Alright. Let me start this off by saying that I have not touched PvP with a 10' pole since the very early days of STO, the occasional casual fleet duels notwithstanding. I know that PvE is ridiculously easy and, therefore, any PvP will completely and utterly dominate any PvE encounter. That's why I'm here. I'm a long-time vet of this game but by no means an expert. My Romulan character has just hit 50 and now I come to you PvP veterans who know the game inside and out for advice on how to optimize my end-game ship.
Way back in the day, I was a big fan of cruisers, as I've always favored battleships over fighters. I want to play Star Trek, not Ace Combat. However, cruisers take 10x the work to be effective, whereas lolscorts are simply point and shoot. For a long time, I flew carriers (Atrox and then the JHDC) to still get that "battleship" feeling.
Right now, I have access to the T'Varo Retrofit/Refit from the Starter Pack, which I understand can do a sort of stealth bomber build. I've never run a torpedo boat before, though, so I have no idea how that works. I also have 2500 Zen saved and ready and have not used my VA ship token yet, so I'm contemplating between getting the Haakona Advanced Warbird, or using my VA ship token to get the D'Deridex Retrofit and using Zen to buy the D'Ridthau Refit for the 2-console bonus.
Since I just hit 50, I don't have any Rep yet with any faction. I'll state for the record that I know how great the Romulan plasma weapons are, I don't care, I hate the look/sound of plasma weapons. Plus, Romulan ships used disruptors in the shows, so I got myself 4 Nanine Disruptor Beam Arrays and a DBB all Mk XI, which I've been using on my Ha'apax.
I intend to start off very slowly in PvP, probably sign up for one of the upcoming PvP bootcamps once I feel comfortable with my ship setup. I'm the first to admit I'm a total newbie at PvP and don't really know TRIBBLE about shipbuilding. I've always just kinda winged it and did well in PvE. Asking for your help, pros. Ready to learn.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAAgaD-zbotq2By_2-8qqIg?feature=results_main
There's a bunch in there about effectively using battlecloaks.
And stuff.
Another thing to bare in mind is you never want to decloak or be decloaked so use high engine and aux power, if all goes well you won't need shields and weapon power is worthless to a torp boat anyway. (on a side note keep an EPtS and/or EPtE handy in case you do get decloaked).
You may want to look into Attack pattern beta, you can have 100% uptime on it and I believe torps can apply it's debuff (again, don't quote me, I haven't tested the debuff), the disadvantage being that the effectiveness is governed by enemy tactical teams, AP: Delta is another option with slightly lower uptime but can be used on allies under fire. If you decide to run attack patterns then 6 points on the skill table is enough to make them worth having.
Alternatively you can take every damage buff under the sun and use DHCs and run a decloak-alpha machine which can make use of the decloaking damage buff which can lead to 3 second long engagements with some practice, though I'm working on one myself knocking the kinks out of it so I'm not the guy to got to, thissler however is the authority on this to my knowledge.
The B'rel.works the same way. Decloaking shieldless to fire then recloaking. The action lasts about 2-3 seconds I believe.
R.I.P
Well that kinda makes the enhanced battle cloak worthless...
if thats what you think.
ive seen it in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it.
Do you even Science Bro?
Mine only decloaks for 1-2 secs or so. I think stealth might decrease the time of decloak.
Daizen - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
Selia - Lvl 60 Tactical - Eclipse
A torp boat can still work, but thats going to be either transphasics (Assuming you can buff them up enough in a cruiser to make them viable)
Or Chronitons for the proc, Quants and stuff are only good for well timed alphas and stuff really, i wouldnt bother with that on anything but a fast ship
Maybe so, but the Haakona and D'Deridex have less-than-Fed-cruiser turn rates, so that has to be considered.
There are only two ways I can think of of how to outfit an D'Deridex. You can either make the standard tanky Beamcruiser many people seem to love so much or you get your hands on 3 purple Technician DOffs and make an Aux2Bat + DHC/Turret build. Combined with almost 100% uptime of Directed Energy Modulation III, Nanite Disruptors, EPtW1 and the new shield penetration trait from Nukara Reputation this could make a decent decloak alphastrike (don't use an Engineer character) and could also use Viral Matrix to mess with your victim. You would essentially fly this iconic ship like an oversized escort. A battleship, so to speak. However you would be highly dependant on the turnrate buff of your battlecloak. This means you would make your attack and then cloak again to reposition your ship for the next strike.