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Just came back to the game and have a few BOff questions
stobastiat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I first started playing STO in Beta, and according to my account info was subscribed for 222 days. Now here I am trying to get back into the swing of things > 2 years later, and am curious about how some abilities work out in PvP these days.
My primary character is a Federation Science Officer (was 44 when I started back up, but made 50 quite quickly), and I primarily use Science Vessels. Most of the time that I PvP'd before I was in a healing/crowd control role, and made pretty extensive use of Subnucleonic Beam and Viral Matrix (which, at times, caused no small amount of raging
). Nowadays though, it seems like I'm not seeing much mention of Viral matrix for PvP use - did people finally discover how easy it was to remove? (if memory serves it used to be cleared by Science Team, but the wiki says it's Engineering Team now?)
What about Feedback Pulse? That skill used to be absolutely brutal against anything with beam weapons, and I saw a lot of people blow themselves up on it. But when I tried it out in (solo) PvE a few times lately, I wasn't impressed at all - is it worth it anymore? (Especially since it seems like cannons may be even more common now, what with some non-Escort Federation ships being able to carry some; hopefully Rapid Fire isn't as crazy with the spike damage as it used to be...)
If Viral Matrix isn't that useful now, what other utility skills should I look into, if any? Tractor Beam and Jam Sensors both gave me some success here and there before (especially when I could Jam one of the higher damage Klingons right at the beginning of his de-cloak -> burn everything runs), but I'm not sure if they're worth losing an Extend Shields, Hazard Emitters, Science Team, etc...I'm wanting to say that Tyken's Rift used to be decent as well, but have read recently that the drain isn't particularly noticeable now.
My primary character is a Federation Science Officer (was 44 when I started back up, but made 50 quite quickly), and I primarily use Science Vessels. Most of the time that I PvP'd before I was in a healing/crowd control role, and made pretty extensive use of Subnucleonic Beam and Viral Matrix (which, at times, caused no small amount of raging
). Nowadays though, it seems like I'm not seeing much mention of Viral matrix for PvP use - did people finally discover how easy it was to remove? (if memory serves it used to be cleared by Science Team, but the wiki says it's Engineering Team now?)What about Feedback Pulse? That skill used to be absolutely brutal against anything with beam weapons, and I saw a lot of people blow themselves up on it. But when I tried it out in (solo) PvE a few times lately, I wasn't impressed at all - is it worth it anymore? (Especially since it seems like cannons may be even more common now, what with some non-Escort Federation ships being able to carry some; hopefully Rapid Fire isn't as crazy with the spike damage as it used to be...)
If Viral Matrix isn't that useful now, what other utility skills should I look into, if any? Tractor Beam and Jam Sensors both gave me some success here and there before (especially when I could Jam one of the higher damage Klingons right at the beginning of his de-cloak -> burn everything runs), but I'm not sure if they're worth losing an Extend Shields, Hazard Emitters, Science Team, etc...I'm wanting to say that Tyken's Rift used to be decent as well, but have read recently that the drain isn't particularly noticeable now.
Post edited by stobastiat on
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Jam isn't a great skill though it has its niche uses on some types of healer/Sci ships. Tractors are always useful, Tyken's is one of those skills -- like many in the game -- which only shines when you build around it, min-max it and focus on it.
I think someone far more qualified than myself will be here soon to help you out. From what I understand the game is very different to how it was in beta. On a general note, though, the value of different abilities really depends on what you're trying to do with your ship or what sort of role you're filling for your team. In my opinion it's a very relative thing, there aren't many abilities in STO that are totally worthless/always mandatory no matter the player.
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
Check these builds out:
Specifically Mai Cake's posts.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=485921
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=485251
Let's see if grim shows up and gives some advice.
Btw don't hesitate to /channel_join OrganizedPvP
You can always find people there willing to help. I'm sure some would help you decide on a build and even help you test your build.
The guys that go by the handle @Jedinikon, and @thegrimcorsair, are your best bet for really good science advice.
Tyken's Rift's drain is all kinds of sad. Still critical for policing mines and bringing pets to a crawl, but even with its DOff that lets you have multiple out, 125 Aux power, 4 Mk XI blue Flow Caps, and the +24 to Flow Caps from the Jem Deflector w/ 4-5 rifts open around a target, if said target has 9 ranks into Power Insulators you won't do more than remove about 7.3 power from all the subsystems of a target caught in it. Energy Siphon 2 and 3, along with Polaron weapons, when buffed by Flow Capacitors offer much, much stronger drain options. Honestly, even your innate subsystem targeting applies a stronger drain. Oh, and for a little extra fun, the damage from Tyken's doesn't ignore shields.
Feedback Pulse 3, and a load of Particle Gens (wall-to-wall) can be very, very, very nasty in the hands of a Tactical Captain when used in conjunction with Tactical buffs. A Science captain probably won't get much mileage out of it.
If you're into Sci ships, the Mirror Universe Science Ship can be picked up on the exchange for a pittance. It has the same BOff layout and consoles of a Deep Space Science Vessel with the maneuverability of the classic Recon Science Vessel.
@Snog: I don't fly *nasty* sci ships, I just spam disables and prayer's like... like... huh, I can't think of analogy that won't get me banned from the forums for all eternity.
It certainly does it's job well enough to cut down those in the prime of their life.
Oh, I had the honor/horror of witnessing the VM spreader DOff's in action in ISE last night. A Kar'fi hit the cube with VM and not a half-second later both spheres were also VM'd. I might look into getting a few of those DOffs. When the first wave of spheres appeared the Kar'fi VM'd the lead on of the group and about half the first wave was sitting there doing jack-all a moment later. Scary stuff for hard CC that doesn't have a working hard-counter.
There are some things that are mostly the same, if my memory can be believed, but a number of new additions and changes as well (duty officers being a big one). In some ways it feels like a completely different game.
Thanks for the heads up - I'll have to check that out soon, once I get some officer skills set up and get used to my keys again. Half the time I'm soloing right now I end up hitting the wrong ability by accident :P
Really? Hmmm, that sounds pretty nifty then. Back in the day it was really simple to outright remove, but most people either didn't know it or didn't keep a Science Team handy (maybe because a lot of them were spamming Tactical Teams every cooldown, for the damage buff).
It used to be a nice, if situational, ability for me in a healer/utility role, but the use was still somewhat limited back then. The primary problem that I ran into was that PvP was limited to only FvK at the time (with a lot of people trying to argue that allowing FvF would "ruin" the game, and that we should just put up with the absurdly long queue times :mad:), and a lot of the Klingons were loaded to the brim with cannons + rapid fire. Don't suppose that I'll be using it much this go around, either.
I'm currently using the standard Recon Science Vessel, though I think I have the regular Deep Space one stored away as well (from back when ships were purchased with Energy Credits). The standard Recon ship works decently well for solo PvE due to the maneuverability and small bump in offensive ability, but I suppose the Mirror ship would indeed work out better for PvP. I'd also mused about trying out a Carrier at some point (the Caitian one I assume, since I doubt I'd even find a Tholian ship available, much less affordable); how do the carriers work out in PvP?