I feel like I'm literally made of glass in whatever scenario I'm in be it pvp, group pve, or normal pve. Is Escort just a trash ship now?

Use your shield rotation, get some aux to shields power . Escort imo is one of the hardest troles to play, constantly juggling your power frmo shields to weapons to engines to maximise your offence.

Don't have any issues.. yet!

When it's fixed, MES is also useful. Right now I think the problem is grouping, because when I'm not grouped, it seems to work ok. MES will get you close without being attacked. Also, your ship is very weapon dependant so be sure to invest in decent cannons. At least 2. Then mix torps, beams or mines as you see fit.

Get you combat engine or a station that improves turn rate.

Let the cruisers go first. You attack after that. When things get tough and you look like your going to lose it, kamekazi'em.

Pointless? An escort ship can anihillate most targets in one pass. Your goal is to destroy small ships fast so you can survive the beating. That's it. Make friends with your evasive manuevers skill and engine batteries. Get in and get out fast.

Cannons, a phaser and a good torpedo bank up front, get a turret on the rear, maximum forward fire power. You'll shred targets with ease. Make sure you've got an engineering BO with emergency power to shields and/or shield rotation. Shield batteries are your friends too.

Trust me, escorts cut through most enemy ships like a hot knife through butter.

After that, it comes down to piloting skills, use your shield arcs and keep that front array strong for your passes on the enemy ships.

You have to play escorts correctly. You can't just charge in and do a loop in the center of the battle, because you'll get pummeled, as you've seen.

Start on the fringe of a battle group, pick your target, and do a 66% throttle attack run at that single target, firing everything you have (if it's one of the biggies) and then using something like Evasive Maneuvers to put distance between you and the target once you get too close, then come about and do another attack run, or pick a new target if the last one is gone.

Then it becomes a delicate balance of how much damage you can take before firing off shield regens or defensive abilities.

Played properly, a fitted T2 escort can take an entire 8-ship Klingon battlegroup with a few BoPs, Raptors, Negh'vars and K'Tingas in it.

Hm?

I´m flying escort (Lc 3) and had NO problems whatsoever up to now. Set energy distribution to Attack

then:

13 km distance: load high yield II
10 km distance: fire torpedoes, attack pattern alpha, cannons & phasers, disrupt enemy sensors
7 km distance: high yield II again

Normally enemies are dead just about when I reach them. Works fine for Zilant Battleships & Negh´var.

If you have High Yield II that means you skipped Rapid Fire Cannons, this is not a good strategy to playing Escort.

Mobs still seem to attack me even when I let my Cruiser buddy go in first, just make sure to invest in some nice defense skills with your Science and Engi Officers. You will die eventually but you will be able to pump alot of damage out, way more than a cruiser if you are doing it right.

I cry a little everytime I see an escort using beams :'(

cant say i've had any problems with my escort and apart from the deep space encounters i've solo'd to LTc4 so far,only times i've died is in deep space encounters and thats most my own fault for not being aware of waht ships are where,kinda hard not to die when youve a flagship and escorting ships suddenly appear and start hammering your rear shields

yeah I did. But I figured being able to send 6 torpedoes on their way to the enemy where other players only send 2-4 would be worth not "shooting more often but doing less damage with each shot".
Although I must confess, I havent tried Cannon Rapid Fire.

But in the end: My strategy seems to work - at least for me.