Surgical Strikes vs CSV

staq16

I'd be grateful for any opinions people have over Surgical Strikes vs CSV.

The scenario is, having scored a D7 Temporal Battlecruiser I'm now looking to make is as much of a canon build as possible... which means making it a cannon build. Currently, like most cannon boats, it's using DHCs + CSV and ripping mobs apart happily, thank you very much. The only issue there is that the D7's cannons are blazing like machine guns, rather than the slow firing artillery of the screen version.

However, the D7 does have that lovely Uni / Intel seat, and from a cosmetic perspective Surgical Strikes - slower firing for more damage per hit against a single target - would work well. Betweem BOffs, DOffs and Reciprocity, I reckon I should be able to get a single copy at global cooldown, meaning that it will be active 2/3 of the time.

SS boosts Acc and CrtH, and I'm currently lumbered with a set of DHCs with mediocre mods; being a sucker for punishment means that I'm trying to build a set of TOS weapons, and that means starting from white so there is a fair smattering of Acc / CritH mods as well. I'm therefore thinking that I if I go down the Surgical Strikes option, I need to look at more controllable factors which boost CritD rather than CritH - so load Vulnerability Exploiters rather than Locators, for example.

Anyone out there running SS who could advise?

lordsteve1

Well the most obvious difference is the SS is better for single target attacks whereas CSV is about hitting multiple things at once.
With SS you'll do more damage to one enemy, but you might find you get mobbed with groups (like in MI at the moment).
I find both are great abilities but it depends on what your style is and whether you want to take out one thing at a time or groups.

peterconnorfirst

First of all gz on your D7. The stats of that ship seem perfect and I bet cannons would work fine on it.

I remember back in the old days I used 1 copy of cannon scatter volley and 1 copy of rapid fire. The shared CD is same as the duplicate one of either so it was possible to slot them both and decide which one to activate in which circumstance (You could do the same with SS and CSV and see what works better for you).

Later on it became more and more obvious that in PvE CSV is *much* more potent than CRF and I bet it’s the same with SS. Could be interesting for PvP but in PvE it is CSV all the way. For cannon builds there is also the awesome defiant trait (think kor bird of prey kdf) to consider giving an duration of 14 seconds per each CSV (yes with 2 copies and a CD of 15 secs this almost up 100% of the time).

Go for CSV and in any case try to squeeze in Override Subsystem Safeties 3 (from intel) and Recursive Sharing 3 (from temporal) on your D7. Not many ships can use that hell of a combo at them moment.

You will enjoy it.

birzark

Surgical strikes are awesome i love that ability i prefer ut with beams but is certainly viable with cannons. Beam or cannon energy cooldown doffs work with it which combined with reci should allow you to run 1 copy of SS. The one thing that isnt great about SS is bonuses and procs like ico space 3 part bonus doesn't work with SS cause the attacks are less frequent and you never get full stacks.

staq16

Useful points, thanks! I had read about the slowed fire rate affecting the Leech but had not considered the Iconian set as well.

Well, no harm in giving it a go...