How are you getting these numbers, what skills are you specked in?
...<SNIP>...
My captains achieve these power levels by investing in Engineering System Efficiency and Performance skills. If I remember correctly, here are the current figures:
-Warp Core Efficiency +6
-Warp Core Potential +9
-Engine Performance +3
-Shield Performance +2
-Aux Performance +2
-Weapon Performance +3
Other Notables:
-Borg Assimiliated Console for +5 weapon energy -- this is a must-have
-C-Store Borg Engineer BO for +5 warp core Efficiency
-Trill Joined Symbiote for more assorted system bonuses
-Space Trait Warp Core Theorist (I think it grans +10 warp core potential, but not sure under Season-5)
Small question, if you are flying around so quickly I presume you aren't the primary damage dealer in your STF?
The massive downside of constant high speed movement and turning means you constantly leave the 2km sweet spot for Canon damage as well as leaving the 45 degree firing arc...
So the defensive bonus's for moving are offset by the offensive bonus's for staying put, meaning that a target you aren't raining down pain with 100% of your damage is going to stay alive longer, meaning you have to defend against it longer (and also takes longer for the STF to complete).
This is not entirly true. I'm in the same boat as Shar and tend to use higher speed to gain defense and (probably more important for me) maneuverability, Keeping the enemies attention is not that difficult even if you have to turn your ship, if you minimize the time as much as possible.
For escorts I tend to prefer the fleet escort and it's amazing what you can do by adding for example an RCS console or Aux2Damp, also next to the Subspace Field Modulator I'm using Engine Batteries. At some point you are literally agile enough to swing around in a second without Evasive Maneuvers, which minimizes the time the enemy is out of your main arc. You still can slow down if necessary or hit reverse. Works better than you might think.
High Yield Plasma Torps also aren't an issue here, just swing around and give them a quick burst. For emergency situations I'm using the Point Defense System from the Thunderchild.
My captains achieve these power levels by investing in Engineering System Efficiency and Performance skills. If I remember correctly, here are the current figures:
-Warp Core Efficiency +6
-Warp Core Potential +9
-Engine Performance +3
-Shield Performance +2
-Aux Performance +2
-Weapon Performance +3
Other Notables:
-Borg Assimiliated Console for +5 weapon energy -- this is a must-have
-C-Store Borg Engineer BO for +5 warp core Efficiency
-Trill Joined Symbiote for more assorted system bonuses
-Space Trait Warp Core Theorist (I think it grans +10 warp core potential, but not sure under Season-5)
Hope this helps
That matches my setup very closely, ill recheck and tweek when I.get home later.
The escort's forward speed is only necessary until the elite tac-cube's energy levels are neutralized. After that, it's perfectly fine to engage it from a stationary point-blank position since its attacks will no longer 1-shot-kill you at that point. However, escorts are at the mercy of their team's damage mitigation builds if they bring none of their own. I routinely bring such skills to the table, and as a result, I can finish elite STF's without having to zerg-rush the cube.
Sounds good to me. I start using evasive when I need to GTFO and increasing my speeds, but the rest of the time I try to keep my shields up and attack as hard as possible.
The best group I ever had was 5x tac captains, 4 in escorts one in a cruiser. We took out that Elite tac cube in less than a minute just pointing and shooting with all of us healing whomever was taking the agro, never even needed to run for the woods. Finished the secondary with 2 minutes left on the clock.
This is not entirly true. I'm in the same boat as Shar and tend to use higher speed to gain defense and (probably more important for me) maneuverability, Keeping the enemies attention is not that difficult even if you have to turn your ship, if you minimize the time as much as possible.
For escorts I tend to prefer the fleet escort and it's amazing what you can do by adding for example an RCS console or Aux2Damp, also next to the Subspace Field Modulator I'm using Engine Batteries. At some point you are literally agile enough to swing around in a second without Evasive Maneuvers, which minimizes the time the enemy is out of your main arc. You still can slow down if necessary or hit reverse. Works better than you might think.
High Yield Plasma Torps also aren't an issue here, just swing around and give them a quick burst. For emergency situations I'm using the Point Defense System from the Thunderchild.
Seems like we are focusing too much on the Elite Infected Tactical cube... Thats only a small part of the overall scheme of things when it comes to STF's.
My captains achieve these power levels by investing in Engineering System Efficiency and Performance skills. If I remember correctly, here are the current figures:
-Warp Core Efficiency +6
-Warp Core Potential +9
-Engine Performance +3
-Shield Performance +2
-Aux Performance +2
-Weapon Performance +3
Other Notables:
-Borg Assimilated Console for +5 weapon energy -- this is a must-have
-C-Store Borg Engineer BO for +5 warp core Efficiency
-Trill Joined Symbiote for more assorted system bonuses
-Space Trait Warp Core Theorist (I think it grans +10 warp core potential, but not sure under Season-5)
Hope this helps
I'm running at:
W - 124 (90)
S - 73 (60)
E - 46 (25)
A - 46 (25)
My skill differences are 9 in efficiency, 0 in shields and engines, and 7 in weapons.
Items are the same minus Alien character with Efficient and Warp Core Theorist traits instead of a joined Trill.
High Yield Plasma Torps also aren't an issue here, just swing around and give them a quick burst. For emergency situations I'm using the Point Defense System from the Thunderchild.
If torps that can one shot you, are not a concern for you, your running a better setup than I. (details please)
The point defense system is only good for a short time and only once every 2min. the automated defense battery is always active, you don't have to press a button to make it work and some times it will attack another ship if your close enough. It makes me smile seeing that X takes 45plasma damage from automated defense. Thinking to my self. "Oh it's trying to help"
Seems like we are focusing too much on the Elite Infected Tactical cube... Thats only a small part of the overall scheme of things when it comes to STF's.
The elite tactical cube is probably the most difficult opponent in STF's. If your team can handle one without significant fatalities, then the rest of the STF should be trivial. Gates hit just as hard as Tac-Cubes, so the same damage management tactics also apply.
If torps that can one shot you, are not a concern for you, your running a better setup than I. (details please)
The point defense system is only good for a short time and only once every 2min. the automated defense battery is always active, you don't have to press a button to make it work and some times it will attack another ship if your close enough. It makes me smile seeing that X takes 45plasma damage from automated defense. Thinking to my self. "Oh it's trying to help"
I'm still concerned about things that can 1-shot me, but usually High Yield Plasma Torpedoes aren't that dangerous. I already mentioned that I'm using an RCS console to enhance my turn rate and sometimes, when in the right mood even Aux2Damp. My engine power setting is usually around 40 and 50 which gives me some 60 up to more than 70 actual output. If your camera doesn't sit too close on your ship, you see them soon enough and can turn around for a quick cannon burst. For boss fights, just be outside torpedo arcs.
I could use the Automated Defense System, but I don't like to give up a tactical console slot for it. The Point Defense System is there for emergencies, which are usually when I have to catch aggro to protect another escort or take out a group of probes immediatly, not so often to shoot down an incoming plasma torp.
I'm quite sure my setup is not really better than yours, probably just geared more towards maneuverability.
I'm still concerned about things that can 1-shot me, but usually High Yield Plasma Torpedoes aren't that dangerous. I already mentioned that I'm using an RCS console to enhance my turn rate and sometimes, when in the right mood even Aux2Damp. My engine power setting is usually around 40 and 50 which gives me some 60 up to more than 70 actual output. If your camera doesn't sit too close on your ship, you see them soon enough and can turn around for a quick cannon burst. For boss fights, just be outside torpedo arcs.
I could use the Automated Defense System, but I don't like to give up a tactical console slot for it. The Point Defense System is there for emergencies, which are usually when I have to catch aggro to protect another escort or take out a group of probes immediatly, not so often to shoot down an incoming plasma torp.
I'm quite sure my setup is not really better than yours, probably just geared more towards maneuverability.
I do use the chase can with it mostly always zoomed all the way out.
I think this is the best because its point and shoot. However I'm not afraid to look around using the right mouse button.
I run the defiant-r and not the fleet escort this is probably where the big difference is. I'm currently fixing up my bug setup.
Ether way if you don't need to turn or even change targets to avoid a one shot kill. Imagine what kind of difference a different console lay out would make. Not trying to convince any one just offering a different valuable setup.
I find giving up that one tac console doesn't drop my dps by much (running all energy) seeing as I'm alive longer to make up for it.
I'm curious to know how to tell which side of a turning (yes they turn now)cube is the front. I definitely could use input their.
Ether way if you don't need to turn or even change targets to avoid a one shot kill. Imagine what kind of difference a different console lay out would make. Not trying to convince any one just offering a different valuable setup.
I find giving up that one tac console doesn't drop my dps by much (running all energy) seeing as I'm alive longer to make up for it.
It's not that I never used the Automated Defense System, it's always sitting in my inventory together with additonal consoles, a turret and other stuff. So if I feel it's necessary I can put it in, but until now I never felt that much threatened by High Yields.
Just wanted to stop in and say this was very useful for me. Used your layout for my Fleet Escort and adjusted it a little to fit my play style and it's like I'm using a completely different ship. Definitely making my STF missions easier so far.
Don't have any additions to all of this, just wanted to say thanks!
Just wanted to stop in and say this was very useful for me. Used your layout for my Fleet Escort and adjusted it a little to fit my play style and it's like I'm using a completely different ship. Definitely making my STF missions easier so far.
Don't have any additions to all of this, just wanted to say thanks!
No problem, this thread has worked wonders for some members of my fleet too!
I wanted to say thanks again for this guide, it's been hugely helpful.
I will say one thing, which I'll comment on tonight after some testing. I tried out one of the sugested builds and found that while it was effective, it wasn't quite for me. I definitely had been underestimating the effectiveness of AoE attacks like Torp Spread, but found that - for me, anyway - going 100% AOE with TS and CSV didn't feel right.
There were times it was great, but there were also some times where I was taking on a single ship, or a Tac cube, or didn't want to aggro everything in the galaxy that I wished I were a bit more effective in single-target killing.
So I think I'm going to tweak the build just a little bit. I'll have to play with it tonight but right now thinking of training Rapid Fire 3 as my top skill, taking AP:Omega 1 largely for the use escaping Borg tractor beams, and replacing one of my two torp spreads with a high yield.
It'll obviously sacrifice a bit of the ability to 'spam' AoE attacks, but I think for my style of play having a single decent level version of Spread and Scatter Volley for group situations and a version of Rapid Fire and High Yield for the times I'm faced with one big target I want to kill faster will be a good trade off.
At least the rapid fire, anyway. If someone can show with maths that a single target taking a torpedo spread still takes more damage than it eating high yield I'd have to consider that.
Mixing single target skills with the spread skills is perfectly fine, especially if you are a tac captain with the bridge officer recharge skill.
Some more notes on the shield layouts:
I haven't been able to do much testing this weekend due to internet issues, but here are some conclusions I've come to...
The Borg Regen Shield setup is really good, but it has some drawbacks.
1) Your shields CONSTANTLY fluctuate, and sometimes drop for a split second during heavy combat allowing some hull damage to penetrate.
2) Its hard to tell exactly what your shields will do in response to an attack at time, and its hard to react quick enough with your skills like Brace for Impact seeing as its less obvious when your shields might be breached.
3) If your Emergency Power to shield skills are not up, your shields drop fast and you die quickly. This leads me to think point-and-click skill users will not like this setup, as they have to be VERY vigilant with their BO skills.
High-cap shields give you a more "progressive" shield loss, you can visually see your shields start to slowly go down, especially when Tactical Team is active. Its easy to know WHEN you need to use a BO ability like Brace for Impact or Transfer Shield Strength because your sheilds are changing at a steady rate.
Also, with Tactical Team and a high-cap shield, if you are taking LOTS of damage from just one shield facing, it will transfer and fill up your shields on that facing to 100% at the expense of draining the other facings. This doesn't seem to happen with the Borg Regen setup due to the lower cap and higher regen rate (having all your shields transferring to the one shield facing thats taking damage means you won't be taking hull damage from that direction anytime soon).
IMO, The MACO MK XI shield is better than the Aegis shield! While using a higher-cap Resilient shield like the MACO shield, I noticed I was taking far less hull damage while my shields are up. Even with the shields up at any point I generally notice 10-15% damage to my hull in heavy combat, perhaps more with kinetic impacts. Not so with the resilient shields! I could maintain 100% hull strength up to the point when my shields would fail.
The Fleet Escort is the best defensive Escort (next to the Jem'Hadar bug of course).
With the Fleet Escort running 2x Emergency Power to Shields 1, and 1x Reverse Shield Polarity, I can maintain my shields under almost any STF situation excluding the Elite Borg Tac cube. This is with using the MACO or Aegis shield, but it works with the Borg Regen setup too. The ability to use TWO Emergency power to shields AND Reverse Shield Polarity means you have a "Panic button" (RSP) and constantly have a shield resist going with higher shield power.
The downside is the loss of a hold skill, but you can still use the grappler, tractor mines or the borg shields to get the extra tractor skill if need be.
I wanted to say thanks again for this guide, it's been hugely helpful.
I will say one thing, which I'll comment on tonight after some testing. I tried out one of the sugested builds and found that while it was effective, it wasn't quite for me. I definitely had been underestimating the effectiveness of AoE attacks like Torp Spread, but found that - for me, anyway - going 100% AOE with TS and CSV didn't feel right.
I use both CSV and CRF. I have equivalent set ups on 2 BOs. I just swap them in between combat depending on the situation. For example, in Cure, if I am protecting the Kang, I use CSV. When we are down to the carrier, I switch to CRF. Same for KA. CSV before Donatra comes out, CRF after.
Mixing single target skills with the spread skills is perfectly fine, especially if you are a tac captain with the bridge officer recharge skill.
Some more notes on the shield layouts:
I haven't been able to do much testing this weekend due to internet issues, but here are some conclusions I've come to...
The Borg Regen Shield setup is really good, but it has some drawbacks.
1) Your shields CONSTANTLY fluctuate, and sometimes drop for a split second during heavy combat allowing some hull damage to penetrate.
2) Its hard to tell exactly what your shields will do in response to an attack at time, and its hard to react quick enough with your skills like Brace for Impact seeing as its less obvious when your shields might be breached.
3) If your Emergency Power to shield skills are not up, your shields drop fast and you die quickly. This leads me to think point-and-click skill users will not like this setup, as they have to be VERY vigilant with their BO skills.
High-cap shields give you a more "progressive" shield loss, you can visually see your shields start to slowly go down, especially when Tactical Team is active. Its easy to know WHEN you need to use a BO ability like Brace for Impact or Transfer Shield Strength because your sheilds are changing at a steady rate.
Also, with Tactical Team and a high-cap shield, if you are taking LOTS of damage from just one shield facing, it will transfer and fill up your shields on that facing to 100% at the expense of draining the other facings. This doesn't seem to happen with the Borg Regen setup due to the lower cap and higher regen rate (having all your shields transferring to the one shield facing thats taking damage means you won't be taking hull damage from that direction anytime soon).
IMO, The MACO MK XI shield is better than the Aegis shield! While using a higher-cap Resilient shield like the MACO shield, I noticed I was taking far less hull damage while my shields are up. Even with the shields up at any point I generally notice 10-15% damage to my hull in heavy combat, perhaps more with kinetic impacts. Not so with the resilient shields! I could maintain 100% hull strength up to the point when my shields would fail.
The Fleet Escort is the best defensive Escort (next to the Jem'Hadar bug of course).
With the Fleet Escort running 2x Emergency Power to Shields 1, and 1x Reverse Shield Polarity, I can maintain my shields under almost any STF situation excluding the Elite Borg Tac cube. This is with using the MACO or Aegis shield, but it works with the Borg Regen setup too. The ability to use TWO Emergency power to shields AND Reverse Shield Polarity means you have a "Panic button" (RSP) and constantly have a shield resist going with higher shield power.
The downside is the loss of a hold skill, but you can still use the grappler, tractor mines or the borg shields to get the extra tractor skill if need be.
I agree with you, if your not used to using a regenerative setup, your going to be at a disadvantage.
How I work my Defient-r.
I run 2 tact teams, 2 emergency power shields. If you can rotate those one after another, you'll love it. Also with a regen setup if your not diverting at least 50 energy to your shields you're not getting the most of it(It's likely you already know this, but for thos who don't). Of course this means less power else where. Aux, Engines, or weapons.
The difference your seeing in hull damage between the resilient shields and any other shield for that matter is the 5% bleed through apposed to 10% with all others.
Maximum Weapon Power: 125
Least Weapon Power available during firing: 103
On top of having a bonus to energy damage for keeping your weapon power above 100 at all times, the extra torpedo launcher does more dps than most people would give credit for. I'm also planning on getting a Defiant-R with quad cannons so that my build will not only still be effective, it will also be canon to my personal favorite trek series, DS9.
As you might notice, I have a lot of crew abilities, therefore I've loaded up an emergency forcefield and bio function monitor console to protect my crew.
Would replace one of the back turrets with a beam array. Not only can it offer a good shield busrt with Overload 1, it makes it really easy to track your target on all the Mayham. Also with the larger enimes, gates, cubes, it is easy to set it up to where all weapon arc's are fireable.
Depending on exact escort, the Ensign slot can hold:
ETeam1
TSS1 or HE1
BTSW1
Power : 100-50-25-25
I do STFs with barely any suport, can handle holding probes / Spheres off alone while the team clears one gate off, and only run into problems with 3+ Spheres shooting me.
This is made for a Tac Captain and Eng/Sci might wanna drop the subsystem targetting for 2nd copies of CRF and Beta.
Edit : And yes, Borg shield works fine.. As long as youre in combat for more than 30 secs, the regen pwns the higher cap off the Covariants.
Maximum Weapon Power: 125
Least Weapon Power available during firing: 103
On top of having a bonus to energy damage for keeping your weapon power above 100 at all times, the extra torpedo launcher does more dps than most people would give credit for. I'm also planning on getting a Defiant-R with quad cannons so that my build will not only still be effective, it will also be canon to my personal favorite trek series, DS9.
As you might notice, I have a lot of crew abilities, therefore I've loaded up an emergency forcefield and bio function monitor console to protect my crew.
On top of having a bonus to energy damage for keeping your weapon power above 100 at all times, the extra torpedo launcher does more dps than most people would give credit for. I'm also planning on getting a Defiant-R with quad cannons so that my build will not only still be effective, it will also be canon to my personal favorite trek series, DS9.
I ran a 2x forward torpedo layout for the longest time, mostly due to how when the game first came out there was a shared cooldown for dual cannons meaning running more than two didn't work.
I changed away from that when they finally made Torpedo have no shared cooldown, meaning running 2x torpedo skills with 2x torps isn't as effective as it once was in PVE. The timing just doesn't work very well, because you fire both quantums one right after the other instead of a few seconds apart (which used to work well for timing when shields would drop on a NPC ship).
So, to be honest with you and probably a bit too blunt, thats not a very effective layout...
Ah, but the key words are "bonus to energy damage" and "weapon power above 100 at all times". Even if two torpedo launchers aren't effective alone, there's still my cannon and beam hitting at 2-3 times the normal dps.
Ah, but the key words are "bonus to energy damage" and "weapon power above 100 at all times". Even if two torpedo launchers aren't effective alone, there's still my cannon and beam hitting at 2-3 times the normal dps.
Yeah, I think what he means is that you put more than half your weaponslots into torps.. Ive never found that patriculary effective either..
While the all DHC build I posted doesnt keep the power above 100, it doesnt drop it bad enough that I lose the overall superior damage of one or two torpedos.. It certainly dont stop 4-8k damage hits from floating up at a very very fast rate, with the crits ranging as high as 14k
My more traditionel setup (regular PvP build) is made to provide an extreme spike of damage
Just wanted to post a question.
How does every one shoot their canons one at a time, or all at once?
I've tried both, but in the heat it's difficult to keep timing with one at a time and I'm worried I'm loosing DPS.
Comments
My captains achieve these power levels by investing in Engineering System Efficiency and Performance skills. If I remember correctly, here are the current figures:
-Warp Core Efficiency +6
-Warp Core Potential +9
-Engine Performance +3
-Shield Performance +2
-Aux Performance +2
-Weapon Performance +3
Other Notables:
-Borg Assimiliated Console for +5 weapon energy -- this is a must-have
-C-Store Borg Engineer BO for +5 warp core Efficiency
-Trill Joined Symbiote for more assorted system bonuses
-Space Trait Warp Core Theorist (I think it grans +10 warp core potential, but not sure under Season-5)
Hope this helps
This is not entirly true. I'm in the same boat as Shar and tend to use higher speed to gain defense and (probably more important for me) maneuverability, Keeping the enemies attention is not that difficult even if you have to turn your ship, if you minimize the time as much as possible.
For escorts I tend to prefer the fleet escort and it's amazing what you can do by adding for example an RCS console or Aux2Damp, also next to the Subspace Field Modulator I'm using Engine Batteries. At some point you are literally agile enough to swing around in a second without Evasive Maneuvers, which minimizes the time the enemy is out of your main arc. You still can slow down if necessary or hit reverse. Works better than you might think.
High Yield Plasma Torps also aren't an issue here, just swing around and give them a quick burst. For emergency situations I'm using the Point Defense System from the Thunderchild.
That matches my setup very closely, ill recheck and tweek when I.get home later.
The best group I ever had was 5x tac captains, 4 in escorts one in a cruiser. We took out that Elite tac cube in less than a minute just pointing and shooting with all of us healing whomever was taking the agro, never even needed to run for the woods. Finished the secondary with 2 minutes left on the clock. Seems like we are focusing too much on the Elite Infected Tactical cube... Thats only a small part of the overall scheme of things when it comes to STF's.
W - 124 (90)
S - 73 (60)
E - 46 (25)
A - 46 (25)
My skill differences are 9 in efficiency, 0 in shields and engines, and 7 in weapons.
Items are the same minus Alien character with Efficient and Warp Core Theorist traits instead of a joined Trill.
If torps that can one shot you, are not a concern for you, your running a better setup than I. (details please)
The point defense system is only good for a short time and only once every 2min. the automated defense battery is always active, you don't have to press a button to make it work and some times it will attack another ship if your close enough. It makes me smile seeing that X takes 45plasma damage from automated defense. Thinking to my self. "Oh it's trying to help"
The elite tactical cube is probably the most difficult opponent in STF's. If your team can handle one without significant fatalities, then the rest of the STF should be trivial. Gates hit just as hard as Tac-Cubes, so the same damage management tactics also apply.
I'm still concerned about things that can 1-shot me, but usually High Yield Plasma Torpedoes aren't that dangerous. I already mentioned that I'm using an RCS console to enhance my turn rate and sometimes, when in the right mood even Aux2Damp. My engine power setting is usually around 40 and 50 which gives me some 60 up to more than 70 actual output. If your camera doesn't sit too close on your ship, you see them soon enough and can turn around for a quick cannon burst. For boss fights, just be outside torpedo arcs.
I could use the Automated Defense System, but I don't like to give up a tactical console slot for it. The Point Defense System is there for emergencies, which are usually when I have to catch aggro to protect another escort or take out a group of probes immediatly, not so often to shoot down an incoming plasma torp.
I'm quite sure my setup is not really better than yours, probably just geared more towards maneuverability.
I do use the chase can with it mostly always zoomed all the way out.
I think this is the best because its point and shoot. However I'm not afraid to look around using the right mouse button.
I run the defiant-r and not the fleet escort this is probably where the big difference is. I'm currently fixing up my bug setup.
Ether way if you don't need to turn or even change targets to avoid a one shot kill. Imagine what kind of difference a different console lay out would make. Not trying to convince any one just offering a different valuable setup.
I find giving up that one tac console doesn't drop my dps by much (running all energy) seeing as I'm alive longer to make up for it.
I'm curious to know how to tell which side of a turning (yes they turn now)cube is the front. I definitely could use input their.
It's not that I never used the Automated Defense System, it's always sitting in my inventory together with additonal consoles, a turret and other stuff. So if I feel it's necessary I can put it in, but until now I never felt that much threatened by High Yields.
Never paid much attention to this honestly. To be sure I'm trying to stay above the cubes in the torpedo free zone.
Oh ok... so your shooting at it's top.
That makes since now.
Don't have any additions to all of this, just wanted to say thanks!
I will say one thing, which I'll comment on tonight after some testing. I tried out one of the sugested builds and found that while it was effective, it wasn't quite for me. I definitely had been underestimating the effectiveness of AoE attacks like Torp Spread, but found that - for me, anyway - going 100% AOE with TS and CSV didn't feel right.
There were times it was great, but there were also some times where I was taking on a single ship, or a Tac cube, or didn't want to aggro everything in the galaxy that I wished I were a bit more effective in single-target killing.
So I think I'm going to tweak the build just a little bit. I'll have to play with it tonight but right now thinking of training Rapid Fire 3 as my top skill, taking AP:Omega 1 largely for the use escaping Borg tractor beams, and replacing one of my two torp spreads with a high yield.
It'll obviously sacrifice a bit of the ability to 'spam' AoE attacks, but I think for my style of play having a single decent level version of Spread and Scatter Volley for group situations and a version of Rapid Fire and High Yield for the times I'm faced with one big target I want to kill faster will be a good trade off.
At least the rapid fire, anyway. If someone can show with maths that a single target taking a torpedo spread still takes more damage than it eating high yield I'd have to consider that.
Some more notes on the shield layouts:
I haven't been able to do much testing this weekend due to internet issues, but here are some conclusions I've come to...
The Borg Regen Shield setup is really good, but it has some drawbacks.
1) Your shields CONSTANTLY fluctuate, and sometimes drop for a split second during heavy combat allowing some hull damage to penetrate.
2) Its hard to tell exactly what your shields will do in response to an attack at time, and its hard to react quick enough with your skills like Brace for Impact seeing as its less obvious when your shields might be breached.
3) If your Emergency Power to shield skills are not up, your shields drop fast and you die quickly. This leads me to think point-and-click skill users will not like this setup, as they have to be VERY vigilant with their BO skills.
High-cap shields give you a more "progressive" shield loss, you can visually see your shields start to slowly go down, especially when Tactical Team is active. Its easy to know WHEN you need to use a BO ability like Brace for Impact or Transfer Shield Strength because your sheilds are changing at a steady rate.
Also, with Tactical Team and a high-cap shield, if you are taking LOTS of damage from just one shield facing, it will transfer and fill up your shields on that facing to 100% at the expense of draining the other facings. This doesn't seem to happen with the Borg Regen setup due to the lower cap and higher regen rate (having all your shields transferring to the one shield facing thats taking damage means you won't be taking hull damage from that direction anytime soon).
IMO, The MACO MK XI shield is better than the Aegis shield! While using a higher-cap Resilient shield like the MACO shield, I noticed I was taking far less hull damage while my shields are up. Even with the shields up at any point I generally notice 10-15% damage to my hull in heavy combat, perhaps more with kinetic impacts. Not so with the resilient shields! I could maintain 100% hull strength up to the point when my shields would fail.
The Fleet Escort is the best defensive Escort (next to the Jem'Hadar bug of course).
With the Fleet Escort running 2x Emergency Power to Shields 1, and 1x Reverse Shield Polarity, I can maintain my shields under almost any STF situation excluding the Elite Borg Tac cube. This is with using the MACO or Aegis shield, but it works with the Borg Regen setup too. The ability to use TWO Emergency power to shields AND Reverse Shield Polarity means you have a "Panic button" (RSP) and constantly have a shield resist going with higher shield power.
The downside is the loss of a hold skill, but you can still use the grappler, tractor mines or the borg shields to get the extra tractor skill if need be.
I use both CSV and CRF. I have equivalent set ups on 2 BOs. I just swap them in between combat depending on the situation. For example, in Cure, if I am protecting the Kang, I use CSV. When we are down to the carrier, I switch to CRF. Same for KA. CSV before Donatra comes out, CRF after.
I agree with you, if your not used to using a regenerative setup, your going to be at a disadvantage.
How I work my Defient-r.
I run 2 tact teams, 2 emergency power shields. If you can rotate those one after another, you'll love it. Also with a regen setup if your not diverting at least 50 energy to your shields you're not getting the most of it(It's likely you already know this, but for thos who don't). Of course this means less power else where. Aux, Engines, or weapons.
The difference your seeing in hull damage between the resilient shields and any other shield for that matter is the 5% bleed through apposed to 10% with all others.
Fore: Phaser Dual Heavy Cannon
Quantum Torpedo
Quantum Torpedo
Phaser Beam Array
Aft: Phaser Beam Array
Quantum Torpedo
Quantum Torpedo
Maximum Weapon Power: 125
Least Weapon Power available during firing: 103
On top of having a bonus to energy damage for keeping your weapon power above 100 at all times, the extra torpedo launcher does more dps than most people would give credit for. I'm also planning on getting a Defiant-R with quad cannons so that my build will not only still be effective, it will also be canon to my personal favorite trek series, DS9.
Tactical: FaW1, TT1, BTS2, APD2, TS3, CRF3, APO3
Engineering: ET1, EPS1, AF1
Science: PH1, ST3
As you might notice, I have a lot of crew abilities, therefore I've loaded up an emergency forcefield and bio function monitor console to protect my crew.
Just my build, it works reasonably well.
Borg Engine
Borg Shield
4x Dual Heavy Cannons
2xturrets - 1 Beam Array
1 field generator - 1 or 2 shield regen
Borg console - Halon
4x weapontype
Tac
TacT - CSV1 - APB2 - CRF3
TacT - BTSW2 - BTSS 3
Eng
EP2S 1+2
Sci
PH1 - Hazard2
Depending on exact escort, the Ensign slot can hold:
ETeam1
TSS1 or HE1
BTSW1
Power : 100-50-25-25
I do STFs with barely any suport, can handle holding probes / Spheres off alone while the team clears one gate off, and only run into problems with 3+ Spheres shooting me.
This is made for a Tac Captain and Eng/Sci might wanna drop the subsystem targetting for 2nd copies of CRF and Beta.
Edit : And yes, Borg shield works fine.. As long as youre in combat for more than 30 secs, the regen pwns the higher cap off the Covariants.
CRF 3 and APO3 are both commander skills..
I changed away from that when they finally made Torpedo have no shared cooldown, meaning running 2x torpedo skills with 2x torps isn't as effective as it once was in PVE. The timing just doesn't work very well, because you fire both quantums one right after the other instead of a few seconds apart (which used to work well for timing when shields would drop on a NPC ship).
So, to be honest with you and probably a bit too blunt, thats not a very effective layout...
Yeah, I think what he means is that you put more than half your weaponslots into torps.. Ive never found that patriculary effective either..
While the all DHC build I posted doesnt keep the power above 100, it doesnt drop it bad enough that I lose the overall superior damage of one or two torpedos.. It certainly dont stop 4-8k damage hits from floating up at a very very fast rate, with the crits ranging as high as 14k
My more traditionel setup (regular PvP build) is made to provide an extreme spike of damage
Defiant
2x DHC, 1 Quantum, 1 DBB
2 Turrets, 1 Quantum
CRF3 HYT3 BOL3 APBeta1
An alpharun from that baby is enough to take a cube to well below 50% hull in less than 5 seconds, and Spheres simply die before its run its course.
How does every one shoot their canons one at a time, or all at once?
I've tried both, but in the heat it's difficult to keep timing with one at a time and I'm worried I'm loosing DPS.
Thanks for the guide.
I haven't played since release and this put me on track.
DO NOT ARM YOUR ESCORT AS IF IT WAS A CRUISER!
6 beams and one torp is not remotely a good setup for an escort.
I keep seeing these escorts in STFs and it's really starting to get on my nerves. I don't care how good you think this set up is, it's not.
Testimony to this can be found here:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=246230