changing meta...

[Nimmoth]

in previous post, i have talked about what is going to be valued, and what will be de-valued with 11.5.

such as : level 3 craftable training manuals (or ones from grinding boffs to manuals) and item with [ins] and [cms] stats as they are changing to the new modifiers. 

now, with the skill revamp, [ctrd]x2 [pen] will NO LONGER be the thing. it will be [dmg]x2 [pen]. right now on the exchange dmgx2pen stuff is relativley cheap. (mk ii whatever dmgx2pen for $250,000 or mk ii whatever ctrdx2pen for $2,500,000). people are talking about it, but in hushed tones, and i did the math on tribble personally, and when specced into more ctrd skills that will be available AND alot of skills you are going to get anyway have ctrd stuff thrown in as an afterthought. So, ctrd will be sooo high based of skills, you will not need it on weapons anymore. 

also, initially i predict there will be a rush to buy cannon training manuals and weapons. but, it will soon drop off as the alure of a fresh new toy (extended range-more than 5k away gives more damage). so im crafting a few these to hold onto and see what happens week 1. alot of this will also depend on if they give CSV a buff or not. If they DO, it could be on par with FAW beam builds and people may switch. 

SO, that is what i have learned from the underground so far - any news you guys have heard of? of what to do before patch drops. Post below. 

 

[davisjm0311]

Dmg pen has been the meta for months. 

[Nimmoth]

yes, but the prices have not been affected. ctrdx2pen is 10x more expensive at this moment. maybe i didnt use the right word meta..but i was trying to convey that the prices may change after the patch

[BigBob357]

If you're an engineer or science captain, [CrtD] is still the way to go. [Dmg] is preferred for Tac captains [CrtD]x2 [Dmg] [Pen] and [CrtD] [Dmg]x2 [Pen] are not that expensive when you compare them to [CrtD]/[Dmg]x3 [Pen]. Hell, [CrtD]x2 [CrtH] [Pen] are damn good too. [Pen] MAY be getting fixed in the near future, but it'll still be the best modifier for energy weapons.

If you're looking for which training manuals are going to become harder to get, head over to Tribble and see how many point in each carrer path it'll take to get you there. If I had to make a guess, any training manual that requires more than 15 points to unlock will likely be the ones that shoot up in price. 

[Anton Mercer]

I thought Penetration was getting changed to Weakening? Maybe I read that blog wrong...

[davisjm0311]

Anton Mercer wrote:

I thought Penetration was getting changed to Weakening? Maybe I read that blog wrong...

 They're changing the shield pen from the new skill tree into shield weakening.  The [Pen] weapon modifier is remaining the same for now, though that have talked of re-working it to fix the stacking bug that it has right now.

[davisjm0311]

You don't really get any more crit severity with the new skill system (very minor amount as an option in the career path).  The current "best" weapon modifier in the game is [Pen].  Months ago when they reworked the damage [Dmg] modifier it became the "best" secondary modifier for tactical captains just ahead of critical severity [CrtD] (we're talking extremely small percentages here).  Any Captain that isn't tactical will get more out of [CrtD] with [Dmg] coming in behind it as the next best thing.  The most common top builds right now are either the dmg pen or crtd pen setups.  

The most common setup right now is all crafted AP weapons with the exception of the Advanced Radiant AP Beam Array and the Terran Disruptor Beam Array while using +Beam consoles.  

The "flavor of the month" is switching over from AP to Coalition Disruptor weapons with the Terran Disruptor Beam Array while using +Dis consoles.  This will pull slightly higher numbers than the AP setup, but only if at least three people on your team (including yourself) are using them to get the proc up often enough to be worthwhile.

What all of the current high DPS builds have in common is getting your [CrtH] & [CrtD] up. (Lots of math involving Cat1 vs Cat2...ignoring that for simplicity).  All captains need crit in one form or another.  If changes come along that make it where we need less of one or the other, our consoles are far cheaper to replace than our weapons.  

If you're interested in all the math involved, the STObuilds subreddit is a great place to read up on it.   https://www.reddit.com/r/stobuilds/

 

 

[BigBob357]

davisjm0311 wrote:

Anton Mercer wrote: I thought Penetration was getting changed to Weakening? Maybe I read that blog wrong...  They're changing the shield pen from the new skill tree into shield weakening.  The [Pen] weapon modifier is remaining the same for now, though that have talked of re-working it to fix the stacking bug that it has right now.

 What originally seemed like an interesting skill that might have been worth  the investment if you a had a point or two left over, now looks like a waste of skill points. And we can all thank the three or four PvPers who complained that it would make things unfair, which is utterly ridiculous since everyone would have access to that skill, and the consensus among the high-end PvPers is that hull-tanking almost precludes the need for shields to begin with.

[BigBob357]

Looking at the unlocks on Tribble, you need 17 points in a particular career path to unlock all of its associated training manuals. Each unlock node has three possible manuals: one engie, one sic, and one tac. The one you unlock depends on your Captain's profession. So as a Tac I will only unlock the tacitcal option. Based on some of the skill point allocations I've seen from others, and looking at the abilities themselves, none of them look like they are going to become particularly expensive simply because of where they fall in the new skill system. That being said, here are a list of things that might become "harder" to find at decent prices:

Emergency Power to Weapons 3

Aux Power to Structural Integrity 3

Gravity Well 3

Beam: Fire at Will 3

Torpedo: Spread 3

These are the abilities that people will want, but MAY not be as readily available. But as I said, I don't see these being a problem based on how many point's you have to spend to unlock them. The abilites unlocked with 17 points in Engineering and Science will probably become the hardest to find, and as a consequence, may become more expensive, but they aren't abilities a lot of people run anyways. BO3, EPtA3, APD3, TyR3, APtID3, and TSS3. 

[davisjm0311]

BigBob357 wrote:

Looking at the unlocks on Tribble, you need 17 points in a particular career path to unlock all of its associated training manuals. Each unlock node has three possible manuals: one engie, one sic, and one tac. The one you unlock depends on your Captain's profession. So as a Tac I will only unlock the tacitcal option. Based on some of the skill point allocations I've seen from others, and looking at the abilities themselves, none of them look like they are going to become particularly expensive simply because of where they fall in the new skill system. That being said, here are a list of things that might become "harder" to find at decent prices: Emergency Power to Weapons 3 Aux Power to Structural Integrity 3 Gravity Well 3 Beam: Fire at Will 3 Torpedo: Spread 3 These are the abilities that people will want, but MAY not be as readily available. But as I said, I don't see these being a problem based on how many point's you have to spend to unlock them. The abilites unlocked with 17 points in Engineering and Science will probably become the hardest to find, and as a consequence, may become more expensive, but they aren't abilities a lot of people run anyways. BO3, EPtA3, APD3, TyR3, APtID3, and TSS3.

 Yeah, I know my current build on Tribble has 17 points in ENG and access to everything that I could need.

[BigBob357]

Another point that should be brought up. The new Shield Weakening Skill (replaced Shield Pen) has some funky language. It has been brought to the Devs attention so hopefully it'll be fixed before it goes live. In the even that it does not, you should be aware of what it actually does. In the description, it refers to shield bleed-through, which might give the impression that the skill will increase the bleed-through rate. But when it describes what the skill actually does, which basically increases the amount of damage you do to enemy shields, you realize that the this has nothing to do with bleed-through at all. As I said, this has been mentioned in the official thread over in the ARC forums so hopefully they will fix the description.