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Ultimate Brel Build: Spike Killer
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Ultimate Brel- Spike Killer
Many of you who happened upon this thread likely have a multitude of characters at maximum level, of various classes in a variety of ships. You probably have one or two you are good at and like.
I only have one character, with /played 120 days+. Sometimes it pays to do one thing right, instead of getting your hand into every aspect of the game. To each his own, but for me, I have spent the last 2 years inventing, reinventing, and perfecting what I consider the ultimate (brel) spike ship. First to define my meaning, the number one maximum best top instantaneous damage deliverable in this game engine, is what im after. Killing poorly equipped players is one thing, but CONSISTENTLY downing the biggest most well defended ships/skilled players in the game in one pass, is entirely another.
The build:
Not gonna post skills u can figure it out, only key ingredients here are MAXIMUM torpedo AND energy weapon trees (even t5 (at least to 7 if u cant hack it), maxing out subspace decompiler and particle generators. Every other skill is up to you, and doesnt matter much.
Ive got 30 bridge officers I switch thru regularly, but my PRIME setup is
tractor cpb1 vm 1 psw3
highyield 1 beam overload 2 omega 1
hazard 1, tac beam 2
emergency power weapons, aux to id
fore antiproton dbb, quantum, trico, chron
rear trico, chron
khg set 2 borg set 2
i use borg engine and assimilated console, and khg deflector/shield
i use eps, rcs (luxury), assimilated console
3x particle gens
3x dmg mod of choice (lately i jumped p2w bandwagon, and ur tac consoles are least relevant/effective) grav pulse, iso charge, p2w of choice
and of course aux batts. lots and lots of aux batts
2 evasive doffs, 2 psw cd doffs, one tac beam turn doff
The basics:
Going to skimp here, as the brel, let alone the bop, is not for inexperienced players. Anyone who asks "what about staying power" or "what do you do when NOT spiking" misses the point entirely and can be directed elsewhere. Im sure sad pands would help you out, with a traditional "fedon" type build. (empsx2.. etc). Very simply hit and run. Specifically, maximize offensive output against a defender who is at his weakest moment. If you cant read the battlefield icons and ui animations, and dont already have a deep understanding of the games engine and mechanics, this thread is not for you. Even if you do exactly what i say, you will fail (as i do often) and end up cursing my name.
Even the very best players will not have 100% success rate with the methods Im about to layout here (probably why most people dont (no one else ) do what I do. Most people cant handle blowing themselves up with tricobalts lol. This is not for the faint of heart, or people who have an unnatural desire to not die in the game. You WILL die, alot on your worst day. But on your best day you will one shot Era Skysni (done it). Also if you get sad when u miss, you shouldnt do this build, as it is finicky and prone to little hiccups, that can ruin your entire offensive.
Overview
A three step process will lead you to inevitable victory, IF several conditions are met. (no miss/snbs)
1: Prep target.
After full impulsing directly towards the fedball use chroniton torpedoes and viral matrix/ fomm /grav pulse from 10km range without actually decloaking (neithers efficacy is reduced by power loss.)
Best case scenario: they react and hit every buff they have, and fly around like a nob on evasives. Worst case scenario: you are instantly killed by a beam overload when u reveal(it happens.)
At any rate, you will eventually become accusotmed to finding the right moment to begin step 2. The key buffs you DONT want to see on your target when u go in for the kill: RSP, empts3, rsf, tac team (the big one). If your target is not a good player, they will not hold their buffs till the last second (which often ends up being too late-thus people are not likely to do this). If they prebuff, or act to clear viral or fomm, you should know what to do. (wait for relevant buff to die off...)
But rest assured, even if you end up hitting a target with tac team and empts up(almost every target ever) all is not lost. Your odds of instant kill decrease exponentially the number of buffs your target has up. But, several of the buffs are not relevant in the best of circumstances: vm aux proc. Once u use vm enough, youll learn to "read" the enemy ship, and if you are real lucky/good, you will strike with everything during that time. Haz emitters, tss, polarize, asif, aux to id.. and mamny other buffs are worthless when aux disables via vm. Some other buffs, altho good, arent game breakers (bfi, omega, etc) Another thing youre looking for during this phase, is to accumulate GDF bonus. During my initial vm/chron release, I am often half hulled or worse. This only makes the kill easier.
2. Strike!
After powering up every single tactical captain power ( i mentioned tac captain is the best and only one really able to do instant kill spike damage reliably?lol), and beam overload/ high yield (use aux battery), you have a 15 second clock to double tap your tac boff specials. Its up for you to decide if you need to evasive in or can approach without evasives. Approaching without evasives is asking for an snb to the face by a high aux sci with a hot scan, or worse, instant death by any decent escorts aggro. The speed boost from omega and aux to id can SOMETIMES be enough. But not usually.Therefore I tend to evasive in from 10km out, at the very least for the initial encounter in an arena. If you are good you can ride that single evasives in for the kill and out traversing over 20km rather easily.
The begining of the strike phase, when u actually decide to GO, starts with tac beam and a hy volley. Fire one beam overload before u get close(use emptw to make ur second one full power). When u get close <5km, cpb, tractor, ull find u can maneuver at this point, and sometimes best to circle the enemy and hit the weakest /unreinforced face. Otherwise when you go straight in (preferably from the rear or side), you can line up every single one of your attacks to hit within a 1-2 second window. As you get within 3km your beam overload and high yield quantums should be hitting, pulse the shockwave/iso charge and drop a fore trico, and say goodnight. When this doesnt kill, circle around (rather easy as ur still on evasives) and follow up on the weak face with what u have left (not much. regular torpedo and dual beam damage isnt alot). An alternate is to quick 360 drop rear trico, this is highly advanced move, not really instant kill, i digress...... And of course step 3
3. Run like the wind. Sometimes getting out of range isnt necessary. But it almost always is. Find a good egress path before you go in, and brace for a likely death. Use your TRIBBLE heal now (i just rock hazard emitters 1 usually) and pray to the pvp gods for a long stream of "miss" from your pursuers before u can re engage cloak.
rinse repeat
And thats pretty much it. Just remember, when you blow your load it is somethign fierce. This attack sequence can easily throw out over 100,000 raw damage in 2-3 seconds. The attack is devastating in team play if not fatal, the target will be left without a shield up, stunned, and at like 20% hull if theyre lucky. (and u did it right)
A refresher of the microanalysis of the attack (all this happens within 5-10 seconds)..........
Prep with chroniton/vm/ grav pulse. Wait for right moment (sometimes, immediately after firing these) Watch their buff cd timers. Hit all your buffs. Evasive in, use tac beam, cpb, tractor, to soften em up. at 10km fire quantums high yield 1, at about 6k fire beam overload round 1, at 5k cpb/tractor, now emptw, beam overload again, shockwave, trico, iso charge. Time this right and youll just see a blotchy yellow blurb pop up above their exploding ship, the games graphics cant even display the simultaneous devastation just unleashed. Youll have to read the log to see what happened
A lil quick math, even without any gdf bonus you can expect reliable numbers. (if u dotn get these numbers something is amiss, in your spec or build)
beam overload 20k
Quantums 20k per
Tricobalt 50k
psw 50k
iso charge 50k
(raw figures)
If ANY of these crit (they likely will) it is even more lights out against an improperly defended target.
What can ruin your day/ how to defend.
As mentioned before, simply saving the right buffs for the right moment can work, if u are lucky enough to get them off in time when that time does come (ui lag/bugs make this hard to do)
Stacking kinetic dmg resist gear will help you ALOT if not make u outright invulnerable to instant kills via torps/this method. Very simply, killing the attacking brel is damn easy. Snb/ ams/ scramble, quite a few abilities will wreck your attack.
Not to mention youll often die from aoe trico splash ha ha! The real trick is dropping the trico in a way to get a kill but evade the splash. This isnt easy to do.. BUT ITS DAMN FUN. I encourage anyone who thinks theyve dont it all to give it a try. Somethin special bout insta poppin cat carriers.. got to try to for yourself. GG GL HF sory for atrocious grammar/ spelling. ha ha thanks for reading
Many of you who happened upon this thread likely have a multitude of characters at maximum level, of various classes in a variety of ships. You probably have one or two you are good at and like.
I only have one character, with /played 120 days+. Sometimes it pays to do one thing right, instead of getting your hand into every aspect of the game. To each his own, but for me, I have spent the last 2 years inventing, reinventing, and perfecting what I consider the ultimate (brel) spike ship. First to define my meaning, the number one maximum best top instantaneous damage deliverable in this game engine, is what im after. Killing poorly equipped players is one thing, but CONSISTENTLY downing the biggest most well defended ships/skilled players in the game in one pass, is entirely another.
The build:
Not gonna post skills u can figure it out, only key ingredients here are MAXIMUM torpedo AND energy weapon trees (even t5 (at least to 7 if u cant hack it), maxing out subspace decompiler and particle generators. Every other skill is up to you, and doesnt matter much.
Ive got 30 bridge officers I switch thru regularly, but my PRIME setup is
tractor cpb1 vm 1 psw3
highyield 1 beam overload 2 omega 1
hazard 1, tac beam 2
emergency power weapons, aux to id
fore antiproton dbb, quantum, trico, chron
rear trico, chron
khg set 2 borg set 2
i use borg engine and assimilated console, and khg deflector/shield
i use eps, rcs (luxury), assimilated console
3x particle gens
3x dmg mod of choice (lately i jumped p2w bandwagon, and ur tac consoles are least relevant/effective) grav pulse, iso charge, p2w of choice
and of course aux batts. lots and lots of aux batts
2 evasive doffs, 2 psw cd doffs, one tac beam turn doff
The basics:
Going to skimp here, as the brel, let alone the bop, is not for inexperienced players. Anyone who asks "what about staying power" or "what do you do when NOT spiking" misses the point entirely and can be directed elsewhere. Im sure sad pands would help you out, with a traditional "fedon" type build. (empsx2.. etc). Very simply hit and run. Specifically, maximize offensive output against a defender who is at his weakest moment. If you cant read the battlefield icons and ui animations, and dont already have a deep understanding of the games engine and mechanics, this thread is not for you. Even if you do exactly what i say, you will fail (as i do often) and end up cursing my name.
Even the very best players will not have 100% success rate with the methods Im about to layout here (probably why most people dont (no one else ) do what I do. Most people cant handle blowing themselves up with tricobalts lol. This is not for the faint of heart, or people who have an unnatural desire to not die in the game. You WILL die, alot on your worst day. But on your best day you will one shot Era Skysni (done it). Also if you get sad when u miss, you shouldnt do this build, as it is finicky and prone to little hiccups, that can ruin your entire offensive.
Overview
A three step process will lead you to inevitable victory, IF several conditions are met. (no miss/snbs)
1: Prep target.
After full impulsing directly towards the fedball use chroniton torpedoes and viral matrix/ fomm /grav pulse from 10km range without actually decloaking (neithers efficacy is reduced by power loss.)
Best case scenario: they react and hit every buff they have, and fly around like a nob on evasives. Worst case scenario: you are instantly killed by a beam overload when u reveal(it happens.)
At any rate, you will eventually become accusotmed to finding the right moment to begin step 2. The key buffs you DONT want to see on your target when u go in for the kill: RSP, empts3, rsf, tac team (the big one). If your target is not a good player, they will not hold their buffs till the last second (which often ends up being too late-thus people are not likely to do this). If they prebuff, or act to clear viral or fomm, you should know what to do. (wait for relevant buff to die off...)
But rest assured, even if you end up hitting a target with tac team and empts up(almost every target ever) all is not lost. Your odds of instant kill decrease exponentially the number of buffs your target has up. But, several of the buffs are not relevant in the best of circumstances: vm aux proc. Once u use vm enough, youll learn to "read" the enemy ship, and if you are real lucky/good, you will strike with everything during that time. Haz emitters, tss, polarize, asif, aux to id.. and mamny other buffs are worthless when aux disables via vm. Some other buffs, altho good, arent game breakers (bfi, omega, etc) Another thing youre looking for during this phase, is to accumulate GDF bonus. During my initial vm/chron release, I am often half hulled or worse. This only makes the kill easier.
2. Strike!
After powering up every single tactical captain power ( i mentioned tac captain is the best and only one really able to do instant kill spike damage reliably?lol), and beam overload/ high yield (use aux battery), you have a 15 second clock to double tap your tac boff specials. Its up for you to decide if you need to evasive in or can approach without evasives. Approaching without evasives is asking for an snb to the face by a high aux sci with a hot scan, or worse, instant death by any decent escorts aggro. The speed boost from omega and aux to id can SOMETIMES be enough. But not usually.Therefore I tend to evasive in from 10km out, at the very least for the initial encounter in an arena. If you are good you can ride that single evasives in for the kill and out traversing over 20km rather easily.
The begining of the strike phase, when u actually decide to GO, starts with tac beam and a hy volley. Fire one beam overload before u get close(use emptw to make ur second one full power). When u get close <5km, cpb, tractor, ull find u can maneuver at this point, and sometimes best to circle the enemy and hit the weakest /unreinforced face. Otherwise when you go straight in (preferably from the rear or side), you can line up every single one of your attacks to hit within a 1-2 second window. As you get within 3km your beam overload and high yield quantums should be hitting, pulse the shockwave/iso charge and drop a fore trico, and say goodnight. When this doesnt kill, circle around (rather easy as ur still on evasives) and follow up on the weak face with what u have left (not much. regular torpedo and dual beam damage isnt alot). An alternate is to quick 360 drop rear trico, this is highly advanced move, not really instant kill, i digress...... And of course step 3
3. Run like the wind. Sometimes getting out of range isnt necessary. But it almost always is. Find a good egress path before you go in, and brace for a likely death. Use your TRIBBLE heal now (i just rock hazard emitters 1 usually) and pray to the pvp gods for a long stream of "miss" from your pursuers before u can re engage cloak.
rinse repeat
And thats pretty much it. Just remember, when you blow your load it is somethign fierce. This attack sequence can easily throw out over 100,000 raw damage in 2-3 seconds. The attack is devastating in team play if not fatal, the target will be left without a shield up, stunned, and at like 20% hull if theyre lucky. (and u did it right)
A refresher of the microanalysis of the attack (all this happens within 5-10 seconds)..........
Prep with chroniton/vm/ grav pulse. Wait for right moment (sometimes, immediately after firing these) Watch their buff cd timers. Hit all your buffs. Evasive in, use tac beam, cpb, tractor, to soften em up. at 10km fire quantums high yield 1, at about 6k fire beam overload round 1, at 5k cpb/tractor, now emptw, beam overload again, shockwave, trico, iso charge. Time this right and youll just see a blotchy yellow blurb pop up above their exploding ship, the games graphics cant even display the simultaneous devastation just unleashed. Youll have to read the log to see what happened
A lil quick math, even without any gdf bonus you can expect reliable numbers. (if u dotn get these numbers something is amiss, in your spec or build)
beam overload 20k
Quantums 20k per
Tricobalt 50k
psw 50k
iso charge 50k
(raw figures)
If ANY of these crit (they likely will) it is even more lights out against an improperly defended target.
What can ruin your day/ how to defend.
As mentioned before, simply saving the right buffs for the right moment can work, if u are lucky enough to get them off in time when that time does come (ui lag/bugs make this hard to do)
Stacking kinetic dmg resist gear will help you ALOT if not make u outright invulnerable to instant kills via torps/this method. Very simply, killing the attacking brel is damn easy. Snb/ ams/ scramble, quite a few abilities will wreck your attack.
Not to mention youll often die from aoe trico splash ha ha! The real trick is dropping the trico in a way to get a kill but evade the splash. This isnt easy to do.. BUT ITS DAMN FUN. I encourage anyone who thinks theyve dont it all to give it a try. Somethin special bout insta poppin cat carriers.. got to try to for yourself. GG GL HF sory for atrocious grammar/ spelling. ha ha thanks for reading
Post edited by Archived Post on
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This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Seriously though, nice post. I've always been a little curious as to exactly how your alpha strike was put together. I do note however, that you did emphasize how often the attacker dies during the attempt to make a kill; I think you die in the attempt to insta-kill someone more often than you actually make your target go pop. :P
you need to fly with full pandas less. youll see alot more instant kills without extends spam/ decent escorts on my balls. and it depends on the day of the week, monday is bad day lots of self kills :0
I have flown builds inspired by Him now and then... we do play to have fun and flying a Mini style build is that no doubt.
Here are a couple of my variations I have ran now and then... (I run my transphasic brel build these days mainly anyway... it is a different kinda of fun)
Tac Team - Beam Over Load 2 - High Yield 3 - Omega 3
Polazrized Hull 1 - Hazards 2 - Shockwave 1
Emergency to Weap 1 - Aux to Id 1
Beam over Load 1 - High Yield 2
Fore
1 DBB - 2 Quantums - 1 Tric
Rear
2 mines (Mainly cause I don't turn to shoot at anyone anyway so might as well drop some toys... and I can drop them on people and stay cloaked to be annoying or miss direct)
Doffs... 3 Torp Doffs... 2 Hazard Doffs (resistance with Brace for Impact)
3 Neut Armours.... 1 Borg unit 2 what ever sci units.... 3 Quantum type dmg units
Attack Run is sort of like Minis... accept I'm not poping aux bats or trying to strip shields.
Preload Beam Overload 1 and High Yield 2.... right before my attack I load Overload 2 and HY 3... Fully tac buff Decloak 6-7k out (not as close as mini gets) Hit Polarzied Hull and Aux to ID (makes me immune to almost all Control while I'm visable... Overload (1).... Quantum (HY2)... Emegency to Weap.. Quantum (HY3)... Overload (2)... at about 3.5k Launch tric.... Spin while Aux to Id is still up... Hit Hazards and cloak.
I will admit I don't often see 100k+ trics that I know mini strikes with at times. (that is a huge part of the fun... just like I love killing people with the phasics instead).... the quantum spam though is pretty reliable.... also note that by spamming 2 launchers with 3 doffs... you will be reseting the tric cool down when the doffs proc on the qunatum tubes. These builds are much more workable now with the torp doffs.
Anyway thanks again Mini... if you want to have some fun run it like mini does... all those button pushes make for a massive high when it works and someone goes BOOM.
or whats most fun?
Even if you spot the evil bugger
Gross damage from one psw attack was 106k with full reists up Hull still took 33k net and the iso thing gave 10.3k net, virtually instant 40k net damage to hull = respawn
A just in tme tractor repulse is a bit of a defence as this can disrupt his attack, most other defences you have to be lucky ie PSW first , sub nuke (lucky if he's in arc) etc
i was playing with it ths morning. I can attest to its usefullness
I'm not able to activate all that's needed in the right speed and sequence, so I've had to settle for a simple BO3-HYT3 build with two fore quantums, and a aft tricob to cover my retreat.
Not by any means so efficient, but ok for a opportunist build. Just have to pick your target and timing well. And also, it's managable for someone with only 10 fingers...
This is very similar to an older build I had on my BoP before I left for a years break. I came back to discover PSW was no longer the fun toy it used to be. Now this thread has given me hope - I shall have to experiment with it again.
old school tric bombing is the most fun, but it has been nerfed to high heaven. Unless you have someone taking out their shields, all of your eggs are in one basket with the trico, and if you fly in like you kind of have to on evasives, you nearly always self kill/ miss with either bo/trico.
Using the trico as finisher, and even then only if alot of preset conditions are met is the more effective attack. Even back in the day the greatest success with trico came after psw stun, that hasnt changed, the psw just helps to soften the target now with more damage.
u just have to get quick sequencing the buttons with mouse clicks. It isnt thta hard you have ample time to pre buff under cloak, and only have to fire a half dozen off on your attack
I dont like keybinds theyre less reliable and dont fire the skills in the same sequence every time. If you do it enough you learn to get faster, and how to click the boffs to minimize misactivations. i encourage all people to try this build as a humorous indulgence, an opportunity to smash poorly defended feds while u can still fvk....
ill give you some situational stats anecdotally in descending order
against a good premade with pug allies uncoordinated
0:15
against a premade with half decent pugs
2 or 3 :10
Premade vs premade
>1:1
against random pugs with pug allies
>10:1
against pugs with decent team
infinity:0
With semi specific klingon team setups and dedicated healing, hit and run with succesful egress is child's play. Coordinatign an entire teams efforts to maximize the usefulness of instant death kills is an altogether more challenging and unlikely occurence. Essentially, this build is as good as you can find use for it, and as bad as you can make it by being stupid. Very little margin for error, very very high reliance on "luck"
or drop it on evasives and fast bail. Dive bomb and release on vertical ascent. heres some crappy videos of my recent successes
1st kill in arena vs pugs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV0VLuW6AAI
last kill in arena (pemade) vs pugs (plus one good pvper) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDt3RZNNOiA
nice ones.
and yeah I get you always used psw, I just meant it wasn't really hitting for 20k before
Reman Prototype Shields
Honor Guard Deflector
(To be Honor Guard Engine, right now Supercooled)
Tetryon Dual Beam Bank
Tricobalt Torp
Bioneural
Tetryon Dual Cannon
Tetryon Turret
Tetryon Turret
Tetryon tac console x3
Graviton Generator x3
EPS console x2
Borg Assimilated console
Attack Pattern Omega 3
Beam Overload 3
Torp High Yield 2
Tac Team 1
Aux to Struct 2
EPower Sheilds 2
EPower Engines 1
Tractor Beam 2
Polarize Hull 1
Transfer Shield Strength 2
Hazard Emitters 1
I tried speccing out less for knocking over cruisers and more for hunting down other escorts, especially those pesky Tac Retrofits. Tractor beam was therefore a must, and I took some more supporty abilities at the cost of extra damage output that really isn't that necessary against escorts. Beam Overload 3 usually can drop the shield facing for a Tricobalt HY2 to knock them out in one go, provided I have Attack Pattern Alpha, Omega, and Tac Team running (at least). The Bioneurals I find are very useful for either spooking them to pop buffs pre-pass, or finishing them off if my pass didn't succeed; I've have BNs chase not-so-bright escorts for a full half a minute before actually getting the kill.
Of all of this, Tractor Beam is definitely the center of the build. Stationary escorts are (usually) dead escorts.
Even though I doubt I'd implement it, as I like the way my Boffs rest at the moment (I can basically supercharge my shields if I'm coming out of cloak into a hotzone, polarize hull to slip out of tractor beams if Omega is on cooldown, hull repairs after I recloak and Hazard Emitters allows me to cloak through a Warp Plasma proc) a question more of curiosity; how do you get such high damage off Photonic Shockwave? I tried to run a DSSV transphasic boat fed-side with PSWIII but it never got close to that much damage.
My other question is basically timing; I typically decloak only when I'm within tractor beam range, hit the dual beams immediately, and drop the transphasic between 2-3K out while coming in at EPower Engines full-burn and APOmega running yet I've seen players within that split second pop up a run-killing tac team. Is there anything specific I should look for on the approach? Should I try to compress my timing even further if the tractor beam at 5km gives me away too early?
I used to run Tachyon Beam but I found even at an unbuffed aux power of 77 it didn't really do anything.
So if I want to survive the flood of torpedoes and the trico bombing, if I'm lucky, I set a full power to shields and my double EPtS are always running, but since he can choose the right moment to attack, I'm prepared to weaken my assailant with an APD, while with a special keybind all my defensive buffs are activated.
But EmoeJoe, also Zirac and above all that damned Romulan (hi Star Dagger, you're the best!), well, they are too strong for me...:o