Oh i'm as coverted as i'll ever be i just dont fully understand where sll thst extra dmg comes from compared to my engi.
Let some small bonus from engines and deflector be set aside there are:
-a borg doff i dont have and which i think doesnt count cause its not dps its dps against borg only
-the tac-captain abilities like apa, gdf and tacfleet
-1tac console more
I'm just wondering if my engi does say 10k would that really translate into 18k+ on a tac?
Maybe with gdf on low health.. so i believe that dmg values i see i just dont understand fully where they come from;)
I fly a very similar build, but I use the Fleet Advanced Phaser Cannons/Fleet Elite Turrets on my Fleet Assault Cruiser - never had so much fun, and nearly always come out on top in terms of DPS, outclassing even Escorts. :cool:
I do this with my Fleet Assault Cruiser (and have done a few STFs with eardianm though I'm not nearly as good), so I'll vouch for its effectiveness.
Effectively doubling the tactical powers of a cruiser makes it individually stronger, but more to the point, the ability to apply APB to every target within range is a force-multiplier for the entire team.
The point of the double tac teams is you don't HAVE to waste a doff slot on a conn officer. There is no offensive ensign tac power that will put you close to the damage boost from being able to run a +10% warfare specialist in its place, unless you just don't like the borg only boost.
Oh i'm as coverted as i'll ever be i just dont fully understand where sll thst extra dmg comes from compared to my engi.
I'm just wondering if my engi does say 10k would that really translate into 18k+ on a tac?
Maybe with gdf on low health.. so i believe that dmg values i see i just dont understand fully where they come from;)
GDF could be a part of it but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just all the cycles of Attack Pattern: Alpha.
Without taking crits into account the damage bonus alone would bump that 10k number up to 15k and the crits could very easily make up that 3k.
Also any Aux2Bat or well-built cruiser can easily get 1st place in STF's where that matters with some crafty thinking.
Highest DPS yes but strongest is arguable. As another poster has said 'Sometimes the biggest DPS increase is not dying.'
To put things in perspective, I run a single battery setup with an engineer. I get 10k DPS in ISE quite easily, and am missing a few pieces of the build. With the addition of Dlyrene, upgrade to the fleet version of the ship, and the LoR upgrade to emergency to weapons I expect 12-13k will be withing reach. This is with an Engineer and no second copy of aux2batt, and who knows what a better pilot could do.
Meanwhile, I'm the exact opposite of a glass cannon. I am skilled for full threat control with a +th console and can easily tank anything any of the STFs besides Hive has to throw at me. I can carry pugs effortlessly by simultaneously pumping huge DPS of my own, providing APB to all the low dps puggers, and taking ALL of the fire without dying, sparing their squishy ships. There is no fray I won't charge ahead into because I fear nothing in this ship. Incidentally, the tankiness makes it very easy to grab 1st place in starbase 24 because I can spam FAW for damage and survive the subsequent billion klingon ships after me.
Engineers are also not purely defensive, toothless captains in ships like this. One of the core concepts of the build is that beam weapons do amazing damage when you take their power drain out of the equation, and both EPS and nadion inversion are effective at doing this. They aren't quite APA and go down fighting, but Engies still have two DPS boosting captain powers of their own to work with, not just a bunch of boring heals.
Just saying, even with these kind of builds you don't have to sacrifice survivability in any way for the power that is being offered. You won't get the absolute highest without going glass cannon, but you can easily run a very high damage setup that can essentially survive anything in the game that matters using aux2batt techs.
However every captain approaches things a different way. As a Tac Captain I don't need an Aux2Bat setup to push out a supreme amount of DPS and as a Sci Captain I would be giving up the effectiveness of my Sci abilities for it.
A Tac Captain running Aux2Bat gives up some self-healing to do so, Self-healing which an Engi Captain can make up for.
I'm playing on KDF side, and I'm running at max weapon and shield power with 2 copies each of EPtS III and EPtW I, plus the Plasmonic Leech. No Aux2Batt needed, which means I can still bring the pain with my energy weapons, and heal myself or a teammate in a pinch with Aux2SIF III. Admittedly, you won't have the extra engine power, but this just in: You don't need it. Once you're at 24 impluse, additional engine power won't help, and with good engines and a proper spec, you can get 24 out of the gate. Maybe the engine power is more helpful on Fed Side with their wallowing cruisers.
I'm playing on KDF side, and I'm running at max weapon and shield power with 2 copies each of EPtS III and EPtW I, plus the Plasmonic Leech. No Aux2Batt needed, which means I can still bring the pain with my energy weapons, and heal myself or a teammate in a pinch with Aux2SIF III. Admittedly, you won't have the extra engine power, but this just in: You don't need it. Once you're at 24 impluse, additional engine power won't help, and with good engines and a proper spec, you can get 24 out of the gate. Maybe the engine power is more helpful on Fed Side with their wallowing cruisers.
I'm not really understanding this post. The point of these builds is to eek out every bit of damage possible, which you're not going to do without A2B. So yes, the Ltc cruisers can still perform pretty well, but the Lt only cruisers are hurting without it. The energy levels are just a nice bonus, it's the constant tac boff and DEM uptime that really push the damage. And as a tac bortasqu' pilot, I can wallow with the best of fed cruisers, so I'll take the extra turn rate :cool:
As for a skill build, no, not really. I'm primarily concerned with damage in pve, so maxing the energy weapon and attack pattern skills is an obvious, after that any of the other various pve skill builds around the forum work. Can go light on sci skills as most are aux dependent, of which you'll have a minimum a majority of the time.
Once you're at 24 impluse, additional engine power won't help
Thats not really true - at impulse 24 defense bonus from speed maxes out, but the turn rate does not. So while having more engine power does not help your defense, it helps with turning.
Anyway, aux2batt builds are not really about power. Thats just the welcomed side effect. Real advantage lies in boff abilites working on system cooldown (think about almost constant FAW + APB with one copy of each, same for ES or EWP). That thing alone can push a STF pug from weak to medium-powered. As for lower survivability, thats also not really the case, because behind that firepower you have a cruiser hull. A kinda agile cruiser, I might add. If you get battered too much for your tastes, you move away, stop cycling aux2batt,pop an aux battery, heal almost instantly at 125 aux, wait 8 sec and jump back into the fray.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Skill to your taste but take 6 or 9 threat control
4/3 beams + KCB
Deflector: Borg
Engine: Borg
Shield: Maco
Devices: Engine battery a must, combine with evasive to get around and not waste DPS time in STFs. Others, your choice.
Consoles
Eng: Assimilated, 3x Neutronium
Sci: Field gen, Romulan +th shield emitter array (ShH for me)
Tac: All for your beam type
Doffs:
3x technican
1x Marion
1x placeholder for Dlyrene (warp core engineer currently)
Ability setup:
Tac team, Fire at Will 2, Attack Pattern Beta 2
Tac team
Em2weapons 1, RSP 2, EmShields 3, DEM
Em2engines 1, Aux2batt
Hazard Emitters 1, TSS 2
It takes some player skill to tank with the powers available, but if you know when to put certain things up pre-emptively you can take anything in this.
Em2Engines also helps get me around the map and not lose time on target. Remember, STF dps is as much a meter of your ship as it is your pilot skill in being in the right place at the right time. In LoR it's going to be far better for this, too.
Even with all my deviations away from the pure glass cannon build, I am above the 10k mark.
One important thing to understand is that 2 copies of aux2batt is not completely necessary. Two copies are certainly more effective at what they do, but not overwhelmingly so. I'd say a single aux2batt, when you know how to use it, can be 70-80% of what a double setup is, with a big advantage in defense.
The main advantage to this build is that, by having both high dps and high tanking, it can essentially do anything in the game. A glass cannon cruiser is certainly strong, but it's also cripplingly specialized to the point where it can only really run STFs with a professional speed run group that can kill everything before your meager RSP ceases to be enough to keep you alive, or at least with one dedicated threat control cruiser with you. If you take a glass cannon cruiser into a PUG, you will probably just get yourself killed thanks to all your DPS being AOE, or at least be forced to haul your fat TRIBBLE out of the way and thus defeat the purpose of a DPS build. With a tank hybrid, you can go anywhere, do anything, aggro as much of whatever you want without fear of death, contribute to high DPS teams and single-handedly carry low DPS teams all with ease. Basically, you can name it U.S.S Mundo and go where you please.
I'm glad someone posted this as I was getting sick of seeing the "Cruisers can't do damage" and "Beams suxorz" threads.
It's also worth pointing out that certain escort and destroyers can fit VERY nice A2B builds on. Most notably the chimera and Jem HEC, yes you can't have DEM3 and RSP (I would not recommend doing without RSP) but on the plus side you could have FAW3 and APB3 with BO2 for that single target if you so desire. APB3 with full attack patterns is -49.something damage resistance to target up from -39.something for APB2. Having 5 people using that makes most things die in seconds.
I dunno if anyone mentioned this but you also want to stay 100% away from any item that gives you a temporary power boost for attacking or being attacked. Why? Because if you have more than +5 as a boost proc to aux and use A2B when the proc goes and tries to take away that 5 power it puts you in aux offline mode. This is not a good thing if you need to activate polarize hull to get away from a tractor. Though an item that innately boosts auxiliary power is fine as the boost is always there and won't go away.
With LOR you no longer have to worry about not having at least 5 Aux power. So bphatma's point is moot.
You also don't need RSP and you only really need 1 kinetic resist console. No reason to use Neutroniums. Also don't really need to be proactive. You just need to be quick. Besides EPTS should be used all the time anyways along with EPTW.
Never put 9 points into engine, shield, weapons or Aux power. Going from 6 to 9 would only be a 1.5 power increase. 6 would be max and the suggested amount.
That new fed Plasmonic Leech is going to be a core build component, I'm sure. Sadly, with our Aux bottomed out most of the time, us aux2batt users are looking to be excluded from the t4 nukara passives for the most part... but I can live with that.
dragonbite, if you're rotating A2B back to back and you lose a temporary power boost you end up in aux offline mode. Now for the most part that's not too much of a problem but it does prevent you using most science powers. This would mean you could not use polarize hull to get out of a tractor beam, repulsors to push enemies, jam sensors to break target lock on you and many other things.
I have experimented using gear that provides temporary boosts to power levels and imo it's more risk than it's worth especially as the damage in eSTF is most likely going to be buffed soon. As for RSP I tried with and without it and it's better to have it than not in eSTF, other content you can probably drop it but not in eSTF.
I do agree, never 9 in the power skills, 3 points gets you +5 power, 6 gets you +8 power but 9 only gets you to +10 power and even then you get +9 power at 7 points. Up to you where you draw the cost/benefit line but I just have 3 unless I'm an engineer then I pick 6 for the training options.
1. mscowboy saying a single A2B isn't stupid is wrong. You're running 3 different EPTx abilities, one of which you can't make use of and could be replaced with the second A2B. Drop EPTE, run a qm doff to bring the engine battery up, farm deuterium, buy an Impulse Capacitance Cel. Drop one TT, slot a torp with TS1, or drop FAW to ensign and take APD1. I don't know where the "big advantage in defense" is. It's the first cycle on a double A2B build that's low, you're cheating yourself of the high Aux cycle.
2. Low Aux. On a double A2B build your Aux is not bottomed out most of the time, it's bottomed out half of the time. This is predictable, barring a PvP SNB.
3. Aux Offline. MACO, Leach, Aux from doffs, Singularity Cores, and other sources can certainly proc an offline when they wear off during a low cycle. However, in most cases the bonus ends because combat did, so who cares? Otherwise, the offline isn't going to last longer than 10 seconds. Less if you use an Aux Batt or just plain manually raise your Aux preset. Tech doffs are going to take 15 seconds off of PH's cd, so even if you have to wait a full 10s to activate it due to Aux offline you're still ahead.
tldr: Double A2B or nothing. Leech is awesome, as are all other temporary sources. Run a battery qm if you're really scared of Aux offline.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Depends on your purpose. If you're running it for the energy boost, yeah you need it paired. If its just to cut your cooldowns though, a single copy can give you up to 35% off (technicians plus MACO 2-piece), which is enough for always-on EPTx skillls off a single copy and big reductions all across the board. Especially on ships with some engineering slots but lots of tactical, that single A2B can turn into a nice boost for all those aux-independent tac powers.
Depends on your purpose. If you're running it for the energy boost, yeah you need it paired. If its just to cut your cooldowns though, a single copy can give you up to 35% off (technicians plus MACO 2-piece), which is enough for always-on EPTx skillls off a single copy and big reductions all across the board. Especially on ships with some engineering slots but lots of tactical, that single A2B can turn into a nice boost for all those aux-independent tac powers.
Sorry, but no. A single copy with 3 tech doffs will reduce itself to 28 seconds, 26 with 2 piece MACO, which is not enough to replace DCE's for always-on EPTx.
I'm going under the assumption that we're trying to min/max here. A single copy is, like you said a "nice boost." But for a 3 doff investment, take the final step and run the full build.
If you want to cut something, cut the 3rd technician. It's more important to get a 20% reduction more frequently than a 30% every 28 seconds. Longer abilities like RSP will still hit horizontal while TT and FAW will only wait a couple seconds longer.
2 piece KHG gives 7-9 ish Aux depending on mk, the engine gives 3.8 with a low aux setting and has Hot Restart. I like it over 2 piece MACO, personally.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Sorry, but no. A single copy with 3 tech doffs will reduce itself to 28 seconds, 26 with 2 piece MACO, which is not enough to replace DCE's for always-on EPTx.
I'm going under the assumption that we're trying to min/max here. A single copy is, like you said a "nice boost." But for a 3 doff investment, take the final step and run the full build.
A single aux2batt is actually very useable. Even without maco, it only leaves about a 1.5-2 second gap between an emergency power going down and then back up again, which is entirely manageable, and the single aux2batt DOES fire often enough to keep the emergency powers refreshed.
Emergency to engines is not to be cycled when you are shooting things, obviously. It's a mobility power, you slot it into the cycle once when you need to be somewhere in a hurry.
The advantage in defense, on a regent, comes from being able to use both RSP and emergency to shields 3.
As already said, double TT means no slot wasted for a conn doff that could be dlyrene or something better. APD is a pointless skill when I'm spamming APB2, I'm a beam boat with no torps to use TS1 with.
The assertion that a single copy of aux2batt works extremely well isn't theoretical; it comes from a very long time of experience using it, and using it to great effect. How long have you tried using it?
A single aux2batt is actually very useable. Even without maco, it only leaves about a 1.5-2 second gap between an emergency power going down and then back up again, which is entirely manageable, and the single aux2batt DOES fire often enough to keep the emergency powers refreshed.
Emergency to engines is not to be cycled when you are shooting things, obviously. It's a mobility power, you slot it into the cycle once when you need to be somewhere in a hurry.
The advantage in defense, on a regent, comes from being able to use both RSP and emergency to shields 3.
As already said, double TT means no slot wasted for a conn doff that could be dlyrene or something better. APD is a pointless skill when I'm spamming APB2, I'm a beam boat with no torps to use TS1 with.
The assertion that a single copy of aux2batt works extremely well isn't theoretical; it comes from a very long time of experience using it, and using it to great effect. How long have you tried using it?
Look man, we're talking min/max, not "extremely well." You clearly understand a bit about when to cycle abilities based on your EPTE comment. If you devote your A2B activation to to your EPTx cycle it's not going to be helping as effectively for FAW and other abilities.
TS may not have a place if you're going to cling to your beam boat. But double TT and 8 beams has some fat on it outside of Marion's 8 seconds and Omega procs. TS is more plasma burns. Rom or Omega or plain plasma. Rom gives you the 2 piece Rom EPS bonus (somebody somewhere posted what that has to do with A2B) plus the debuff and dot from the 3 piece if you slot the console. But whatever, "beam boat" away.
You're correct that freeing up doff slots is the priority. Double A2B can do it with 2 techs.
If you want to go ad hominem and question my experience, check the link in the OP.
_______________ CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that? Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Look man, we're talking min/max, not "extremely well." You clearly understand a bit about when to cycle abilities based on your EPTE comment. If you devote your A2B activation to to your EPTx cycle it's not going to be helping as effectively for FAW and other abilities.
TS may not have a place if you're going to cling to your beam boat. But double TT and 8 beams has some fat on it outside of Marion's 8 seconds and Omega procs. TS is more plasma burns. Rom or Omega or plain plasma. Rom gives you the 2 piece Rom EPS bonus (somebody somewhere posted what that has to do with A2B) plus the debuff and dot from the 3 piece if you slot the console. But whatever, "beam boat" away.
You're correct that freeing up doff slots is the priority. Double A2B can do it with 2 techs.
If you want to go ad hominem and question my experience, check the link in the OP.
You have dismissed my build by asserting the goal is extreme min/maxing, and then suggested a 90 arc torpedo in the build - in a thread dedicated to min/maxing beam boat cruisers because beam boats hold the highest potential damage among cruiser builds.
I'm well aware that you are one of the people that wrote the book on aux2batt usage. (Even if that particular book was written close to two months after the write-up for the very early prototype of my current ship) Which is why I'm sure you're aware how a single copy works. It's enough to chain EPtx, almost perfectly with Maco set2, and for several cycles in a row it can grant its 30-35(with maco)% reduction to the tactical powers. Long-cooldown powers like RSP will always hit global with any battery build (except maybe a TRIBBLE one like 1 aux2batt with 2 techs) because their long downtime ensures aux2batt will be used multiple times while it is off. After a number of such cycles, the activation of aux2batt eventually shifts toward the end of the tac powers until it can only cut off the last 5 seconds or so. At this point, you hold off on aux2batt for a few moments, and hit it as soon as the tac powers are used. So, you have to deal with 30 second CD on tac powers maybe once every 5 or 6 casts if you were chaining properly. You may also have a momentary 5 second or so gap in EPtx chaining, sometimes, but more often than not the EPtX cooldowns are in a position to not be affected by the delay. If you are a very good pilot and know what you are doing because you've been running the setup for a long time, you'll know where to be and how to time yourself to be getting tac powers back into sync with aux2batt during lulls in the action and 'travelling to the other side' moments. When you know how to fly it, there is very, VERY little negative impact from running only one copy.
Perhaps people don't know how to use it because no one can be bothered to come up with a more comprehensive keybind than 'everything on one key' and therefore can't reconsile a chain with a power that sometimes needs to be delayed? A theory, anyway.
I'm sure you're also aware that double aux2batt, 3 tech builds run into the problem of the second copy often being used too late in the remaining CD of tac abilities as well, so while a single 35% reduction isn't perfect a double battery set often fails to achieve perfect 50% reduction as well. I will have to try a 2 battery, 2 tech setup myself some time, but it honestly sounds awful on paper.
Lastly, min/maxing also suggests a purpose. Most would assume that the intended purpose is pure DPS and nothing else, but that's not always the case. I suppose you could call my setup a min/max focused on being the greatest threat control tank possible... I recently got the fleet version of the ship, still no dlyrene though, and have come closer to completion of the build and seeing highs of 12.9k in ISE. That's still as an Engineer, in random PUGs rather than speed runs, and with me taking all the damage and preventing all the others from dying. I'm quite fond of sitting 1km away from the top of a gate, though in pugs I certainly have to sit there for a while sometimes... I very much doubt a second aux2batt would be worth more than another .5k dps, and that's if I could manage to both fly as brazenly and survive with such a setup. This is a cruiser min/maxed for general play, because glass cannon cruisers are mostly useless without a suitably talented team flying alongside you. I always chuckle at how many cruiser pilots use and suggest -th consoles these days.
OP, I think I've seen variants of this being used on the J-Dred and maybe even J-HEC and TS Adapted Destroyer.
They're all just a smidge short on Engineering power, so I'd think they'd be rather squishy running this. Especially TSAD running it with the 2 Lt Unis as Engies.
You have any feedback on this build's effectiveness for those ships, or wrinkles that may work out better on them?
Comments
Let some small bonus from engines and deflector be set aside there are:
-a borg doff i dont have and which i think doesnt count cause its not dps its dps against borg only
-the tac-captain abilities like apa, gdf and tacfleet
-1tac console more
I'm just wondering if my engi does say 10k would that really translate into 18k+ on a tac?
Maybe with gdf on low health.. so i believe that dmg values i see i just dont understand fully where they come from;)
Effectively doubling the tactical powers of a cruiser makes it individually stronger, but more to the point, the ability to apply APB to every target within range is a force-multiplier for the entire team.
I would agree with this. I don't use a 2nd Tac Team on any of mjy ships anymore. I just use a purple conn officer to reduce the cool down for it.
If this was specifically aimed at me then no I don't want to use an engineer :P , but the advice in general is good.
GDF could be a part of it but I wouldn't be surprised if it was just all the cycles of Attack Pattern: Alpha.
Without taking crits into account the damage bonus alone would bump that 10k number up to 15k and the crits could very easily make up that 3k.
Also any Aux2Bat or well-built cruiser can easily get 1st place in STF's where that matters with some crafty thinking.
To put things in perspective, I run a single battery setup with an engineer. I get 10k DPS in ISE quite easily, and am missing a few pieces of the build. With the addition of Dlyrene, upgrade to the fleet version of the ship, and the LoR upgrade to emergency to weapons I expect 12-13k will be withing reach. This is with an Engineer and no second copy of aux2batt, and who knows what a better pilot could do.
Meanwhile, I'm the exact opposite of a glass cannon. I am skilled for full threat control with a +th console and can easily tank anything any of the STFs besides Hive has to throw at me. I can carry pugs effortlessly by simultaneously pumping huge DPS of my own, providing APB to all the low dps puggers, and taking ALL of the fire without dying, sparing their squishy ships. There is no fray I won't charge ahead into because I fear nothing in this ship. Incidentally, the tankiness makes it very easy to grab 1st place in starbase 24 because I can spam FAW for damage and survive the subsequent billion klingon ships after me.
Engineers are also not purely defensive, toothless captains in ships like this. One of the core concepts of the build is that beam weapons do amazing damage when you take their power drain out of the equation, and both EPS and nadion inversion are effective at doing this. They aren't quite APA and go down fighting, but Engies still have two DPS boosting captain powers of their own to work with, not just a bunch of boring heals.
Just saying, even with these kind of builds you don't have to sacrifice survivability in any way for the power that is being offered. You won't get the absolute highest without going glass cannon, but you can easily run a very high damage setup that can essentially survive anything in the game that matters using aux2batt techs.
However every captain approaches things a different way. As a Tac Captain I don't need an Aux2Bat setup to push out a supreme amount of DPS and as a Sci Captain I would be giving up the effectiveness of my Sci abilities for it.
A Tac Captain running Aux2Bat gives up some self-healing to do so, Self-healing which an Engi Captain can make up for.
Pros and Cons, as with every build.
I'm not really understanding this post. The point of these builds is to eek out every bit of damage possible, which you're not going to do without A2B. So yes, the Ltc cruisers can still perform pretty well, but the Lt only cruisers are hurting without it. The energy levels are just a nice bonus, it's the constant tac boff and DEM uptime that really push the damage. And as a tac bortasqu' pilot, I can wallow with the best of fed cruisers, so I'll take the extra turn rate :cool:
As for a skill build, no, not really. I'm primarily concerned with damage in pve, so maxing the energy weapon and attack pattern skills is an obvious, after that any of the other various pve skill builds around the forum work. Can go light on sci skills as most are aux dependent, of which you'll have a minimum a majority of the time.
Thats not really true - at impulse 24 defense bonus from speed maxes out, but the turn rate does not. So while having more engine power does not help your defense, it helps with turning.
Anyway, aux2batt builds are not really about power. Thats just the welcomed side effect. Real advantage lies in boff abilites working on system cooldown (think about almost constant FAW + APB with one copy of each, same for ES or EWP). That thing alone can push a STF pug from weak to medium-powered. As for lower survivability, thats also not really the case, because behind that firepower you have a cruiser hull. A kinda agile cruiser, I might add. If you get battered too much for your tastes, you move away, stop cycling aux2batt,pop an aux battery, heal almost instantly at 125 aux, wait 8 sec and jump back into the fray.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Entrada build Regent Assault Cruiser Refit
Skill to your taste but take 6 or 9 threat control
4/3 beams + KCB
Deflector: Borg
Engine: Borg
Shield: Maco
Devices: Engine battery a must, combine with evasive to get around and not waste DPS time in STFs. Others, your choice.
Consoles
Eng: Assimilated, 3x Neutronium
Sci: Field gen, Romulan +th shield emitter array (ShH for me)
Tac: All for your beam type
Doffs:
3x technican
1x Marion
1x placeholder for Dlyrene (warp core engineer currently)
Ability setup:
Tac team, Fire at Will 2, Attack Pattern Beta 2
Tac team
Em2weapons 1, RSP 2, EmShields 3, DEM
Em2engines 1, Aux2batt
Hazard Emitters 1, TSS 2
It takes some player skill to tank with the powers available, but if you know when to put certain things up pre-emptively you can take anything in this.
Em2Engines also helps get me around the map and not lose time on target. Remember, STF dps is as much a meter of your ship as it is your pilot skill in being in the right place at the right time. In LoR it's going to be far better for this, too.
Even with all my deviations away from the pure glass cannon build, I am above the 10k mark.
One important thing to understand is that 2 copies of aux2batt is not completely necessary. Two copies are certainly more effective at what they do, but not overwhelmingly so. I'd say a single aux2batt, when you know how to use it, can be 70-80% of what a double setup is, with a big advantage in defense.
The main advantage to this build is that, by having both high dps and high tanking, it can essentially do anything in the game. A glass cannon cruiser is certainly strong, but it's also cripplingly specialized to the point where it can only really run STFs with a professional speed run group that can kill everything before your meager RSP ceases to be enough to keep you alive, or at least with one dedicated threat control cruiser with you. If you take a glass cannon cruiser into a PUG, you will probably just get yourself killed thanks to all your DPS being AOE, or at least be forced to haul your fat TRIBBLE out of the way and thus defeat the purpose of a DPS build. With a tank hybrid, you can go anywhere, do anything, aggro as much of whatever you want without fear of death, contribute to high DPS teams and single-handedly carry low DPS teams all with ease. Basically, you can name it U.S.S Mundo and go where you please.
It's also worth pointing out that certain escort and destroyers can fit VERY nice A2B builds on. Most notably the chimera and Jem HEC, yes you can't have DEM3 and RSP (I would not recommend doing without RSP) but on the plus side you could have FAW3 and APB3 with BO2 for that single target if you so desire. APB3 with full attack patterns is -49.something damage resistance to target up from -39.something for APB2. Having 5 people using that makes most things die in seconds.
I dunno if anyone mentioned this but you also want to stay 100% away from any item that gives you a temporary power boost for attacking or being attacked. Why? Because if you have more than +5 as a boost proc to aux and use A2B when the proc goes and tries to take away that 5 power it puts you in aux offline mode. This is not a good thing if you need to activate polarize hull to get away from a tractor. Though an item that innately boosts auxiliary power is fine as the boost is always there and won't go away.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
My build went from about 45-ish/25 to 57/25 just putting 5 points in (all I could spare once I retweaked my build.)
You also don't need RSP and you only really need 1 kinetic resist console. No reason to use Neutroniums. Also don't really need to be proactive. You just need to be quick. Besides EPTS should be used all the time anyways along with EPTW.
Never put 9 points into engine, shield, weapons or Aux power. Going from 6 to 9 would only be a 1.5 power increase. 6 would be max and the suggested amount.
I have experimented using gear that provides temporary boosts to power levels and imo it's more risk than it's worth especially as the damage in eSTF is most likely going to be buffed soon. As for RSP I tried with and without it and it's better to have it than not in eSTF, other content you can probably drop it but not in eSTF.
I do agree, never 9 in the power skills, 3 points gets you +5 power, 6 gets you +8 power but 9 only gets you to +10 power and even then you get +9 power at 7 points. Up to you where you draw the cost/benefit line but I just have 3 unless I'm an engineer then I pick 6 for the training options.
It is through repetition that we learn our weakness.
A master with a stone is better than a novice with a sword.
Has damage got out of control?
This is the last thing I will post.
1. mscowboy saying a single A2B isn't stupid is wrong. You're running 3 different EPTx abilities, one of which you can't make use of and could be replaced with the second A2B. Drop EPTE, run a qm doff to bring the engine battery up, farm deuterium, buy an Impulse Capacitance Cel. Drop one TT, slot a torp with TS1, or drop FAW to ensign and take APD1. I don't know where the "big advantage in defense" is. It's the first cycle on a double A2B build that's low, you're cheating yourself of the high Aux cycle.
2. Low Aux. On a double A2B build your Aux is not bottomed out most of the time, it's bottomed out half of the time. This is predictable, barring a PvP SNB.
3. Aux Offline. MACO, Leach, Aux from doffs, Singularity Cores, and other sources can certainly proc an offline when they wear off during a low cycle. However, in most cases the bonus ends because combat did, so who cares? Otherwise, the offline isn't going to last longer than 10 seconds. Less if you use an Aux Batt or just plain manually raise your Aux preset. Tech doffs are going to take 15 seconds off of PH's cd, so even if you have to wait a full 10s to activate it due to Aux offline you're still ahead.
tldr: Double A2B or nothing. Leech is awesome, as are all other temporary sources. Run a battery qm if you're really scared of Aux offline.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
Depends on your purpose. If you're running it for the energy boost, yeah you need it paired. If its just to cut your cooldowns though, a single copy can give you up to 35% off (technicians plus MACO 2-piece), which is enough for always-on EPTx skillls off a single copy and big reductions all across the board. Especially on ships with some engineering slots but lots of tactical, that single A2B can turn into a nice boost for all those aux-independent tac powers.
Sorry, but no. A single copy with 3 tech doffs will reduce itself to 28 seconds, 26 with 2 piece MACO, which is not enough to replace DCE's for always-on EPTx.
I'm going under the assumption that we're trying to min/max here. A single copy is, like you said a "nice boost." But for a 3 doff investment, take the final step and run the full build.
If you want to cut something, cut the 3rd technician. It's more important to get a 20% reduction more frequently than a 30% every 28 seconds. Longer abilities like RSP will still hit horizontal while TT and FAW will only wait a couple seconds longer.
2 piece KHG gives 7-9 ish Aux depending on mk, the engine gives 3.8 with a low aux setting and has Hot Restart. I like it over 2 piece MACO, personally.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
A single aux2batt is actually very useable. Even without maco, it only leaves about a 1.5-2 second gap between an emergency power going down and then back up again, which is entirely manageable, and the single aux2batt DOES fire often enough to keep the emergency powers refreshed.
Emergency to engines is not to be cycled when you are shooting things, obviously. It's a mobility power, you slot it into the cycle once when you need to be somewhere in a hurry.
The advantage in defense, on a regent, comes from being able to use both RSP and emergency to shields 3.
As already said, double TT means no slot wasted for a conn doff that could be dlyrene or something better. APD is a pointless skill when I'm spamming APB2, I'm a beam boat with no torps to use TS1 with.
The assertion that a single copy of aux2batt works extremely well isn't theoretical; it comes from a very long time of experience using it, and using it to great effect. How long have you tried using it?
TS may not have a place if you're going to cling to your beam boat. But double TT and 8 beams has some fat on it outside of Marion's 8 seconds and Omega procs. TS is more plasma burns. Rom or Omega or plain plasma. Rom gives you the 2 piece Rom EPS bonus (somebody somewhere posted what that has to do with A2B) plus the debuff and dot from the 3 piece if you slot the console. But whatever, "beam boat" away.
You're correct that freeing up doff slots is the priority. Double A2B can do it with 2 techs.
If you want to go ad hominem and question my experience, check the link in the OP.
CommanderDonatra@Capt.Sisko: ahhh is it supposed to do that?
Norvo Tigan@dontdrunkimshoot: hell ya, maybe
You're correct assuming min/max. Not everyone min/maxes however and a single A2B or even my DCE chaining works well. All about personal preference.
Also sometimes a question is just a question.
Following this thread with interest. :popcorn:
--Red Annorax
You have dismissed my build by asserting the goal is extreme min/maxing, and then suggested a 90 arc torpedo in the build - in a thread dedicated to min/maxing beam boat cruisers because beam boats hold the highest potential damage among cruiser builds.
I'm well aware that you are one of the people that wrote the book on aux2batt usage. (Even if that particular book was written close to two months after the write-up for the very early prototype of my current ship) Which is why I'm sure you're aware how a single copy works. It's enough to chain EPtx, almost perfectly with Maco set2, and for several cycles in a row it can grant its 30-35(with maco)% reduction to the tactical powers. Long-cooldown powers like RSP will always hit global with any battery build (except maybe a TRIBBLE one like 1 aux2batt with 2 techs) because their long downtime ensures aux2batt will be used multiple times while it is off. After a number of such cycles, the activation of aux2batt eventually shifts toward the end of the tac powers until it can only cut off the last 5 seconds or so. At this point, you hold off on aux2batt for a few moments, and hit it as soon as the tac powers are used. So, you have to deal with 30 second CD on tac powers maybe once every 5 or 6 casts if you were chaining properly. You may also have a momentary 5 second or so gap in EPtx chaining, sometimes, but more often than not the EPtX cooldowns are in a position to not be affected by the delay. If you are a very good pilot and know what you are doing because you've been running the setup for a long time, you'll know where to be and how to time yourself to be getting tac powers back into sync with aux2batt during lulls in the action and 'travelling to the other side' moments. When you know how to fly it, there is very, VERY little negative impact from running only one copy.
Perhaps people don't know how to use it because no one can be bothered to come up with a more comprehensive keybind than 'everything on one key' and therefore can't reconsile a chain with a power that sometimes needs to be delayed? A theory, anyway.
I'm sure you're also aware that double aux2batt, 3 tech builds run into the problem of the second copy often being used too late in the remaining CD of tac abilities as well, so while a single 35% reduction isn't perfect a double battery set often fails to achieve perfect 50% reduction as well. I will have to try a 2 battery, 2 tech setup myself some time, but it honestly sounds awful on paper.
Lastly, min/maxing also suggests a purpose. Most would assume that the intended purpose is pure DPS and nothing else, but that's not always the case. I suppose you could call my setup a min/max focused on being the greatest threat control tank possible... I recently got the fleet version of the ship, still no dlyrene though, and have come closer to completion of the build and seeing highs of 12.9k in ISE. That's still as an Engineer, in random PUGs rather than speed runs, and with me taking all the damage and preventing all the others from dying. I'm quite fond of sitting 1km away from the top of a gate, though in pugs I certainly have to sit there for a while sometimes... I very much doubt a second aux2batt would be worth more than another .5k dps, and that's if I could manage to both fly as brazenly and survive with such a setup. This is a cruiser min/maxed for general play, because glass cannon cruisers are mostly useless without a suitably talented team flying alongside you. I always chuckle at how many cruiser pilots use and suggest -th consoles these days.
They're all just a smidge short on Engineering power, so I'd think they'd be rather squishy running this. Especially TSAD running it with the 2 Lt Unis as Engies.
You have any feedback on this build's effectiveness for those ships, or wrinkles that may work out better on them?