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Tanky space set advice?
dykeras
Member Posts: 326 Arc User
in The Academy
Sorting out my shiny new Jem' Engineer character and wanted to make him quite tanky (will be flying one of the flag ship cruisers with all 3 consoles) and just wondered which of the rep space sets would provide the best defence?
Seen a few YouTube people putting forward either the Terran or Delta sets as being the best 'bang for your buck' set with regards to taking damage.
As always, all advice appreciated
Ps, I have recently joined a fleet, so a fleet core/Deflector + Rep set items I can do, if that makes a difference...
Seen a few YouTube people putting forward either the Terran or Delta sets as being the best 'bang for your buck' set with regards to taking damage.
As always, all advice appreciated
Ps, I have recently joined a fleet, so a fleet core/Deflector + Rep set items I can do, if that makes a difference...
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Each requires quite a different approach.
'Tanky' as in able to go into the thick of battle and take all the damage the NPC's can give out (Strictly PvE)
reyan01, thanks for advice, I will try the Iconian set once I get the Dil and Marks for it :-)
There are other sets that are a little more defensive oriented, but you don't want to go too much into defense because if you can't kill anything you'll never survive. Iconian gives a great balance.
I'm sure your DPS is great, but as Kahless said, "a petaQ with high system mastery is still a petaQ." (Well, he should have said it...!)
Current go-to setup for tanks is either same as regular DPS build meta, that is Colony Deflector, Engines+Shields Competitive and Fleet Warp Core, or for more durability Colony Deflector + 3pc Competitive.
I myself, as well as Florian use the former setup, while Sizer, Jay and Rev favor the latter.
You can't go wrong with that choice.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
In case you're wondering OP, he's referring to the Protomatter Deflector which is available through your fleet. Your fleet has a holding called a Colony and you can buy the Deflector there for Fleet Marks and Dilithium. The current top choice is the Elite Fleet Intervention Protomater Deflector.
For Durability, it's a good recommendation to fill the other 3 parts with items from the Prevailing Regalia set. The Engines are particularly nice, they grant you a speed and turn bonus whenever using certain powers. My personal preference is the ones that speed you up when you heal because they're easier to control when they fire.
If you want a little more punch, you can swap out the Warp Core and instead use a Core from the Fleet Spire, this is my preferred method. Top dog currently is the Elite Fleet Plasma-Integrated Warp Core that's sold at the Fleet Spire.
The big problem with the Prevailing set is that they take Elite Marks that are currently rather hard to get. Assessed Stratagem's are pretty tough to earn since they come from Competitive Queues that almost never pop and in my opinion really suck to play. The way I got mine was I just did the mark conversion project. You can convert 100 Competitive Marks for 1 Assessed Stratagem once per 20 hours. If you're going with the 2pc it means it will take you 10 days to get enough Assessed Stratagems. The 3 piece will take you 15 days.
It sucks, but he's right.. this is the current 'top of the line.' It's probably worth the wait instead of blowing resources on something like the Iconian Set. You might be better off just replaying missions to get the free Solanae Set, or even the Desperate Defenses set to roll with while you wait.
https://sto.gamepedia.com/Aegis_Technological_Research
It's a bit dated, but still fun.
Iconian shines if you are in a team that has other iconian sets.
Sure, but that doesn't still make it best in slot.
Iconian's 2 teamwide components are its 3pc and 4pc.
3pc is a passive, let's say always on (as you have weapons fire almost always going on) 5% chance to apply 10% cat1 all energy damage to whole team, stacks up 3x. This means the effective buff to yourself would be 3*(1-0.95^5)*0.1=6.8% cat1, to energy weapons only.
4pc, an active buff of 33% cat1 all damage for 30s with 120s CD (plus 20% maximum hull and 10% flight speed). If you can coordinate it with your team perfectly, you can indeed have full uptime for it with one person being left out completely.
So Ico set nets you ~39.8% cat1 with full team using it, and that's also assuming everyone in team are using energy weapons (which is a bold assumption these days).
Does this make it better than Colony Deflector's 15% CrtD, 4% CrtH; 0.6% CrtH from Prevailing Regalia 2pc and Innervated Shields giving you 5% chance of 1% CrtH and 10% CrtD (as a tank with 80% atks-in, we can make the assumption 0.04% CrtH and 0.4% CrtD total). In total 15.4% CrtD and 4.64% CrtH vs 39.8% cat1.
So yes, for the supposed average high-end scenario, (with pre-existing 650% cat1, 100% cat2, 150% CrtD and 30% CrtH, using slightly modified values from this post to make it more "high-end" and less "ultra high-end"), we'll see 0.26% difference, in favor of Iconian set (the linked post also contains a spreadsheet that I used to do the calculations), which is practically so small difference it's lost in the margin of error.
However, that means you'll need to have everyone in team using energy weapons, and one of the teammembers being in a quite useless position without having the ability to activate the 4pc. Losing one person activating the 3pc already tips the scales very slightly in favor of Colony+Competitive.
However, that's only the comparison of pure damage boosts. With Competitive Engines, you'll get an incredibly useful mini-Evasive Maneuvers, which, once tried, is incredibly hard to leave behind, and clearly beats whatever speed buff Ico 4pc gives you. It also acts as a decent CDR method, for example I personally rely on my Fortified Engines to get my last few seconds off Emergency Power to Weapons, to get it to 30s minimal CD.
Furthermore, should you opt for Prevailing Regalia 3pc, it gives you bonus/cat2 damage resistance, which doesn't allow you to exceed 75% DRR, but given how your cat1 DRR is probably already pretty saturated, allows you to get closer to 75% with less effort.
Again, don't get me wrong, with full team coordination Ico set is still a badass one, but it relies too much on your team being fully aware and RNG tipping in your favor, and even at its best, it still gets only to equal level to Colony+Competitive combo, without actually beating it.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
Going through the story list at the moment so no rush for end-game gear yet but nice to know what to aim for :-)
Of all the cool buffs the 'Meta Set' gives, this has been my single biggest improvement. My DPS has gone up a ton by just adding these engines..why? Because I fly large ships with cannons (Scimitar, Vengeance) and I am not the best pilot in STO. The speed boost helps me break out of power slides, spin my weapons around to face a group and get between groups before my abilities expire. The Engines are still great with Beams, but they really shine on Cannon builds and play a huge role helping you keep constant fire on the enemy.
I am in the exact boat you said.. I used them and I can't go back. Flying a ship without competitive engines just sucks now.
Haha.. I know what you mean. I use them on my Tempest Patrol Escort (yes, I still fly one) and I have zoomed past targets on a couple of occasions. If you use the ones that proc on activation of Tactical Abilities it's pure chaos. The Heal oriented ones are easier to control, but still occasionally proc at a bad time and sent you shooting past your target. It happens.
Might be a good place to look.
This is certainly true and worth to emphasize on! No matter if we talk about tanks, crowd controller or healer one simply starts with a run of the mill DPS boat, exchange but a handful of items/traits and voila your tank, crowd controller or healer works splendid in PvE.
Do it the other way around, build a ship around armor, healing or contrl X and you end up doing it wrong. Quite logical isn’t it? ISNT IT?!
As far as my recommendation on a tanking space set ICO vs. Comp Set is concerned I constantly run both variants on my characters and have yet to see any difference in performance towards my intended "tanking" role then.
If you start from scratch Id also hang to the current Meta Colony Deflector/Spire Core/Comp Engines & shields. The benefits you get here are simply too versatile to ignore even if you would want to give up on tanking and switch to other stuff later on. It (or at least parts of it) serve me on standard DPS, tanking and even on SCI EPG heavy builds. I will check it out on my kinetic build next. It is a perfect allrounder drip drop. The ICO set on the other hand gets more and more limited into a supportive niche role.
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