Let's score how badly Riker did in Generations.

[STEPhon IT]

Really if they were going into a known hostile situation (hostile ship, known dangerous individual, knew what his plan was) they should have separated before entering the system.

So the blame lies with the Captain of the Enterprise than it's first officer. I didn't think Riker had a chance the way he was written for the movie.

 

[Ithekro]

Kind of contradicts the point in having a cloaking device, huh? The dumb writers of DS9 had to have their cake and eat it too. Lets forget everything that's established about ships having a cloaking device and do whatever we want. The Defiant had whatever it desired because it was the IT ship of the time. But when it was UPSTAGED by Enterprise E, Defiant had to look like every other vessel, getting their asses kicked, so the bad writer's new ship looked better.

USS Defiant wasn't designed with a cloaking device. It got one on loan from the Romulans so they could poke around the Gamma Quadrant for the Dominion. They could have put it only any ship, but Sisko wanted a ship that could survive longer than USS Odyssey, a Galaxy-class starship, did under Dominon fire. Federation shields were fairly useless against the Dominion at that time. Defiant's weapons as a warship proved enough to destroy Dominion ships were a Galaxy-class could not in the same amount of time. The cloak was to avoid having to fight while searching for the Founders. Otherwise you get the whole Dominion fleet chasing down one Federation starship, and even Defiant can't take that much punishement.

OH! So based on what YOU wrote, the DS9 staff writers... uh, didn't conceive the idea of the USS Defiant having a cloaking device??? It was because the Romulans loaned it to the crew of DS9??? LMAO!!! OH MY GOD!!!

Are we talking Starfleet or Paramount staff writers?

If we are talking writers, they didn't do anything odd in First Contact related to Defiant. It clearly had been putting up a hell of a fight and was doing damage to the Borg. By then we already knew Defiant wasn't invincible (The Dominion defeated it and its cloak in the first episode it was in.) Every other ship we saw getting hit by the Borg just blew up. Defiant didn't. Having a cloak by that point was mostly pointless since the ship could not fire when cloaked. When Worf asks, the cloak is damaged (which is usual even in DS9 writing). So he goes for what he's got left. Ramming speed (like Riker's tactic before stopped by Data/Picard's ordering the Borg to "sleep" back in BOBW). The Enterprise shows up fresh is just so they can get Worf back on Enterprise in a believable fashion. Defiant still survives the fight. Other ships nearly blow up with the cube as it explodes. Defiant, now without a crew and no shields, drifting nearby, survives.

For talking Starfleet, that was what I was going off on original.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

Federation starships, at least in the 24th century, are relatively easy prey without their shields. The glass jaw of Starfleet. Ships like USS Defiant are designed to be able to survive being hit wthout their shields up, but most other starships are not.

I dunno, even the Defiant couldn't last long without shields, as we saw and heard in "The way of the Warrior", as Dax states:

DAX: Benjamin, it's going to take at least two minutes to evacuate Dukat's ship. Even with the Defiant's new armour, I don't think we can last that long with our shields down.

It's then suggested by Worf:

DAX: You were right, Mister Worf. The modulated tractor beam's deflecting some of the Klingons' disruptor fire.
WORF: Disruptor's effectiveness at fifty percent.

Even then with the Vor'cha's disruptor fire potency halved, the ship barely survives over two minutes without shields:

DAX: Ablative armour has failed. We've got plasma leaks on decks two, three and five, and we've lost our aft torpedo launchers.

Plot armour (or not in this case) is a wonderful thing.

 

[Ithekro]

One minute without shields is longer than most Starships in the 24th centry get to live. Most seem to blow up after a few strikes. USS Odyssey did rather well, but was still limping at best from the very start of the battle with the Dominion.

23rd century ships seem to be able to survive a little shieldless pounding, but still not all that much. Movie era Enterprise take a beating from Reliant and returns the favor. Both are messed up by the battles. They seem better built than 24th century ships, but then we see ships of Reliants type getting blow up rather easily by 24th century weapons, so it could just be a technolgy gap.

22nd century ships without shields (but with shield-like substances) seem to last a bit unless they are facing 23rd century weaponry. Even then they seem to be able to take hits better than Vulcan and Andorian warships (if the Mirror Universe battles have any weight to those vessels against a 23rd century Federation starship.)

In all cases, ships do not generally survive very long without their shields up in Star Trek.