Although this thread could be construed as "X power is OP or UP," I assure you that isn't my intention. I play several ships and I'm judging these powers from personal experience (I even use some of them). My interest is general gameplay balance. Please no flaming, I don't want this thread closed

In no particular order...

Scramble sensors: There have been a lot of complaints about this power and I think there's something to them. My problem with scramble is more directed toward the duration at higher ranks. 30+ second scramble is ridiculous, but even if the durations were to stay the same...a minor change could be implemented without changing the mechanic of the power itself. At the very least, scramble should have a 90 degree arc like Viral Matrix (seeing as they're both sensor probe skills).

Tactical team: I love this power, but it should vary more by rank. There's no reason to run anything but rank one tac team. Maybe scale the shield distribution effectiveness by rank?

Science fleet: 50%+ shield resist is too much. Maybe reduce it to 30% resist to bring it more in line with the other fleet skills?

Tractor beam: Another great power, but it also needs more variation by rank - ideally a stronger hold at higher ranks.

Ablative armor: In my opinion, the best ship gimmick in the game. I think it's great that Ablative has more than one counter and only lasts 15 seconds...but the cooldown should be brought back to 5 minutes because it's pretty much always off cooldown whenever I need it.

Torpedoes: Beside the fact that other torpedoes need to be brought in line with quantums...I think there should be slightly more bleedthrough due to all the heavy shield resist builds people have been using. Even a red sliver of shields can block a High Yield 3 without too much trouble - especially with the current tac team.

Aux to Battery: Seriously now...does anyone use this? It drains aux for a negligible power increase and only lasts ten seconds. Also IIRC, it shares a global cooldown with Emergency to X rather than the other 'aux to' powers.

Emergency to Aux: Needs a better secondary buff. It's almost not worth using if you have a stack of aux batteries (except for the pretty color oooh ahhh).

Energy Siphon: Too weak for the cooldown. Either make the drain stronger or reduce the cooldown.

Photonic Fleet: A bit controversial, but I've always wondered why the photonic ships don't disappear when the sci captain dies. The ships could stand a little more survivability but I think disappearing after the captain dies would be a good tradeoff.

Side note: Just a personal peeve of mine, but it bugs me that teammates can activate their fleet skills and decloak their non-battle-cloak teammates by bringing them into combat

Those are just the powers I thought of off the top of my head. If I missed something let me know and I might add it to the original post.

Remember, flaming will get you nothing except the ban hammer. Let the discussion commence!

Late additions:
Extend shields - the caster should absorb shield damage from their teammate.
Torpedo spread - sucks. Should probably be revisited with torpedo adjustments in general.
MES - needs to give more incentive for sacrificing a boff slot. Less power drain imo.
Photonic officer - needs a shorter cooldown.
Subsystem repair - doesn't do anything. It'd be nice if it reduced the duration of target subsystems X.

I really like it if some of those abilities you listed, like Tractor Beam, varied more by tier as well as by how many points you put into their related skills. I'm not talking about boosting loldamage either. And yes, using Fleet abilities while anyone on your team is at Red Alert seems to decloak and force out of impulse anyone else on the team (happens when you cast anything on a person at Red Alert, whether you are teamed or not unless I'm mistaken). That's pretty silly.

I'd also go ahead and vote for a re-balancing of Energy procs while the torps get looked at.

There's literally no reason to use anything other than Pha/Dis/AP, except for maaaaaaybe Polarons (exclusively for the CrtHx2 DHCs).

Engineering Team - Make the hull repair once again reliant on amount of crew.

There is nothing wrong with Engineering Teams except how you invest more skill points than Hazzard Emitters, yet HE is far superior in a healing capacity.


With Keg's post, hes pretty much spot on, we need to relook at many abilities good and bad. Given how PvP lately is more about damage mitigation and hull heals, the other skills are mainly useless unless you are in a strong team that can afford to use something uncommon in battle like Warp Plasma Eject.

HE is Aux dependent, has 1.5x the CD (45 vs 30), 2x the GCD (30 seconds vs 15 seconds), and is a DoT.

I think it's a fair tradeoff.

HE is superior? LOL

He is a HOT, it takes far longer to kick in, infact players can often die before they can get an effecitve heal with it. HE generally has to be combined, with a shield heal, or a quick Flash Heal, like Eng Team.

Which, btw, my ET2 heals for almost a full 12k. No matter what aux settings I'm sitting at. It heals that hull instantly. I often catch myself as a heal boat, realizing this fact, and it has at times cost a team mate their life.

ET3 heals for quite a big chunk larger than that ET2. (I don't even run ET3 on my healer, because I prefer having ASIF2, to go with my ES3)

HE also has a 45 second CD. A 30 second Global. In that time I can pump two ET2s before even a Second HE would be ready to go.

Az, it doesn't matter what your running, if you have a crap team, you're still going to lose if you are up against a team that knows how to play. It's about build synergy and team tactics together.

Warp Plas 3, isn't really usable on too many ships, precisely because the ships that can have it for the most part (excelsior, vorcha, bop, and negvhar aside) are too slow to use it properly against a team that knows what they're doing, unless there's -alot- of it being dumped out, along with other heavy zone control powers, like Tyken's and Grav wells... which again, comes back to Team Composition.

Mhh I do agree with alot you're saying here, but I do miss the Subnucleonic beam.
I think its the most unfair ability in this whole game if you ask me. There is not other captain ability which comes even close to this power on a tactical or engineer captain. Not even Tactical initiative (Which in my opinion should work more like it does on ground)

Seconded by the rediculous healing of Engineers :p

3th thing, EptW should get a little DMG Base % buff? I dont know but last time i checked with EptW1 and 2 fully skilled the dmg increase was negligable, like EptS has much more side-effects beside the Power level increase :/

(Im the last to call for a nerf on anything but perhaps you would at least think about it)

Of course. Can't believe I forgot that one

Maybe something along the lines of increasing the duration of the +dmg% buff or increasing power regen like EPS transfer? I personally think EptW is fine how it is but nonetheless I won't ignore the suggestion

Well, i find it weird that only EPtS receives its "extra" (shield resist) for the full 30 sec while the other EPtX don't.