Maybe I'm missing something, but it's hard for me to imagine choosing lvl 2 Flak burst or GRG on the Kol over a tri-skill setup.
Level 1 GRG
sucks in its current implementation... given how drastically it was buffed from its current official state, that is actually shocking. Like, this ability can't even clear militia effectively, it's that bad. In any case, I wouldn't build anything other than a single-skill Kol in its current state. The problem is that until you have Finest Hour, you just
do not have the antimatter to fuel more than one ability.
Why spend valuable skill points in two abilities when you only have the antimatter reserves for one? Even if you
do juggle them a lot, you're still getting far less performance from either than a specialed Kol. You're paying through the nose for that versatility, I feel it's
still a poor deal.
I think lvl 2 in any ability should be almost as good as gaining a new ability, with the trade-off being the classic choice of specialization vs versatility
I'd agree with you completely. Where we depart is how highly we value a new skill over an improvement to an existing skill. The big risk I see with tri-skill builds is that you may create a jack of all trades that's good at none of them. I feel right now a tri-skill Kol wouldn't even be useful until it hits level 6 (at which point ANY build will shine).
I also think the condensed scaling for skills diminishes some of the value/glory of higher level caps.
The big problem we're having, especially with the Kol, is that these capital ships get more antimatter as they level up, so the skills naturally improve even without investing additional points. It's very difficult to get a level 1 skill that's strong enough to shine at level 1 while still being a "minor" power for a high-level capital ship.
I'd actually compare this most to spellcasters in D&D (3rd edition). In theory you could multi-class and become a fighter/wizard. In practice, it doesn't work. Even with a complex "prestige class" system that helps this scale to higher levels, it's still a clearly inferior choice.
But I think cutting the AM cost by 2/3 was too drastic, both because it might be overpowered and because it changes it from an AM-hog alpha-strike ability to an almost-tactically-thoughtless machine gun that can be spammed for at least 60 seconds (i.e., 10 shots/3,000 damage) at even level 1.
Actually, it doesn't play that way. I found the antimatter
was depleting and I had to carefully select my targets to conserve power for when I needed it most. It wasn't until I had finest hour that I just set it on autocast and forgot about it.
Also, it
doesn't deal 300 damage a shot, it deals 300 reduced by shield mitigation and armour, so usually it's hitting for 100 damage per shot. Your 10 shots, costing you 250 antimatter and a minute of straight shooting, only did 1000 damage.
with full AM a low level Kol can spam GRG enough to dominate many other caps in early encounters.
While it did beat a scrambling Skirantra if the Skirantra held still, it didn't beat a Sova with missile batteries and it didn't stand a chance against a big chunk of LRF. It didn't really deal with militia that well, either.
(though I think it should probably scale as 10%, 15%, 20%)
Actually I found it so low I couldn't even feel its effects. I'd probably raise its effect, and I'd be inclined to keep it the same at all levels.
Concentration Aura:
Does this need a buff? Something as simple as a range increase might be nice, just to make it extra easy to affect the carrier(s) in a grav well..
Passive skill that boosts the damage of SC? Fine as is. Wouldn't take it further than enhanced AoE.
Incendiary shells:
I *really* think this needs a non-dmg buff.
Agreed; I suggested a simple effect of antimatter damage over time (2/4/6 per second). However, I'm sure you can come up with some other good debuffs.
EMP:
I really don't know, but why not make some more cautious changes like cooldown = 40/35/30 ?
The Dunov is all about its special abilities; it has no other purpose but to use them. This is why I feel lower antimatter cost and faster cooldown is important to give these abilities staying power.
I don't have anything to say yet about the Vasari.. They seem like they (mostly) have a good set of cap ship abilities
Vasari were some of the most solid to begin with, and most of the abilities only needed tweaking. I think that Phase Missile Swarm is showing
a lot of promise now, while We've made adequate adjustment to the Jarrasul's colonize and seem to have fixed the scramble issue. The only capital ship in this lineup that needs serious work is the Antorak, and I really don't know how to approach that guy...
