I hate bursting bubbles, but using DHCs is not a unique ability. KDF battlecruisers and all full carriers can mount them and I'd even say the Battlecrusiers and the Kar'fi use them pretty effectively. It'd be more appropriate to say that fed cruisers are the special case in not being able to use them. I wish they could though, I imagine a lot of the soapbox grandstanding would die down. People would either figure out its not for them or find a way to use DHCs on fed cruisers effectively in PvE.
Only problem with equipping Fed' cruisers with DC/DHC is that they really can't make effective use of them with less than stellar maneuverability and the DC/DHC narrow firing arc. The Galaxy X is a prime example of why it really doesn't work well. The Excelsior might me able to make use of it if set up with a fair bit of power to engines and RCS accelerators, but the other cruisers would be pressed to make good use of them.
Also don't forget that Escorts have Commander level Tac boffs to use high end (and multiple) cannon boff skills. An escort can use CRF3 and have CRF2 AND CSV2 (not to mention a bunch of other skills) in tow with the shorter cooldown.
Klingon battle-cruisers, like the Vorcha have the maneuverability to use DC/DHC. I don't know about the full carriers using DC/DHC's, 5-6' turn rate doesn't really lend to them being highly effective.
Personally, DC/DHC wont help the Fed' cruisers, but a different approach to making them more potent would.
I've been following this thread for a while (since it was posted in fact) and I figured I'd finally post my take on the entire debate. First off I'd like to say that I do fly both cruisers and escorts on my tac captain so I have considerable experience with both ship types (not an expert by any means, but I know them pretty well). I don't think that the issue is actually with cruisers themselves. The problem lies in the games healing and damage resistance skills. The best tanking skills in the game (based on my experience) are; Tactical Team, Emergency Power to Shields, Rotate Shield Polarity, Transfer Shield Strength, and Hazard Emitters. All these skills are available with a Lt slot. That means that every escort in the game has access to most, if not all of these skills. So the only thing that actually makes cruisers tankier then escorts is the fact that they have slightly higher shield modifiers and more hull hit points.
Heck if they just adjusted the energy-useage profile of beam weapons, so they worked like cannons for just a brief drain spike rather than 'holding' their drain throughout the beam's longer firing cycle, how much would that adjustment alone buff cruisers (and some sci ships) ?
Well again, I fly my Ody, tank whats there to tank and do my 6000 DPS (more than most of the escorts in STFs). Its only a matter of the build.
Even though a little less power drain when using beams would be quite nice, dont forget there is a cause for the power drain as it is. If they do something about it, they should test it first, so it will get only changed once.
I play as an Engineer and I am able to to 6000 dps with my Regent, and that's with using the Lt Universal as a Science. The best I was able to do with so far was 6751 dps and that was with an AtB build.
"I'm not big on telepaths myself. I'm not big on guns either. But if everyone else has them, I want to make sure I can get my hands on the biggest one I can."
You mean the Emergency Power to Foo abilities? Reducing the cooldown times by more than 33% is meaningless since that would get you down to the global cooldown minimum. Doing that would mean cruisers would be able to use a single copy of an Emergency Power ability as often as if they had two copies.
An interesting idea. Though I wonder how much this would really help when it comes to damage output. Emergency Power seems to have a very buggy relationship with weapon power drain. I don't think anybody is seriously complaining that cruisers aren't tough enough, rather the problem is their ability to kill things efficienty.
I think you misread my post - I meant increase the cooldown time, not decrease. And not just the EP2X but to everything.
I've been following this thread for a while (since it was posted in fact) and I figured I'd finally post my take on the entire debate. First off I'd like to say that I do fly both cruisers and escorts on my tac captain so I have considerable experience with both ship types (not an expert by any means, but I know them pretty well). I don't think that the issue is actually with cruisers themselves. The problem lies in the games healing and damage resistance skills. The best tanking skills in the game (based on my experience) are; Tactical Team, Emergency Power to Shields, Rotate Shield Polarity, Transfer Shield Strength, and Hazard Emitters. All these skills are available with a Lt slot. That means that every escort in the game has access to most, if not all of these skills. So the only thing that actually makes cruisers tankier then escorts is the fact that they have slightly higher shield modifiers and more hull hit points.
This is the crux of the problem and also why DHC's are the only game in town - right now the spike damage is (nearly) the only thing that can break the inevitable stalemate between any two ships that are not escorts.
Nope, char is an engineer. I fly with Lt.Cmdr. Tactical and Lt. Tactical with 2 TT, 1 FAW2, 1 APB1 and 1 APB 2, boosting mine and my teammates damage. But even with a ensign tac and lt. tac I can get above 5k dps. But I dont fly like this often, because even with the Lt.Cmdr. Tac I can tank in Hive Onslaught (and yes, FAW is running every 30sec), so I dont need this more tankish configuration (for PVP, a Lt. Cmdr. Sci makes more sense though).
But the Regent and Fleet Excelsior are viable ships too.
Well I must be doing something majorly wrong with my fleet Excel as I cant hit that 5k mark.
Here is my build maybe you can tell me what I've done wrong
Swap in Aux2Bat1 in there somewhere, maybe add APO1? I did that with an Odyssey and it makes a heck of a difference. Also maybe drop the monotanium and a torpedo for the Assimilated Module and either the Omega Torp or Cutting Beam, for the 2-piece bonus, cut that drain down? Its a thought.
Swap in Aux2Bat1 in there somewhere, maybe add APO1? I did that with an Odyssey and it makes a heck of a difference. Also maybe drop the monotanium and a torpedo for the Assimilated Module and either the Omega Torp or Cutting Beam, for the 2-piece bonus, cut that drain down? Its a thought.
APO on a Ody is such a waste. Do your team a favor and use APB, helps you too.
I'm quite happy to share my cruiser build and it can do BoPs in CSE solo with 0 Kang damage but I wouldn't say it does mad DPS, just a little above the cruiser average
APO on a Ody is such a waste. Do your team a favor and use APB, helps you too.
For damage sure. If what you want is a boost in defense and mobility so you can be where you need to for team heals and making sure you keep the aggo though, APO is a good tool to have. There's more to gameplay than offense.
Well I must be doing something majorly wrong with my fleet Excel as I cant hit that 5k mark.
Here is my build maybe you can tell me what I've done wrong
I don't think your build would be very good at dealing damage. Maybe its an Excelsior thing but why do you have so many armor consoles? And why aren't you using Aux2B x 2 with 3 Technician Boffs? And why isn't your weapon power set to 125 or close to it?
My build
Regent (assault Cruiser Refit): U.S.S. Space Whale
Weapons:
Front: 3 x BA Disruptors, 1 x Wide Angle Q-Torp
Aft: 2 x BA Disruptors, 1 x KCB, 1 x Q-Torp
Consoles:
Tac: 3 x Disruptor Induction Coils (mix of MK 11 and MK 12 green and blues)
Engi: 2 x RCS, Borg, 1 x Ablative Armor
Sci: 2 x Field Gens
Doffs
3 x Technicians (blue but ideally they will be purple eventually)
2 x Proyectile Weapon Officer (blue as well)
I prefer to not leave things to chance and have 9 ranks in threat control, so even if I have to disengage for any reason my target stays on me.
The idea behind this build is to get maximum uptime on all powers, in particular the EPtX and all tac power. The faster cycles on HE and TSS come out as better steady healing even with the loss of Aux power when you use Aux2B.
I don't think your build would be very good at dealing damage. Maybe its an Excelsior thing but why do you have so many armor consoles? And why aren't you using Aux2B x 2 with 3 Technician Boffs? And why isn't your weapon power set to 125 or close to it?
I showed the base power values, my weapon power sits at around 123 before engaging enemies and jumps over the 125 mark before my EPtX cycle starts. I also found using Aux2Bat destroyed all my capacity to heal even while using EPtA instead of EPtS so I soon ditched those in favour of a system that works for me.
I also use all the armour consoles because I can already turn well enough to keep my weapons on target and I value any seconds of extra life I can get facing borg.
For those who are trying to say, that cruisers are not UP, I yesterday run a little "test". I'm playing mainly PvP with sci/sci but spent some EC on mirror cruiser and because I fly mirror scis I got Patrol Escort with free RA token.
I then spent whatever EC I got left to equipe the testships with simmilar equipement, with some changes to use whatever suits each ship type. My character skills are set for max sci usage, so both escort and cruiser got a little shorthanded, but then with the cost of skills and amount of points you get you end as master of anything needed.
Then I run PvE missions from Klingon campaign with each ship. Different missions for different ships, but there was a lot of space combat in all of them.
The result was that escort was able to do space combat parts three times as fast as cruiser and more or less two times as fast as sci (running energy build with torps so this was going pretty fast for a sci).
Then I switched to Ker'rat (still below lvl requirements for STFs) and tested all three against Borg. Escort was, of course, killing the Borg a lot faster then cruiser and faster then sci (this drain build really helps in PvE). But the WTF moment came when I started to test survivability.
1) Ship vs one Borg Cube, endresult: the damage without activating anything else then TT. Escort was ending with 80% the hull (more or less) and dead Cube. Sci and cruisers were more or less between 50-20% beofre Cube died.
2) Ship vs as many Borg as I could aggro - how many I could kill before I was killed. All healing/tactics allowed. In escort I could kill anything without dying once. The worse result I got was getting to 5% hull and luckily HE got off CD before plasma killed me. Sci could survive indefinitely, but was unable to kill the cubes before zone reset. Cruiser died at one moment when I run out of engine batteries and Evasives alone were not fast enough to get me through all those cubes and other **** around me (try to manoeuver with cruiser with so many targets around).
All in all escort outDPSed every other ship. But it also out tanked every other ship. And not because it had more heals or buffs. But simply because it outDPSed other ships and could kill the Borg before they become a serious threat.
Cruisers are UP. Sci generally too. Escorts are too powerful for PvE.
For those who are trying to say, that cruisers are not UP, I yesterday run a little "test". I'm playing mainly PvP with sci/sci but spent some EC on mirror cruiser and because I fly mirror scis I got Patrol Escort with free RA token.
I then spent whatever EC I got left to equipe the testships with simmilar equipement, with some changes to use whatever suits each ship type. My character skills are set for max sci usage, so both escort and cruiser got a little shorthanded, but then with the cost of skills and amount of points you get you end as master of anything needed.
Then I run PvE missions from Klingon campaign with each ship. Different missions for different ships, but there was a lot of space combat in all of them.
The result was that escort was able to do space combat parts three times as fast as cruiser and more or less two times as fast as sci (running energy build with torps so this was going pretty fast for a sci).
Then I switched to Ker'rat (still below lvl requirements for STFs) and tested all three against Borg. Escort was, of course, killing the Borg a lot faster then cruiser and faster then sci (this drain build really helps in PvE). But the WTF moment came when I started to test survivability.
1) Ship vs one Borg Cube, endresult: the damage without activating anything else then TT. Escort was ending with 80% the hull (more or less) and dead Cube. Sci and cruisers were more or less between 50-20% beofre Cube died.
2) Ship vs as many Borg as I could aggro - how many I could kill before I was killed. All healing/tactics allowed. In escort I could kill anything without dying once. The worse result I got was getting to 5% hull and luckily HE got off CD before plasma killed me. Sci could survive indefinitely, but was unable to kill the cubes before zone reset. Cruiser died at one moment when I run out of engine batteries and Evasives alone were not fast enough to get me through all those cubes and other **** around me (try to manoeuver with cruiser with so many targets around).
All in all escort outDPSed every other ship. But it also out tanked every other ship. And not because it had more heals or buffs. But simply because it outDPSed other ships and could kill the Borg before they become a serious threat.
Cruisers are UP. Sci generally too. Escorts are too powerful for PvE.
Again: you are flying it wrong. A cruiser can almost tank an tacCube indefinetly, while an escort will get problems against that kind of firepower. Aside from crits, a Cruiser can easily hold its hull by 100% (because crits are the only spike damage high enough to penetrate the shields) while doing damage. A crit on an escort is near death. And one crit doesnt come alone
And if you say you have problems with a cruiser against a normal cube, then your built is... well just wrong wrong wrong. Of course you shouldnt have problems with either the escort or the cruiser (while escorts might still have some problems when getting a crit), because normal cubes are weak.
Sry, I take my Ody and fly Hive with FAW and aggro the map, but aside from bad luck, I can hold my ground. Do a Spread with an escort and you are dead within 10sec. With my setup - a very tactical one, so there are more tanky ones out there- I died once two times, while taking a 30k and a 18k crit within 3 sec, and the second time I just overestimated myself (5 Tac Cubes+ sphere are too much, even for a cruiser).
So, with a cruiser you can last way longer than you can with an escort (I would guess, you need at least 2 times the incoming damage, while doing half or more the damage of an escort. Against none gates or tac Cubes, I would estimate you can take 3 or 4 times the damage. So in comparison.... )
So when testing, do it right. Or I will do some "testing" were a escort does 1/3 of the damage a cruiser does. What? You have to "cheat" the test do that? Yes, but when I read yours you either have "cheated" or are just a very bad cruiser pilot. Sry.
And Sci are a whole different theme. They can be really nasty and the worst opponent of a tac captain. Again: When flown correctly.
[quoteAnd if you say you have problems with a cruiser against a normal cube, then your built is... well just wrong wrong wrong.[/quote]
Either there is something wrong with my english or your reading. I said that cruiser and sci got most damage when it was ship vs cube without healing. DPS and native defence (speed tanking) of an escort were better "defense" then additional hull/shield regen of cruiser and sci.
In point 2 it was "use the ship as good as I can" with "all tactics allowed" (including running and regenerating) while trying to kill as many Borg as fast as possible. Ok, it was sci/cruiser not eng/cruiser but still cruiser due to lack of manoeuvrability got the wors of it when it ended in the middle of Borg ball. Could not manoeuver fast enough and leave engagement and got blown to bits. Sci was better due to manoeuvrability and ability to outregenerate shield strippers (yeah, TSS3 with Energy Siphon blows) but was unable to kill the Borg fast enough. Again escort DPS and speed were the best offense - it was able to engage and disengage at will without any problems and able to keep itself alive with it.
And mind it that I was testing RA1 in Mirror Star Cruiser, not VA in sci Odyssey. And yeah, it was most likely not the best test ever, but it was, I think, how your common folk feels the ships when it comes to possibilities and endresult of PvE engagements with escort vs cruiser.
Well again, I fly my Ody, tank whats there to tank and do my 6000 DPS (more than most of the escorts in STFs). Its only a matter of the build.
Even though a little less power drain when using beams would be quite nice, dont forget there is a cause for the power drain as it is. If they do something about it, they should test it first, so it will get only changed once.
Which STF are you doing that in and what are the other ships like?
If other people do lower DPS that you do in the STF's, you actually get more opportunities to increase the parse average by have more time in the mission doing damage. I have noticed that when I do less dps in a mission the other guys in my group go up by even more. The escorts I STF with do 10.5k in KASE while my Fleet Excel Engi' does between 4-6k.
Also, when I PvP with my friends in their escorts, they can actually resist most of my damage coming in, so my 4-6k parsed barely scratches them.
This is the crux of the problem and also why DHC's are the only game in town - right now the spike damage is (nearly) the only thing that can break the inevitable stalemate between any two ships that are not escorts.
Actually, most of the Escort guys I know have pumped up their resistance to damage. Between their speed, skills and resistance. My ship barely scratches them (mostly bleedthrough) and easily parse and avg of 4-6k. The only time I really put a hurting on them is when I Borg tractor them.
Which STF are you doing that in and what are the other ships like?
If other people do lower DPS that you do in the STF's, you actually get more opportunities to increase the parse average by have more time in the mission doing damage. I have noticed that when I do less dps in a mission the other guys in my group go up by even more. The escorts I STF with do 10.5k in KASE while my Fleet Excel Engi' does between 4-6k.
Also, when I PvP with my friends in their escorts, they can actually resist most of my damage coming in, so my 4-6k parsed barely scratches them.
Have you tried your build in PvP??
I normally fly with a premade team, and we tend to finish most STFs with at least 7 minutes buffer for optional, so no, not really much more opportunity to do damage.
PVP is a different theme, because I dont play alone with a cruiser and we tend to leave pvp aside, because we cant make a premade team. I would also change my lt.cmd to sci and fly with more aux and a less weapons power to heal more efficiently.
But in 1vs1 I can hold my ground against every escort. If they werent that fast when running away, I could destroy some of them too.
But since pvp is more teambased then pve, you have to take a supporting role with a cruiser. And thats intended!
Ah yeah and I fly with 4 anti borg phaser ba + 4 mk xi rare phaser ba, so no high-end weapons.
My Tac can do up to 13k DPS (normally around 11k) while my cruiser can do 6-8k. As an engineer.
[quoteAnd if you say you have problems with a cruiser against a normal cube, then your built is... well just wrong wrong wrong.
Either there is something wrong with my english or your reading. I said that cruiser and sci got most damage when it was ship vs cube without healing. DPS and native defence (speed tanking) of an escort were better "defense" then additional hull/shield regen of cruiser and sci.
In point 2 it was "use the ship as good as I can" with "all tactics allowed" (including running and regenerating) while trying to kill as many Borg as fast as possible. Ok, it was sci/cruiser not eng/cruiser but still cruiser due to lack of manoeuvrability got the wors of it when it ended in the middle of Borg ball. Could not manoeuver fast enough and leave engagement and got blown to bits. Sci was better due to manoeuvrability and ability to outregenerate shield strippers (yeah, TSS3 with Energy Siphon blows) but was unable to kill the Borg fast enough. Again escort DPS and speed were the best offense - it was able to engage and disengage at will without any problems and able to keep itself alive with it.
And mind it that I was testing RA1 in Mirror Star Cruiser, not VA in sci Odyssey. And yeah, it was most likely not the best test ever, but it was, I think, how your common folk feels the ships when it comes to possibilities and endresult of PvE engagements with escort vs cruiser.[/QUOTE]
I flew an assault cruiser before getting the Ody. Little less DPS, nothing else.
I showed the base power values, my weapon power sits at around 123 before engaging enemies and jumps over the 125 mark before my EPtX cycle starts. I also found using Aux2Bat destroyed all my capacity to heal even while using EPtA instead of EPtS so I soon ditched those in favour of a system that works for me.
I also use all the armour consoles because I can already turn well enough to keep my weapons on target and I value any seconds of extra life I can get facing borg.
I think I see what's wrong. You are wanting to play a middle of the road style cruiser. You want to fly safely and yet complain you can't do good DPS? It doesn't work that way. If you want to do damage you WILL have to take some risks.
The launcher doesn't want to work at the moment, but going from memory:
From my Engi cruiser
Base Weapon Power: 123
EPtW: around 25ish
Aux2B: average around 20
Omega Weapon Proc: 10
Total power to weapons: 178
Power consumption:
5 x BA: 60
KCB: 10
Total power used: 60
So when I fire my 6 energy weapons I end up with an effective 110 power to weapons, with your base starting weapon power being lower you will easily see it get to 80 or so before FAW or BO. Those extra 20 weapon power points matter. I do not count the engi energy powers because they don't have anything like constant uptime. If you want to do good damage you need to up your weapon power.
I will again say you have too many armor consoles. If you want to do more damage you will have to find a way to live with less armor consoles and use those slots to up your damage. Use things like the Temporal console, the romulan console, the borg console, etc.
As far as using Aux2B, you don't mix it with EPtA. While your heals do take a hit their improved uptime means you actually get more healing.
It all comes back to this: If you want to do more damage you can't expect to fly a safe, ultra defensive cruiser, you need to take risks. Keep in mind that my decidedly tactical minded cruiser is still far more durable than my escort.
I get down to 91 at worst post FAW and 86 during FAW. That said I do have a few tricks in my build to counter drain, I'm ok with the level of damage I deal as it is above average, I just wanted to know how he managed to do that much damage with en eng/cruiser.
I get down to 91 at worst post FAW and 86 during FAW. That said I do have a few tricks in my build to counter drain, I'm ok with the level of damage I deal as it is above average, I just wanted to know how he managed to do that much damage with en eng/cruiser.
That makes two of us. I have a few of my ships built for pure damage at the cost of tankiness, and the most I can ever pull out is 5250 DPS on a cruiser.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I wouldn't be suprised if he is measuring his DPS against targets with a few APBs from allies placed on them. Much easier to hit high DPS numbers in a well organized group than in PuGs.
I wouldn't be suprised if he is measuring his DPS against targets with a few APBs from allies placed on them. Much easier to hit high DPS numbers in a well organized group than in PuGs.
Best measure for DPS would your ship SOLO against fixed targets. Perfect controlled environment.
It is said the best weapon is one that is never fired. I disagree. The best weapon is one you only have to fire... once.
I wouldn't be suprised if he is measuring his DPS against targets with a few APBs from allies placed on them. Much easier to hit high DPS numbers in a well organized group than in PuGs.
Comments
Only problem with equipping Fed' cruisers with DC/DHC is that they really can't make effective use of them with less than stellar maneuverability and the DC/DHC narrow firing arc. The Galaxy X is a prime example of why it really doesn't work well. The Excelsior might me able to make use of it if set up with a fair bit of power to engines and RCS accelerators, but the other cruisers would be pressed to make good use of them.
Also don't forget that Escorts have Commander level Tac boffs to use high end (and multiple) cannon boff skills. An escort can use CRF3 and have CRF2 AND CSV2 (not to mention a bunch of other skills) in tow with the shorter cooldown.
Klingon battle-cruisers, like the Vorcha have the maneuverability to use DC/DHC. I don't know about the full carriers using DC/DHC's, 5-6' turn rate doesn't really lend to them being highly effective.
Personally, DC/DHC wont help the Fed' cruisers, but a different approach to making them more potent would.
Even though a little less power drain when using beams would be quite nice, dont forget there is a cause for the power drain as it is. If they do something about it, they should test it first, so it will get only changed once.
I want to know your build, unless you play a tac.
I play as an Engineer and I am able to to 6000 dps with my Regent, and that's with using the Lt Universal as a Science. The best I was able to do with so far was 6751 dps and that was with an AtB build.
I think you misread my post - I meant increase the cooldown time, not decrease. And not just the EP2X but to everything.
This is the crux of the problem and also why DHC's are the only game in town - right now the spike damage is (nearly) the only thing that can break the inevitable stalemate between any two ships that are not escorts.
Nope, char is an engineer. I fly with Lt.Cmdr. Tactical and Lt. Tactical with 2 TT, 1 FAW2, 1 APB1 and 1 APB 2, boosting mine and my teammates damage. But even with a ensign tac and lt. tac I can get above 5k dps. But I dont fly like this often, because even with the Lt.Cmdr. Tac I can tank in Hive Onslaught (and yes, FAW is running every 30sec), so I dont need this more tankish configuration (for PVP, a Lt. Cmdr. Sci makes more sense though).
But the Regent and Fleet Excelsior are viable ships too.
Well I must be doing something majorly wrong with my fleet Excel as I cant hit that 5k mark.
Here is my build maybe you can tell me what I've done wrong
Swap in Aux2Bat1 in there somewhere, maybe add APO1? I did that with an Odyssey and it makes a heck of a difference. Also maybe drop the monotanium and a torpedo for the Assimilated Module and either the Omega Torp or Cutting Beam, for the 2-piece bonus, cut that drain down? Its a thought.
APO on a Ody is such a waste. Do your team a favor and use APB, helps you too.
This is my favorite part of those who claim cruisers do mad DPS.
They never share their build.
For damage sure. If what you want is a boost in defense and mobility so you can be where you need to for team heals and making sure you keep the aggo though, APO is a good tool to have. There's more to gameplay than offense.
I don't think your build would be very good at dealing damage. Maybe its an Excelsior thing but why do you have so many armor consoles? And why aren't you using Aux2B x 2 with 3 Technician Boffs? And why isn't your weapon power set to 125 or close to it?
My build
Regent (assault Cruiser Refit): U.S.S. Space Whale
Weapons:
Front: 3 x BA Disruptors, 1 x Wide Angle Q-Torp
Aft: 2 x BA Disruptors, 1 x KCB, 1 x Q-Torp
Consoles:
Tac: 3 x Disruptor Induction Coils (mix of MK 11 and MK 12 green and blues)
Engi: 2 x RCS, Borg, 1 x Ablative Armor
Sci: 2 x Field Gens
Boff Stations:
CMDR engi: Aceton Beam 3, EPtS 3, Aux2B 1, EPtW 1
Lt engi: Aux2B 1, ET 1
Lt CMDR tac: APO 1, APB 1, FAW 1
Lt tac: TT 1
Lt sci: HE 1,TSS 2
Power:
Weapons: 123
Shields: 74
Engines: 57
Aux: 59
Doffs
3 x Technicians (blue but ideally they will be purple eventually)
2 x Proyectile Weapon Officer (blue as well)
I prefer to not leave things to chance and have 9 ranks in threat control, so even if I have to disengage for any reason my target stays on me.
The idea behind this build is to get maximum uptime on all powers, in particular the EPtX and all tac power. The faster cycles on HE and TSS come out as better steady healing even with the loss of Aux power when you use Aux2B.
I showed the base power values, my weapon power sits at around 123 before engaging enemies and jumps over the 125 mark before my EPtX cycle starts. I also found using Aux2Bat destroyed all my capacity to heal even while using EPtA instead of EPtS so I soon ditched those in favour of a system that works for me.
I also use all the armour consoles because I can already turn well enough to keep my weapons on target and I value any seconds of extra life I can get facing borg.
I then spent whatever EC I got left to equipe the testships with simmilar equipement, with some changes to use whatever suits each ship type. My character skills are set for max sci usage, so both escort and cruiser got a little shorthanded, but then with the cost of skills and amount of points you get you end as master of anything needed.
Then I run PvE missions from Klingon campaign with each ship. Different missions for different ships, but there was a lot of space combat in all of them.
The result was that escort was able to do space combat parts three times as fast as cruiser and more or less two times as fast as sci (running energy build with torps so this was going pretty fast for a sci).
Then I switched to Ker'rat (still below lvl requirements for STFs) and tested all three against Borg. Escort was, of course, killing the Borg a lot faster then cruiser and faster then sci (this drain build really helps in PvE). But the WTF moment came when I started to test survivability.
1) Ship vs one Borg Cube, endresult: the damage without activating anything else then TT. Escort was ending with 80% the hull (more or less) and dead Cube. Sci and cruisers were more or less between 50-20% beofre Cube died.
2) Ship vs as many Borg as I could aggro - how many I could kill before I was killed. All healing/tactics allowed. In escort I could kill anything without dying once. The worse result I got was getting to 5% hull and luckily HE got off CD before plasma killed me. Sci could survive indefinitely, but was unable to kill the cubes before zone reset. Cruiser died at one moment when I run out of engine batteries and Evasives alone were not fast enough to get me through all those cubes and other **** around me (try to manoeuver with cruiser with so many targets around).
All in all escort outDPSed every other ship. But it also out tanked every other ship. And not because it had more heals or buffs. But simply because it outDPSed other ships and could kill the Borg before they become a serious threat.
Cruisers are UP. Sci generally too. Escorts are too powerful for PvE.
Again: you are flying it wrong. A cruiser can almost tank an tacCube indefinetly, while an escort will get problems against that kind of firepower. Aside from crits, a Cruiser can easily hold its hull by 100% (because crits are the only spike damage high enough to penetrate the shields) while doing damage. A crit on an escort is near death. And one crit doesnt come alone
And if you say you have problems with a cruiser against a normal cube, then your built is... well just wrong wrong wrong. Of course you shouldnt have problems with either the escort or the cruiser (while escorts might still have some problems when getting a crit), because normal cubes are weak.
Sry, I take my Ody and fly Hive with FAW and aggro the map, but aside from bad luck, I can hold my ground. Do a Spread with an escort and you are dead within 10sec. With my setup - a very tactical one, so there are more tanky ones out there- I died once two times, while taking a 30k and a 18k crit within 3 sec, and the second time I just overestimated myself (5 Tac Cubes+ sphere are too much, even for a cruiser).
So, with a cruiser you can last way longer than you can with an escort (I would guess, you need at least 2 times the incoming damage, while doing half or more the damage of an escort. Against none gates or tac Cubes, I would estimate you can take 3 or 4 times the damage. So in comparison....
So when testing, do it right. Or I will do some "testing" were a escort does 1/3 of the damage a cruiser does. What? You have to "cheat" the test do that? Yes, but when I read yours you either have "cheated" or are just a very bad cruiser pilot. Sry.
And Sci are a whole different theme. They can be really nasty and the worst opponent of a tac captain. Again: When flown correctly.
Either there is something wrong with my english or your reading. I said that cruiser and sci got most damage when it was ship vs cube without healing. DPS and native defence (speed tanking) of an escort were better "defense" then additional hull/shield regen of cruiser and sci.
In point 2 it was "use the ship as good as I can" with "all tactics allowed" (including running and regenerating) while trying to kill as many Borg as fast as possible. Ok, it was sci/cruiser not eng/cruiser but still cruiser due to lack of manoeuvrability got the wors of it when it ended in the middle of Borg ball. Could not manoeuver fast enough and leave engagement and got blown to bits. Sci was better due to manoeuvrability and ability to outregenerate shield strippers (yeah, TSS3 with Energy Siphon blows) but was unable to kill the Borg fast enough. Again escort DPS and speed were the best offense - it was able to engage and disengage at will without any problems and able to keep itself alive with it.
And mind it that I was testing RA1 in Mirror Star Cruiser, not VA in sci Odyssey. And yeah, it was most likely not the best test ever, but it was, I think, how your common folk feels the ships when it comes to possibilities and endresult of PvE engagements with escort vs cruiser.
Which STF are you doing that in and what are the other ships like?
If other people do lower DPS that you do in the STF's, you actually get more opportunities to increase the parse average by have more time in the mission doing damage. I have noticed that when I do less dps in a mission the other guys in my group go up by even more. The escorts I STF with do 10.5k in KASE while my Fleet Excel Engi' does between 4-6k.
Also, when I PvP with my friends in their escorts, they can actually resist most of my damage coming in, so my 4-6k parsed barely scratches them.
Have you tried your build in PvP??
Actually, most of the Escort guys I know have pumped up their resistance to damage. Between their speed, skills and resistance. My ship barely scratches them (mostly bleedthrough) and easily parse and avg of 4-6k. The only time I really put a hurting on them is when I Borg tractor them.
I normally fly with a premade team, and we tend to finish most STFs with at least 7 minutes buffer for optional, so no, not really much more opportunity to do damage.
PVP is a different theme, because I dont play alone with a cruiser and we tend to leave pvp aside, because we cant make a premade team. I would also change my lt.cmd to sci and fly with more aux and a less weapons power to heal more efficiently.
But in 1vs1 I can hold my ground against every escort. If they werent that fast when running away, I could destroy some of them too.
But since pvp is more teambased then pve, you have to take a supporting role with a cruiser. And thats intended!
Ah yeah and I fly with 4 anti borg phaser ba + 4 mk xi rare phaser ba, so no high-end weapons.
My Tac can do up to 13k DPS (normally around 11k) while my cruiser can do 6-8k. As an engineer.
Either there is something wrong with my english or your reading. I said that cruiser and sci got most damage when it was ship vs cube without healing. DPS and native defence (speed tanking) of an escort were better "defense" then additional hull/shield regen of cruiser and sci.
In point 2 it was "use the ship as good as I can" with "all tactics allowed" (including running and regenerating) while trying to kill as many Borg as fast as possible. Ok, it was sci/cruiser not eng/cruiser but still cruiser due to lack of manoeuvrability got the wors of it when it ended in the middle of Borg ball. Could not manoeuver fast enough and leave engagement and got blown to bits. Sci was better due to manoeuvrability and ability to outregenerate shield strippers (yeah, TSS3 with Energy Siphon blows) but was unable to kill the Borg fast enough. Again escort DPS and speed were the best offense - it was able to engage and disengage at will without any problems and able to keep itself alive with it.
And mind it that I was testing RA1 in Mirror Star Cruiser, not VA in sci Odyssey. And yeah, it was most likely not the best test ever, but it was, I think, how your common folk feels the ships when it comes to possibilities and endresult of PvE engagements with escort vs cruiser.[/QUOTE]
I flew an assault cruiser before getting the Ody. Little less DPS, nothing else.
I think I see what's wrong. You are wanting to play a middle of the road style cruiser. You want to fly safely and yet complain you can't do good DPS? It doesn't work that way. If you want to do damage you WILL have to take some risks.
The launcher doesn't want to work at the moment, but going from memory:
From my Engi cruiser
Base Weapon Power: 123
EPtW: around 25ish
Aux2B: average around 20
Omega Weapon Proc: 10
Total power to weapons: 178
Power consumption:
5 x BA: 60
KCB: 10
Total power used: 60
So when I fire my 6 energy weapons I end up with an effective 110 power to weapons, with your base starting weapon power being lower you will easily see it get to 80 or so before FAW or BO. Those extra 20 weapon power points matter. I do not count the engi energy powers because they don't have anything like constant uptime. If you want to do good damage you need to up your weapon power.
I will again say you have too many armor consoles. If you want to do more damage you will have to find a way to live with less armor consoles and use those slots to up your damage. Use things like the Temporal console, the romulan console, the borg console, etc.
As far as using Aux2B, you don't mix it with EPtA. While your heals do take a hit their improved uptime means you actually get more healing.
It all comes back to this: If you want to do more damage you can't expect to fly a safe, ultra defensive cruiser, you need to take risks. Keep in mind that my decidedly tactical minded cruiser is still far more durable than my escort.
That makes two of us. I have a few of my ships built for pure damage at the cost of tankiness, and the most I can ever pull out is 5250 DPS on a cruiser.
Best measure for DPS would your ship SOLO against fixed targets. Perfect controlled environment.
Who depends on allied APBs ?
I bring my own APO and APD.