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New to STO, need build advice
britrabbit
Member Posts: 18 Arc User
Hey! I'm trying to get into STO right now and I have *no* clue were to start, even the guides are confusing me a lot right now, so could anyone give me a few odd bits of help? Or maybe a Christmas dinners worth?
It will obviously help if I explain what I'm after, now, although I *love* fighter aircraft, from what I know of Star Trek, there is practically no such thing and the closest option seems to be escort ships which do not tickle my fancy. So I'm going straight to my other love of capital spaceships, basically the cruisers. What I'm ideally after is a cruiser that can take a lot of damage and at the least, return a solid helping of it and in general be very survivable.
However my first problem is that I'm wary of Engineers on the ground as I'm iffy on my ability to micromanage lots of turrets and things, the other option I considered is Tactical but I have heard they are delicate and after trying Blaster in City of Heroes I am *VERY* wary of delicate classes. From what I gather the best option here would be to pair up an Engineer with a Cruiser although I admit, if the Tactical isn't *that* squishy on the ground and wouldn't make a cruiser too fragile, I'd be half tempted to go for Tactical.
Aside from the class issues I'm also wondering what traits to nab and what race to go for. If I ever make a KDF character then I'd go for a Ferasan as by then I might be willing to get Zen points, right now however I'm unwilling to blindly pay any money just for a Caitian and I'm not too sure how well I'd be able to create a race from scratch. Now, I'm not after a powerbuild here, however solid, useful trait suggestions are welcome as well as any interesting races that'd be worth a shot. As long as they won't be hard to play or if it comes to it, role-play. (As I know next-to-nothing about the Star Trek setting, having only watched ST:NG and ST:Voyager here and there as well as a bit of Enterprise and I'd rather not look like an idiot if I ever get into the Roleplaying community here.) Human seems to be the obvious choice but I would like to try one of the alien races as hell, its Star Trek, aliens are half the fun.
After all that, suggestions on skills to go for, to avoid and how much to put in what and how much to avoid putting in would be wonderful.
Sorry if thats all confusion/rambly/waffly or just too long but I figured the more information the better.
It will obviously help if I explain what I'm after, now, although I *love* fighter aircraft, from what I know of Star Trek, there is practically no such thing and the closest option seems to be escort ships which do not tickle my fancy. So I'm going straight to my other love of capital spaceships, basically the cruisers. What I'm ideally after is a cruiser that can take a lot of damage and at the least, return a solid helping of it and in general be very survivable.
However my first problem is that I'm wary of Engineers on the ground as I'm iffy on my ability to micromanage lots of turrets and things, the other option I considered is Tactical but I have heard they are delicate and after trying Blaster in City of Heroes I am *VERY* wary of delicate classes. From what I gather the best option here would be to pair up an Engineer with a Cruiser although I admit, if the Tactical isn't *that* squishy on the ground and wouldn't make a cruiser too fragile, I'd be half tempted to go for Tactical.
Aside from the class issues I'm also wondering what traits to nab and what race to go for. If I ever make a KDF character then I'd go for a Ferasan as by then I might be willing to get Zen points, right now however I'm unwilling to blindly pay any money just for a Caitian and I'm not too sure how well I'd be able to create a race from scratch. Now, I'm not after a powerbuild here, however solid, useful trait suggestions are welcome as well as any interesting races that'd be worth a shot. As long as they won't be hard to play or if it comes to it, role-play. (As I know next-to-nothing about the Star Trek setting, having only watched ST:NG and ST:Voyager here and there as well as a bit of Enterprise and I'd rather not look like an idiot if I ever get into the Roleplaying community here.) Human seems to be the obvious choice but I would like to try one of the alien races as hell, its Star Trek, aliens are half the fun.
After all that, suggestions on skills to go for, to avoid and how much to put in what and how much to avoid putting in would be wonderful.
Sorry if thats all confusion/rambly/waffly or just too long but I figured the more information the better.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Post edited by britrabbit on
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May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
If you don't like escorts and don't feel like getting a carrier then I would go Engineering or Science. On the ground you just place the turret and keep fighting, no micromanaging needed.
Anything else?
Kyle
Also, the Wiki is a great place to get answers.
http://www.stowiki.org/Trait
http://www.stowiki.org/Suggested_trait_builds
Kyle
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Also for your dogfighting enjoyment, there are two distinct possibilities for you. The first is, when you get your free Klingon character, to try out the Bird Of Prey (BoP). Its the most fragile ship type, but it turns on a dime and almost plays like a giant starfighter.
The second option is when you hit Rear Admiral on your Federation character, spend your rank ship token on a Patrol Escort (which can do the same dual-shield trick as a cruiser), and then on the Exchange you can purchase a Mirror Universe Assault Cruiser or Mirror Universe Star Cruiser for pretty cheap (something like 200,000 EC, which isn't much) which are the same as normal starfleet cruisers just with the appearances switched. Then you can fly the escort when you feel like a guns-blazing dogfighter, or the mirror cruiser when you want to be a beam broadside boat, both on the same character.
And just read around here and the stowiki.org and you'll learn a lot. Enjoy and good luck!
OK, I'm probably going to get lynched for some of this, so let me start off.
1) Tacs and cruisers CAN MIX. In fact, they are the most common combination in the game, I think, and by a wide margin. While you may not be optimal for PvP, most of the hardcore PvP ultra-optimize down to the last skill point, and I doubt a beginner really wants to do that. I have two mains - a tac and engineer - and I use cruisers with both, and they do pretty well IMO.
2) Engineer vs. tactical - basically engineer is tough, tactical is DPS. The two however are optimized for that; it is not that tacticals are frail waifs that kill with a look, nor is it that engineers are invincible bastions that would struggle to kill a fly. Tactical is probably the "simplest," but engineers are not as complicated as some might have you believe. On the ground, while you do need to strategize a bit (as you do with ANY class), a lot of the goodies you build, they take care of themselves once placed. All you have to do is know if they blew up or not and/or you should place a new one. (Note that with most you can't have more than once of a particular type up at once - if you build a new one, the old one disappears. This is not as bad as it sounds.) Long story short, engineers tend to be petspam plus regen, and tacs are high-grade firepower, albeit you can uprate their survivability a lot with consumables. Also note that ANY class will be crummy for the first 10 levels or so. Your first ship is basically a crate with nacelles.
In terms of races, humans are solid and well-rounded, and unlike most, their default traits include a space trait. However, Aliens are the most customizable. One thing to note is that most races have their default traits biased STRONGLY towards ground - for instance, Vulcan goodies are mostly focused on ground. However, know what you're picking trait-wise. It helps a lot, trust me. If you're really interested in it, take a look at power levels and the like so you know what's being talked about with warp theorist.
Some fairly solid traits include, IMO (and noting that I do NOT have experience with all of these):
For ground:
* Peak Health - flat-out extra HP. Often just enough to save your butt.
* Soldier - hit harder. Always good.
* Lucky - IMO kind of a poor-man's Soldier. It's recommended by the STO Wiki. Dunno if I'd be too happy with it, but if you go human and want a bit harder hitting this would do it.
* Creative - I'm not sure how good this one is but I'm pretty sure it's solid for an engineer or a science char.
* Telepathy - Helps you get a bit more of an edge on foes.
* Mental Discipline - I'm iffy on this, because Peak Health plus a healthy apportioning of stats into Willpower seem to do a better job at protecting you from what MD is supposed to. However, any boost is good for this.
For space:
* Accurate - hit more accurately. This is a lot more helpful than it sounds at first, because this overflows into your critical chance.
* Elusive - dodge more. This again is more helpful than it sounds.
* Warp theorist - This gives a boost to your ability to generate power in your ship. The first boosted will give you something along the lines of +.5 points of power in every system (warp core potential). This is a small boost, but it can add up over time. This is especially important when combined with the second stat it boosts (Starship Electroplasma Systems), which helps not only with the rate of transfer between systems (e.g. if you want to dump all your power into shields from weapons), but also the Emergency Power abilities, which are often rotated on many builds for considerable boosts.
I would STAY AWAY from any ground traits focused on melee, e.g. Physical Strength, they just aren't worth it. Also I would think long and hard before getting any trait that's essentially a power, e.g. Mind Meld for Vulcans. While these are good for experienced players that know what they're getting into - I've seen a few melee specialists, for instance - you're a beginner and you'd probably regret it. Also note that all of this is off the top of my head.
In terms of RP, it's entirely viable and there are a lot of RP communities around STO. Don't be discouraged if you don't get a bite right away, it does have some slow periods. Although I don't really RP with others, I write my own story/RP with myself in my head, so I know a few RPers. I would not worry too much about your game build for RP purposes, especially if it's not an overly-obvious ability - for instance, my main tactical toon does not have Telepathy or Mental Discipline as a power, but is a partial psychic and incredibly resistant to mind control, and that'd be OK for RP purposes in general. Although I did dump lot of points into Willpower to reflect this.
For reference, my two mains are a tactical Alien (human hybrid with Betazoid and El Aurian) with Soldier, Peak Health, Accurate and Elusive, and a human engineer with Teamwork, Leadership, Peak Health and Warp Theorist.
As a final note, most traits don't show up all that much at end game. My personal belief is that some of them do have a noticeable impact (esp. Peak Health, Accurate and Elusive), but a lot of people disagree, and "noticeable" does not mean "always makes a difference," it may mean that the little damage floater reads '57' instead of '55' when I shoot a bad guy in the face. So while your traits are unchangeable, having bad traits is not in itself a good reason to scrub and start over on an otherwise perfectly good character.
Also, this is all IMO, I'm not the best player, YMMV, etc.
Good luck and have fun!
I would also suggest as capital ships the Galaxy-X Dreadnaught (which kind of requires experience and a specialist - it's front-mounted BFG is not all that it's cracked up to be), as well as possibly the Assault Cruiser or Assault Cruiser Retrofit. Note that the AC's are not quite capital ships in the sense of 'massive supercruiser' or 'carrier' as the others are, but they would be a good solid battleship to lead a task force, are strong enough to weather a beating, and a bit more nimble than their larger counterparts.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Just one other thing - if you're going after warp theorist because I did it, please note that I was actually a bit upset with this choice after I learned what it did, compared to the others. I literally stumbled into it pretty much since I was blindly guessing for my first character (as most people do). THAT said, it was mostly because I was a newbie, and did not yet appreciate the potential utility of the power boost.
Although you may wish to reconsider for Accurate, there is a certain satisfaction with having full power bars in combat, and warp theorist helps with that - especially when you include the EPS bonus and use Emergency Power.
Im a bit stuck on skills to pick and can't find a lot of resources to help me here.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
you will see a large Player submitted list of StarFleet Tac Officer builds with the kind of Ship you will eventually want at max level... it gives you what Bridge Officers you need and what Skills you will need to teach them.... then it goes into the Skills which show you what to pick, and the order in which you pick them doesnt really matter.
You may choose any one on this list... you just click the orange words off to the left of the build.. it's usually the build name... you can scroll through what you'd like
The only problem i have with it is, you dont know when the build was submitted which means it could be an old build or a very fresh build..and not all of them say what Weapons or Consoles to get.
One of the builds that caught my eye was this ONE which was built in 2012, designed to be a DPS Tactical, for STF's which is Starfleet Task Force Missions.. pretty much Endgame content.
If you look at the Build Description Button near the top of the build, it will describe what Weapons, and Consoles to eventually look for or craft.
Hope this helps.
FORMERLY KNOWN AS NOT0FTHISWOR1D
My Characters: Rainbow , Hollie Daye, Heatwave
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"