if im not reading the logs wrong, and if its not displaying it incorrectly, the energy weapon proc accounts for about 1% of my damage. and thats when most of it hits shields and does 20% less damage then anything else would.

the log does funny things. like plasma torps, the dot, and hull impact are in the same entry, but apparently the shield impacts are in another. add in the rom or omega torps, and it gets even more random and complicated. so its extreamly hard to judge how your plasma torp build is actually doing.

basically, the energy weapon proc is terrible and does almost nothing, and at the very least particle gens should buff all plasma procs, not just EWP. its all plasma energy damage anyway.

It's kind of curious comparing ACT to Notepad++. I just did a quick SB24 (~5.5 minutes) and grabbed the log for it (my internet's acting up, so I didn't do an STF/etc).

Comparing the counts in ACT vs Notepad++*...

Cutting Beam (Je69eb): 269 (ACT) 265 (N++)
Omega Graviton Amplifier (Ygfhpt): 27 (ACT) 27 (N++)
Plasma Array (4g1l7r): 127 (ACT) 122 (N++)
Plasma Beam Array - Fire at Will II (Zp99ar1): 1258 (ACT) 1209 (N++)
Plasma Energy Bolt - Plasma Energy Bolt (Hktxqg1): 14 (ACT) 14 (N++)
Plasma Torpedo (D8imwf1): 71 (ACT) 70 (N++)
Plasma Torpedo - Plasma Torpedo (Ry93j91)**: 104 (ACT) 100 (N++)
Plasma Torpedo - Spread III (Jkxjgl1): 87 (ACT) 87 (N++)
Plasma - Plasma Fire (Hhqx7h): 98 (ACT) 98 (N++)
Romulan Plasma Array (Tv2eq9): 398 (ACT) 398 (N++)

Unfortunately, even in Notepad++...I'm only at 2390 of 2849 lines. So I need to see what's missing. Luckily, each attack has a six string identifier - so I can remove them to see what's left.

Plasma Fire (Wujkxq): 88 (N++)

The rest are heals and a warp core breach.

So those 88 Plasma Fire are missing.

First, let's look at the damage and percentage of damage for each (not including the missing 88):

Cutting Beam - 57,096 (5.6%)
Omega Graviton Amplifier - 20,277 (2.0%)
Plasma Array - 66,647 (6.5%)
Plasma Beam Array: Fire at Will II - 454,026 (44.4%)
Plasma Energy Bolt: Plasma Energy Bolt - 51,921 (5.1%)
Plasma Torpedo - 26,833 (2.6%)
Plasma Torpedo: Plasma Torpedo - 71,696 (7.0%)
Plasma Torpedo: Spread III - 33,977 (3.3%)
Plasma: Plasma Fire - 9,201 (0.9%)
Romulan Plasma Array - 230,790 (22.6%)

Total: 1,022,464

For that Plasma: Plasma Fire that ACT picks up, the min is 46 and the max is 182 damage.

So what about those missing 88? I'll CSV them into Calc.

Plasma Fire #2 - 33,225 damage. Min 282 and max of 954.

Takes the total damage to 1,055,689. Plasma Fire (42,426) now accounts for 4% of damage rather than less than 1%.

I'm not going to bother adjusting the percentages above...doesn't really matter. Guessing that the DoTs it is tracking are the PDoTs from the Plasma Array/4x Romulan Plasma Array (the regular Plasma Array's a placeholder for the Experimental if I can ever bring myself to continue the grind to T5). The missing PDoTs would be the Torp DoTs, eh?

This was with 2x VR Mk XI Infusers, 1x R Mk XI Infuser, 1x VR Mk XI Ambi, and no Rom [Pla] consoles in a Chel Grett with an Engineer captain. 4x VR Mk XII Romulan Plasma, 1x R Mk XI Plasma Array, Cutting Beam, Omega Torp, Hyper Torp. APO3, TT1...

With VR Mk XII Infusers/Ambis, a Rom [Pla] console or two or more, perhaps with the addition of Plasma Mines for additional PDoTs - with a Tac captain, APA, etc, etc, etc - it might be interesting to see what kind of damage could be generated from the PDoTs. There was a guy in Ker'rat that was chain critting plasma fire on me for over 1600 (4800+ per tick) from a three stack. I've crit myself with them from multiple stacks where I've basically killed myself...meh.

Folks would probably have to do multiple 1v1s with manual parses to get an actual idea of where they stand with them...

*In Notepad++, I did a Ctrl-F, Mark - Mark Line, for ::charactername to show actions I took with that character and to exclude actions taken on him. I then removed all the unmarked lines. The "counts" are for swings in ACT and just the count in Notepad++.

**These are the Hypers.

I actually like plasma builds... on my opponents.

Rom plasma is the new max for PvE damage in most cases, without going into eccentric builds.

However in PvP I'd still say fork out the money for phaser. Shield drops just have no comparison. I think they would still be viable if they dropped all but shields.

Watching folks die with full shields is so much fun though. Burn builds offer that quirky alternative to trans builds. Heck, a trans/plasma (even with the rainbow aspect) can chew through hull... and a bunch of other folks started running that while dealing with the Elite Fleet Shields.

In a sense, though - trans/plasma is exploiting a major flaw in the engine. One Crit. Just like trics one crit - so too can Breen Clusters and Plasma DoTs. The change to the Omega Torp triggering PWO procs removes the ability to use Omegas to reduce the Cluster recharge.