I'm somewhat new to using tricobalts, but I've done so for a few days on my main on Holodeck, and I'm reasonably certain what we're seeing in Tribble now is Cryptic's new vision for Tricobalts... and I have to say, I'm not happy.

Now, again, I'm inexperienced with Trics, so correct me if I'm wrong, but on Holodeck right now Trics don't use THY, and they don't do friendly fire (or even damage you when they explode).

On Tribble, they are using THY, which creates a Heavy Tricobalt Device, and they do cause friendly fire (at least to yourself, haven't noticed if I'm hurting allies) within a 1km radius. Considering the fact that Tricobalts are absolutely useless if not fired at or under around point blank range (they get shot down if fired from any farther out) this change has effectively made Tricobalts useless.

On a stationary target, firing from beyond 1km to avoid blowing yourself up means there's something in the neighborhood of a 5 second flight time on the Tric. That's on a stationary target. If the target is moving away , or even perpendicular to you, it will likely never land. In PVP, this will mean that you will NEVER land a tricobalt hit. Even in PVE, my trics have been getting shot down.

And the "rift" thing that is supposed to happen when the Heavy Tric hits only seems to happen about 1/4 of the time, from what I have seen. And I can't even tell if it's doing any damage, or what the heck it's doing.

I do hope they fix this. IMHO, Tricobalts will be 100% useless if this is the way they are going to be. I'll be going back to Quantums. The way they are now, you have 2 options. 1) Fire from point blank as usual, doing good damage, but having about a 75% chance of blowing yourself up in the process, or 2) Fire from 1km out to avoid the splash damage, but have about a 1/8 hit rate. Considering it takes a full minute for the Trics to charge, that means you'll likely never land a tric hit again.

So has no one else noticed the new Tricobalt changes? I don't remember reading anything in the release notes about Trics, but lo and behold, the changes are in there. I can't imagine I'm the only one that's discovered this, and yet a search for Tricobalts on this forum yielded no results. Am I crazy, or have these changes totally and completely nerfed Tricobalts beyond any kind of usefulness?

If they're working with THY, theoretically they might be working with Torp Spread too, which might be marginally more useful now, since they might not be able to shoot down all of the Trics you fire. But that's just another single shot power that's useless now. THY < TS, and CRF < CSV. I have to say I'm really disapointed.

I have yet to find a tricobalt device, so testing it is a little problematic.

havn't tried them on tribble yet sorry. Doesn't surprise me thats there is an issue with them, but hopefully it will be looked into.

I got my MK x one in a lucky drop. I highly urge others to try to get one, there's a couple green ones on the exchange for 200k right now. Need more people to chime in on this.

It'd be nice to hear from a Dev if this is the intended functionality of the new Trics too... If it is... Well, all I can say is no one will ever use Trics again, unless they're playing the roll of kamikazi suicide bomber.

I can understand maybe nerfing the Tricobalts, as they're pretty much in a race with Dual Beam Arrays (with Beam Overload 3) for the highest damage weapon in the game, but to take the highest damage weapon in the game and nerf it to the point where it has absolutely no use seems a little on the drastic side to me.

Well a fully decked out cruiser with all the right gear and shooting of EpS and polarize hull could easily survive a point blank tricobalt explosion. Mount em on your rear and get rid of the peskly escort flying on your tail pipe. I mean 12k shields, and 50k plus hull it'll hurt but you will survive.

Yeah can't say I'm excited about these changes, Tricobalts need to be fired at nearly point blank range to land, it takes timing and skill to score a good hit. These changes basically render them useless.

Yes, but from what I've seen, mostly Escorts use Tricobalts, as they're a precision weapon, not something that most Sci or Cruisers can make much use of.

Your point is taken, but in reverse. Now if I'm a Escort saddled up on the tail of a Cruiser, I'm probably going to do more damage to myself than to the Cruiser if I use a Tric within 1km to ensure a hit.

The thing that gets me is no other weapon in the game does damage to you, as well as your target... so why do this to trics? Why not make it so that the path of beams, and cannons are tracked, so if a friendly wanders into your arc of fire you do friendly fire? No? Then please leave trics alone too then.

Well yea you have a pont. I fly a cruiser with one mounted on the rear... it doens't land much. But yea an escort using one at close range is likely to hurt the cruiser and kill themselves. Not a good trade off I agree.

Never used Tricobalts because the skills to use them is hardly worth the price of how ineffective they are and this has merely amplified that. I suspect this is part of Cryptic's concept to make AOE attacks cause friendly fire.

I.E They said they wanted Torp spread to damage allies so Tricobalt get the same treatment... for some reason

Cant say I find that very sensible. They removed AOE ground friendly fire from the Plasma Fire and are selectively applying it to space.

Are they going to make photonic shockwave AOE friendly fire ?, Cannon Scatter Volley, Fire At Will ?
I find it an amazingly awful double standard to apply this concept to SOME.

Personnally, I always though Tricobalts should simply be Plasma Torps with a different proc. These exotic launchers are less about damage and more about the proc, just like the weapons.
Apparantly Cryptic feel the proc on Tricobalts is... AOE suicide ?