I've noticed, while playing my beam BoP, that EVERY SINGLE BEAM FROM FAW HITS EVERY TIME.

while in pvp, or pve, BFAW does not take into account the target's defense value. The result? Faw does ridiculous amounts of damage because it both boosts the damage from individual beams, and makes more hit.

take an escort, normal defense value 90* (I have a fed escort, and that's my standard defense value)

*due to game mechanics, the actual value cannot go above 75, but the excess prevents [acc] and accurate traits from having an effect.

normally, 1/4 shots hit it, say 1000 damage each. from an 8-beam broadside, thats 2k. survivable.

with BFAW, 25% increase to damage + 100% hit rate = 8 x 1250 = 10,000. Big difference?

thats BFAW 1, increasing damage by 400% (for 500% of original). WTF?

and don't get started about BFAW 2 and 3....

EDIT: And I haven't even factored in the INCREASE IN THE AMOUNT OF SHOTS! you are probably getting more than 500% damage!

Well that explains why its such an great PvE tool to use for rapid leveling.:p

Because the Devs hate us.

no.... Really?

And I thought STO was supposed to be pvp-oriented... well, at least HALF of it...

for the increase in number of beams fired....

take 8-beam broadside. each beam fires 4 times, doing 1k each time. 32k total, but only 8k hits target.

add FAW

8-beams + 5 shots each + 1250 per shot = 50000 damage!

now, I can't figure out the power drain effect, and this assumes all 8 beams have you in their firing arc, and all 8 target you

this also does not take into account shield resistance.

if a cruiser can put out 50k damage in one broadside, an escort should be able to put out... 300k in a firing run? Let me see that, and faw boats wouldn't be the weapon of choice anymore!

if that is true and you have bigred and others able to back it up with the parsing, then this should get PM'd and Tweeted as much as possible. Surely, having a BFAW with miss and lower accy hits wouldn't be as devasting then, no??

I've never tested it (I'm not a numbers guy) but it always felt very accurate. If this is the case, maybe the ACC was boosted because it is such a complicated skill to use?

I've never been killed in short order like that on my new toon. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I, personally, haven't curbstomped by carriers running FAW... yet. :p

http://i389.photobucket.com/albums/o...or/FAW3Hit.png

Tried to do a png of what i parsed showing bfaw 3 from a Althena mission

same reason why the automated turret can shoot cloaked ships, same reason why you dont want female toons using the elevators...they have a team of guys on content and a starved chimp and a hampster on a broken exercise wheel for a bug fixing department.

Interesting. This would mean that previous DPS calculations still undershot the actual damage output in practice.

It might also explain the "death by decloak" issue for Bird of Preys. They will usually also have a 80-90 % defense bonus and if that is totally ignored, they are bound to get hit more often, and take nastier critical hits. All while being unshielded.