Why do so many people seem to hate plasma probe?

[Athilias]

I find it to be one of my better abilities, and a great way to punish melees that mess with you. I don't understand why a lot of people don't like it..

[Draxyl]

In my experience its damage just isnt high enough, and it's stationary.

 

If you just compare it to Corrosive Grenade, it is very marginally more damage (actually it might even be LESS damage than CG with the +6% damage talent), and you have to target where on the ground you want it to do damage, which players can easily move out of. At least with Corrosive Grenade, you can drop it on 3 people at a time and they are stuck with it (unless it gets dispelled, but that's the same as someone moving out of Plasma Probe).

 

In PvP it's good for dropping on a Civil War control point or on a door in Voidstar to prevent people from finishing the capture.

 

To be quite honest, all 3 of our 31 point talents are not very well designed. In any spec, you will always achieve more damage by going hybrid rather than taking the 31 point talent.

 

For example, Followthrough/Imperial Methodology is more damage than going for Rapid Fire, and Cull/Imperial Methodology is more damage than going for Weakening Blast. Anything above Imperial Methodology in Engineering really isn't worth it.

Edited February 15, 2012 by Draxyl

[Athilias]

In my experience its damage just isnt high enough, and it's stationary.

 

If you just compare it to Corrosive Grenade, it is very marginally more damage (actually it might even be LESS damage than CG with the +6% damage talent), and you have to target where on the ground you want it to do damage, which players can easily move out of. At least with Corrosive Grenade, you can drop it on 3 people at a time and they are stuck with it (unless it gets dispelled, but that's the same as someone moving out of Plasma Probe).

 

In PvP it's good for dropping on a Civil War control point or on a door in Voidstar to prevent people from finishing the capture.

 

To be quite honest, all 3 of our 31 point talents are not very well designed. In any spec, you will always achieve more damage by going hybrid rather than taking the 31 point talent.

 

For example, Followthrough/Imperial Methodology is more damage than going for Rapid Fire, and Cull/Imperial Methodology is more damage than going for Weakening Blast. Anything above Imperial Methodology in Engineering really isn't worth it.

 

I can understand that, but it's use for guarding doors (I know you said that) and hurting melees who are on you (drop it on yourself) shouldn't be thrown out the window. It's also got a fairly quick cooldown, and is great for seperating a crowd, or punishing those on a ball carrier. Lots of uses for it, it's just not the best for a instant hit on a crowd.

 

I don't think it's as good as followthrough (due to how much you can use followthrough) maybe not as good as CG (hard to say since most healers suck and don't clense), but it's definitely not bad. It's by far the best 31 point skill (obviously this is my opinion).

[Tenacity]

Loving it so far, it's good for soloing when those annoying melee mobs get up close to your cover position.

 

I just wish I could get both plasma probe and corrosive grenade in the same build, the aoe would be insane.

[Draxyl]

An improvement to this ability would be if it had a snare, like Corrosive Grenade gets from the next-tier talent.

[Athilias]

An improvement to this ability would be if it had a snare, like Corrosive Grenade gets from the next-tier talent.

 

I do think it should have some sort of slow, like 60% for 8 seconds.

[dmdskitzo]

I am all for tripling plasma probes damage and making engineering the why would you stand in that for the whole duration spec.

 

[DestyOwn]

Because it's bad... all our 31pt are bad.

[StrykerLenz]

I don't find any of the 31 point talents to be worth it. With my current 22/16/3 build I pretty much have unlimited energy with HIGH burst damage for a long period of time. 31 points just to fend off a couple of melee isn't worth sacrificing my significant ranged DPS.

 

Doing 4k ambush+3k Explosive Probe at the same time and then recovering a lot of that energy from cluster bombs with SoS? Can't beat it.

Edited February 15, 2012 by StrykerLenz

[Tenacity]

I am all for tripling plasma probes damage and making engineering the why would you stand in that for the whole duration spec.

 

 

Yea, while we're at it we should change interrogation probe from a targetted DoT to a limited duration 'pet' with an actual probe droid/interrogation droid model that floats around and attacks your target, moving on to a new target whenever the current one dies =P

[TaiRevant]

The whole engineer build is more or less a survivability spec. While yes it has some very nice damage skills like cluster bombs, the real advantage is more then double the survival rate, shield probe has an effective 1 minute cd, u get 6% heal every minute, more endurance and the ballistic shield upgrade.

Oh and plasma probe is deffently makes melee think twice, even more so with a healthy helping of orbital strike.

[Vesperr]

While there are some uses for Plasma Probe, its just bad. Its damage is lower than corrossive grenade (1435-1765/18s VS 1722/21s L50 blue gear), has longer cooldown than CG and its extremely easy to avoid it (5m AoE lol). I dont know how bioware came up with such useless talent, I mean ***, 18 seconds in one place to get full effect, rly? If it was 6 seconds with same cooldown then it would be a worthy talent, but as it is... nah.

[KraithFjorn]

I find it to be one of my better abilities, and a great way to punish melees that mess with you. I don't understand why a lot of people don't like it..

 

I've used it to much success as of recently as well.

 

I suppose if dishing out as much DPS as possible is your goal, then it's probably not a worthy talent. However, if your goal is utility (Objective Denial, Catwalk Denial, basically everything that falls under Area Denial), then you've got a fairly potent ability which offers a significant advantage over other Specs.

[TaiRevant]

While there are some uses for Plasma Probe, its just bad. Its damage is lower than corrossive grenade (1435-1765/18s VS 1722/21s L50 blue gear), has longer cooldown than CG and its extremely easy to avoid it (5m AoE lol). I dont know how bioware came up with such useless talent, I mean ***, 18 seconds in one place to get full effect, rly? If it was 6 seconds with same cooldown then it would be a worthy talent, but as it is... nah.

 

true less BASE damage but it crits harder, much harder. CG does not get any crit damage bonus talents, Plasma probe gets a 30% crit damage bonus, and costs much less, hell it can cost 0 energy which makes it efficient damage.

[Auxili]

Bioware said that pure dps classes get more 'variety' and 'options' when it comes to dps. But really, they get bloated trees that have no flavour to them, and useless 31pt abilities. GG bioware

[Sylriana]

Primarily because it's a zoning tool (For PvP) that isn't threatening enough to actually be effective for zoning.

 

I think in Bioware's mind, they had the idea of you dropping a plasma probe and the enemy player forcing them to decide if they'd rather risk eating Plasma Probe ticks in order to get to you faster, or take the long way around.

 

As it stands though, the ability just really doesn't threaten enough to make that even register, and it doesn't help too much that the other high tier engineering talents aren't anything particularly jaw dropping.

 

CG does not get any crit damage bonus talents

 

For the moment, but eventually they'll get around to fixing Experimental Explosives. Hopefully...

 

Maybe.

[Kalliadies]

I like my plasma probe, enough to keep it anyway, but its main use is as a zone denial tool. I really do think it needs a bit of a buff

 

Personally I would like to make standing in it quite punishing

 

-Adds a DoT per tick that continues to burn for 6 seconds, can stack 5 times. The longer one stands in its radius, the more it hurts. Even Disrupting all targets in its radius each time it ticks would be useful. Great against these healers all huddling together spamming heals and AoEs.

[Ilxuss]

This skill does... averagely, maybe a little better in PvE - true, most bosses stand still, so it isn't hard to make them take whole dmg offered by probe, during solo most enemies either gather around you or stand still, so plasma probe does well in there too. It isn't too fancy in terms of damage, but somehow manages - some may say.

 

But still, the fact that I must aim the aoe and sacrifice time to decide where to cast it (due to small radius for example) makes me often just skip it (but I still keep it hoping that maybe I can utilize it better).

 

 

In PvP on the other hand... it's too easy to avoid and the fact that first tick starts after 3 or something seconds isn't helping.

In my opinion it's just too weak. And even when cast on somebody to force him to change position... well, it's just too weak for that. Maybe if it applied some debuff, like 2% penalty to max health for minute, stackable up to 5 times, or acted as extra aoe dot and attached itself to foe instead of being stationary, or interrupted foes standing in area every time they receive a tick, or at least followed nearest foe by itself (although I don't think it would improve this skill much unless paired with something extra, like increased dmg).

 

At current form the best thing it does is protecting the objective a little... if you remember to recast it, have energy to spare and manage to survive (which, don't forget, isn't easy for snipers).

Edited February 16, 2012 by Ilxuss

[loyrl]

It's too bad that it doesn't stick to a target, and then it pulses out from them, even when moving.

[Kalliadies]

It's too bad that it doesn't stick to a target, and then it pulses out from them, even when moving.

 

Already have interigation probe for that. The only real use for plasma drone is denying a turret or door. If it sticks to a target it is no longer useful in this role. I would much rather add to its stationary value, otherwise it just becomes another dot.

 

just having it hurt and tick faster would make me happy

Edited February 16, 2012 by Kalliadies

[DJJAZZY]

I like the idea having an aoe snare with the probe. That probably doesn't make it much more useful in pve but in pvp that would be sexy.

[Vesperr]

true less BASE damage but it crits harder, much harder. CG does not get any crit damage bonus talents, Plasma probe gets a 30% crit damage bonus, and costs much less, hell it can cost 0 energy which makes it efficient damage.

 

You get 12% crit chance for all dots (lethality) and getting high crit is still harder than getting a lot of surge. While PP can be free (once a minute...) CG gives you 2 energy if it crits which is quite good, especially after a good throw when you hit all 3 targets (21 ticks with 50% crits (which is izi to get) will restore more energy than you spend). While hitting 3 targets is kinda hard (depends on enemy team), making PP damage just one person for full duration is even harder, I'd even say impossibe.

 

 

p.s. Lots of boss fights involve a lot of moving, only few bosses stand on one spot shooting at you, most will knockback tank and follow it so even there PP is somewhat useless.

Edited February 16, 2012 by Vesperr