They also use their gateways to open a portal into a sun and shoot you with the hot plasma. Only counter for that is to shoot it, and they often use it after disabling you with their powers, and then even dedicated tanks can’t survive long. So yeah, Science captains just became invaluable. – Player quote, sirboulevard
Some of the feedback here has voiced concerns over counteracting the Heralds’ use of Intelligence and Command abilities, so I figured I’d list out a few eligible counter tactics you can use in an attempt to overcome them.
Baltim Raiders
These ships can sometimes make use of Suppression Barrage (Command).
– This ability buffs the enemy ship’s weapons. This buff can be removed using any Buff-stripping ability such as Subnucleonic Beam, Subnucleonic Carrier Wave, or a number of Doffs and Set Bonuses.
– The debuff applied by a ship with this buff active will reduce Outgoing Damage, Speed, Turn Rate and Accuracy. Buffing any of these is what could be called a “soft” counter to the ability.
– This debuff can be removed in its entirety via the use of Tactical Team.
– The severity of the maneuverability debuff can be reduced via high skill in Inertial Dampers.
Quas Cruiser
These ships have access to Electromagnetic Pulse Probe (Intel).
– The probe created by this ability can be targeted and destroyed.
– The probe will travel toward the targeted foe’s current location, so can be outran/avoided.
– If you are caught in the Disable caused by this Probe (powers grayed out), use of Engineering Team will remove the Disable. NOTE: If the probe is still traveling/pulsing, the Disable may be re-applied right after your Eng Team wears off.
Vonph Battleship
These ships can make use of both Ionic Turbulence (Intel) and Subnucleonic Carrier Wave (Intel).
– Remaining in motion and keeping your distance from this ship will make it easier to avoid both of these, since SCW has a 5km max radius and Ionic Turbulence flies toward your current location.
– If hit by SCW’s debuff (which will cause Power Recharge / Cooldown issues), you can remove the debuff thru the use of Science Team.
– If caught in an Ionic Turbulence cloud, you will receive a maneuverability and damage resistance debuff. These effects can be removed with the use of Hazard Emitters, but you should also leave the area to ensure they are not re-applied by the Ionic Turbulence Cloud.
– Ionic Turbulence can also send you Out Of Control briefly (this is a Hold effect). This effect cannot be resisted or prevented via immunity. However, there is a 20 sec lockout period if affected by it, that will prevent it from affecting you again.
Iaidon Dreadnought
Same as their Battleship cousins, these ships have access to both Ionic Turbulence (Intel) and Subnucleonic Carrier Wave (Intel). See Battleship notes for counter suggestions.
None of the above includes unique abilities created for the Heralds, as we’re not yet ready to give away all of the info on those tricks.
-=-=-=-=-=-
Jeremy Randall
Cryptic – Staff Systems Designer
“Play smart!”
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Conversations with the Lootcritter 
Its nice that for once DPS won’t be a focus but including someone in a group that can clear debuffs and get you back in the fight, basically this means this will be the least popular queue ever or else they will just overwhelm it with an all scimitar allowed club *sigh*
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Completely agree, and I like the direction of these types of mission structures.
Korfez, and to some extent The Breech are more fun to me, than say ISA.
Random mission elements or phases/stages add diversity, and the complexity of the various responses require players to be aware of abilities/debuffs that would normally be overlooked for overall DPS. Even as I watched the DPS team do the elite (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-GjSBYTeXY), I saw many opportunities where intelligence or even command builds could have been superior choices in terms of mission viability. DPS will still rule the day in the right hands, but having a choice is better than no choice at all. The mission designs are certainly evolving.
Having said that I hope they begin to look at re-engineering the older stfs to feature some of that complexity.
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