I thought it was just to hull and gives both kinetic and energy weapon resistance.
yeah my bad, kinda mixed it up. my point tried to be, that you do not have to spend points into the individual skills for defense (particularly I meant that it is better to spend into threat than kinetic resistance)
Really? I'll keep that in mind for my new eng. (Previous caps were a sci and a tac).
As for the skills thing - I feel my sci in his Chel'Grett would have benefitted from at least 3 in attack patterns, ah well, benefits of hindsight. TBH I don't think you'd go massively wrong with putting 3 points in each of the first three tiers of tac and eng skills before anything else (in fact excl. Threat control, 3 points in everything is while not great, certainly not a terrible start it seems to me)
my weapon power is 125/100
i have a doff that gives me weapon power drain resist of 500% everytime i hit directed energy modulation. between that, and nadion and everthing else i find no need for emergency power to weapons 1.
this is what im using atm. it's about 60 million credits. i only came back to the game a few days ago and rolled this new engineer char from my old 45 science.
assault cruiser refit
tac team 1, fire at will 2, attack pattern beta 2 (or 3, can't remember)
torp spread
emg to sh 1, aux 2 batt 1, eng team 3, direct eng mod 3
emg to sh 1, aux 2 batt 1
hazard 1, forget what it's called
3x doffs 10% reduction to boff power cooldowns everytime i hit aux 2 batt. pretty crazy how i can cycle boff powers
however even with full mark xii gear (no rep gear, no fleet gear. character is 4 days old) still gets insta popped in elite stf's. that's with 2 neutronium mk xii's and using aux batteries before popping various shield resist buffs.
not sure on my dps, nobody is running a meter. i may set up act but then i may become too obsessed and roll a fotm tac like veryone else.
My Sci is still my main (and great fun he is too), but I recently converted enough zen for two new char slots and made my first eng (can't decide if my other free slot will go to a fed tac or a KDF sci).
60 Million Credits is well out of my range (I think I have <5million in total over 3 characters).
I've got a while though as she's still a lieutenant.
I've never been particularly drawn to Aux2Batt, given that I like offensive Sci Powers, and have Aux2SIF on endless repeat.
As for threat control I've avoided it thus far as my Sci doesn't want the attention (just bought a -th Mk X console) and Tac captains would never lose aggro if they specced threat control.
BTW Ferdzso0 do you spec the ground version of Threat control? (not strictly relevant but I'm interested)
I've come up with a little build you can try out, use it on an assault cruiser:
lt Tac: TT, APB
Ens Tac: TT
ltc Eng: empts1, aux2damp, emptw3
cmd Eng: empts1,aux2damp,emptw3, DEM (for damage), RSP for tanking.
lt sci: HE1/HE2 (or a mix of TSS and HE and/or Sci team)
4x DBB front
4x turret rear
Use an RCS console and the omega engines or fleet Hyper-Impulse Engines [Turn]x3 [Spd]
Also use 100/25/50/25 power for maximum turning and weapons. The aux2damp will run constantly on a keybind so you get super speed and turning all day and a decent boost to hull resists.
I've come up with a little build you can try out, use it on an assault cruiser:
lt Tac: TT, APB
Ens Tac: TT
ltc Eng: empts1, aux2damp, emptw3
cmd Eng: empts1,aux2damp,emptw3, DEM (for damage), RSP for tanking.
lt sci: HE1/HE2 (or a mix of TSS and HE and/or Sci team)
4x DBB front
4x turret rear
Use an RCS console and the omega engines or fleet Hyper-Impulse Engines [Turn]x3 [Spd]
Also use 100/25/50/25 power for maximum turning and weapons. The aux2damp will run constantly on a keybind so you get super speed and turning all day and a decent boost to hull resists.
personally i never found the assault cruiser to be lacking in turn. its a beam boat. fly it as such. keep your broadsides on your target. run damage boosting or resistance consoles and id swap the aux to damp for aux to sif for heals.
There is NO REASON AT ALL people shouldn't be able to pull 3000 damage per second in elite stfs.
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
Low Difficulty of the Game
This is number one. If a single good player is in an STF, sometimes needing two, it will get done easy peasy. In addition a ship that can complete standard PvE content can be such a horribad build and still work that many just assume that means it is a good build.
Bad Advice
I would say much of advice given on these forums is bad. The majority is sub-optimal or outdated. This is primarily because of the above situation and extremely lack of documentation on game mechanics and systems provided by cryptic. I know fleet weapons are the best guns to use in eSTFs yet people will argue with me till they are blue in the face and demand I prove it. Fact is until Cryptic gives us the information everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt or you must do your own testing to confirm it. Most lack the desire to do so.
Bad Testing
How many of us have seen a thread stating that their ship/build does tons of damage because that is what the parser said? Any ship with any build in a premade team where your allies are throwing attack pattern beta, tac fleet, and sensor scan on the enemies along with possibly movement debuffs will do tons of damage. So few actually take such things into account with their parsing/testing. The real tests of a good PuG worthy build is what can it do solo? How long can it tank a tac cube without help, how fast can it down a cube by itself, and what force multipliers is it bringing to the party for the team.
Their was something else too but I forget now. May edit it in later.
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
That just reminded me what I forgot, thank you.
False Assumptions
This is due to what I stated before but many offer advice based on their approach to the game. Do they PuG? Is it for PvP? PvE? Premades? Do they want to fly something fun or optimal? For example my standard response to the post above is simple.
None of those roles are necessary or optimal in eSTFs. Crowd Control: Grab an MVAE or use Breen ship. Grav Well 1 is all the CC you will need. Disabler: Only targets worth disabling are immune or it doesn't last long at all. Spheres and the like die before needing disabled with raw damage and a tac cube laughs at your attempts so why bother. Healer: I won't lie even I appreciate an extend thrown on me. But really even an escort can pack a hazard emitter and tss so crosshealing eliminates any need for a dedicated healbot. Power Drainer: Same as disabler Shield Drainer: They are called DHCs and unlike sci abilities actually eliminate shields. Sorry nerf bat was too strong for this.
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
well, see the comment before me lol...
still, the only point of PVE is DPS. anything else is secondary. a sci should first try to dps, and then do the sci magic (aka making pretty stuff in the sky). the point was proven, that you should not deal below 3k. and you can say "hurrdurrDHCs", but if you look at the build they ran, it is total TRIBBLE. not optimized, not even the best dmg dealer. if you are going into an ELITE STF, then you should be able to produce that much damage, as you should have the equipment, that will increase your stats, and make your dmg more concentrated
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
well, see the comment before me lol...
still, the only point of PVE is DPS. anything else is secondary. a sci should first try to dps, and then do the sci magic (aka making pretty stuff in the sky). the point was proven, that you should not deal below 3k. and you can say "hurrdurrDHCs", but if you look at the build they ran, it is total TRIBBLE. not optimized, not even the best dmg dealer. if you are going into an ELITE STF, then you should be able to produce that much damage, as you should have the equipment, that will increase your stats, and make your dmg more concentrated
Respectfully, I am not disagreeing that all players regardless of class should try to improve their dps. I will even readily agree with you that non-dps roles are secondary and optional in STFs. In fact, I used to the term "secondary role" in my original post to indicate that I do not consider any of the roles I quoted are important enough to be a necessary primary role in STFs. But that's not my point.
My point is that using a tactical in an escort in a test does not prove that all RA ships can easily hit 3k dps. It is easy to hit 3k dps with Attack Pattern Alpha and 4 DHCs, especially if you're using 4 phaser consoles like the OP did. If you really wanted to assert all ships can do 3k dps, then you should have used a science vessel because science officers do not get AP:Alpha, science vessels only have 3 fore/3 aft weapon slots and are not allowed to use DHCs. Even worse, some science vessels such as the DSSV only come with 2 tactical consoles.
Now, I have built science vessels that can hit over 3k dps so it certainly is possible, but that was with non-standard buiilds and high end rare/very rare gear. I am just not certain that a Deep Space Science Vessel with only common Mk X gear can even reach 3k dps.
Respectfully, I am not disagreeing that all players regardless of class should try to improve their dps. I will even readily agree with you that non-dps roles are secondary and optional in STFs. In fact, I used to the term "secondary role" in my original post to indicate that I do not consider any of the roles I quoted are important enough to be a necessary primary role in STFs. But that's not my point.
My point is that using a tactical in an escort in a test does not prove that all RA ships can easily hit 3k dps. It is easy to hit 3k dps with Attack Pattern Alpha and 4 DHCs, especially if you're using 4 phaser consoles like the OP did. If you really wanted to assert all ships can do 3k dps, then you should have used a science vessel because science officers do not get AP:Alpha, science vessels only have 3 fore/3 aft weapon slots and are not allowed to use DHCs. Even worse, some science vessels such as the DSSV only come with 2 tactical consoles.
Now, I have built science vessels that can hit over 3k dps so it certainly is possible, but that was with non-standard buiilds and high end rare/very rare gear. I am just not certain that a Deep Space Science Vessel with only common Mk X gear can even reach 3k dps.
it should reach 3k DPS. the end dps would not be high, I only ever reached 7k top DPS (pre S7, since then I am flying the Vesta, with 10k, but I am disincluding that now, because of the DHCs) with the best gear I could afford.
still 3k is not impossible, even with mk x gear, and if you realize how much dps matters in this game, you also realize, that most sci ships are not that useful in those situations. also the point was made, so that a build with low equipment can deal that much dmg. if you bring something to elite stfs, it is expected that you have atleast mk xi rare equipment, so you would deal damage (and with that gear, a sci ship should deal that amount of dmg).
I see where you are coming tho but the real challange imo would be the engineer+sci ship, as sci has some dps increase abilities
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
In the test linked in the OP we had a science captain in an intrepid... that was Stormy - she pulled over 3000 DPS.
I was in the middle as a Tactical in a cruiser (Ambassador)... Jon Lonehawk - I pulled over 5000 DPS.
I don't understand how you said we didn't prove the point when we DID have a science in a science vessel.
Formerly Known as Protector from June 2008 to June 20, 2012
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
still 3k is not impossible, even with mk x gear, and if you realize how much dps matters in this game
Another important feature of this thread is it shows how small the gear progression in STO is.
The difference between Mk I starter gear and Mk XII is probably surprisingly small when you put in the context of how large folks treat "gear disparity" on these forums.
It's a holdover from other MMOs, where raid gear is considerably better than other available gear. The color coding is all in place here, so it's almost a built in assumption. But as this data shows, common MK X isn't all that far behind Very Rare Mk XII (which is a good thing as it lets people participate in end-game content without having to have the best gear to even get through the door). This game has a small incremental gear progression. And that's been on purpose. It's one of the few good things the development team has done over the years. They have given into mudflation on ship layouts and the like. But not on the gear that goes in those slots.
None of those roles are necessary or optimal in eSTFs. Crowd Control: Grab an MVAE or use Breen ship. Grav Well 1 is all the CC you will need. Disabler: Only targets worth disabling are immune or it doesn't last long at all. Spheres and the like die before needing disabled with raw damage and a tac cube laughs at your attempts so why bother. Healer: I won't lie even I appreciate an extend thrown on me. But really even an escort can pack a hazard emitter and tss so crosshealing eliminates any need for a dedicated healbot. Power Drainer: Same as disabler Shield Drainer: They are called DHCs and unlike sci abilities actually eliminate shields. Sorry nerf bat was too strong for this.
>.> Im new to STO and STF`s etc,and reading this makes me wonder if i should just ditch my SCI captain,and her Atrox right away again...
we have sci captains that pull 11k or higher. its got very little to do with the class and much more your level of skill. my personal opinion is that if you can pull 3k dps or higher you are pulling your own. if not... you have work to do. 95% of the time people are pulling low damage is simply... they dont have their weapon power at 100.
even as a sci you want to run 100 to weapons. probably the rest to aux.
in escorts i run 100 to weapons and 50 to shields.
i generally run the same in cruisers as escorts but some people prefer 50 in engines since cruisers have such a low turn rate
>.> Im new to STO and STF`s etc,and reading this makes me wonder if i should just ditch my SCI captain,and her Atrox right away again...
No you shouldn't an Atrox is not a bad ship nor is a Sci captain bad inside her.
Just realize your primary role is damage and build with that in mind and you will more than pull your weight. You will have difficulty carrying a group of 4 baddies by yourself but that is not a big deal.
Gravity Well + Chrono torp and Torp Spread 1 for example may not deal tremendous damage on their own, but will greatly increase the teams damage against the target (if it is a ship). You should bring the best DPS pets to the party (no clue for fed which those are) and they alone will deal more damage than the average group member will.
honestly even just a fire at will or 2 on that ship with 6 beams and weapon consoles to boost them. run your weapon consoles to support the energy damage type you choose and you should easily pull 3k right there. add your pets on top of that and you should hit that mark easily
No you shouldn't an Atrox is not a bad ship nor is a Sci captain bad inside her.
Just realize your primary role is damage and build with that in mind and you will more than pull your weight. You will have difficulty carrying a group of 4 baddies by yourself but that is not a big deal.
I think the main thing about sci and eng is, that you realize, that even tho your main role is dmg, you have to think about secondary roles too. like sci is great for cc and tanking, so you can get down to tertiary roles, while with an eng you can get a secondary tanking role. so as long as you put out decent dps, you have to make it up, by one of these, as tacs in escorts, cant rly do that, or can only do these gimped compared to the other careers
Another important feature of this thread is it shows how small the gear progression in STO is.
The difference between Mk I starter gear and Mk XII is probably surprisingly small when you put in the context of how large folks treat "gear disparity" on these forums.
It's a holdover from other MMOs, where raid gear is considerably better than other available gear. The color coding is all in place here, so it's almost a built in assumption. But as this data shows, common MK X isn't all that far behind Very Rare Mk XII (which is a good thing as it lets people participate in end-game content without having to have the best gear to even get through the door). This game has a small incremental gear progression. And that's been on purpose. It's one of the few good things the development team has done over the years. They have given into mudflation on ship layouts and the like. But not on the gear that goes in those slots.
well, I dont know about others, but when I talk about the "big" difference between gears, I do mean it. however I did pay thousands of dilith for one or two points increase in useless skills
gear does matter, and imo the "hype" it gets on the forums, is justified, however you can do well, with common gear, and the point here was proven.
the issue is, that if not gear but player counts, then you have to educate the player basis, which is a bigger challange, than giving them OP weapons (and we are closing towards the latter imo, with the new ship and stuff releases)
well, I dont know about others, but when I talk about the "big" difference between gears, I do mean it. however I did pay thousands of dilith for one or two points increase in useless skills
gear does matter, and imo the "hype" it gets on the forums, is justified, however you can do well, with common gear, and the point here was proven.
I'm not advocating "don't improve your gear." The whole point of continuing to play one of these games after reaching level cap, is to improve something. Usually it's gear.
I'm just trying to point out that the gear progression in this game is mathematically not that large. But that players treat it like the gear progression from other MMOs they've played. The difference between a green dagger and a purple dagger in some fantasy MMO where the purple comes from a raid boss, is how people are treating the difference between a green MK XII phaser bank and a purple MK XII phaser bank. And in this game, that's just not reflective of how small the difference really is.
This test shows end-game content getting done with white MK X gear. Green MK XII gear is pretty easily obtained on the exchange or farmed up. And that gear would put a new to the end-game player a lot closer to the top equipment than white MK X gear.
I'm not saying get greens and stop. I'm saying when someone on the forums says "Your problem is your gear is garbage" ... they're so dead wrong about that assessment it's laughable.
And this thread with it's data essentially proves that point. It's not the gear. Sure, keep getting better and better gear. But it's not the gear that's causing problems for players. It never was. The company kept gear progression very very very incremental, on purpose.
I'm not advocating "don't improve your gear." The whole point of continuing to play one of these games after reaching level cap, is to improve something. Usually it's gear.
I'm just trying to point out that the gear progression in this game is mathematically not that large. But that players treat it like the gear progression from other MMOs they've played. The difference between a green dagger and a purple dagger in some fantasy MMO where the purple comes from a raid boss, is how people are treating the difference between a green MK XII phaser bank and a purple MK XII phaser bank. And in this game, that's just not reflective of how small the difference really is.
This test shows end-game content getting done with white MK X gear. Green MK XII gear is pretty easily obtained on the exchange or farmed up. And that gear would put a new to the end-game player a lot closer to the top equipment than white MK X gear.
I'm not saying get greens and stop. I'm saying when someone on the forums says "Your problem is your gear is garbage" ... they're so dead wrong about that assessment it's laughable.
And this thread with it's data essentially proves that point. It's not the gear. Sure, keep getting better and better gear. But it's not the gear that's causing problems for players. It never was. The company kept gear progression very very very incremental, on purpose.
this is basically what we were getting at. 90% of the people pulling bad damage complain that they need gear. they dont. in most cases its build and power levels. more often than not i think its power levels. also alot of people dont get how consoles interact with their weapons.
DO NOT RUN RAINBOW BUILDS! Pick an energy type and stick to it. Supliment it with a torp or 2 if you find your energy levels are falling off too much or your build requires it (defiants for example have so many ensign tac slots you basically waste the slot if you dont run a high yield or torp spread). Once you have picked your energy type slot your tac consoles to boost only that. Dont worry about boosting your torp unless you are running a full torp build, and if you are doing that you should really know what you are doing as its hard to pull of well.
RUN YOUR WEAPON POWER AT 100!!!! throw the remaining power to what you feel will help you but unless you are running that full torp build (and i never recomend it) you should always have 100 to weapons.
I do know people that pvp with full power to shields and aux and pop weapon batteries... but thats a very specific setup for a specific situation.
DO NOT RUN RAINBOW BUILDS! Pick an energy type and stick to it. Supliment it with a torp or 2 if you find your energy levels are falling off too much or your build requires it (defiants for example have so many ensign tac slots you basically waste the slot if you dont run a high yield or torp spread). Once you have picked your energy type slot your tac consoles to boost only that. Dont worry about boosting your torp unless you are running a full torp build, and if you are doing that you should really know what you are doing as its hard to pull of well.
torp builds are fun with torp doffs I was thinking buying the new andorian thing, to combine my two torp setup with three dhcs, it should have nice dps, if I ever had the money to test it
btw rainbows are fun, and they aren not as inefficient as ppl tend to say. if my top gear is mixed with other weapon types, and other universal boosting consoles, I would probably lose 2k dps at most (that is still 6-7k dps at worst). it rly depends on the player again
Totally agree about the power levels being insanely important bit.
After spending the past couple months playing around with science ships and torpedo builds, it really puts things into perspective. Sometimes, less is more. Figuring out how to make weapons work well with limited slots opens up a ton of possibilities when you come back to cruisers and escorts.
Totally agree about the power levels being insanely important bit.
After spending the past couple months playing around with science ships and torpedo builds, it really puts things into perspective. Sometimes, less is more. Figuring out how to make weapons work well with limited slots opens up a ton of possibilities when you come back to cruisers and escorts.
yeah. most of my knowledge comes from the time I was on my deep space sci, back in S5. having no dual cannons, and limited slots, really made you think what you want to do, if you want to reach high dps (the problem is, people just dismiss the idea, and say sci is not for dps, and they do not even try to increase their dps)
I must be doing something really wrong than because after running the test my average was only 1,527. Let me list my build below, and maybe one of you knowledgeable folks can show me what I'm doing wrong, and how to correct it.
Engineering Captain
Andorian Charal Class Escort
5x forward weapon slots (Purple XI DHCs loaded)
2x aft weapon slots (1x Kinetic Cutting Beam, 1x Purple XI Turret)
2x device slots (1x Subspace Field Modulator, 1x Shield Batteries)
4x Engineering Consoles (3x Blue XI Neutronium, 1x Special Ship Specific Console - Wing platforms)
2x Science Consoles (2x Blue XI Field Generators)
4x Tactical Consoles (4x Blue XI Phaser Relays)
Hm, you must be doing something really wrong with that low of a DPS number in a Kumari. The build is basic, but should work much better than this.
Do you attack targets from 10km away only? Cannons drop off strongly in damage over more than 5km distance.
Do you always use your cannon abilities? With two copies of CSV and one CRF one should always, at any time be active.
Get some special consoles from the reputation system, Romulan Zero Point and Borg Assimilated Module.
Other than that I can only imagine that you fly idly around without engaging targets at any opportunity. If you used ACT to get those numbers, it might be informative to get the damage over time graph of the run.
Comments
yeah my bad, kinda mixed it up. my point tried to be, that you do not have to spend points into the individual skills for defense (particularly I meant that it is better to spend into threat than kinetic resistance)
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
my weapon power is 125/100
i have a doff that gives me weapon power drain resist of 500% everytime i hit directed energy modulation. between that, and nadion and everthing else i find no need for emergency power to weapons 1.
this is what im using atm. it's about 60 million credits. i only came back to the game a few days ago and rolled this new engineer char from my old 45 science.
assault cruiser refit
tac team 1, fire at will 2, attack pattern beta 2 (or 3, can't remember)
torp spread
emg to sh 1, aux 2 batt 1, eng team 3, direct eng mod 3
emg to sh 1, aux 2 batt 1
hazard 1, forget what it's called
3x doffs 10% reduction to boff power cooldowns everytime i hit aux 2 batt. pretty crazy how i can cycle boff powers
however even with full mark xii gear (no rep gear, no fleet gear. character is 4 days old) still gets insta popped in elite stf's. that's with 2 neutronium mk xii's and using aux batteries before popping various shield resist buffs.
not sure on my dps, nobody is running a meter. i may set up act but then i may become too obsessed and roll a fotm tac like veryone else.
why is nobody playing science anymore anyway?
i got this build from the 9k dps cruiser thread.
60 Million Credits is well out of my range (I think I have <5million in total over 3 characters).
I've got a while though as she's still a lieutenant.
I've never been particularly drawn to Aux2Batt, given that I like offensive Sci Powers, and have Aux2SIF on endless repeat.
As for threat control I've avoided it thus far as my Sci doesn't want the attention (just bought a -th Mk X console) and Tac captains would never lose aggro if they specced threat control.
BTW Ferdzso0 do you spec the ground version of Threat control? (not strictly relevant but I'm interested)
lt Tac: TT, APB
Ens Tac: TT
ltc Eng: empts1, aux2damp, emptw3
cmd Eng: empts1,aux2damp,emptw3, DEM (for damage), RSP for tanking.
lt sci: HE1/HE2 (or a mix of TSS and HE and/or Sci team)
4x DBB front
4x turret rear
Use an RCS console and the omega engines or fleet Hyper-Impulse Engines [Turn]x3 [Spd]
Also use 100/25/50/25 power for maximum turning and weapons. The aux2damp will run constantly on a keybind so you get super speed and turning all day and a decent boost to hull resists.
personally i never found the assault cruiser to be lacking in turn. its a beam boat. fly it as such. keep your broadsides on your target. run damage boosting or resistance consoles and id swap the aux to damp for aux to sif for heals.
[SIGPIC]http://file3.guildlaunch.net/205090/DVhexishensig.jpg[/SIGPIC]
Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
This is a link to the boff and captain skills i used for that test
[SIGPIC]http://file3.guildlaunch.net/205090/DVhexishensig.jpg[/SIGPIC]
Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
I'm sorry, but you have not conclusively proven that the above statement is true with your test. You are a tactical officer in an escort, so it is easy to hit 3k dps with just common gear if you knew what you were doing and you obviously do.
If you'ld really like to prove the above statement, you should have done so with a science officer, in a science vessel. Especially one who have a secondary role such as being a crowd controller, subsystem disabler, healer, power drainer or shield drainer. That would have been a much more convincing test.
Low Difficulty of the Game
This is number one. If a single good player is in an STF, sometimes needing two, it will get done easy peasy. In addition a ship that can complete standard PvE content can be such a horribad build and still work that many just assume that means it is a good build.
Bad Advice
I would say much of advice given on these forums is bad. The majority is sub-optimal or outdated. This is primarily because of the above situation and extremely lack of documentation on game mechanics and systems provided by cryptic. I know fleet weapons are the best guns to use in eSTFs yet people will argue with me till they are blue in the face and demand I prove it. Fact is until Cryptic gives us the information everything needs to be taken with a grain of salt or you must do your own testing to confirm it. Most lack the desire to do so.
Bad Testing
How many of us have seen a thread stating that their ship/build does tons of damage because that is what the parser said? Any ship with any build in a premade team where your allies are throwing attack pattern beta, tac fleet, and sensor scan on the enemies along with possibly movement debuffs will do tons of damage. So few actually take such things into account with their parsing/testing. The real tests of a good PuG worthy build is what can it do solo? How long can it tank a tac cube without help, how fast can it down a cube by itself, and what force multipliers is it bringing to the party for the team.
Their was something else too but I forget now. May edit it in later.
That just reminded me what I forgot, thank you.
False Assumptions
This is due to what I stated before but many offer advice based on their approach to the game. Do they PuG? Is it for PvP? PvE? Premades? Do they want to fly something fun or optimal? For example my standard response to the post above is simple.
None of those roles are necessary or optimal in eSTFs.
Crowd Control: Grab an MVAE or use Breen ship. Grav Well 1 is all the CC you will need.
Disabler: Only targets worth disabling are immune or it doesn't last long at all. Spheres and the like die before needing disabled with raw damage and a tac cube laughs at your attempts so why bother.
Healer: I won't lie even I appreciate an extend thrown on me. But really even an escort can pack a hazard emitter and tss so crosshealing eliminates any need for a dedicated healbot.
Power Drainer: Same as disabler
Shield Drainer: They are called DHCs and unlike sci abilities actually eliminate shields. Sorry nerf bat was too strong for this.
well, see the comment before me lol...
still, the only point of PVE is DPS. anything else is secondary. a sci should first try to dps, and then do the sci magic (aka making pretty stuff in the sky). the point was proven, that you should not deal below 3k. and you can say "hurrdurrDHCs", but if you look at the build they ran, it is total TRIBBLE. not optimized, not even the best dmg dealer. if you are going into an ELITE STF, then you should be able to produce that much damage, as you should have the equipment, that will increase your stats, and make your dmg more concentrated
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
Respectfully, I am not disagreeing that all players regardless of class should try to improve their dps. I will even readily agree with you that non-dps roles are secondary and optional in STFs. In fact, I used to the term "secondary role" in my original post to indicate that I do not consider any of the roles I quoted are important enough to be a necessary primary role in STFs. But that's not my point.
My point is that using a tactical in an escort in a test does not prove that all RA ships can easily hit 3k dps. It is easy to hit 3k dps with Attack Pattern Alpha and 4 DHCs, especially if you're using 4 phaser consoles like the OP did. If you really wanted to assert all ships can do 3k dps, then you should have used a science vessel because science officers do not get AP:Alpha, science vessels only have 3 fore/3 aft weapon slots and are not allowed to use DHCs. Even worse, some science vessels such as the DSSV only come with 2 tactical consoles.
Now, I have built science vessels that can hit over 3k dps so it certainly is possible, but that was with non-standard buiilds and high end rare/very rare gear. I am just not certain that a Deep Space Science Vessel with only common Mk X gear can even reach 3k dps.
it should reach 3k DPS. the end dps would not be high, I only ever reached 7k top DPS (pre S7, since then I am flying the Vesta, with 10k, but I am disincluding that now, because of the DHCs) with the best gear I could afford.
still 3k is not impossible, even with mk x gear, and if you realize how much dps matters in this game, you also realize, that most sci ships are not that useful in those situations. also the point was made, so that a build with low equipment can deal that much dmg. if you bring something to elite stfs, it is expected that you have atleast mk xi rare equipment, so you would deal damage (and with that gear, a sci ship should deal that amount of dmg).
I see where you are coming tho
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
In the test linked in the OP we had a science captain in an intrepid... that was Stormy - she pulled over 3000 DPS.
I was in the middle as a Tactical in a cruiser (Ambassador)... Jon Lonehawk - I pulled over 5000 DPS.
I don't understand how you said we didn't prove the point when we DID have a science in a science vessel.
As a reminder of of the OPs test screen:
http://files1.guildlaunch.net/guild/library/205090/testing_2.jpg
Please enable us to buy a token with Zen to faction change a 25th Century FED to a TOS FED.
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Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
Another important feature of this thread is it shows how small the gear progression in STO is.
The difference between Mk I starter gear and Mk XII is probably surprisingly small when you put in the context of how large folks treat "gear disparity" on these forums.
It's a holdover from other MMOs, where raid gear is considerably better than other available gear. The color coding is all in place here, so it's almost a built in assumption. But as this data shows, common MK X isn't all that far behind Very Rare Mk XII (which is a good thing as it lets people participate in end-game content without having to have the best gear to even get through the door). This game has a small incremental gear progression. And that's been on purpose. It's one of the few good things the development team has done over the years. They have given into mudflation on ship layouts and the like. But not on the gear that goes in those slots.
>.> Im new to STO and STF`s etc,and reading this makes me wonder if i should just ditch my SCI captain,and her Atrox right away again...
Science captains get pretty useful captain skills. If you like the character, keep it.
even as a sci you want to run 100 to weapons. probably the rest to aux.
in escorts i run 100 to weapons and 50 to shields.
i generally run the same in cruisers as escorts but some people prefer 50 in engines since cruisers have such a low turn rate
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Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
No you shouldn't an Atrox is not a bad ship nor is a Sci captain bad inside her.
Just realize your primary role is damage and build with that in mind and you will more than pull your weight. You will have difficulty carrying a group of 4 baddies by yourself but that is not a big deal.
Gravity Well + Chrono torp and Torp Spread 1 for example may not deal tremendous damage on their own, but will greatly increase the teams damage against the target (if it is a ship). You should bring the best DPS pets to the party (no clue for fed which those are) and they alone will deal more damage than the average group member will.
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Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
I think the main thing about sci and eng is, that you realize, that even tho your main role is dmg, you have to think about secondary roles too. like sci is great for cc and tanking, so you can get down to tertiary roles, while with an eng you can get a secondary tanking role. so as long as you put out decent dps, you have to make it up, by one of these, as tacs in escorts, cant rly do that, or can only do these gimped compared to the other careers
well, I dont know about others, but when I talk about the "big" difference between gears, I do mean it. however I did pay thousands of dilith for one or two points increase in useless skills
gear does matter, and imo the "hype" it gets on the forums, is justified, however you can do well, with common gear, and the point here was proven.
the issue is, that if not gear but player counts, then you have to educate the player basis, which is a bigger challange, than giving them OP weapons (and we are closing towards the latter imo, with the new ship and stuff releases)
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
I'm not advocating "don't improve your gear." The whole point of continuing to play one of these games after reaching level cap, is to improve something. Usually it's gear.
I'm just trying to point out that the gear progression in this game is mathematically not that large. But that players treat it like the gear progression from other MMOs they've played. The difference between a green dagger and a purple dagger in some fantasy MMO where the purple comes from a raid boss, is how people are treating the difference between a green MK XII phaser bank and a purple MK XII phaser bank. And in this game, that's just not reflective of how small the difference really is.
This test shows end-game content getting done with white MK X gear. Green MK XII gear is pretty easily obtained on the exchange or farmed up. And that gear would put a new to the end-game player a lot closer to the top equipment than white MK X gear.
I'm not saying get greens and stop. I'm saying when someone on the forums says "Your problem is your gear is garbage" ... they're so dead wrong about that assessment it's laughable.
And this thread with it's data essentially proves that point. It's not the gear. Sure, keep getting better and better gear. But it's not the gear that's causing problems for players. It never was. The company kept gear progression very very very incremental, on purpose.
this is basically what we were getting at. 90% of the people pulling bad damage complain that they need gear. they dont. in most cases its build and power levels. more often than not i think its power levels. also alot of people dont get how consoles interact with their weapons.
DO NOT RUN RAINBOW BUILDS! Pick an energy type and stick to it. Supliment it with a torp or 2 if you find your energy levels are falling off too much or your build requires it (defiants for example have so many ensign tac slots you basically waste the slot if you dont run a high yield or torp spread). Once you have picked your energy type slot your tac consoles to boost only that. Dont worry about boosting your torp unless you are running a full torp build, and if you are doing that you should really know what you are doing as its hard to pull of well.
RUN YOUR WEAPON POWER AT 100!!!! throw the remaining power to what you feel will help you but unless you are running that full torp build (and i never recomend it) you should always have 100 to weapons.
I do know people that pvp with full power to shields and aux and pop weapon batteries... but thats a very specific setup for a specific situation.
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Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
Exactly why I
torp builds are fun with torp doffs
btw rainbows are fun, and they aren not as inefficient as ppl tend to say. if my top gear is mixed with other weapon types, and other universal boosting consoles, I would probably lose 2k dps at most (that is still 6-7k dps at worst). it rly depends on the player again
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
[SIGPIC]http://file3.guildlaunch.net/205090/DVhexishensig.jpg[/SIGPIC]
Cruisers with mk x common in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82PqoFFxjc
Cruisers with good gear in infected elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMnFljZD9m8
Soloing Infected Elite http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaEFICFx4E8&feature=youtu.be
After spending the past couple months playing around with science ships and torpedo builds, it really puts things into perspective. Sometimes, less is more. Figuring out how to make weapons work well with limited slots opens up a ton of possibilities when you come back to cruisers and escorts.
yeah. most of my knowledge comes from the time I was on my deep space sci, back in S5. having no dual cannons, and limited slots, really made you think what you want to do, if you want to reach high dps (the problem is, people just dismiss the idea, and say sci is not for dps, and they do not even try to increase their dps)
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
Engineering Captain
Andorian Charal Class Escort
5x forward weapon slots (Purple XI DHCs loaded)
2x aft weapon slots (1x Kinetic Cutting Beam, 1x Purple XI Turret)
2x device slots (1x Subspace Field Modulator, 1x Shield Batteries)
4x Engineering Consoles (3x Blue XI Neutronium, 1x Special Ship Specific Console - Wing platforms)
2x Science Consoles (2x Blue XI Field Generators)
4x Tactical Consoles (4x Blue XI Phaser Relays)
BOFFs
Lt. Universal Station: TSS1, HE2
Cmd Tact: TT1, APB1, CSV2, CRF3
Lt. Cmd Tact: TT1, CSV1, APO1
Lt. Engineering: EPtS1, RSP1
Ens. Engineering: EPtW1
I'm not exactly sure what kind of DOFFs I should have on active duty to help me out.
And finally my Power Levels listed from left to right.
125/72/45/42.
Those are my power levels with my bonuses added in, not my base numbers.
Do you attack targets from 10km away only? Cannons drop off strongly in damage over more than 5km distance.
Do you always use your cannon abilities? With two copies of CSV and one CRF one should always, at any time be active.
Get some special consoles from the reputation system, Romulan Zero Point and Borg Assimilated Module.
Other than that I can only imagine that you fly idly around without engaging targets at any opportunity. If you used ACT to get those numbers, it might be informative to get the damage over time graph of the run.