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retroburn
Member Posts: 11 Arc User
I've only just returned to the game so I'm sure my ship layout isn't as efficient as it ought to be.
Fore weapons: phaser beam array, quantum torpedo launcher, phaser dual heavy cannons, phaser dual cannons
Deflector: graviton deflector array
Impulse: assimilated subtranswarp engines
Shields: covariant shield array [cap]x2
Aft weapons: phaser beam array, phaser turret, phaser turret
Engineering consoles: RCS accelerator, RCS accelerator
Science consoles: flow capacitor, power insulator, countermeasure system
Tactical consoles: prefire chamber, prefire chamber, phaser relay, directed energy distribution manifold
Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.
Fore weapons: phaser beam array, quantum torpedo launcher, phaser dual heavy cannons, phaser dual cannons
Deflector: graviton deflector array
Impulse: assimilated subtranswarp engines
Shields: covariant shield array [cap]x2
Aft weapons: phaser beam array, phaser turret, phaser turret
Engineering consoles: RCS accelerator, RCS accelerator
Science consoles: flow capacitor, power insulator, countermeasure system
Tactical consoles: prefire chamber, prefire chamber, phaser relay, directed energy distribution manifold
Any feedback is appreciated, thanks.
Post edited by retroburn on
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What you need to change.
1. Drop all front weapons for dual heavy cannons.
2. Change all aft weapons to Turrets.
3. Make sure all your cannons and turrets are of the ame energy type and then equip consles that boost that type only.
4. You cna now get assimilated borg sheilds and assimilated borg deflectors from Commander Roxy on DS9, (general merchandise option), get them, then go re-do the borg story arc mission "assimilation" and get the consle at the end. Equip that as well.
5. Re-run the space STF "infected" until you get a sheild tech drop in your loot, now get eithier MACO or OMEGA shelds with that and equip them. I can't advise you on BoFF layout as i run a Patrol myself.I'll let others do that.
I'll re-do those missions to get the necessary technology. I could try the exchange but I'm sure the prices would be exorbitant!
Lt. Com. Tac: Tactical Team I, Cannon: Rapid Fire I, Attack Pattern: Omega I
Com. Tac: Tactical Team I, Attack Pattern: Delta I, Attack Pattern: Omega I, Cannon: Rapid Fire III
Lt. Eng: Emergency Power to Shields I, Emergency Power to Shields II
Lt. Sci: Hazard Emitters I, Transfer Shield Strength II
Ens. Sci: Tractor Beam I
If it's just for PvE, feel free to swap out AP: D for C: SV or something.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
Borg stuff is good (and you'll need to run some stuff to get MACO/Omega/Borg gear anyway) but you can always find cheap DHCs/turrets on the exchange. If it's at least blue and Mk X or higher, it's a good weapon, and they usually cost pennies.
The difference between DHCs and DCs is kind of complicated, but basically full DHCs are superior on an escort for two reasons:
The former is by far the most important. With an escort, the idea is to deal as much damage in as short a time as possible, and because of their lower firing rates DHCs are more "bursty", leaving an opponent much less time to react.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
I currently use disruptor even though I have access to the phaser quad cannons. On my escort:
I run dual heavy cannon, dual cannon both of these are polarized disruptors. Quantum torpedo laucher and disruptor dual beam bank. I am running three polarized disruptor turrets on the back.
With the boff layout of attack pattern beta 3, cannon scatter volley 1, beam overload1, and torpedo spread 3....i am able to debuff multiple targets with attack patter beta and cannon scatter volley...and then follow up with a beam overload (seen 75k crits) with torpedo spread 3 (a number of 10-35k hits) this makes short work of all things STF!
I am actually using something similar on the temporal destroyer and the Chimera and the MVAE. I am a big fan of disruptors and an even bigger fan of polarized disruptors on cannons and turrets. I use regular disruptors for max crits as well.
PVP requires a different setup....
And people running stupid builds like this are what annoys the hell out of me the most.
beam Overload applies a HUGE negetive wepaons power spike when fired. the resultant lost DPS over the next severla seconds is as great or greater than the bonus damage from the beam overload. result your no better or even worse off in terms of total damage output, and since your runnign an escort you could and should have been running an extra DHC in the place of that dual beam bank and doing even more DPS.
Bam overload is great where you need to front load your damage, (PVP enemies sicne they heal loads), but in any situation where there's no healing it's at best of no benefit, and at worst an outright downside.
Torps on an escort i'm somewhat not sold on as well. It's more personal prefferance but i find the skill points spent on kenetics could go better elsewhere. Though if you want to run a set of mines i'd say it makes sense, (Plasma mines are best PVE mines IMHO), and mines are good with borg bonus or lots of +crit chance.
DHC vs DC's is an easy anwser.
DHCs's do the same DPS, drain slightly more power, but fire more damaging shots at a slower rate. All your trading off is less weapon procs for less power drain. in raw PVE terms the latter outweighs the former mostly, but PvP DC's probably make much more sense as the proc can be so handy.
They're especially efficient in PvE since it's trivial to down an NPC shield facing.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
Also cannons have equal damage modifiers vs sheilds and hull, (100% as fa as i can tell), which is the same as torps vs hull. But the cannons do more sheild damage. It's a no brainer. (on my KD toon a photon torp is 523DPS, a Dual cnanon 600DPS, both MK X whites, and this is without MKXII Purple Tac consles). Now sure if you have points in kenetics...
I'll try your suggestion and report back!
DHCs will never crit as hard as torps, and "DPS" is utterly meaningless when it comes to the latter.
I'm not really pushing for torps or recommending them over DHCs as far as the OP is concerned, I'm just saying that you're hugely exaggerating the weaknesses of kinetics. The trouble comes from TT and shield dissipation, their base damages are fine.
vids and guides and stuff
[9:52] [Zone #11] Neal@trapper1532: im a omega force shadow oprative and a maoc elite camander and here i am taking water samples
Sounds more like your a PvP'r yourself. there i agree the burst is worth it, but PVE is all about maxamised sustained DPS.
Also i agree kenetics are worth it. WHEN you put skill points into them, it all comes down to your build TBH
forget about it:
front: 3xDHC 1xtorpedo
rear 3xturrets
boffs layout:
tact lt cmd: TT1, ATB1, APO1
tact cmd: THY1, THY2, CRF2, CRF3
eng lt: EPtS1, EPtS2
sci ensign HE1
sci lt TSS1, TSS2
use 3 x purple conn officers TT variant
also use maco shield and 3 borg set pieces
p.s.
you can use TS and/or CSV instead of THY and/or CRF
Playing STO spamming FAW is like playing chess using always the computer's suggested moves
Try it before denying it....the power drain is not a big deal because the use of cannons allows for energy recharge....EPtW takes care of the rest.
Notice...ONE dual beam bank...!
It works as good if not better than what you describe for pve.
Edit: DBB on bo1 with tac crits for 10-75k! The torps are crit for 5-40k. Can you make up for that in three volleys of cannons....lol!
i run
1 DHC, 1 Quantum, 1 DC, and one DBB in front
3 turrets in back
Beam overload is insane and if you have a weapons battery or in my case red matter capacitor you can mitigate the power loss instantly and hammer away it is a nice combo i do to keep up the DPS with my defiant and it works great at punching shields in the face and lowering them significantly or dropping that facing altogether. i like having one DC and one DHC with the DBB for sustained firepower with CRF. I reccomend to the OP most of what the other people have said but trade up most systems for borg/ MACO or have that deflector a Omega force deflector since it gives a accuracy bonus which can provide a bonus to crits.
BO recharges far faster than that. Again where tasling PVE. Sure in PVP you can pull stuff liek that, but in PVE it has to be sustainable. Hiting a batery every time is not.
Ohh i'll easilly beat that, largely becuase a torp/DBB does not do anywhere near that amonunt of damage. before you try posting made up numbers check they are actually resonable.
Even a Plasma Torp with THY3 is only doing 4x Base damage, even with doubled crit magnitude and no target DR you would still need a torp doing 5K base. Guess what. It can't. DBB's are the same, BO 1 is a 4 times multipler. a 75K crit would need a base damage of aro8nd 9K, even a 10K crit needs a base damage of about 1.25K (possibble at least.
Lets look at some more realistic numbers, (ignoring acc bonus crit magnitude as it varies so much):
These numbers are taken from my all energy build KDF escort with MKX Plasma Beams/DHC and MK X Photon Torpedo
DHC base 1300.6 damage (867.1DPS)
DBB Bo1 Base 5865.6 damage (968.2 damage, (770.2DPS) in ordinary firing mode).
Photon Torpedo THY3 damage of 2524.1 * 4 (10096.4 total), base DPS is 523.1DPS, (3.4K per shot).
Crit chance and crit magnitude is equal so the only considerations are the effects of wepons power.
First and foremost a continual 2X crit multplier is possibble but highly unlikly. But even in that case your looking at a max crit of 20K for torps, 11.5K for beams with abilities.
Obviouslly if you go for more damaging MKXII or Fleet weapons it will go up a bit, but not to the numbers you claim. Nowhere near.
Go away...your numbers are bogus because if your weapons are hitting for that little...you missed a day in class!
DHCs - unbuffed 1963.6 damage (1309.1 DPS) buffed 4076 (2600 DPS)
DC - Same as above
Dual beam bank - unbuffed 1366.8 damage (1093.4 DPS). Buffed 14463 damage (9642 DPS)
torpedo unbuffed 4905.3 (577.1dps) buffed - 5099 x 4
Turret unbuffed 507.8 (677.1 DPS) buffed - 1041 (1429.8 DPS)
Next time before getting a tiff about something you know little about...take a look at the streaming numbers above your target as you are shooting them. You might see some numbers that wouldn't make sense to you by your logic.
Good luck with that!
Edit: The other intangible that you are forgetting is the use of attack pattern beta to debuff the targets I am shooting at.
Have a good one
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
I said ii was with MkX whites, thats the onyl way i could get equal mark and modifier weapons to eliminate any variable cheap, you are NOT getting 1300DPS out of a MK X white DHC, you might out of a MKXII Purple, sure, but not a MKX white.
Likewise your buffed numbers means exactly nothing, their usless for the discushion in questuion. base numbers are all that matters. yes i'm sure if you pop all your offensive coldowns and then damage a crit you cna puch upto somwhere close to a 40K DBB BO1 crit. But it;s a bogus number.
You cannot hit all those buffs every time you hit BO1, and a DHC running CRF or CSV will more than make up the diffrance in between, not to mention a DHC running CRF benefits the ssame from all those buffs which makes the number even more meaningless. Hell using your own numbers the diffrenace between your DBB and the DHC's is 300DPS, or 9K over 30 seconds between each BO1. Add on all the lost damage from the power drain and you don't have a leg to stand on. your nunmbers ar wrong, misleading and tottally and utterly bogus.
Except the buffed numbers will produce the crits I speak of....WHICH YOU NOW ADMIT....lol!
Your opinion is exactly that....for pve my setup trumps yours in my opinion and does exactly what I want it to. Power drain is a non-issue as I have already explained!
You are confused...what you propose might be better suited to pvp as long as you include attack pattern omegas!
What you fail to realize is that cannons are there for attack pattern beta activation....torps and Bo are for exposed hull where the crits do max damage.
You also fail to realize that I am more into burst damage than sustained DPS. Sustained DPS only works if you are constantly firing your guns. During stf play, there is plenty of time for cool downs!
See ya nugget!
You 2 need to take it in game and sort it out like real girls, pull each others hair, scratch each others faces, and come back when u can act like civilised individuals!!!
Am so over seeing this sort of TRIBBLE on here constantly!!:mad:
To the OP:
Concerning Weapons loadout:
Look here and here. The short version is that you should go for 4xDHCs for sustained single target damage over time, and swap out for 1-2 torpedo launchers if you want AoE and/or Spike damage... but for a breakdown of your options, check this post which I made earlier today in another thread.
Concerning Abilities:
You will always want at least one copy of Tactical Team I. Note that you do NOT need 3 Conn Officer DOFFs to make the most out of 1 copy of Tac Team I - one Purple Conn Officer and one Blue Conn Officer will cap the recharge time. However, 2 copies of Tac Team 1 are still "better" since there is a (Developer-confirmed) delay of 1.5 seconds until the recharge reduction kicks in.
If you play teamed PVE content, go for Attack Pattern Beta 3 in your Commander slot (there is no contest here. APB3 buffs all hull damage on your target- from you, your pets, your deployable damage patches or your teammates.) It will, at worst, perform nearly as well as Cannon Rapid Fire 3. And at best, it will multiply your entire team's damage output by 150%). And you can always run CRF2 in a LtCom slot to stack with it.
Mis-information.....do tell!
I find it interesting that the setup I use is more suitable to pvp in your opinion. Everything I have seen to date has said otherwise.
The point is PVE dosen't care about what you can do a couple of times per match, (probably a bit more on a bad run or in the 15 man fleet event), becuase getting even 3 lucky 40K crits over a 10 minute periods is only +200DPS average. Your own numbers allready show that DHC's tottally outperform that by a full 100DPS without abilities factored in.
Being able to get big cris dosen't mean anything in PVE becuase enemies are eitheir so numerous, or have so much health, or both that the absolute best possibble burst you can do is still meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
You brought up those numbrs to show that DBB + BOP1 and Torps + THY wheer somehow supiriour to a all cnanon build. The point is those numbers show nothing of the kind bcuase they're representative of a best case scenario under the best possibble conditions that can be repeated only once every several minutes. The actually sustaineable reality is that you cannot achive these numbers, and that the sustainable reality is worse than a DHC in it's place.
I haven't checked APB3 for about 6 monmths, but unles they buffed it it's only an extra 20 point reduction compared to APB1, so i'd argue this isn't true, a 20 point extra reduction isn't that valuable due to DR. Depends on the opponnents exact resistances though, some enemies will have exactly the right resistances to mae it work, but i found myself that APB1 does the job just as well.
The aforementioned "3 Conn Officer" gaff, Misunderstanding of DHC/DC mechanics. The common misconception that "DHCs proc less" in particular has been disproven multiple times and even stated outright by a dev ages ago. The (again common) misconception that the Borg 3-piece set bonus is much more powerful than it is. Compared with the 2-piece bonus it has an extremely low uptime, and use of TT actually reduces its uptime further... etc. etc.
There are more.
Debating all of them here would likely clutter up this thread even further.
I therefore suggest that the OP read some other similar threads such as the two I linked above, and then make their own informed decision.
Concerning BO3, it has been proven many times to be detrimental for Damage over time.
The problem is that whilst it inflicts heavy (8.46x a normal Beam shot) spike damage, it does so at the expense of (i) a LtCom BOFF slot which could have been used for HYT3/TS3/CRF2 (ii) Temporarilly reducing damage from other weapons via power drain.
Even assuming no power drain from BO3, the break-even point in terms of Damage Over Time compared with a DHC running CRF2 is less than 15 seconds. Thus BO3 is traditionally considered to be good for spike damage (which is desirable in PVP since enemy players will have less time to react), but not for Damage over time (which is desirable in PVE since you will take less time to whittle down hugely resilient NPC targets).
If we're talking about spike damage in PVE, then Tricobalt Mines should really be mentioned, since they can spike MANY TIMES HIGHER than BO3 without using up a DHC slot and without the weapons power drain trade-off.
It should also be noted that "fun" plays a large part in games. If your reason for building a certain way is because you enjoy it, then more power to you. Just don't operate under the assumption that one method is faster or more efficient than another without researching and testing it first...
Without getting overly bogged down into combat mechanics, Diminishing returns doesn't affect the calculations as much as you might assume in PVE. You can expect inflicting a resistance debuff of X% to a foe will result in you dealing at least X% more damage relative to what you were dealing to them before you inflicted the debuff.
And if you can push them into negative resistances, the damage inflicted can get ridiculous.
Assuming maxxed Starship Attack Patterns Skill, APB1 inflicts a debuff of 30%, APB2 inflicts a debuff of 40% and APB3 inflicts a debuff of 50%. That means with APB3, anything you shoot at will take 50% more hull damage, from any source.
There is no better ability that an Escort can bring to a team than making that entire team deal 50% more damage (AFTER buffs!!) to a strong foe. It can make Elite STF Gateways and Tac Cubes completely melt.
Combat mechanics in this game are quite convoluted. Once you get a handle on them though you can do some crazy things. In fact, the only thing more overpowered in endgame PVE than damage resistance debuffs is STACKED damage resistance debuffs. A Kar'fi with APB2, fully outfitted with Disruptor Weaponry, and two wings of Fighter pets with Disruptors can reduce a single foe's disruptor damage resistance well into negative triple figures and keep it there almost indefinitely... and a Recluse can be even worse!
Also you clearly don't know how the borg 3pc works. Anything that cuases any oen sheild facing to fall below the threshold can proc it. I can confirm from my own experiance that i have seen tac team re-distribute proc it.
Seems the other two missed your question Retro, I can offer my opinion on what I have seen work best for escorts and what I have used myself in my own personal tests.
I would recommend that you use MACO, which for a escort build offers the better of the two. The Omega set is ok, but as far as its damage reduction overall and regeneration is a second place vs the MACO on an escort. Omega is the "universal" that both sides can get.
MACO - is the special one for the Feds
Klingon Honor Guard- is the KDF special set.
Omega - is the "universal" that all can get.
Hope that helps you some.
There is a marked difference in the mechanics of Disruptor Procs and APB.
Assuming we're discussing resistance magnitude: a best case scenario would see a -50 Debuff impact upon a foe with a positive magnitude value of +25 Resistance (or ~20% after DR) the debuff would negate this, and bring the current resistance value well into the negatives (again, ~-20% DR). For a base damage hit of 100, this would mean that foe would go from receiving 80 damage to receiving 120 damage - for a relative increase in damage received of 120/80=150%.
Concerning real in-game performance, I suggest you closely examine the resistance magnitude levels of PVE foes. They're noticeably less than what players can typically achieve.
Before making assumptions and accusations about someone else's knowledge, I suggest you take a moment to think carefully about how power interactions function.
Consider that the Borg 3-piece Proc has a 10% chance to trigger when you dip below 20% shield strength on a single facing. This means that it does nothing until one of your shield facings drops below 20% strength. Tactical Team works by balancing your shield facings.
With Tac team:
(i) the facing under fire will effectively drop 4 times slower, therefore reducing the chance that the Proc will have an opportunity to kick in.
(ii) under heavy fire, all four facings will dip below 20% at roughly the same time due to the constant shield balancing. The proc can only trigger a maximum of one time and then enters a short cooldown - therefore instead of having four individual 10% chances of procing (1-(0.9*0.9*0.9*0.9)=34.4% total chance that it triggers at least once) it has one 10% chance of procing.
That isn't to say that you shouldn't run Tac Team when using a 3-piece Borg set, but that doing so reduces how much benefit the Borg 3-piece Proc can give you. Technically the most effective method of using this Borg proc is actually to continually divert power away from an unused shield facing rather than constantly rebalance your shields... and doing so grants a large benefit when facing tough immobile opponents.
Conversely, the Borg 2-piece Proc has a (albeit low) chance to trigger any time you receive damage, regardless of your current Hull strength or Shield Facings.