STO Helpdesk With Jo4play, Episode 7: PVP or PVE
PVP or PVE
One of the questions I often get is why don't amazing PvE builds just work in a PvP environment. This question is sure to raise eyebrows and provoke a hard response by that one guy who thinks he is the best PvPer ever and if you are not on his level you are just some random n00b. I will admit PvP was never my strong suit mostly because the game doesn't encourage it or offer any meaningful rewards for it. The differences are as wide as it gets, while a PvP build might work in PvE enviroment, it won't perform as well as a PvE build, Vice versa is nearly impossible.
PvP
- Very pricy
- Very high skill requirement
- Requires lots of commitment and knowledge
- Time consuming
- Tends to be quite toxic
PvP mentality is hard to come by, but i have certain contacts who are active PvPers and the situation on the PvP side isn't easy. While the skill threshold isn't any bigger than knowing how to pilot your ship right and time your abilities, the PvP favours those who are willing to invest serious time (and money). Why i say money, well in order to be competitive you need the best gear, the best ships, the best traits, the best consoles etc. That is the competitive PvP for you. I will tell you this partially comes from personal expirience as i used to be a backup SCI on a PvP team. Single target devastation is a must, surviving 1v5 situations is preffered, cannon builds, it was all a bit too much for me. I personally prefer casual PvP, mostly because the competition isn't in between warring PvP teams, rather it is inside the community, where you don't have to adhere to a PvP META and some crazy requirements. The friendly competition takes first place, and is much more enjoyable, at least for me.
PVP META
Generally in a PvP enviroment you can take one of the roles:
Team Leader: Usually the most capable and the most skilled player, whose job is calling tactics, directing debuffs and fire towards main threats (see Focused Frenzy), and in the worst case making a valliant last stand, usually more a title than an actual role as this player usually focuses on one of the following roles.
DPSer: Usually a Tactical, characterized by massive damage spikes, trained for single pass devastation, usually capable of oneshoting any enemy, usual requirement is knowledge of making good buff chains and good piloting skill, because if you don't devastate your foe whitin your first pass you will probably have to lock in a dogfight. (2-3 per team)
Debuffer: Usually a scientist, to some known as the nuker (See subnucleonic beam) this person's entire job revolves around supporting his fellow dpsers by protecting them from fire and helping to tie up enemies in 2v1 situations or helping to set us favorable attack runs. (1-2)
Tank: Usually an engineer, this role is sometimes left unplayed, but if it is it is the one most likely to be played by a team leader because the job of being the biggest threat usually ends up in a detonation, made to utilize certain tricks to get his teammates out of danger (see Lone Wolf)
So what are the common markers of a PvP build:
Reduction of damage: There are plenty of ways to reduce damage, most utilized one is the simplest one: evading the enemy by outmanuvering them and dodging their attacks, to explain this better i will have to get into the chance to hit formula, which is calculated by: Accuracy of a weapon-target's defense, if the percengage is higher than 100% it is guranteed to hit and will offer slight boost to the attacker in crit chance and severity (something we call acc overflow, here is one of those number crunching things you can use, found on reddit, not sure how accurate it is today), so reducing enemy's chances to hit is a priority. There are also many ways to additionally reduce damage with different consoles and effects aimed to increase resists and provide invurneability to damage.
High damage spike: Common weapon of choice is dual heavy cannons(DHC) due to already high innate damage in them, in combination with cannon rapid fire which boosts cycle time (faster cycle time=more damage over less time) and in addition with some clickies (console active abilities and certain abilities, generally characterized like that due to ability to boost damage massively). Heavily single target focused for maximum efficiency
Crowd control and debuffs: placating, confusing, holding, pulling, tractoring, all manners of ways you can slow down your enemy, try to control their actions, and generally be an annoying little ass, this dominated the PvP areas for the longest while before survivability caught on to the damage dealing, still is a viable option but probably won't work for long against more expirienced PvPers. Debuffs on the other hand will probably work much better especially if you know which ones to chase (damage res reductions and certain others).
PvE
- low skill requirement
- easier teamplay and less need for synergy
- more fun
- no need for high end gear
PvE, the necessary evil of this game, whether you want it or not you will have to play it, the only bar in this part of the game is the one you set yourself. While many may argue DPS is the king, i agree to a degree. Once you are inside the so called DPS Silver, you don't need to worry about most types of PvE situations. My preffered way of dealing with PvE is not relying on my team to get the job done and doing it all by myself.
PvE meta:
Generally active roles are split into 3 with no specific career requirements,
DPS: your standard directed energy weapon guy, he has the biggest guns and they are all poised to destroy anything in his path, while the meta isn't as different as PvE, in here he can worry much less about his survivability as he can sacrifice a lot to further increase that damage
Tank: Usually present to protect the sorry ass of the guy above, as the aggro in this game works very simply: loads of damage= loads of aggro, these guys use all tricks in the book to draw the fire away, ensuring that the most of the damage goes to them, they are sometimes even healers for the team
EPG/AoE: this guy is the master of epilepsy, ever wanna see if you are an epileptic, just meet one of those epg/sci mains, their ability to deal massive damage to swarms of enemies is only matched by the High DPSers, if placed in support role their job is clumping enemies up, debuffing them and healing the team
Typical markers of a PvE build
Area of effect: When you are in a combat situation you have to spread the love to as many enemies as possible (and by love i mean damage), how you do it is your own problem, will you utilize gravity wells to clump your enemies together to deliver a massive AoE attack, will you use a Beam fire at will to fire at all the enemies in your area, will you focus on one tough enemy and have distributed targeting tear up surrounding enemies, it is you who chooses
Consistent damage: Unlike PvPers who rely on spikes, fast thinking, this is more of smash that spacebar till that guy's hull reaches 0, they usually focus on more prolonged fights than quick encounters as getting out of combat means you are not helping your team win
Generalization: Nowadays you can do whatever you want in the PvE world, because most don't care whether you bring anything to the table as long as you are not an AFK-ing scumbag, experimenting is quite encouraged as many experiments lead to the makings of the new meta's, build ideas etc. Shortly in PvE you are not limited in ideas, it only takes a clear vision and a bit of knowledge and everything can work (but some things still blow up in your face regardless)
Conclusion:
I am beginning to leave more holes in my works so i can fill them if need be, adding potential consoles you might want to look into, traits to look out for, this has been a sort of general meta breakdown, while the ideas on both sides are similar the PvP side has much stricter rules on how to accomplish it, in PvE on the other hand things are more relaxed as you don't need to fulfil anyone's expectations since you will mostly be placed in teams with people you don't know.
As always if you have any questions leave em down below, I will try to organize some sort of Q&A prior to this week's OP, so you can ask more questions, also i am more than interested in answering any build questions, what to buy questions. Don't use clearly broken things, stay safe and see you in STO. As always signing off:
Jo4play o7