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What Is the most lethal beam build and can it translate to cannon builds?

redrum1#7546 redrum1 Member Posts: 15 Arc User
Hello guys, I am new to the forums but I have played for about a few months now. My question is what is the most lethal beam build to date in the game? I play on feds and KDF and I am trying to put together a decent build for beams . Should I be doing this on a surgical strike /intel ship or does that even matter??? what traits are the best? what should power levels look like? what about chance and severity? What type of beam should be used albeit probably spinals are the best. Any input helps. I have all kinds of ships from dreads to escorts preferable id like something for a dreadnaught kind of build since your not as fast as a escort as far as turning goes which is why beams are preferred.

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  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    edited February 2019
    If you're looking to do beams on a large Dreadnought style ship.. then you're probably looking at something fairly slow and engineering heavy. This is certainly not a problem, it just helps narrow build options a bit.

    Generally speaking, you'll be running 7 single beams and one omni, most likely the Trilithium Omni for the 2 pc set. our best bet for Energy Type right now would be Phasers. You'll want to do this on a Tactical Officer, you'll run an Aux2Bat build designed to keep Fire At Will at global. You will want to make sure you're running FAW at Rank 3 only as rank 2 has serious negatives and FAW 1 is basically just using a BoFF ability to be effectively AFK. :lol:

    Surgical Strikes is out, you will also need an attack pattern in the mix. Attack Pattern Beta is your best DPS option, you will also want Emergency Power to Weapons and it's always good to bring things like Engineering Team, Reverse Shield Polarity, and things like Science Team and Hazard Emitters to heal and clear de-buffs.

    You would want your beams to have some combination of CrtD, Dmg, and Pen Mods.

    As far as Traits, your best ones are going to be Emergency Weapon Cycle from the T6 Arbiter Battlecruiser. If you have access to the Breen Plesh Tral heavy Raider then 'Cold Hearted' is another must have. Other good traits are Re-Directing Arrays from the Tactical Miracle Worker, Improved Critical Systems, and then maybe something like Honored Dead for a little toughness.

    These are very generic tips of course, it would be much easier to pin point a build if you had a specific ship in mind. Is there one that you favor for this endeavor?
    Insert witty signature line here.
  • jeff#1284 jeff Member Posts: 24 Arc User
    Those questions are as diverse as this playerbase is. Are you running a tactical captain, science, engy?
    I will keep it short as there are many LONG explanations and they really don't have to be to get you started, imo.

    I love my T6 Fleet battlecruiser, "arbiter". Been working on it. Whatever ship you run, you want to try to keep your beams the same type, phaser, tetryon, etc. A mix match "rainbow build" makes it harder to fit consoles and keep dmg, crt, etc working in your favor. "Although I do love my Technicolor Beamboat", lol.

    Right now I have 8 advanced fleet beam arrays,"phaser", and fleet dmg and crt consoles in my tactical slots. My engy and science slots revolve around hull heals, shield capacity, power transition. Your warp core and impulse engine, "impulse engine is very important" can help you greatly. They give boosts to turn rates, power consumption and transfer as beams use a lot of power.

    Bridge officer skills are probably the most important thing to line up, without them all your equipment means nothing. Beam fire at will, beam overload, attack pattern Alpha, emergency power to weapons, should all be on your radar if you want to deal damage. There is nothing in game I haven't melted yet at normal level, now i'm working on upgrading and crafting to really fine tune my DPS.

    The sky is the limit here, just make sure you read the fine print on equipment before you buy. The information is all there and common sense will take you everywhere in this game...
  • redrum1#7546 redrum1 Member Posts: 15 Arc User
    Tactical romulan..mostly dreads. multi faction ships but also looking to do this on a scimitar or other dreadnaught.
  • seaofsorrowsseaofsorrows Member Posts: 10,918 Arc User
    Ok, so if I understand correctly.. your goal here is to kill enemies as quickly as possible.

    The Scimitar line is an excellent choice for this.. it's still one of the absolute most powerful ships in the game and an all around power house. Right now, the most effective weapons for killing large groups quickly is Cannons. Cannons out damage beams by a considerable margin but cannon builds are more difficult to play. Cannons have a narrow firing arc and require you to keep everything in front of you. This requires some agility that can be difficult to gain in larger ships.. especially one like the Scimitar.

    There are ways to mitigate the slow turn of a large ship like the Scimitar. One big way is by using the Impulse Engines from the Competitive Reputation. These engines give you a large speed and turn boost anytime you use a hull or shield heal. By slotting these engines, you can use your heals as buffs to turn yourself quickly when you need to get cannons on target.

    The other way to handle it is to run a beam build instead. It's lower damage, but easier to play.

    I am going to link you a build to my Scimitar that I use. Mine is an AntiProton Build and it uses Cannons. It would however, be very easy to convert to beams if that is what you want to do. Simply swap the weapons for the beams of your choice, and in the bridge officer powers you can swap Cannon Scatter Volley III for Attack Pattern Beta III. Then you would remove Attack Pattern Beta II and replace it with Beam: Fire At Will III. You would also remove the Withering Barrage Starship trait as it does not work with beams. You would replace that with something like Re-Directing Arrays.

    Before I share the build, my typical disclaimer..

    This build is what works for me. This is not me saying this is 'right' or that anything else is 'wrong.' This is just designed to be used as a template to help you along. Take some of it, take none of it.. copy it completely.. that's up to you, but this is not intended to tell you what to do, just to provide some ideas.

    With that being said.. Here is my Tactical Scimitar that I run on my Romulan-KDF Tactical Officer. This is a high end build used for Elite content and would be quite expensive to build from the ground up. Still, it might give you an idea of what to build toward. It can easily be changed out into a Beam Build if that is what you like. I can re-link you an adapted build for beams if you need one.

    If you have questions, then please ask and I will do by best to answer them. Hope it helps.
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  • redrum1#7546 redrum1 Member Posts: 15 Arc User
    OK I have had some success with the beam build in PVp. 4 dual beam banks in front, 2 omnis and one beam array in back. Hits as hard as a sual cannon build. I had to invest 1 more tarit into the works so I am definayely easier to kill. pref targ, directed enrgy flux, overload trait, promise of fer., pedal to medal. These all make my beams hit very hard and I saw a few vapes in for for zahl.
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