedoes.

Dont get me started on what BOP and Raptors could do in a world without global Torpedo Cool Downs :eek:

Archived Post · May 2011

Well, looking at those numbers and comparing them to the following quantum scale:

Quantums:
quant vs bare hull: 1.0
quant damage to hull through shield: 0.1
quant damage to shields: 0.225
quant total damage on a shielded target: 0.325

Rapid Fire upgrade:
Rapid-fire Transphasic vs bare hull: 0.652
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to hull through shield: 0.183
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to shields: 0.117
Rapid-fire Transphasic total damage on a shielded target: 0.3

So the answer to "Rapid-Fire Transphasics have been buffed! But does that make them useful?" is no.

The vast majority of the time, you'll still wind up taking down the shield facing before you kill the target. The rapid fires do only 65% of the damage on naked hull. On a shielded target, quantums do 8.3% more damage.

Shielded or un-shielded, quantums do more. Only in rare cases will the 83% higher bleedthrough make up for the inferior all around damage.

The devs gave the torp only about half the bump it needs to be worth using. Should be something like:

2450 Kinetic Damage (288 DPS) (normalized) which would result in the following numbers, quantum scale.

Rapid-fire Transphasic vs bare hull: 0.78
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to hull through shield: 0.218
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to shields: 0.140
Rapid-fire Transphasic total damage on a shielded target: 0.359

22% less damage against a naked hull. But 118% more bleedthrough damage and 10.5% more total damage against a shielded target.

That said, if this change (the one in the patch) is made with the intention that the torpedo will benefit from the balance pass on torp types in the future, then this torpedo will either be overpowered or else standard transphasics will remain underpowered. Balanced regular transphasics means that a rapid fire version that deals 23% more DPS will be way above where it should be.

Archived Post · May 2011

0Gambit0 wrote: »

I think thats what Cryptic trying to keep from happening.

Could you imagine what space combat would be like if there was no global cool down on torpedo weapons?

Wed be at the mercy of every Tactical Captain flying an Escort.

And unless there is someone with more cannons and beams taking my shields down, the torps would simple bounce off my shields. I'm not saying no global cooldown, but a greatly reduced one.

Anyway, transphasics need like 40% bleed through to be worthwhile.

Archived Post · May 2011

What I really appreciate about all this is that we now have a single, non-unique item in the game available via a simple, repeatable mission that renders every other transphasic launcher in the game - including the 'end-game' ones available for emblems - obsolete. And no reason to believe this situation will change when tranphasics are balanced to actually-possibly be viable.

That makes me feel really good about spending emblems on a weapon I specialised into that was already grossly underpowered to the point of being useless.

It's things like this that genuinely make me worry that Cryptic have absolutely no solid plan - or even the first idea - regarding itemization balance and progression within their own game.

Archived Post · May 2011

LeanneArac wrote:

It's things like this that genuinely make me worry that Cryptic have absolutely no solid plan - or even the first idea - regarding itemization balance and progression within their own game.

Occasionally they give me hope, but then they keep pulling the rug out...

Archived Post · May 2011

JojoTheIndianCircusBoy wrote:

Yea, you would do decent damage, but still not as effective as a HY chain of quantums. Even with the shield penetration your not going to do enough hull damage to matter. If they just got rid of the global cooldown for torps, or made it like 1-2 seconds, an all torp or mostly torp build could work.

In my top escort, I have 2 HY rapid fire buttons, and I have noticed, after using the first one, the second one on global cooldown is less than the first, I use that then about 10 seconds later the first one has cooled down again. If u can arrange this with ur BO's, I recommend it, feels quite good:cool:

Archived Post · May 2011

Ok, so basically [RapidFire] = [Dmg]. The "new" RF torpedo is the same as a plain old purple with [Dmg] [Acc] [CrtD]. The [Acc] is basically a waste of a mod, and the crit severity . . . meh, whatever. They should have left the base damage equal to the common ones, tossed the accuracy and crit mods, and just tweaked the fire rate down more so that the net effect would be that [RapidFire] = [Dmg]x3 in terms of DPS; then these could have been really interesting weapons. The fire rate also would have been fast enough then to justify the "Rapid Fire" label. A "rapid fire" weapon that has "accuracy" and "crit severity" as 2/3 of the attributes in its "rapid firing" bonus config just seems like a waste of a good concept.

Archived Post · May 2011

Heezdedjim wrote:

Ok, so basically [RapidFire] = [Dmg]. The "new" RF torpedo is the same as a plain old purple with [Dmg] [Acc] [CrtD]. The [Acc] is basically a waste of a mod, and the crit severity . . . meh, whatever. They should have left the base damage equal to the common ones, tossed the accuracy and crit mods, and just tweaked the fire rate down more so that the net effect would be that [RapidFire] = [Dmg]x3 in terms of DPS; then these could have been really interesting weapons. The fire rate also would have been fast enough then to justify the "Rapid Fire" label. A "rapid fire" weapon that has "accuracy" and "crit severity" as 2/3 of the attributes in its "rapid firing" bonus config just seems like a waste of a good concept.

The two-seconds-faster cooldown is worth a /hell/ of a lot more than a single [Dmg] attribute in terms of DPS. Probably even more than the [Dmg]x3 you're suggesting. So I'm not sure what you're saying here.

Archived Post · May 2011

LeanneArac wrote:

The two-seconds-faster cooldown is worth a /hell/ of a lot more than a single [Dmg] attribute in terms of DPS. Probably even more than the [Dmg]x3 you're suggesting. So I'm not sure what you're saying here.

No. Look at the DPS stat. It's worth what it's worth, which isn't a whole lot [46 DPS, to be exact]. The problem is that a purple item has three mods, and two of them are wasted.

Archived Post · May 2011

Heezdedjim wrote:

No. Look at the DPS stat. It's worth what it's worth, which isn't a whole lot [46 DPS, to be exact]. The problem is that a purple item has three mods, and two of them are wasted.

Myes, and I'm pretty sure 46 DPS is more than [Dmg}x3. Isn't it? It's /definitely/ more than a single one. Nor is [Acc} a wasted mod with more and more defensive boosts out there (plus the extra critical severity provided by bonus accuracy.

Archived Post · May 2011

I have my Tac/Cruiser build based on shield penetration, so includes transphasics. I don't care if it's not "the best", I like it. ;-) These new rapid fire transphasics are great for this build!

FORE
2 Rapid Fire Transphasic Torpedoes
2 Plasma Beam Banks

AFT
3 Plasma Beam Arrays
1 Breen Cluster Torpedo

BOFF
DEM 1, DEM 2, EWP 3

Superconducting Phase Channels - 2 piece bonus on Breen set that gives me +30 to transphasic projectiles.

Each of these alone gives marginal bonus hull damage against shielded targets, but in aggregate I get a decent amount of damage on a fully shielded target.

Archived Post · June 2011

Don't forget the bonuses from the Breen Set. +30 Transphasic Weapons.

In my setup I'm using
MV Ship

--Fwd--
Dual Heavy Tetryon Cannon x2
RF Transphasic x2

--Aft--
RF Transphasic x2
Tetryon Turret x1

BOFF
Cmd
THY1/C:RF1/AP:B2/AP:O3
LT
THY1/C:RF1
En
TT

Archived Post · June 2011

I've always been pretty annoyed at the 20% shield penetration value of Transphasic torpedoes, in Voyager they were murderously effective. I realize that there's game balance to consider and as far as timelines go the Federation and others have had time to adapt since they were brought to Voyager from the future. Still, Quantums far outclass Transphasics in damage from what I've noticed.

Archived Post · June 2011

Captain_Sol wrote:

I've always been pretty annoyed at the 20% shield penetration value of Transphasic torpedoes, in Voyager they were murderously effective. I realize that there's game balance to consider and as far as timelines go the Federation and others have had time to adapt since they were brought to Voyager from the future. Still, Quantums far outclass Transphasics in damage from what I've noticed.

Transphasics should do more damage depending on the shield strength on the facing side.

Essentially, they should do the most DPS on a full shield and middling DPS on a downed facing (i.e. like the pahsed part overshot the target, due of lack of shields).

Archived Post · June 2011

Darren_Kitlor wrote:

Transphasics should do more damage depending on the shield strength on the facing side.

Essentially, they should do the most DPS on a full shield and middling DPS on a downed facing (i.e. like the pahsed part overshot the target, due of lack of shields).

That's... weird, but I can kinda see it working.

Archived Post · June 2011

Darren_Kitlor wrote:

Transphasics should do more damage depending on the shield strength on the facing side.

Essentially, they should do the most DPS on a full shield and middling DPS on a downed facing (i.e. like the pahsed part overshot the target, due of lack of shields).

Yeah, I always thought they should work something more like that too, it would certainly give them a real playstyle niche.

Archived Post · June 2011

Axterix wrote:

Well, looking at those numbers and comparing them to the following quantum scale:

Quantums:
quant vs bare hull: 1.0
quant damage to hull through shield: 0.1
quant damage to shields: 0.225
quant total damage on a shielded target: 0.325

Rapid Fire upgrade:
Rapid-fire Transphasic vs bare hull: 0.652
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to hull through shield: 0.183 195.6
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to shields: 0.117
Rapid-fire Transphasic total damage on a shielded target: 0.3

So the answer to "Rapid-Fire Transphasics have been buffed! But does that make them useful?" is no.

The vast majority of the time, you'll still wind up taking down the shield facing before you kill the target. The rapid fires do only 65% of the damage on naked hull. On a shielded target, quantums do 8.3% more damage.

Shielded or un-shielded, quantums do more. Only in rare cases will the 83% higher bleedthrough make up for the inferior all around damage.

The devs gave the torp only about half the bump it needs to be worth using. Should be something like:

2450 Kinetic Damage (288 DPS) (normalized) which would result in the following numbers, quantum scale.

Rapid-fire Transphasic vs bare hull: 0.78
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to hull through shield: 0.218 0.234
Rapid-fire Transphasic damage to shields: 0.140
Rapid-fire Transphasic total damage on a shielded target: 0.359

22% less damage against a naked hull. But 118% more bleedthrough damage and 10.5% more total damage against a shielded target.

That said, if this change (the one in the patch) is made with the intention that the torpedo will benefit from the balance pass on torp types in the future, then this torpedo will either be overpowered or else standard transphasics will remain underpowered. Balanced regular transphasics means that a rapid fire version that deals 23% more DPS will be way above where it should be.

Where did you go wrong in the shield damage?

Please remember the value of damage is actually 30% (transphasicPiercing + Bleedthrough)

Rapid-Fire Transphasics have been buffed! But does that make them useful?

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