Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit with Polarized Tetryon?

alphaphasertech

Hey all! just wanted to ask some opinion on my most recent build idea.

I picked up the Polarized Tetryon beam arrays (10% chance to proc shield damage as opposed to the normal 2.5%) and equipped 4 of them (2 fore, 2 aft), as well as 4 Photon Torpedo launchers (again, 2 fore, 2 aft).

The basic concept is shield-stripping aggro tank with a hefty amount of damage capability to exposed ships using focused torpedo fire (taking advantage of the relatively high turn rate on the Heavy Cruiser retro)

The Boff build includes the following powers:

Tactical:
Beam Overload II
Beam Fire At Will I
Torpedo High Yield I

Engineering:
Emergency Power to Shields I
Engineering Team II
Directed Energy Modulation II
Aceton Beam III
Emergency Power to Weapons I
Auxiliary to Inertial Dampeners I
Auxiliary to Structural Integrity II

Science:
Transfer Shield Strength I
Tyken's Rift I

Consoles Include 3 Armor and a Power Transfer, 2 Tetryon boosting tac consoles, a Point Defense Phaser console, and undecided science consoles

Thoughts?

starblade7

In future, you may like to use this tool: http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/
Other important details to note when looking for ship build feedback: consoles; your captain's profession.

Firstly, congratulations on your purchase of the Fleet Heavy Cruiser Retrofit! It performs very similarly to the Rear Admiral level Assault Cruiser, but better. It's the smallest and fastest Fleet Retrofit Cruiser available, but it can take a hit like the rest of them. Good flexibility with your console options, too.

Now, onto my suggestions to improve your build:

What DOffs are you using? Particularly with regard to Projectile Weapon Officers if you plan to make projectile weapons the core of your build. A Rare PWO is available through the Jem'hadar Featured Series, and a Very Rare PWO is a reward for completing the mission arc on Nimbus.

I would suggest that you drop two of your torpedoes in favour of more Beam Arrays, for a total of 6 arrays and 2 launchers. In terms of combat tactics (for PvE, of course), you would be broadsiding your target and whittling down their shields with your beams, before bringing the fore or aft torpedo to bear once your torpedo-related power is ready.

Suggested BOff layout:

Lt Tac: THY1, BO2
Ens. Tac: TT1

Cmdr Eng: EPtW1, ET2, AtSIF2, DEM3
Lt Cmdr Eng: EPtS1, RSP1, EWP1

Lt Sci: TSS1, HE2

Some of your BOff abilities were good, others are less useful. Aceton Beam is a bit soft in PvE, so it's better to have your Commander Engineering power as either Aux to SIF 3 (an excellent hull heal with very short cooldown) or Directed Energy Modulation 3 (basically makes your energy weapons better, the bread and butter of your damage). If you've put points into Particle Generators anyway, don't sweat... Eject Warp Plasma is both fun and useful! It may take some practice to get right, but it's excellent at snaring enemy NPCs, giving you and your team mates an easier time of destroying them. The rest of the Eng powers are quite standard fare; Reverse Shield Polarity is perfect you're caught with all/most of your pants (shields) down and you're going to be hit by more energy weapons; it's like EPtS but more awesome, just mind the cooldown. If you want to ditch EWP, then consider taking


On to science abilities; you really don't have much choice with this ship, but you usually don't with Cruisers anyway. Tyken's Rift looks good on paper but I don't think you'll get a lot of performance out of it without really specialising into the related abilities (which go to waste when used so infrequently). Hazard Emitters, on the other hand, is a ubiquitous hull heal that no ship should be without. It clears burn / plasma damage, so you can't go without it when fighting enemies with plasma weapons (most notably the Borg). Use it on yourself when you need to, or your allies when you don't.

I've swapped out Fire at Will for Tactical Team 1. Next to Hazard Emitters, it's the only other ability I would put on any ship regardless of class. TT1 has the life-saving quality of immediately redistributing shield strength to the facings currently taking damage, and gives your weapons a minor damage buff too. No ship should ever be without this power. While you can live without it in some PvE, it's absolutely necessary in missions such as STFs and the Crystalline Catastrophe fleet mission.


As for your choice of weapons; nothing is wrong with Tetryons, particularly for shield-stripping. Photons are fine, but Quantums are better for "spike" damage (your High Yield will pack a bit more punch, but they reload more slowly). Stay away from the specialist torpedoes, as they need more effort to work effectively.


Consoles; I'd possibly move the Point Defense console to an Engineering slot and put a Tetryon-damage (or specific damage type for the torpedo) in the free Tac slot. Drop an armour to make room for Point Defense, and another to make room for a SIF Generator or RCS Accelerator. For Sci, grab two shield-boosting consoles (a mix of Emitter Amplifier, Shield Emitter, Field Generator to taste; go cheap if you don't have the EC for better versions yet) and the third console for Particle Generators to buff the Warp Plasma damage.


List of noted heals that can be used on yourself or an ally (being able to heal allies turns you from being just a tank into a tank and a healer):

Tac Team
Eng Team
Aux to Structural
Transfer Shields
Hazard Emitters


I hope this has given you some ideas! I recommend using the enemy deep space encounters as a training ground to test out the BOff abilities you're not familiar with.