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Vor'Cha Retrofit/Mirror Battlecruiser
canis36
Member Posts: 737 Arc User
I've got an older KDF character I've resurrected in the rush to get ready for Season 7 and I've noticed that his equipment (where ships are concerned) is utter TRIBBLE. So, given their almost absurd turn rates and lack of tactical options, what kind of weapons layout should I give my Vor'Cha Retrofit and soon-to-be-unpacked Mirror Battlecruiser? I'm not looking for damage type recommendations, I've already decided what I'm going to do there, but what kinds of weapons should I use? Dual Heavy Cannons and Turrets even though I lack an effective ability to buff them? Dual Beams and Beam arrays? Dual Beams and turrets? Cannons and turrets?
I'd like to hear your suggestions before I commit to grinding out what I can through episode replays.
I'd like to hear your suggestions before I commit to grinding out what I can through episode replays.
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I'm actually partial to beam/torp builds, but I'm not sure what the best set up is. The current set up on this character's Vor'cha is 2xDBB, 1xArray, 1xTorp forward and either 4xArray or 3xArray, 1x Torp aft; can't really remember which.
Run it with Tac Team 1, Cannon Rapid Fire, and Torp Spread 1 (hence why you mount the quantum up front!)
The problem with the mirror is you lose one ENS slot for TAC. If you've got the vorcha retro, use it instead of the mirror.
Somebody will probably laugh at me, but this is what I use on my Mirror Vor'cha.
Front weapons:
* beam array
* dual beam
* dual heavy cannons
* photon torpedo
Rear weapons:
* beam array
* 3 turrets
Boff arrangement
Tacteam1, AttackBeta1
EPTW1, Aux2Dampener1, EngTeam3, Aux2Structural3
EPTA1, RSP1, EPTS3
Polarize1, TSS2
HE1
Equip:
KHG shield
KHG deflector
Efficient Impulse engine
Consoles:
Disruptor coils * 3
Neutronium armor * 2
Monotanium armor * 1
RCS * 1
Plasmonic Leech
Assimilated console
The ad-hoc weapon loadout is based on a theory I have, where the more you can break up the weapon firing patterns so that not everything is firing at the exact same time, the more efficiently you use your weapon power. And it seems to work. It also looks really really cool
Boff powers aimed at survival. I can help allies, but mostly it's intended to keep ME alive. Even without fancy tactical abilities I can do enough damage to grab aggro usually simply because with my survivabilty I'm right in the enemy's plasma vents. Running 100 to weapons and 50 to shields constantly, alternating between EPTS and EPTW when on the attack or between EPTS and EPTA when tanking defensively. Between Aux2ID and Evasive and the inherently good agility for a cruiser, it's easy to be wherever you want to be as long as you remember that it drifts like crazy on sharp turns
Moves well, hits pretty hard, difficult to kill, and can throw some good heals on allies. Mirror Vor'cha is probably my favorite ship in the game.
You're losing about HALF your potential. First, DHCs will do double the output of your beam arrays. Second, while a DBB build is feasible it will overall do less damage then a comparable DHC build.
Second, you're wasting your tac slots. They're too precious to waste on APB. And yes, I said waste, I mean it. The only real reason to use BAs or DBBs on the Vor'cha is to maximize your available tac skills with FAW and BO. Otherwise if you run cannons you only get 1 skill that affects them (though it is a very good skill, CRF!).
APB is one of those skills you use AFTER you've taken care of the basics. You're using it BEFORE you've got the basics. Without BO or FAW to modify the damage output you're doing a mere fraction of your possible damage.
With the Vor'cha it is maneuverable enough without RCS consoles to keep the DHCs on target. There's no reason not to mount them, at all.
Classic Vor'cha (only if you're going to use a torpedo and at least 2 KHG pieces)
Front Wep: 3 DHC / 1 Torpedo (Quantum)
Rear Wep: 4 turrets
COM Eng: EPtS 1 / Aux2Bat 1 / RSP 2 / DEM 3 (EWP 3)
LTC Eng: EPtA 1 / Aux2Bat 1 / EWP 1 (DEM 2)
LT Sci: HE 1 / TSS 2
LT Tac: TT 1 / CRF 1 (CSV 1)
ENS Tac: Torpedo Spread 1
Mirror Vor'cha (if you're not using a torp, just all cannons)
Front Wep: 4 DHC
Rear Wep: 4 turrets
COM Eng: EPtS 1 / Aux2Bat 1 / RSP 2 / DEM 3 (EWP 3) [Extend Shields 3]
LTC Eng: EPtA 1 / Aux2Bat 1 / EWP 1 (DEM 2) [ET 3]
LT Tac: TT1 / CRF 1 (CSV 1)
LT Sci: HE 1 / TSS 2
ENS Sci: Tractor Beam 1 (Polarize Hull 1)
By combining the Technician DOffs with Aux2Bat you'll be able to get basically all of your BOff power's cooldowns to their global timer, essentially running everything as though it was in duplicate and you'll have 125 in weapons, shields, and Engines at almost all times. Keep a stack or two of Aux batteries on hand, and you should be okay once you get the hang of the ship.
If you need Technician DOff's the B'tran cluster colonial chain rewards them (check both B'tran Cluster and B'tran Cluster [Vice Admiral] when looking for the missions, they count as separate locations for DOff missions, thus possessing the chance for the colonial chain missions to appear in either instance). You get a blue for the B'tran Renown mission and purples when you get a critical success on the "Support B'tran Colonization Efforts" [Rare] mission.
I'm dubious. Are you available to run ISE some time? Run both ships through the same mission and then see what the combat log says...
My Fleet K'Tinga Retrofit is essentially a Vor'cha Retrofit with better looks. This is taken with the F K'Tinga R, as that's what I fly in most cases now.
1x Blue Quantum mk XI + 4x AP DHC Mk XII [borg] up front
2x AP BA MkXII [borg] + 1 TCD Mk XII [borg] + 1 blue quantum mine mk XI in the aft
tac consoles boost AP power, in the green mk X range (best I have for now). [ed: fixed. I said blue XI, but was mixing up my characters]
Player name / total damage / dps / hits / crit % / damage taken
KASE:
Me (probes right) 4,338,729 dmg / 4524.69 dps / 2767 / 8% / 355,730 tkn
visiondream 3,624,343 dmg / 3793.14 dps / 2919 / 13% / 467,982 tkn
Crazy Canadian 3,029,040 dmg / 3211.11 dps / / 11% / 181,388 tkn
Vura'k 2,913,400 dmg / 3109.95 dps / 3275 / 12% / 427,029 tkn
ksathra 1,865,191 dmg / 2029.37 dps / 2527 / 8% / 454,049 tkn
CSE #1
Jones 4,304,286 dmg / 6640.37 dps / 3105 / 11% / 577,061 tkn
Me 2,624,188 dmg / 4031.63 dps / 1614 / 9% / 314,806 tkn
magramar 2,279,519 dmg / 3922.77 dps / 1401 / 10% / 505,607 tkn
Jhekren 2,226,556 dmg / 3539.83 dps /2756 / 10% / 718,966 tkn
Ayden Storm (kang duty) 1,752,230 dmg / 2925.75 dps / 3041 / 9% / 61,586 tkn
CSE#2
magromar 3,600,439 dmg / 4530.56 dps / 2377 / 10% / 534,806 tkn
Me 3,347,597 dmg / 4199.19 dps / 2201 / 12% / 404,467 tkn
Tallywacker 3,343,023 dmg / 4185.90 dps / 3231 / 10% / 346,622 tkn
Ayden Storm (kang duty) 2,316,912 dmg / 2998.85 dps / 3708 / 10% / 105,407 tkn
ksathra 1,814,140 dmg / 2240.79 dps / 2368 / 7% / 638,143 tkn
ISE
Talos (carrier, dude was boss) 4,105,796 dmg / 7212.08 dps / 7002 / 6% / 289,724 tkn
Me 2,715,189 dmg / 4755.15 dps / 1379 / 9% / 113,322 tkn
Annek 1,854,311 dmg / 3296.55 dps / 5053 / 7% / 126,892 tkn
A. P. Evil 1,648,437 dmg / 2963.22 dps / 1870 / 9% / 34,888 tkn
Karelion 1,622,774 dmg / 2859.57 dps / 3208 / 4% / 15,717 tkn
Aside from the anomolous freak of nature known as Talos (wow, simply astounding damage output!!!) I think if it were anybody else I'd have taken top slot in that ISE match too. I have NO clue how he pulled that off, other than mad pet skillz
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Well, this is somewhat difficult to compare because the environment of the battle plays a part here. That's why I wanted to play WITH you so we can make a more relevant comparison. If your entire team is using debuffs, it can make even a Miranda look like an antimatter powered chainsaw.
With that disclaimer, my results from my most recent battle of ISE (farewell, season 6). That jumps up to 5481 DPS for me, if we're include shield damage instead of only hull damage. So. Sacrificing half my damage potential? I must remain dubious.
Here's a video of the battle, mainly because I realized I didn't have *any* STO footage on my account but also because I'm curious if play style has much to do with this. As you can see, in the battlecruiser I'm extremely aggressive and short-ranged which has a direct impact on how efficient my weapons are.
Highest I've gotten with my Vo'quv was 8100. You just need B'rolths and multiple team mates spamming APB, disruptor breaches, and sensor scans. Carriers are beastly if well played.
Momaw: If your entire team is using debuffs you SHARE the damage boost. So you have to look at the relative damage as compared to the entire 5-player team. This is why I did 4 matches and showed all players' scores. That way you can't say I was just using their debuffs or that I was doing more damage because I was using my own (not that I see how this would change the results much) So you can see if I have double, triple, or quadruple the score of the next lowest player (that has happened before).
What I see is a 4-cruiser, 1 defy scort team. I don't even see that defy doing too much from your view of the action. It's not a bad team, but as you can see I did CSE 2x and even with some of the same folks and had a bad round the first time (I was just sloppy) and a more normal round the second time. The more samples (full match stats) you have the better the picture we might get.
I'm not entirely sure I believe that 4800 dps simply because you're using APB sparingly, and only adding EPTW as your main modifier. That's not even needed too much because you're an engineer and can run max weapon power at most times. It caps at 125 anyways. I run max power whenever I don't need a shield heal, as well. Given the same weapons power DHCs do closer to double the damage output of BA's. BA's can be good, and I use them on my fed cruisers, but they are second weakest in the game, next to turrets.
What stat tracker and what plugin did you use? Mine was recorded with ACT and STO-PVE.cs ver 1.0.7.1. I have a feeling there is a different stat tracker out there that lists higher DPS based on some dichotomous comments I've read on these forums regarding DPS. If you're using something else I am willing to use that also, for an apples-to-apples comparison.
I use high yield and cannon scater on tac boff and 2nd boff torp spread.I keep my KDF ships orignal weapons.
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
It seems we are both dubious! This is good science. I approve.
Weapon power is capped at 125 for terms of determining damage, however, power over 125 is still counted when it comes to the "drain" effect and counter-acting it. Notice how when I kick in EPTW my power doesn't dip as low during a salvo. This is because the drain is first subtracting from the imaginary >125 surplus, and this mean more shots at higher power levels.
There are two preconditions to this:
1.) Short range. Cannon damage falloff is *extreme* compared to beams. A dual beam does the same damage as a dual heavy cannon at about 7km, and even a beam array does the same damage at about 9.5km. Not an issue for my bulldog-like use of this ship, but worth keeping in mind.
2.) Firing arcs. We are, after all, dealing with cruisers here. Vor'cha is very agile for a cruiser but it's still not an escort and so there are many times that the beam array is firing and the dual cannons are not.
In my own extensive testing on this and many other ships, a dual beam does more real-world damage than a dual heavy cannon over the course of a mission unless tactical abilities are used (especially scatter volley in multi-target scenarios).
I tested this design with 2 dual beams on the front instead of the front array, and there WAS a practical damage improvement, however it was relatively small and I am willing to pay the tax to have the slight edge in flexibility and style.
I'm using the game's record-to-log feature, and then parsing it with the pragmatically named "CombatLogParser"
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=268735
Here is the log file if you'd like to use your own tools on it. I look forward to seeing if your numbers match mine.
http://momaw.kikaimegami.com/logfile.zip
I've been under the impression for sometime now that Directed Energy Modulation only works with beams, yet you're talking about using them with cannnons. Have I been misinformed?
makemydayfreeper: We've got an issue in this community as to what DPS really is. I looked at the 8000 dps listed in the end of his second video and it doesn't add up. In 13 minutes and 29 seconds, let's say 13.5 minutes, times 60 seconds - 810 seconds, he did 3,897,416 damage.
Well 3,897,416 / 810 = 4811 dps according to windows calculator.
This is my issue when folks claim massive DPS. I think he's using some very old plugin or something that does inaccurate calculations for dps. it's nearly double what it should be. DPS is literally damage total divided by duration of match.
DPS is an average. It includes lulls and it includes cooldowns on your alpha strike skills. Claiming anything other than an average is misleading (intentionally IMO).
EDIT: P.S. You can't deny that whether that was his intent or not, his stats tracker was wrong. It was listing his dps as almost double what it was based on simple math.
You mix up the start time of the mission with it's actual duration. 7:13 was the duration of the combat, if you check the length of the video, it matches perfectly. It was the fastest round of KASE I frapsed so far, thanks to the great team we had that day.
Still, ACT just counts the raw damage with the 1.1.0.0 plugin I used. I've updated to Hilbert's 1.0.7.1 and calculated it again (still shield and hull damage), the result can be viewed here: http://i.imgur.com/miyVl.jpg
And if you want further proof, just contact me in game to play a round or two: @Hellspawny
Still, comparing results with ACT data is a two sided sword since every round can be quite different. If I use a trico bomber in CSE, I can easily top 16k DPS due to >250k crits. ACT counts 250k even if the cube has just 10k. And you need to be in combat all the time, so defending the kang, probe duty etc. will most likely ruin you DPS.
STO-League.com | Weapon Damage Calculator | DPS Web Tools | STO-Center Forums
But, again, things are different in typical MMORPGs where you might have half a dozen people all clobbering the same enemy for minutes at a time. In those games, "DPS" is not a statistic so much as a role to play. For that context, damage output discounting survivability and mobility is relevant to what the player needs to do. For STO the boundaries between roles are much more vague. Every ship contributes damage, every ship needs to be able to move around, every ship needs to be able to survive a few hits. That's why we in STO-land prefer "strategic DPS" since it's an aggregate measure of several things.
Stats are numbers. Numbers are culled from the logs. DPS then has only one meaning. Damage per second. It's an average over time meant to average spikes with cooldowns to come to a representative damage output that you may have.
Anyways, I have got the combatlog parser you linked up and running and will be recording some matches in my F K'Tinga R to see how it compares. I may even try to mix and match some setups to compare other weapons (i.e. all turrets aft, lose my TCD, etc) depending on what I have available in my bank and on my secondary ships.
Meanwhile borg cubes and spheres sap your shield strength about 5x faster, or I noticed in many cases they just ignore shields entirely and do direct hull damage for no ******ned reason.
So the entire time I'm running DHCs and I did by FAR the most damage of anybody in the match with OVER 5 million damage, it says my DPS was 2800 and I believe it because all the damage resistance is totally ****ed up now on the borg side. It's through the roof. That match took half an hour! Maybe more! It was an utter nightmare!
So... yeah... Can't compare because the benchmark has totally freaking changed. TRIBBLE you, cryptic programmers!
3 DHC/1 Quantum Fore, 4 Turrets Aft.
KHG Shiwld
KHG Deflector
Borg Engine
4x Neutronium
Borg Console, Universal of choice. I currently have a Point Defense slotted.
4x Energy Damage
CMD Engi: EP2W, DEM, X2Damp, X2SIF
Ensign Engi: EP2S
LTC Tac: TT, CSV/CRF, TS3/HY3.
LT Tac: TT, CSV/CRF.
LT Uni: TS1/HY1, APB.
I know it may seem utterly mad to not have any Sci Powers, but this can crank out some serious damage. Oh, and my Captain is a Tac.
Mirror Vor'cah, using DEM. Maybe not definitive, but worth a watch.
Anyone talking about DPS and parsers. Calculating DPS for a match is sort of a waste of time. There's far to many unknowns for that to be a useful number. Even if you compared that number only to ships of the same type as yours in the same match as yours the only thing you might discover is your relative contribution in that particular match. You have no controls, no benchmarks, and no data on variables that impact your readings. That makes them junk. You could argue that but oh well see where it gets you.
Inside of a match the best way to improve your contribution is to study your actual contribution. Seems obvious. Are you using all your buffs as they are available? Are you activating your fleet ability on top of another ability, wasting them? Are you using movement buffs or moving power to engines to get on target quickly? Are you staying alive and healing your team?
A parser may tell you if your tragically below par. But it won't tell you why.
Cheers and happy flying!
EDIT: It is also more fun to make video of yourself and SEE things that you miss as they happened. Combined with combat log data you have a much more powerful tool than just the log data alone.
Also for some reason I showed the scrolling log in the video, and didn't mention why. Why I did was to show that DEM does add damage to each shot, and it isn't normalized. It adds what it adds so it is most effective with turrets or dual cannons, benefiting from the high rate of fire.