Veteran Engine Disabler

posted on July 20th, 2010, 11:30 pm

Akira and Galaxy manhandle most non-Borg ships. Since between Dominion, Feds, and Romies have nearly 60-70% of their hitpoints in the form of shields, you're destroying subsystems fast and taking out those ships even faster. Most destroyers go down without even losing 20% of their shields against a vet Akira, especially considering that the through shields debris field won't miss. Vet Akira, Sang', Veqlaragh are living terrors. Had you seen them in 3.0.7 you might have changed your tune too  . In the end of the day, the Klingons just have a lot of good offensive vets - they have engine disablers, area of effect damage dealers, etc. Though the K'vort is strong, I'm more afraid of the area of effect damagers than a simple engine disabler.

posted on July 21st, 2010, 12:17 am

I think the vet Kvorts are fine as is.  They are powerful yet not too difficult to kill.  The ability easily lets you know there is a vet in the area allowing you to target it at will.

posted on July 21st, 2010, 12:42 am

Actually they are difficult to kill, you should see the replay Mal just put up where a vet K'Vort was targeted multiple times but managed to repair. Also if there are Veqlaraghs about it can be easy to think it's just alternate armament. Vets can be hard to spot unless you click on every ship and look at how many passives they have.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 1:49 am

Neb, that was my Super Special Invincible Vet Kvort!  Not to be confused with a standard vet Kvort!

Anyways, it was very helpful because we have an advantage in number of ships and the enemy was retreating.  The vet stops ships from running away, but it doesn't help you kill ships that stay and fight.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 1:52 am

lol my allys where constantly running. I was counting on their support but they just allowed you to peacemeal us

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 6:08 am

I am still a proponent of having the engine disabler's percentages looked at and perhaps lowered.  It is a massive boon that outweighs many other passives in terms of practicality, comes on very common vessels (Kvort / Frigate) that both also have Cloak.

  I think that removing hull damage from the Kvort was an excellent start, now a reduction on the percentages is next to prevent these naturally powerful and fast vessels from being able to COUNT on an engine disable.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 4:42 pm

I personally have no issues with the Verteron specials.  May be just me that looks at it this way, but if you get your ship to Officer standing, much less veteran, it deserves to kick ass.  Be it the Verteron Particle Loads, or the Warship Cannons, or any other beautiful addition, I think it should stay.

I'm also in favor of the Klingons and the Romulans having the engine disablers.  Why, you may wonder?  Simple.  It's part of battlefield control.  From cloak to engine disable, they both strive for it.  The Klingons don't want their cowardly foes running away.  The Romulans don't want to let their prey escape and regroup.  Facing them should take different tactics than facing the Feds or Dominion.  If that means that you just focus-fire every disabler you see?  So be it.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 4:55 pm

Getting an officer rank is actually pretty easy if you keep most of your ships alive, as there's often one or two ships that happen to rank up first, by ranking up first they do more damage and are more likely to get kills, this snowballs into officer ranks. And once a ship reaches officer rank you can just kill a few miners to get it to vet. Problem is that with a cloak it can easily go into mining and get a few kills before being killed, so it gets to veteran easier than non-cloaking ships.

Battlefield control should not sway so heavily in the favor of one side just because they happened to get a vet. Vets are okay when they kick ass, not when they stop your ships from being able to do anything about the ass-kicking.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 5:00 pm

I think the problem is, that basically one single ship can turn an entire battle from minor defeat to utter annihilation. That's to much power, even for a vet. Focussing an engine disabling ship is quite difficult, since you got no visible hint that a unit may be a vet. You only realize when you see the effects and then it's to late.
There is a 1v1 replay commented by Mal I think. Between Mort as Romulan (if I remember correctly) against a Fed player. They are quite equal in skill through most of the game, though Mort gains the upper hand in the long run. But the thing is, that as soon as he gets a vet Generix frigate every single engagement ends with the enemy fleet not just retreating but getting totally vaporized to the last ship. There is simply no chance of retreating ever which is extremely painful and makes battles kind of one-sided, since the other player always has to rebuild an entire fleet after each engagement. Engine disabler is ok as a vet ability but the percentage of disable succeding need to be adjusted.


Ninja'd by Neb. 

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 7:16 pm

Indeed.  There are a lot of clear examples in the replays and in the games that I play where engine disabling has turned the tide more than any other special.  I wouldn't mind a change to both specials.  It's just too useful for such lower tier ships.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 8:23 pm

I think its okay. When I compare this ability to other specials it is fine. Its just a question on how you use it. For example a good counter against engine disabling is setting up ships with 360° firearc.
Also remember that this vet can only attack one ship at once. So the others may stop it. Take a defiant an make a critical shot. The vet cant cloak and cant fire. In this time, you can shoot it into dust.

I like it how it is.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 8:25 pm

Not every faction has critical shot. and 360 firing arc means nothing if your ship is retreating because it needs to repair.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 8:36 pm

Well, yes. The rommies have the shield recharge/plasma bolt, the borg take it as it is, because there is no repair. The klingons can fight themselves and the feds have repair ships/critical shot. Only the dominion may have a disadvantage here.

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 9:07 pm

The Dominion has numbers, cheap ships, bugship ram, c-11 cascade, t-15 impulse disruptors, b-5 bombs and pulse weapons...

Plenty of ways to mop up K'vort, even a veteran. 

posted on July 22nd, 2010, 9:08 pm

b-5 bombs

b-8 has IS bomb b-5 has fighters.