Help with Ground Combat.

hyefather · May 2015

I want to start doing the advanced and elite ground missions. The only thing so far that I've done is upgrade my gear. I need advice on getting some ground traits, Kit modules and maybe some new duty officers that improve ground abilitys. Ty for helping me it is much appreciated.

P.S. Silly me, the character I need help on is a Tactical character. Ty again.

chalpen · May 2015

As a tac, my solution is the "drop kick suicide run".
Bring a lot of bandaids and put "help!" On your task bar

pennylong · May 2015

What gear do you have and what levels are your reps?

That will help narrow down what you have available.

One device I do find useful tho is the gambling device which you can find on the exchange.

duncanidaho11 · May 2015

To get you started here are some of the core aspects to ground builds I've found work very well:

Ambush, a single-shot ground weapon (ex. dyson rep rifle, and with this the "pack leader" trait is particularly helpful) + 3 security doffs

Additionally you can look into:

Mods: Motivation, Polaron Bombardment, Battle Strategies, Lunge
Traits: Soldier, Lucky, Firearms Specialist, Viscious, Ironsides (if you need to do less dying), Adrenal Release (+50% damage but -resistance, use it when taking a shot with ambush and then switch it off before they can shoot back.)

Rep Traits: Omega weapon proficiency, Armor Penetration (though for elite/advanced content I wouldn't go any farther than 2/4 offensive rep traits, given that tac's more commonly run into problems with surviving, not DPS.)

If you use lunge then the 8472 reputation armor could be worth looking into. However if you decide to go further with that set then only look at the kit and the shields. 4/4 isn't worth it and the weapon is frustrating to use and a bit buggy (animations). Then with 3/4 try out a fleet disruptor/phaser pulsewave (which can be a devistating 1-2 combo and its buffed by the set bonuses).

Also, don't dismiss the commando secondary specialization. The first thing it does is buff damage. If you put points into it, it buffs health, reduces attack cooldowns, and buffs damage even more. The space trait is absolutely useless but if you get 10/15 (with the left hand side T1 perks completed, right side is more esoteric/impractical) you should be well set.

mcduffie369 · May 2015

My youtube channel is almost completely devoted to ground combat. have a look

woodwhity · May 2015

For a robust-setup I use

AMACO/KHG-Shields and Pulsewave (for 2pc-Bonus->extra Hypo)
Advanced Fleet Armor with CrtD and HP (really cheap)
Delta Expedition Tactical Kit Mk XII [Spec] [Tactics] [CritD]
Plasma Grenade MK XII from Fleet Embassy
Polaron Barrage MK XII
Ambush MK XII
Trajctory Bending MK XII
Rally Cry MK XII from Fleet Spire
TR-116B Rifle - Sniper Rifle Mk XII [Dmg] [ShPen]x4 (As Primary Weapon, since AMACO Pulsewave is just there for the Bonus), for BHE a Rapidifre-Weapon is more effective, though it still pales compared to the Kitpowers.

Timing is important, especially to always combine your Tactical Initiative (that is btw. your strongest ability ingame) and Strike Team. Chain up with Ambush, Trajectory Bending and Rally cry and finish with Delta T5/Polaron Barrage and see your enemies being reduced to a pile of smoking ash.

iconians · May 2015

If you haven't done so already, I'd suggest remapping your ground controls extensively. If you play any other similar third person games, I'd suggest rebinding your keys and controls to a similar set-up as those games to more easily adapt.

One of the main reasons I've heard people complain about STO's ground combat is the clunky ground controls, but once they customize the ground set-up to their own personal preference and comfort, ground combat becomes much more enjoyable and engaging.

I'd recommend the TR-116B rifle for Brotherhood of the Sword since it bypasses shields. For Bug Hunt I recommend a Pulsewave Assault or a Split Beam Rifle. The single target nature of the TR-116B rifle makes fighting bugs a little inefficient, and the Shield penetration trait it has is wasted on shieldless bugs.

Anything with area of effect is great for Bug Hunt, and I'd recommend the Undine ground set for that. Toxic damage is your main concern on that mission.

For Brotherhood of the Sword, the Delta Alliance ground set is useful for the EMP clicky that when used right can oneshot entire squads (generally if you see an engineer on the team use Orbital Strike, hit the EMP pulse so their shields are disabled before getting hit with it).

Healing and Survivability come into play against the Heralds, and as a tactical officer you might find some use in Sweeping Strikes, as the Thralls are quite capable of one or two-shotting you in melee.

abaddon653 · May 2015

I can help you with one bit of advice OP. Always remember, the pointy end faces AWAY from you and goes in the enemy. There ya go, have fun.

waldotrek · May 2015

If you are running a Borg ground mission the ghostbuster rifle makes an excellent secondary weapon plus it's a mission reward which is nice. Jem'Hadar ground set is also pretty good.

hyefather · May 2015

pennylong wrote: »

What gear do you have and what levels are your reps?

That will help narrow down what you have available.

One device I do find useful tho is the gambling device which you can find on the exchange.

My gear is the Counter command set. Very rare Mk 14. All of my rep projects are Level 5 except the iconian rep and I'm level 3 with it. I think I do have the gambling device but so far for my 4 device slots I'm using the "Shard of Possibliitys" with All 3 Large Power, Shield and Hypo cells. With the Biochemis "Keri Paulina Dougan" Her abilitys is Recharge time on all Stims, Shield charges and Power cells reduces by 50%.

hyefather · May 2015

iconians wrote: »

If you haven't done so already, I'd suggest remapping your ground controls extensively. If you play any other similar third person games, I'd suggest rebinding your keys and controls to a similar set-up as those games to more easily adapt.

One of the main reasons I've heard people complain about STO's ground combat is the clunky ground controls, but once they customize the ground set-up to their own personal preference and comfort, ground combat becomes much more enjoyable and engaging.

I'd recommend the TR-116B rifle for Brotherhood of the Sword since it bypasses shields. For Bug Hunt I recommend a Pulsewave Assault or a Split Beam Rifle. The single target nature of the TR-116B rifle makes fighting bugs a little inefficient, and the Shield penetration trait it has is wasted on shieldless bugs.

Anything with area of effect is great for Bug Hunt, and I'd recommend the Undine ground set for that. Toxic damage is your main concern on that mission.

For Brotherhood of the Sword, the Delta Alliance ground set is useful for the EMP clicky that when used right can oneshot entire squads (generally if you see an engineer on the team use Orbital Strike, hit the EMP pulse so their shields are disabled before getting hit with it).

Healing and Survivability come into play against the Heralds, and as a tactical officer you might find some use in Sweeping Strikes, as the Thralls are quite capable of one or two-shotting you in melee.

Ty, you have no idea how much this helped.

rattler2 · May 2015

My main used the MACO set for a long time. That shield capacitor helped a bit, and the integrated remod was helpful. I also used the old Fire Team kit for a long time, and tried to replicate one with the newer kit module system.

However there is one weapon I would suggest for anti-Borg work. TR-116B. Never need to remod with that gun.

millimidget · May 2015

pennylong wrote: »

One device I do find useful tho is the gambling device which you can find on the exchange.

That's a good start.

Around 2M EC for it, which is a huge savings compared to the lobi cost.

captainkron · May 2015

Carry a large stack of Hypos. Get Fluidic Antigens ground trait for bug hunt. Keybind 4th mouse button with all your buffs that don't have long cool downs. You know like spacebar in space, but on your mouse. Make a max ground spec Cat/ Engineer. Slot Shield recharge and mines in Kit. And spam the heck out of them. Drop mines like rice at a Wedding. Slot all ground traits before you enter the Queue. Oh and in pugs don't count on any heals or EMT coming to save you. Oh and what does the Doctor do besides die?? meh.

cecil08 · May 2015

captainkron wrote: »

Oh and what does the Doctor do besides die?? meh.

Well I don't know about yours, but mine charges at the enemy like he's going to rip his throat out with his bare hands... then realizes he's a doctor, not a warrior and comes running back.

The Doctor needs an AI retune and buff, stat.

I'm an engineer but here's what I use on the ground:

For Borg STFs:
Full Omega Set (integrated remod = awesome)
Upgraded Shotgun as back up weapon (no remod = awesome)
Tribble of Borg
Lots of hypos

For Bug Hunt (and Undine):
Full CC set EXCEPT the gun.
Primary gun = Upgraded Iconian Pulsewave (Mk 14, Very Rare) I was using an Bio-molecular pulsewave but the Iconian one is better
Kobali rife as back up (split beam = awesome)
Fluidic Tribble (with this plus the CC armor/shield, I have 50%+ toxic resist which helps a lot in Bug Hunt)
Lots of hypos

For everything else:
Full Delta Rep gear EXCEPT the gun (see above)
Primary gun = Upgraded Iconian Pulsewave (Mk 14, Very Rare)
Kobali rife as back up (split beam = awesome)
Best Buy Tribble (IDIC Tribble would be good here though)
Lots of hypos

I'm an engineer so I rely on my integrated shield recharge as well as putting up generators like crazy. I can tank the boss of Brotherhood of the Sword without any outside healing on this character, no problem.

I also have full Commando spec which helps a TON with ground. Follow Thru is really nice, even if you don't use melee because you can charge right through the Iconians that spawn next to the generators and knock them all to the ground, giving you time to turn it off.

Plus as others have said, the healing and damage buffs from Commando are really awesome.

shadowwraith77 · May 2015

2 of the biggies should always be 1 ground biochemist doff in rare or VR for stims/hypos/shield charge cd reduction and, the ground trait covert.

Gear wise is up to you!!!

As is everything else.

simeion1 · May 2015

So here are some notes to take from ground combat help. Rep gear pretty much sucks. There are a few pieces that are good, most of them being armor. Now dont get confused, all rep gear has a purpose, just is is so specific you would be change gear out every mission. It is nice you edited your post to say you were a tactical captain this helps a lot.

I will start off with gear. As of right now there are 7 kits I get for my tacs, one from each fleet holding, one that give plus to expose, one for for crith, one for critd, and the Imperial Navy as long as the tac is using plasma weapons. I look for kits that have mods for weapons and willpower if not spec into it. If you are spec'd in willpower get a kit for weapons and special forces. I never go to nine point in any skill on the ground. The investment is not worth it in most cases. I also do not put more than three point in combat armor, this skill does not seem to be as effective as putting points some where else.

I grab one of every kit module that comes around. Ambush, Rally Cry, Motivation, Over watch, suppressing fire, and battle strategies are must. You should also grab photon and plasma grande, lunge, stealth and motion accelerator. There are even more like neutron grenade, piercing strike, trajectory bending and others that are good. You need to determine what type of tac you want to be. In my case there are two types of tacts. One of them being the DPS/spike damage tact, these are common and see them almost everywhere. The second type is the team buffer. They use abilities like over watch, motivation, and rally cry and a few others to buff the team. It is nice if you end up in a team that has one of each but you rarely see the second type of tac. I would not use draw fire without the draw fire doffs, these are shield doffs that give weapons mal to anyone targeting the tac, since draw fire has a threat bonus if tends to work. If you use this remove if when fighting the blue gills that mush physical damage is hard to defend against.

Shields, while there are a ton of shields to choose from I tell everyone to upgrade there Omega shield to Mk14. At this level the you get a 40% dodge chance. If you are crouching and aiming like you should be doing most of the time while on ground you get another 50% dodge. Combine that with the gambling device which is another 10% dodge, critd, and crith you are now are 100% dodge. Refrain form taking physical damage while crouching it does also give -100 DR. You still dodge but physical damage hurts. Roll away from enemies getting close for a instant 100% dodge or sprint for 75% until you can crouch again.

Armor, I prefer to carry numerous types, the omega, 2 fleet (elite poloyweave [nanite], advance armor for critd 80%), jemhadar forthe health regen (i have not tested but it does have a good health regen and some poeple say they dont use hypos while in it/ it does not have good kenitc damage resistance so i would use over watch while in it). The two piece omega gives distortion filed which is a good damage resistance and the two piece also gives critd, crith ,and dodge. Most armors are decent for this game the two piece dyson give nice DR bonus and I think it is the counter command that give + to phaser and disruptor damage.

Weapons weapons depends on your build around your kit and what type of tac you what to be. Spike/DPS tacs need to use just about any weapon, I prefer weapons that exploit, but in order to exploit you need a kit, captain, or boff power that causes exposes, you can do this with an expose weapon. Weapons the have exploit are snipers, split beams, high density beans, compression pistols, wide beam rifles, and pusle waves (only use it with in 10m, severe damage decrease the farther you are from target, i would stay as close as 5m). These weapons are how you get you 2-5k hits as a tac. If you are playing tac two use full auto rifles, blast assaults, and any other weapon that causes exposes. These is a in between build where you care one of each. When i do this i use supressing fire to help lock down a target then hit them with the secondary of a full auto rifle. This should cause an expose then buff up and hit then with a split beam for the exploit. Pick you weapons based off the tac you want to play.

Doff:
There are many ways to go doing this I am going to list the most common and advantageous. I also try to setup boff team to piggyback off doffs.

Security: You will need 9 of them 3 of each type. Three dot doffs while using ambush. these doffs deal 100% more damage to target over a set of time based of rarity. So if you hit a target for 1500 damage with ambush each doff will do another 1500 damage (purples over 9 seconds) and they stack three times. I have hit the Borg Gorn in HGE for 3300 damage and then watch the dot do 9900 more. One shot over 10 seconds did 14200 damage. The other set is for calling down additional security escorts. This use to be a great doff set but the two minute cooldown and the doffs can not be proc'd by boffs. When you proc all three purples it is security escorts everywhere. It just is not as reliable as i would like. the other three sets most likely would have to be blue, purples are expensive, ground melee doffs. These doffs give bonus to crit d and h while using melee weapons, also works with lunge and sweeping strike.

Biochemist: This doff is also expensive, it cuts the c/d of stems in half. Normal stem (hypo, sheild recharge, and power cell) is activate one it goes on a 30 second c/w and the other two goes for 15 seconds. With this doff it is now 20/10.

Use the other 1-2 spots as needed. I like the other two spots for expose doffs or a grenade doff, I like the voth that sticky grenades the photon/stun grenade.

Traits:
If you use ambush pick up covert. Pack leader, hive mind, iron sides, savior, vicious, molt are some of the ones i would pick up from the exchange. Vicious might be the best one to grab first, Only run savior if you are running rally cry to increace your heal. Remember any trait is worth getting off the exchange, but equip the ones that fit the type tac roll you are playing. As far as ground rep traits lethality and deadky aim help increase crit d and h.

Hints to staying alive, if you are dying to much use stuff like peak health, molt, energized nanites (you are a tac this is a return of health based on energy weapon dealt), and imdomitable are good traits to help you stay alive.

I hope this helps OP.

Help with Ground Combat.

Comments