Excessive Strike Not Very Excessive
posted on May 29th, 2009, 5:53 am
I was working on some new ideas with the Dominion when I noticed something curious. My V-13s were going into battle against some destroyers, and when I used Excessive Strike, some of the torpedoes didn't hit their target. I remember saying out loud, “They missed. They never miss.” 
I thought it was a bug until I went through the odfs and found out that sure enough, excessive strike has been changed more than I thought it had. Luckily, I’ve still got 3.0.5a on my laptop, so I was able to compare notes and see what changes have been made. To help people understand what I’m talking about, let me recap what Excessive strike was like before the recent patch.
First, it’s necessary to understand that due to the mechanics of the game, any ability that lowered a target’s shields for a short duration would keep the shields down so long as you had weapons firing at it. For example, if I had Remore use precise volley to drop the shields of a station for 6 seconds, so long as I kept firing at that station with anything, even sabers, the shields would remain down until I stopped firing. The Borg had the same ability with devastating attack, and the Dominion had it with Excessive Strike. Once V-13s could be produced, any decent player could win while half asleep because all of your opponents would die from losing their shields. Shield dropping was pretty overpowered, and that’s why the devs changed Precise Volley and Devestating attack to heavy shield damaging weapons. But Excessive Strike went a different route. Instead of shield damage, the tool tip reads that it does high hull damage. But the changed special lost a lot of its abilities, and didn’t gain anything in return.
Before, the torpedoes from Excessive Strike always hit. And their damage would go through the shields. Smaller vessels like federation repair ships and a few b’rels would get 1 shot (this still happens in 3.0.6 if the torpedo hits).
Here’s a short list comparing the ability from both patches.
3.0.5a Excessive Strike
3.0.6 Excessive Strike
So the ability now costs slightly more, does slightly less damage, and there’s nothing compensating the fact that it lost 2/3 of its previous features. The capital ships of other races have some pretty nice abilities. Stealth Field affects the damage output of entire fleets over a huge range, Weapon Overload is a super powerful attack that can quickly take down stations and battleships in one, focused burst. Distortion field is now the only Area of Effect attack that has not been scaled down or balanced by limited construction; it does the same amount of damage to all vessels as far as I’ve seen. 4 Sovereigns can take down a whole fleet of destroyers in a single attack. 6-7 Sovs can take whole fleets of cruisers without using phasers or torpedoes. While these abilities are all different, they’re very much in the same class as far as the scope of their power is concerned.
I feel that the V-13’s special has dropped out of that class, and I would like to see if it could be reinstated. Maybe increasing the damage the special does or making the torpedoes always hit would be a start, I don’t know. I’m certainly not looking for anything overpowered, but I would definitely like to see the ability re-evaluated, if possible.
I thought it was a bug until I went through the odfs and found out that sure enough, excessive strike has been changed more than I thought it had. Luckily, I’ve still got 3.0.5a on my laptop, so I was able to compare notes and see what changes have been made. To help people understand what I’m talking about, let me recap what Excessive strike was like before the recent patch.First, it’s necessary to understand that due to the mechanics of the game, any ability that lowered a target’s shields for a short duration would keep the shields down so long as you had weapons firing at it. For example, if I had Remore use precise volley to drop the shields of a station for 6 seconds, so long as I kept firing at that station with anything, even sabers, the shields would remain down until I stopped firing. The Borg had the same ability with devastating attack, and the Dominion had it with Excessive Strike. Once V-13s could be produced, any decent player could win while half asleep because all of your opponents would die from losing their shields. Shield dropping was pretty overpowered, and that’s why the devs changed Precise Volley and Devestating attack to heavy shield damaging weapons. But Excessive Strike went a different route. Instead of shield damage, the tool tip reads that it does high hull damage. But the changed special lost a lot of its abilities, and didn’t gain anything in return.
Before, the torpedoes from Excessive Strike always hit. And their damage would go through the shields. Smaller vessels like federation repair ships and a few b’rels would get 1 shot (this still happens in 3.0.6 if the torpedo hits).
Here’s a short list comparing the ability from both patches.
3.0.5a Excessive Strike
- Energy cost 270
- Dropped the target's shields for 2 seconds
- Torpedoes bypass shields and do 60 base damage
- Torpedoes always hit
3.0.6 Excessive Strike
- Energy cost 277
- Torpedoes bypass shields and do 55 base damage
- Torpedoes have normal miss chance
So the ability now costs slightly more, does slightly less damage, and there’s nothing compensating the fact that it lost 2/3 of its previous features. The capital ships of other races have some pretty nice abilities. Stealth Field affects the damage output of entire fleets over a huge range, Weapon Overload is a super powerful attack that can quickly take down stations and battleships in one, focused burst. Distortion field is now the only Area of Effect attack that has not been scaled down or balanced by limited construction; it does the same amount of damage to all vessels as far as I’ve seen. 4 Sovereigns can take down a whole fleet of destroyers in a single attack. 6-7 Sovs can take whole fleets of cruisers without using phasers or torpedoes. While these abilities are all different, they’re very much in the same class as far as the scope of their power is concerned.
I feel that the V-13’s special has dropped out of that class, and I would like to see if it could be reinstated. Maybe increasing the damage the special does or making the torpedoes always hit would be a start, I don’t know. I’m certainly not looking for anything overpowered, but I would definitely like to see the ability re-evaluated, if possible.
posted on May 29th, 2009, 8:00 am
Yep I noticed it was nerfed a lot, too. I thought it does more base damage now though :S
I think its damage should increase, the miss chance is fine IMO
I think its damage should increase, the miss chance is fine IMO
posted on May 29th, 2009, 8:14 am
Mal wrote:So the ability now costs slightly more, does slightly less damage, and there’s nothing compensating the fact that it lost 2/3 of its previous features.
If there was something "compensating for" the lost features, it wouldn't have been nerfed now would it?
posted on May 29th, 2009, 10:48 am
Excessive strike deals direct hulldamage now. Abilities that disable subsystems have been changed, as well as most multi-targeting weapons 
posted on May 29th, 2009, 4:21 pm
posted on May 29th, 2009, 4:26 pm
Last edited by Anonymous on May 29th, 2009, 4:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
posted on May 29th, 2009, 4:46 pm
Last edited by Megaman3321 on May 29th, 2009, 4:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Yeah, Mal, I was thinking the same thing with the Remore's basic. However, I honestly prefer the nerf, as now it's not a god weapon. Look at the others: The Klings torpedo, while powerful, requires a long cooldown for the regular torpedo to be used again, and it misses. The Roms have a short duration weapon, and the Sovs can miss and do absolutely nothing, except be fireworks that give away your fleet. The Borg obviously don't count, as thier specials technically cost nothing of importance to gameplay. 
But I think the damage reduction overkill...
Fixed annoying grammatical errors
But I think the damage reduction overkill...Fixed annoying grammatical errors
posted on May 30th, 2009, 4:28 am
I understand that it deals direct hull damage now, but what I’m saying is that it did direct hull damage before, and better than it does now. I just tested 3.0.5a Excessive Strike with a V-13 on green alert and brought a fed mining outpost down to 86% hull, a mining freighter to 28% hull. 3.0.6 mining outpost was 87% and mining freighter 35% hull after Excessive Strike. So they both do direct hull damage, but 3.0.6 Excessive Strike loses a whole bunch of abilities, and the hull damage was reduced slightly (by 5 points exactly). But instead of the ability getting cheaper from losing most of its features, and having the one feature that remained get a small nerf, it actually got more expensive! This is what I’m having trouble understanding.
From some of the responses I’ve gotten it seems as though people have gotten the impression that I want the shield disabling mechanic to return, and I don’t. That’s why I wrote a whole paragraph explaining why Optec and DC probably decided to change it in the first place. I completely support that change. The mechanic was unbalanced and technically an exploit. Upon reflection, in an odd sort way there was some balance to it, in the sense that while having a gun during a fistfight is an unfair advantage, if everybody has a gun, the advantage isn’t quite so unfair. But I’m getting off topic. The change to shield dropping is good, just so we’re all clear.
Again, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with the shields dropping. For Devastating Attack and Precise Volley, their change was fairly balanced (for the sake of argument, let’s assume this is true for this thread. If you wish to discuss the merits of 3.0.6 Devestating Attack, a perfectly good thread has opened up to discuss if it’s really balanced or not. If you wish to discuss Precise Volley, you can make your own thread. I can even suggest a title for you!
), since there’s no time limit on how often those abilities can be fired. Their ability got converted into something else, to remove an unbalanced mechanic. But excessive strike was subtracted from, and then got a small cost increase, to boot.
This is exactly what I’m getting at. I don’t really care what Excessive Strike does, so long as its ability is on the same level as other capital ships. It could shoot magic leprechauns onto hostile vessels who then smelt their pot of gold into the warp reactor and cause a core breach, for all I care. One could certainly describe that as "excessive". But I feel its current state is not on par with the specials from other capital ships in the game, and that is why I would like to have it re-evaluated.
From some of the responses I’ve gotten it seems as though people have gotten the impression that I want the shield disabling mechanic to return, and I don’t. That’s why I wrote a whole paragraph explaining why Optec and DC probably decided to change it in the first place. I completely support that change. The mechanic was unbalanced and technically an exploit. Upon reflection, in an odd sort way there was some balance to it, in the sense that while having a gun during a fistfight is an unfair advantage, if everybody has a gun, the advantage isn’t quite so unfair. But I’m getting off topic. The change to shield dropping is good, just so we’re all clear.
Again, what I’m talking about has nothing to do with the shields dropping. For Devastating Attack and Precise Volley, their change was fairly balanced (for the sake of argument, let’s assume this is true for this thread. If you wish to discuss the merits of 3.0.6 Devestating Attack, a perfectly good thread has opened up to discuss if it’s really balanced or not. If you wish to discuss Precise Volley, you can make your own thread. I can even suggest a title for you!
), since there’s no time limit on how often those abilities can be fired. Their ability got converted into something else, to remove an unbalanced mechanic. But excessive strike was subtracted from, and then got a small cost increase, to boot.Yes but that direct hull damage is quite small :S and certainly not on par with abilities such as stelth field, disruptor bombardment, weapon overload, distrotion fields etc etc
This is exactly what I’m getting at. I don’t really care what Excessive Strike does, so long as its ability is on the same level as other capital ships. It could shoot magic leprechauns onto hostile vessels who then smelt their pot of gold into the warp reactor and cause a core breach, for all I care. One could certainly describe that as "excessive".
But I feel its current state is not on par with the specials from other capital ships in the game, and that is why I would like to have it re-evaluated. posted on May 30th, 2009, 8:12 am
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