As for warp plasma...I would say it's okay for hur'q duty if he uses BO for beam buffs over FAW 2. Because FAW 2 only works if your build has a good amount of accuracy...and I am not sure marik's build is good enough to absorb the accuracy loss of FAW 2. If he can...yes FAW 2 would work wonder for a lot of things. So if FAW 2 works for marik, yeah RSP 3 wins. If he needs to use BO however, I think warp plasma might still be okay to use instead. However...if he needs both,
EPtS 1, A2B 1, EPtW 3, RSP 3
ET 1, A2B 1, WP (I forget if it's 1 or 2 in this slot) could work.
I apologize marik, Napalm is absolutely right. I was thinking about the sample build connor provided which has access to Fire At Will at Rank III. I forgot that you only have it at Rank II and Napalm is right, without a high accuracy rating, FAW I and II are less effective.. FAW I is a flat out joke.
If you want to swap out to Warp Plasma for Hur'q, then that's cool.. if that works for you that's all that matters. But most other times I would recommend keeping RSP as it's arguably the best 'get out of jail free' card in the game.
I often don't use FAW against foes like the Hur'q, because then I draw aggro from EVERYTHING, and the ship just can't withstand that. Warp Plasma helps, because the swarmers are usually hanging on the back of my warp engines (another reason I like torps aft).
Another way to look at RSP is that it's a viable defense against the Hur'q when getting overtly swarmed by them even in non A2B builds, and will be available more often if used in combination with A2B.
When using A2B (or other means of cool down management in a different ship) you're getting both offensive and defensive protection against them via increased weapon, shield, and engine power levels, and by having your boff abilities available more often.
You mentioned over-shooting the target. Put me in any escort or even a cruiser with the competitive rep engines and I end up doing the same thing myself at times. It's just a matter of getting used to moving faster.
I have a toon in a cruiser as well, and when clearing the Hur'q at the start of The Swarm Advanced they usually aren't a problem as they can't keep up with me and are being shot down as they try to. This is a perfect example of some good synergies coming together in a build over time and the folks that made the suggestions to help bring me there are the same people giving you advice in this thread.
I have a question regarding the use of A2B. I found many of the ideas put forth in this thread a little inspirational and recently converted an engineer flying a Guardian cruiser to A2B who previously relied mainly on attrition warfare and active duty doffs for cool downs. Am quite pleased with the results and will be adding the cold-hearted trait soon as well as experimenting with the posted spec tree. It's been a while... used to use it with the Excelsior in earlier days. The boff ability rotation becomes more natural with a bit of practice , similar to getting used to flying a cruiser that's moving faster with competitive engines.
What I was wondering was if people using A2B are doing the TT1, EPtW3, APB1, BFAW3, AtB1 chain with just simple keybinds like I am with the two AtB1 abilities on keys side by side or is this rotation usually done via a macro? That's five key presses just to get things rolling and even though all my abilities are key bound so manual activation via the screen isn't usually necessary would a macro for the rotation be more optimal so I can better focus on other things? This is something I haven't tried before. What do you usually use or do for your rotation?
Personally, I key bind my emergency power to weapons/shields only. If I have a ship that has a hanger, I bind the launch fighters as well. I prefer to do everything else manually. I also make sure my bind doesn’t redistribute my shields as that interferes with firing cycle. I keep that on a separate bind.
Really it’s all about what works best for you. I do tend to use a space bar bind more on cannon builds so I can focus my attention more on piloting, but I am weaning myself away from that as well.
Personally, I key bind my emergency power to weapons/shields only. If I have a ship that has a hanger, I bind the launch fighters as well. I prefer to do everything else manually. I also make sure my bind doesn’t redistribute my shields as that interferes with firing cycle. I keep that on a separate bind.
Really it’s all about what works best for you. I do tend to use a space bar bind more on cannon builds so I can focus my attention more on piloting, but I am weaning myself away from that as well.
Yeah, I generally do cannons...which is why I found other keys hard to work with and just went space bar hehe.
Not gonna lie.. I do the same thing.
I was just terrible with Cannons, I was having a really hard time learning how to fly front facing ships properly so I bound everything so I could concentrate on flying. Now that I have been using them for a while and I have the hang of it, I am trying to break that habit, but I still bind a lot on my cannon builds.
Beams are just so easy, you don't really have to concentrate as hard on positioning, leaves me plenty of time to hand pick abilities. I'm still a work in progress with cannons, but I really like them so I am trying to get better.
Hey guys I really appreciate the feedback. Always interesting to hear how experienced players are approaching things. Along the lines of this thread which seem to follow "improving your build one step at a time using whatever works for you" I'll try binding a few abilities to the spacebar to take the heat off things for a start. Tbh, I've never gone the full macro route so again just moving forward step by step.
When I referred to my own key binds it was just to individual keys that are conveniently close to WASD. So for many years I've been using Z X C V B G H N, tilde through 7, T, Y, and a couple others and don't really need to think about what they activate at this point as it's the same across all toons regardless of their discipline. Have a mouse button reserved for firing torps and things like lunge as well.
Things are getting zippy with competitive engines combined with A2B, and I can relate to what you're saying about cannons lol, so it's just a matter of practice.
You may find this interesting Sea, but I have a fair number of bookmarks on binds and macros, the best of which where given to me by your fellow OCD member lee. It seems once again that the in-game flow of info and best practices that seems to follow your fleet that I mentioned before has come into play. Thank you / Gracias / Danke OCD
Hey guys I really appreciate the feedback. Always interesting to hear how experienced players are approaching things. Along the lines of this thread which seem to follow "improving your build one step at a time using whatever works for you" I'll try binding a few abilities to the spacebar to take the heat off things for a start. Tbh, I've never gone the full macro route so again just moving forward step by step.
When I referred to my own key binds it was just to individual keys that are conveniently close to WASD. So for many years I've been using Z X C V B G H N, tilde through 7, T, Y, and a couple others and don't really need to think about what they activate at this point as it's the same across all toons regardless of their discipline. Have a mouse button reserved for firing torps and things like lunge as well.
Things are getting zippy with competitive engines combined with A2B, and I can relate to what you're saying about cannons lol, so it's just a matter of practice.
You may find this interesting Sea, but I have a fair number of bookmarks on binds and macros, the best of which where given to me by your fellow OCD member lee. It seems once again that the in-game flow of info and best practices that seems to follow your fleet that I mentioned before has come into play. Thank you / Gracias / Danke OCD
Oh yeah, I have talked to Lee a couple times about binds, I think he uses them quite a bit. He definitely seems to know what he’s doing with them as well. I’m pretty happy with my current set, one thing that helped me a lot is I set my throttle controls to various extra buttons on my mouse which really helps when I need to control my speed. Oddly though, I haven’t done the Competative Engines thing yet, I had other setups in place when that became the new Meta. I will however, be going that route next upgrade weekend. I need one of those really badly, I have a bunch of items sitting in my bank waiting for upgrades.
Comments
I apologize marik, Napalm is absolutely right. I was thinking about the sample build connor provided which has access to Fire At Will at Rank III. I forgot that you only have it at Rank II and Napalm is right, without a high accuracy rating, FAW I and II are less effective.. FAW I is a flat out joke.
If you want to swap out to Warp Plasma for Hur'q, then that's cool.. if that works for you that's all that matters. But most other times I would recommend keeping RSP as it's arguably the best 'get out of jail free' card in the game.
When using A2B (or other means of cool down management in a different ship) you're getting both offensive and defensive protection against them via increased weapon, shield, and engine power levels, and by having your boff abilities available more often.
You mentioned over-shooting the target. Put me in any escort or even a cruiser with the competitive rep engines and I end up doing the same thing myself at times. It's just a matter of getting used to moving faster.
I have a toon in a cruiser as well, and when clearing the Hur'q at the start of The Swarm Advanced they usually aren't a problem as they can't keep up with me and are being shot down as they try to. This is a perfect example of some good synergies coming together in a build over time and the folks that made the suggestions to help bring me there are the same people giving you advice in this thread.
What I was wondering was if people using A2B are doing the TT1, EPtW3, APB1, BFAW3, AtB1 chain with just simple keybinds like I am with the two AtB1 abilities on keys side by side or is this rotation usually done via a macro? That's five key presses just to get things rolling and even though all my abilities are key bound so manual activation via the screen isn't usually necessary would a macro for the rotation be more optimal so I can better focus on other things? This is something I haven't tried before. What do you usually use or do for your rotation?
Really it’s all about what works best for you. I do tend to use a space bar bind more on cannon builds so I can focus my attention more on piloting, but I am weaning myself away from that as well.
Not gonna lie.. I do the same thing.
I was just terrible with Cannons, I was having a really hard time learning how to fly front facing ships properly so I bound everything so I could concentrate on flying. Now that I have been using them for a while and I have the hang of it, I am trying to break that habit, but I still bind a lot on my cannon builds.
Beams are just so easy, you don't really have to concentrate as hard on positioning, leaves me plenty of time to hand pick abilities. I'm still a work in progress with cannons, but I really like them so I am trying to get better.
When I referred to my own key binds it was just to individual keys that are conveniently close to WASD. So for many years I've been using Z X C V B G H N, tilde through 7, T, Y, and a couple others and don't really need to think about what they activate at this point as it's the same across all toons regardless of their discipline. Have a mouse button reserved for firing torps and things like lunge as well.
Things are getting zippy with competitive engines combined with A2B, and I can relate to what you're saying about cannons lol, so it's just a matter of practice.
You may find this interesting Sea, but I have a fair number of bookmarks on binds and macros, the best of which where given to me by your fellow OCD member lee. It seems once again that the in-game flow of info and best practices that seems to follow your fleet that I mentioned before has come into play. Thank you / Gracias / Danke OCD
Oh yeah, I have talked to Lee a couple times about binds, I think he uses them quite a bit. He definitely seems to know what he’s doing with them as well. I’m pretty happy with my current set, one thing that helped me a lot is I set my throttle controls to various extra buttons on my mouse which really helps when I need to control my speed. Oddly though, I haven’t done the Competative Engines thing yet, I had other setups in place when that became the new Meta. I will however, be going that route next upgrade weekend. I need one of those really badly, I have a bunch of items sitting in my bank waiting for upgrades.