I was under the impression that while a low ranked SciTeam can remove a debuff, it does so at a lesser extant (ie: lower heals, buffs) and thats the drawback to not using a higher ranked SciTeam.

Eh... I can see where you are coming from, but there are a number of problems with this. As has been pointed out if you did this for science team you would have to do it for engineering team and related power also. There are many more science and engineering high ranked abilities you would want to clear than tactical, and as a consequence this change would really be a large buff to science vessels, a medium buff to cruisers, and a slight nerf to escorts. Not the sort of balance the game needs.

aside from the fact that you'd be building a whole team around having to counter stuff for definite with higher ranked ET/SC/TT, it'd be pretty tough to run premades with more than 1 escort, if you want a good premade that is (and pug escorts are just screwed),

the idea make some sense, but it discourage people from playing escorts and go straight for SV & Cruisers... so sorry no

(oh ya.. less chance to counter subnuke3? lol no thank you I'll take my sci team 1 with 100% cure please)

Its fine the way it is.

You can ameliorate this problem by using a low-level debuff like Jam Target Sensors BEFORE you use your high level power. This will cause most people to waste Science Team on the first debuff so that they cant cleanse the high level power. Simple.

The changes I suggest to Science team can also apply to Tactical Team and Engineering Team as well.
Which would increase strategy. If you don't have a high enough lvl sci team to clean a Debuff, your teammate might step in. Same with Engineering and Tactical Debuffs.

I feel you are on the right path for balance and utility, but the suggestions you have, speculatively, seem to be along the lines of a hindrance.
- Cruisers and escorts both only get 2 or 3 Science slots. they can't even get Sci 3 without being in a Sci vessel to begin with. so you would have to drastically change the BO layout and you can see the issue there.

- For Game-play's sake, 2 or 3 sci slots using a Sci 1 power has to be effective enough to clear 1 or 2 sci debuff's so it is not unbalanced by ship class and that person can still stay in the fight or support his team. So, it has to be 100% effective....to a degree.

- The main issue with Sci-Team is that you cannot always clear yourself 100% of the time and at most you have to zoom all the way on your ship, change camera angle so no other ships [[player or npc]] are visible, press F-1 to target yourself and then use sci team to clear any debuffs. That right there takes you out of the fight, messes up your vector and puts you at risk for gank-age since you cant see the enemy reposition themselves.

- Tac team works great now. so should Engy and Sci be made Par too??? 10 seconds of no debuffs applied. No Boarding parties, no FOMM, no AP-Beta, no AP-Delta and it burns through all your shield facings till you have no shields left to burn.........pretty much stops a decent Alpha (not a superb one) and nullifies a lot of the Escort/TAC damages.

• So should Engy team last for 10 seconds too? No VM, no target subsystems?
• Should Sci team also last 10 seconds as well? No: Energy siphon, Jam sensors, Scramble sensors, SNB applications? would pretty much make killing in combat a lot harder to manage with so many heals from teammates.

I am all for balancing abilities and making counters work effectively. But i cannot see the EXACT changes you want without crashing what we currently can do in a fight.

And you honestly believe that what we currently have is Trekkie enough? I don't think so. Combat involving multiple ships should require more not less teamwork.

I know my fleet and the team i play with we do use a lot of team work. From Ability discussion, testing ability combo's, damage values to having enough heals to keep from losing a player in combat to also having enough dps to actually kill the enemy.

But Healing, itself, has become so focused that if you dont have 2 sci players in sci ships for the CC and debuffs to separate a team or for the fact a SNB and 5 man focus fire to kill them before they get stacked with heals again....makes it this way. TACs do not do the damage they once did and Engy cruisers do not Tank as efficiently as they previsouly did....although some still need 2 SNB's and focus fire to kill.
Now, it is all about who can spam SS, toss out 2 Tykens rift's, pop a Gravity well, **** mines all over the place, drop warp plasma on those in the gravity well and be able to limit the heals going onto the focused target....all while keeping your teammates alive and cleared of debuff's.

1) If Sci/Tac/Engy 3 was needed to successfully clear any target of a debuff, based on a percentage roll, it would shift combat to where some debuff didnt get cleared which in turn led to a death. Thus, it becomes bad game play since your ship doesn't get access to level 3 skill to absolutely clear any and all debuffs of that nature......let alone all 3 share a cool down so multiple debuffs of different class will make it Hell to play. Thus, REALLY forcing people to play select ships based off their BO layout, in order to have those Team abilities to clear affected team members.
So, simply put unavailable abilities and gating to select star ships is a big faux-pa.

2) If Sci/Tac/Engy teams worked on a 10 second timer and versions 1 cleared debuff's level 3...then it would be to hard to kill certain players due to the mass heals from multiple players. Everyone carries at least 1 if not 2 team abilities and some ppl i know have 1 of each of the 3. So timed properly, based off the proc FX, you can negate most debuffs and keep the heals stacked to avoid the death.

In the end, the only way to really work this issue is that yes...any team should be a defacto cleansing of debuffs
OR
Drastically change the way healing from your team effects your damaged ship...diminishing returns, non-stackable or heal effect is diminished based off of your ships damage.

Otherwise, i do not see any big changes till season 5.

This is the whole reason that I recommended that they Diversify BoF layouts on the refit ships to so as to increase options avaiable to each class.