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tac captain cruiser question...
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I've hit VA, and I've managed to nail down most of my preferred Boff skills, but I'm still bouncing back and forth on the ship I want to make my main for most endgame content.
Part of the problem is I can't really test out certain ships without dropping a ton of cryptic points, so, I'm wondering if other folks can give me their general ideas on the STF and pvp capacity of the following ship types
obviously, there are variations and advantages to all of them - I'm wondering if folks can give me a general overview of the following classes, classes that I can't really afford to be testing out...
Assault Cruiser - I've played through most of admiral lower and upper in an Assault cruiser, and I found it to be quite decent. Good movement and turn, good weapons and console layout, and I got used to the Boff layout - there are several ship classes that seem to be *marginally* better, however, and I'm wondering if that margin turns out to be deceptively small, or unexpectedly big...
Dreadnought - I've played the assault cruiser class, and the dreadnought appears to mostly be assault cruiser + - same Boff layout, same consoles, reduced turn, but some fun special abilities - at least on paper. I'm wondering, the turn rate drop on the dreadnought - is it more crippling than it sounds, or is it still manageable - the cloak and phaser lance, are they effective additions to the ship? or just look good on paper?
Star Cruiser - say what you will, but the star cruiser layout doesn't seem all that bad either. Its got the maneuverability of the assault cruiser, the loss of a low tier tac boff for the add on of a low tier sci boff - I can also get it with dilithium (admittedly, a LOT of dilithium) - any tac captains driving a star cruiser, is there a SIGNIFICANT difference between it and the assault cruiser? positive? negative?
Exelsior Refit (Enterprise - B style) - I'm really torn - i've flown the excelsior, and it was a good ship - this version, however, is a pile of really good and really uncomfortable - the different layout of engineer boffs means a significant re-tooling of my current engineer boff skills, the increased tactical slot however would allow me to slot attack pattern omega, which again, sounded really good (on paper) - the increased turn radius, the buff to power levels
can anyone tell me if the excelsior refit performs as well on paper as it looks, or doesn't? the different engineer layouts? are they really cripplingly different, or can you manage all right?
**also, can anyone tell me, attack pattern omega says something about removing speed debuffs and such - does that include graviton whatchmajiggers? tractor beams? warp plasma?**
Odyssey - I'm actually flying an odyssey right now, and its...weird. Its a big pretty ship, no doubt (although I still think I could have done better
) and its got a very comfortable Boff layout (using the tier 3 universal boff as engineer so it matches the star cruiser layout) - it *does* seem to be slow, but on paper, at least, shouldn't be any slower than the galaxy's and Dreadnoughts - its a reasonable ship, but I'm wondering if one of the other classes would prove to be significantly *better*
I know many people are going to remind me that much of my choice in ship depends on playstyle/preference, and I understand that. But I'm wondering if some folks can give me a rundown on their personal experiences with these classes of ships, highlight some of the unexpected advantages, the unexpected disads, the things that sounded good on paper vs how they actually perform, and so forth
thank you all for your time and effort
Part of the problem is I can't really test out certain ships without dropping a ton of cryptic points, so, I'm wondering if other folks can give me their general ideas on the STF and pvp capacity of the following ship types
obviously, there are variations and advantages to all of them - I'm wondering if folks can give me a general overview of the following classes, classes that I can't really afford to be testing out...
Assault Cruiser - I've played through most of admiral lower and upper in an Assault cruiser, and I found it to be quite decent. Good movement and turn, good weapons and console layout, and I got used to the Boff layout - there are several ship classes that seem to be *marginally* better, however, and I'm wondering if that margin turns out to be deceptively small, or unexpectedly big...
Dreadnought - I've played the assault cruiser class, and the dreadnought appears to mostly be assault cruiser + - same Boff layout, same consoles, reduced turn, but some fun special abilities - at least on paper. I'm wondering, the turn rate drop on the dreadnought - is it more crippling than it sounds, or is it still manageable - the cloak and phaser lance, are they effective additions to the ship? or just look good on paper?
Star Cruiser - say what you will, but the star cruiser layout doesn't seem all that bad either. Its got the maneuverability of the assault cruiser, the loss of a low tier tac boff for the add on of a low tier sci boff - I can also get it with dilithium (admittedly, a LOT of dilithium) - any tac captains driving a star cruiser, is there a SIGNIFICANT difference between it and the assault cruiser? positive? negative?
Exelsior Refit (Enterprise - B style) - I'm really torn - i've flown the excelsior, and it was a good ship - this version, however, is a pile of really good and really uncomfortable - the different layout of engineer boffs means a significant re-tooling of my current engineer boff skills, the increased tactical slot however would allow me to slot attack pattern omega, which again, sounded really good (on paper) - the increased turn radius, the buff to power levels
can anyone tell me if the excelsior refit performs as well on paper as it looks, or doesn't? the different engineer layouts? are they really cripplingly different, or can you manage all right?
**also, can anyone tell me, attack pattern omega says something about removing speed debuffs and such - does that include graviton whatchmajiggers? tractor beams? warp plasma?**
Odyssey - I'm actually flying an odyssey right now, and its...weird. Its a big pretty ship, no doubt (although I still think I could have done better
) and its got a very comfortable Boff layout (using the tier 3 universal boff as engineer so it matches the star cruiser layout) - it *does* seem to be slow, but on paper, at least, shouldn't be any slower than the galaxy's and Dreadnoughts - its a reasonable ship, but I'm wondering if one of the other classes would prove to be significantly *better*I know many people are going to remind me that much of my choice in ship depends on playstyle/preference, and I understand that. But I'm wondering if some folks can give me a rundown on their personal experiences with these classes of ships, highlight some of the unexpected advantages, the unexpected disads, the things that sounded good on paper vs how they actually perform, and so forth
thank you all for your time and effort
Post edited by Unknown User on
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#1 - why? cuz I like cruisers. I don't like escorts...call it an aesthetic thing, but thats the way I fly
#2 - while I can certainly see why having a tac captain in a cruiser is not maximizing my outgoing dps potential, I've read a lot of threads indicating that tac captains in cruisers, and cruiser designs in general, can be more than acceptable and effective at all levels of gameplay. I suppose its possible that a certain section of the population will accept nothing less than maximized performance (tac in escort, eng in cruiser, sci in sci), I suspect that a tac captain in a cruiser can still be a viable choice, and I'm looking forward to seeing if there is someone willing to contest your opinion
#3 - as for you hating people that come into elite stf's with their odysseys, and I may regret asking this, but *why*, besides the "why a tac captain in a cruiser?* - is there something about the performance of odyssey that makes it a fundamental liability in the harder content stfs?
Don't listen to that guy. He obviously doesn't understand how to play. That said...
I am also tac, and i have these 3 of the ships you mentioned and my comments about them are as follows...
Assualt - very good overall cruiser, I have and use it, very fun to play. Both turn rate, survival and dps are all good, just not not excellent. Soloing cubes are a breeze since you can actually let the plasma torp hit you and survive the torp kills the cube also).
Dread - also have one, and LOVE it. It is by far the highest dps cruiser, with survival that's almost as good as any other cruiser. Most people don't like the cloak, but activate all dmg buffs, de-cloak, and phaser lance before you shoot anything other weapon = wtfpwnage. The turn rate is pretty slow, you'll see a significant decrease, but evasive manuvers + revers help solve some of the issue.
Note: it always feels like I survive better in the dread, but stat wise they're almost identical so it might just be me.
Odyssey - odd ship to use, most people have no idea how to use it. For a tac you need to really go out of your way to outfit the ship so that it can dps; and even then, the dps will not be as good as the assualt cruiser. So it has the highest survival of the 3, but it trades noticeable dps for it. It also feels very cumbersome even though the turn rate is the same as the dread.
On a side note:
I don't have the excelsio-R, but others in my fleet have, and it's a nice ship. Slightly higher dps than the assualt, and it might even have as much dmg output as dread (I would argue that it doesn't). But it's the most squishy out of the ship, as I see it blow up way more than my dread. When doing fleet runs we don't use components to heal the ships (mostly for fun) so at the end we compare how many injuries we have... and usually I have less.
Also I've posted my build for the assualt and dread on couple other thread in case you're interested. Credit to Hakashin (spelling?) whoes dread build gave me the general concept for mine.
BEST DPS
1 - Excel (refit) and Gal (refit) are neck and neck. For a tac captain the Excel is a great choice
2 - Gal X (since its update barely edging out the Sovereign)
3 - Sovereign
4 - Star Cruiser
Best Survivor
1 - Star Cruiser
2 - Gal (refit)
3 - Sovereign/Gal X
4 - Excel (refit)
Now the oddessy is a odd horse... with that Universal LTC slot, this opens up the first true hybrid. You can change builds around for this and make it tac heavy and still have great heals.
Overall its the best hybride of the bunch.
What I fly? lol i am no helpth ere neighbor, I have them all and like them all.
Still for a tac heavy like you? AC, if you cant afford a Excel refit
lol if you can't get more dps out a galaxy-x than an excelsior then i'm mpretty sure you're not doing it right. and there is just no way the galaxy-R can out dps all those ship... galaxy-R is more like the odyssey... tank/heal heavy and low dps.
some guy was complaining about tac captains that bring in cruisers - and he was being a bit of a jerk about it, but he brought up one interesting point that got me rethinking - he said most tac captains (and he may have been exaggerating on quantity, but the point is still good) try to fly cruisers like they're escorts - high outgoing dps and maneuverability, and the ships simply CANNOT work that way
and, regardless of his attitude, he might be right - I'm not actually trying to fly escort dps in a cruiser - i'm just looking for a cruiser with good survivability (cuz thats what cruisers do, right?) while trying to eek the best dps I can out of the ships assigned set-up
anyway, the more I thought about it, the more I'm leaning AWAY from the Excelsior refit - which is too bad, cuz its a beautiful ship - but, with the higher turn rate and the extra tac level, the excelsior refit is edging closer to escort territory - but it still won't manuever as well as an escort, it won't do as much dps, and it'll lose a...modest to significant amount of that cruiser survivability in doing so - at least, again, thats how it looks to me on paper - so very hard to tell without flying it with some decent gear
i'm also starting to see the value of my odyssey - instead of trying to shore up its escorty-weaknesses, like poor turn rate into *slightly less* poor turn rate, and fudging tac, sci and eng skills for better dps, perhaps I should just embrace the whale-boaty-ness of it, and stack on as much damage resist and shield regen and such as I can
so, that leaves me with the Dreadnought as a true conundrum. The dreadnought is also going to have that large cruiser lack of maneuverability, so why should I tweak it out for dps like an escort...EXCEPT - with cannon mounts, the phaser lance, and the extra low level tac slot, maybe, maybe I *could* create a cruiser with somewhat comparable escort dps without escort manueverability but *with* much higher cruiser-esque survivability...again, on paper
star cruiser's still a contender on the survivability side, but with 3000 extra hull and the +20 to power systems, the only advantage the star cruiser has over the oddy is the slightly better turn rate - plus, i can buy that with dilithium i ever get really bored and want to try it out
still interested in any other points of view - thanks for all the contributions so far
This is an interesting statement. I traditionally use a cruiser on my engineer and a tac. Normally, I am going into battle at half impulse and tank my way through a fight. Then I read several comments in chat that you should keep your impulse speed at full and only reduce to turn. The conversation was about cruisers. So I started to try this out. Although, enemy fire did miss me more, I often found my self moving out of the battle area before I coudl turn back in. This could be me, and I need to work on turning. However, after your comment above, it got me thinking that those who try to fly a cruiser like an escort may be doing the same thing. I think cruisers behave better at half impulse and just absorb the damage. I am still playing around with tactics and may have a different opinion tomorrow, but that is what I am experiencing today.
Note: I PVE and do not PVP. I do recognize that PVP requires different tactics to be successful.
First off, that guys is absolutely right about not flying a cruiser like an escort. If you you try to manuver it like an escort you will likely fail.
However, what he got wrong is that if you're tac in a cruiser you're NOT trying to do heavy dps and manuver. Instead you are doing high dps and pseudo tank. Meaning that instead of running away when targeted, you simply keep shooting and tank the incoming damage.
And honestly any of the cruisers do this well enough, even the excelsior-R. The ex-R is just able to point and shoot a little faster, but instead you have to watch you hull a bit closer than than the dread for example, but either will work fine.
Case in point - many people in my fleet have a full set of mk12 gear, and we do elite stf's together. And there is usually 2 escorts, as well as my dread. The tac cube at the start of KA and end of infected, as well as the carrier and donatra will always target me within 20-30sec. And since I don't have star ship threat control, that means I generate more threat than the escorts do through pure dps.
Now, on the other hand, when we kill probes, the escorts can each take down 3 probes faster than I can take down 2 since they have more AoE abilities. But single target I'm sure I so at least as much as they do, and likely more.
Oh and I don't have to run away as much as they do, or die as often. Again, it all depends on you're setup and skill with the ship you're using. I am very keen on a particular setup for cruiser (especially for dread) and I can post it if you're interested.
I'm still very, very...iffy...about giving up the beam-boat for the cannon-build, and I'm weighing the various threads and posts I see very carefully
I experimented briefly with a cannon/turret build when I was flying my galaxy class cruiser tier - and it seemed...all right - but there was some serious question from people's who opinions I trust, as to whether the turret/cannon output could equal the consistency/reliability of the beam boat - when I have the freedom of time/resources, I'll pick up a dreadnought and experiment with the cannon style boat (cuz it does sound intriguing), as I have relatively limited resources at the moment (basically, if I want dreadnought or excelsior refit, I'm dropping a wad of c-points, and I'm not gonna do it again soon) I'm hoping to try and pick a winner my first time round - this, of course, makes the odyssey even more attractive, as I got it for free
in short, I *do* pick a dreadnought, AND decide to go with a cannon build, I'm looking at a significant re-investment of resources, as it'll cost me a ton of EC's, dilithium AND/OR time farming missions to re-outfit a heavy cannon build cruiser - and I *still* get strong advice to the contrary, which makes it a very...dicey...proposition. But I have appreciated all your input so far, and you do make a compelling case for a well outfitted dreadnought.
And honestly you'll likely not be able to pick up either an excel or dread and call it a winner. They're both dps cruisers, but play very differently. And there are good and bad to both, so if you get either it'll feel like you won 2nd place because neither is perfect.
Anyway, with just the standard ships, the assualt will out perform the ody by leaps and bounds. The reason for it is because in stf's and especially in elite stfs dps is really all that matters (assuming you're group knows what they're doing). So the tanking/support abilities the ody offers isn't as useful.
In que'd pvp they both have roles that they can perform, although you generall need to kill someone rather than not die in pvp, so i would still prefer the assualt.
Another often over looked benefit of the tac in a cruiser is the enhanced utility of "Go down fighting". With a cruiser, you can sit at <50% health far more comfortably than you can in an escort, and the boost to your damage increases with the damage your ship's taken. I don't recall precisely how it scales, but it boosts your damage by 25% when your ships at full health, and can go way over that when you get below 50% or 25%. I've been experimenting with a rope-a-dope style strategy, allowing damage then hitting RSP1 and resuming shield tanking, it's a little risky but it's paid off a few times now.
I may experiment with the Oddysey for my tac too, but so far I've yet to see a tac do well in one. This is both as a wingman and preying on them in the BoP and Vor'cha.
well you actually can mount DHC with a dread.
If you are going to be running STFs, take an escort.
In order to use both ships effectively, you will almost certainly need some different BOffs for each.
that thread is a bit outdated, and a lot of the info there isn't updated. but more importantly, I don't see the "only choice is the excel" part. The assualt and dread can both perform just as well as the excel. And in stf i can do as much dps as an escort with my dread, so I'm not sure why anyone should take an escort instead.
Eng captain here, and new to the thread, but even if the previous posters aren't interested, I'm always happy to take a look at a good cruiser build, particularly the AC if you have it, but I'm also happy to look at a Dread build. I chafe at the idea that cruisers are not good for much other than getting shot and throwing heals.
STF prototype borg tech salvage is given to [with the best chance] to the biggest damage dealer(my assumption is the most damage dealer to the boss)
If thats the case, why has my Engie' in an Excelsior gotten FIVE different purple prototype Borg salvage items?
A little bit more tankiness than the Fleet Escort. More device slots. You give up a lot, but there are some benefits gained. I usualy keep my Tac in a Fleet Escort, but now an then I use my Excel.
Galor is pretty bad TRIBBLE with my TAC. I am top dps and kills very often with it.
I'm not sure what you mean by "give up a lot". Because dread vs escort, I only give up 2 things; the turn rate, and maybe a little less AoE dmg when killing probes. And honestly ever since i switched out one ability for EWP1, my AoE isn't too bad. So essentially I'm trading manuverability for more tank-survivability. And in pve (stf) low turn rate isn't an issue. And even in pvp, I can beat most escorts (or draw if they keep running). In the end, I've gain more than I've lost by giving up the escort.
Well the build I use for both the AC and dread are posted here. but i'll post a simplified copy of it below. The only difference is phasers for dread, and antiproton for AC.
Fore:
single cannons x 3 <<<< SINGLE cannons, not DC or DHC. DC/DHC are the 45 deg ones, and singles are 180.
quantum torp x 1
EDIT: you can use 3 DBB instead of cannons, and pick up BOL2 instead of CRF1. This build does slightly more dps, but reduces you effective arc from 180 to 90, which is ok in pve, but not so good in pvp. The dread also suffers a little more from the reduced arc because of its slower turn rate.
EDIT 2: A 3rd option is to use 2 cannons, 1 DBB, and 1 q-torp; and in this case you want to use BOL1, THY1, and CRF1 instead of the BO layout below, and 2 EPS consoles. This is the highest dps setup, but trade some survivability for that dps, so it's up to you if you want to make that trade.
Aft:
turrets x 4
Eng consoles:
borg assimilated console, +3.5 weapons power setting, neutronium (+18 resist to everything), and cloak (switched out for an EPS on the AC)
Note: with the new gem hadar engine you don't need the +3.5 console, and so you can pick up a +18 hull or something instead, or an EPS for the dread.
Sci consoles:
+35% shields, +24 shield emitter
Tac consoles:
phaser/AP x3
BO skills:
THY1 - CRF1
TT1
EPtS1 - RSP1 - AtH1 - DEM3
EPtS1 - ET2 - EWP1
TB1 - TSS1
deflector: MACO
engine: borg/gem hadar (borg for the 2 piece bonus, GH for the weapon power bonus)
shield: MACO
devices: red matter if you have it, if not then engine battery + anything else.
He's talking prototype tech drops that you need for Maco/Omega MKVII sets; not salvage that you use for everything else.
I have to BS on this one. The drop rate of any tech or salvage should be random. Some people may just be unlucky with drops, hence the "random" part. There is no way Cryptic would design a drop rate that devalues a person's preference or play style, i.e. healer/tank/support.
Cryptic (or any other company) wouldn't sit here and design the system where they're essentially tell everyone to ONLY use a tac officer and use an escort, so they can do as much dps as they can. Ignore the possibility of wanting to play a sci or eng toon.
You must be doing pretty well in those instances. Remember it's all in comparison with the teammates NOT a factor that your ship alone decide.
Or you got them before the patch that changed STF reward. STF elite used to give 5 or more EDC now it's only 2 EDC. And the reward quality has been changed too. It has now become [much] harder to get prototype borg tech in STF elite compared to before the recent February/late January.
But in all honesty that's just my suspicion and another gamer's observation. So far it seems to hold true.
If you're doing well in that one stf elite instance you'll have bigger chance getting prototype borg tech at the expense of other players in that instance. By doing well I mean accumulate high overall dps.
It is always a good sign when a low threat ship gets targetted by the STF boss because it gave a wakeup call to it by dealing high dps. Count on it some purple salvage going your way, bet it Prototype borg salvage or Prototype borg tech savlage(type depending on specific STF mission, infected for shield, cure for engine and khitomer for deflector)
Anyway it's just some observations from some of us. May not be true. And if it turns out to be true well I don't like it either.
In a way if it turns out to be true then STF elite could be the judging tool for cruiser captains to see whether they have got a good build(skills+abilities+wep and equipment configuration). If you are able to get prototype borg salavage on pretty regular basis in STF elite then rest assured you have a good build there. If not you may want to respec. This is especially true if you're flying the Odyssey or the Bortas.
If you will do simple test and do it for a substantial period of time(not merely couple hours or couple days).
Run with your best equipped Odyssey and check the probablity of u getting prototype borg salavage in STF ELITE. Then run your best equipped general cruiser like the Sovereign with the same toon and check the probability of you getting a prototype borg [tech] salvage. Within a month if u play consistently you should see if there's any difference suggesting the suspicion I wrote. With the same toon the Sovereign deals higher dps than the Odyssey.
Of those 3, there is 1 sci, 1 eng, 1 tac in an escort (highest dps), and me (tac in cruiser, 2nd in dps). And we all have:
2 full sets of mk 12 weapons, and about 10-20 prototype salvages extra.
1 to 1.5 full sets of mk 12 maco/omega.
I'd say that's pretty evenly spread out, as we do stf together very often so the sci and eng are never the highest dps, yet they have about the same amount of drops I have or the other tac.
Just and observation that me and my fleet have made. Again, I really doubt that Cryptic would make a system that rewards ONLY dps.
Also... this is getting very much off topic.
I certainly wish I was wrong. But so far I am convinced otherwise especially for the prototype borg TECH set. And maybe I should add that this observation only valid after the late January patch and NOT before that. At least that's how I think because ever since I switched from Sovereign to Odyssey my STF drops had been significantly worse. Until I respec and now I could gain a prototype salvage not often but when I'm lucky.
With the Excelsior,you'll give up:
Commander Tacical Boff ability
Lt. Commander Tactical Boff Ability
One tacical console
Turn rate
+10 power to weapons
THe ability to mount DC/DHC
That is giving up alot.
As far as turn rate not being an issue, If youre in a Gal-x or other less maneuverable ships , even the Excelsior and Sovy' (to a lesser extent) , that ability to turn enough to have a shot impact a fresh shield facing can make a great difference. Also, if a target can stay in your left/right rear flanks, its harder for a Gal-X to use alot of its heavier guns (unless its a beamboat, and then it gets a fair deal of energy drain firing).
It works for some people, and not for others.
Either way, I am managing to hold agro (without that "agro" skill) pretty well in the STF's, even with Tac-escorts present.
Well my Tac is running around with a Fleet Escort with an AP/Damage setup, and still has yet to get one of those. Much of it due to many of the missions not getting completed due to lack of team work