Borg alert strategy

grob44

Too many times I have been part of a borg alert where too few ships waste firepower and fail to destroy the command ship in time.
If the group has the firepower then you can afford to waste it, if not, then you need to concentrate. You can tell if you have enough by how easy the group destroys tac cubes, long time, more than a minute, your group is short.
Concentrate by all firing at one side, too many times I have seen players in strong ships dancing around shooting at all four shields. Why dance around at all, it looks fancy but reduces time on target, stand and fight and stay 9 to 10 k back, it reduces damage to you. Destroy only the regen probes, if you are lean on firepower, the other probes are a waste and a diversion. Use mines in aft firing, they can protect you from plasma weapon and probes.
Watch the clock, if you are on schedule to destroy the command ship then percentage remaining relates to minutes remaining, for example 60% at 6 minutes.:)
No one ship can destroy the command ship but even if the group is short on firepower there is still a good chance to take the command ship down.

chairmanrob

The Borg Red Alerts are almost laughingly easy with a group properly built Tier V starship. Its not even a question of optimal BOFF/Console/DOFF building, but rather just equipping Mk X-XII weapons and consoles. The only strategy that is really needed is to destroy the regeneration probes ASAP, aside from that its a very easy encounter.

The only time I have ever had any issue or trouble with these battles is when lower-levelled characters and their respective ships are involved. They serve as a major handicap.

jetwtf

When doing the command ship its best to split everyone onto the 2 ends and not in the middle. this way the pesky high yield torps can be targeted as soon as they pop out and not insta kill your lower level buddies or blindside you. This also makes handling the regen probes easier as you can pop those as they apear. both ends concentrated fire and the ship will just melt away.

To start its best to fly down and kill that group of spheres then proceed to the closest dual cube groups, then to the next dual cube group. The first probes are easy and the dual cube groups are faster than the cube and sphere groups. Ignore the tac cube if its a mixed level team. If its all a lvl 50 team with proper gear for ESTF's then just pew pew anything and everything that moves lol.

markhawkman

my strategy varies depending on what I'm flying. If I'm flying something with Sensor analysis, I'll blast the first wave fo regen probes and usually let the team handle any new ones that pop up while I blast the Command ship as hard as I can. But that's only for Sci ships.

Another favorite tactic is to always keep the mother ship affected by Aceton beam, that makes the fight a lot easier. Trib bombing doesn't hurt either.

jorantomalak

I usually let the other players deal with regen probes and i assualt the command ship using aceton beam 3 and viral matrix 3 attacking with plasma torps and skill torp spread 3.

The aceton and the plasma torps keep the command ships HP steadily dropping the viral matrix helps by slowing the next attacks sometimes a couple of seconds enough to use shield transer and haz emitters.

Once the other ships start thier assaults i call in the nimbus pirates for an added damage effect on the command ship this really helps when you HP is low and need cover to withdraw and heal up.

timelord79

You don't even need a full team. I can usually do the first part alone. Has happened that I was warping in and everyone moronically refused to team up, so I went off to do my own thing, and I singlehandely killed 4 squads, no idea WHAT the rest of the people on the map did in the meantime.

They showed back up when then comman ship appeared and xploded a lot.

A 2 man team made out of a sci ship debuffer and a dps escort or dps cruiser kills it easy.
Everything else on the map is a welcome decoy.

questerius

First part: Target duo cubes. Faster to take down because they don't zip all over the place.

Second part: tricobalt minefield and plenty of hazards does the trick.

f9thaceshigh

I've found it more useful to be close in, point blank range, your weapons are at their most effective at close range, and it's harder for the plasma bolts to hit you, also, when they do, the splash damage can hit the command ship.

similon

timelord79 wrote: »

I singlehandely killed 4 squads, no idea WHAT the rest of the people on the map did in the meantime.

I'm surprised by how often I end up doing that... Makes sense in my KDF Tac, since she just kills everything. But when my Fed Sci, flying the LRSVR I'd just claimed with standard weapons and no consoles did it, I was a bit shocked.

My tactic?
1) Kill lots of things (usually get it done in 3 minutes, or if people are sensiblee and go their seperate ways, much quicker).
2) Kill the big dude. (Obviously, focus on anything that pops out of it first)...

Don't really need any more tactics than that.

foundrelic

grob44 wrote: »

Too many times I have been part of a borg alert where too few ships waste firepower and fail to destroy the command ship in time.
If the group has the firepower then you can afford to waste it, if not, then you need to concentrate. You can tell if you have enough by how easy the group destroys tac cubes, long time, more than a minute, your group is short.
Concentrate by all firing at one side, too many times I have seen players in strong ships dancing around shooting at all four shields. Why dance around at all, it looks fancy but reduces time on target, stand and fight and stay 9 to 10 k back, it reduces damage to you. Destroy only the regen probes, if you are lean on firepower, the other probes are a waste and a diversion. Use mines in aft firing, they can protect you from plasma weapon and probes.
Watch the clock, if you are on schedule to destroy the command ship then percentage remaining relates to minutes remaining, for example 60% at 6 minutes.:)
No one ship can destroy the command ship but even if the group is short on firepower there is still a good chance to take the command ship down.

You must have some TERRIBLE luck.



I've been in sector alerts where we cleared the thing with three ships.

xepthri

timelord79 wrote: »

You don't even need a full team. I can usually do the first part alone. Has happened that I was warping in and everyone moronically refused to team up, so I went off to do my own thing, and I singlehandely killed 4 squads, no idea WHAT the rest of the people on the map did in the meantime.

They showed back up when then comman ship appeared and xploded a lot.

A 2 man team made out of a sci ship debuffer and a dps escort or dps cruiser kills it easy.
Everything else on the map is a welcome decoy.

I am surprised I can actually say I agree. Because I had an experience like this... Only 2 ships warped into the Borg encounter. One Kumari, and myself a (rather noob, non C-store/lockbox) science vessel. We managed to clear all the smaller ships, and when the command vessel appeared, we cleared all the probes and managed to get the command vessel down to 50% HP. I must say it's probably more of the Kumari's doing than mine... However, after our initial success, we kinda lost in the end cos we neglected the regen probes + others that spawned after the initial wave.. and the build up in minions meant the command ship could recover the 50& of HP it had lost, and also made it difficult for me to survive. Yea, I admit I was the weaker link of the duo, but indeed 2 is enough if that Kumari had a more competent Sci ship partner

hereticknight085

Tactics for Borg Sector Incursion

Opening Portion:

Oh look, Borg. HEY UGLY! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA... hey... they all left...

Unimatrix:

CMERE BIG BOI!!! DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA...

I think you get the idea. For both portions, you just keep shooting until there's nothing left to shoot at. It's not rocket science. You can beat it relatively easily with just two Tier V/Fleet ships (they don't even have to be escorts). The thing only has just over 1mil HP, and only has shield facings of about 15k. If you take out the regen probes (with their MASSIVELY bolstered HE3) and keep an eye on the Plasma Energy Bolts, you're good to go.

If you have lower level players in there with you, just shoot at the Unimatrix and watch for PEBs. If you're in an escort/destroyer/scimitar/raptor/most warbirds/(bunch of other ships with universally agreed high dps) you can very VERY easily solo the Unimatrix. Provided it's distracted/you don't get popped/you don't get very unlucky with it crapping out regen probes every 2 seconds.

jetwtf

skollulfr wrote: »

only one i have had trouble with is the deferi space alert.
the probe spam is a serious dps wall.

Did that one last night, wasnt much worse than the rest of them even with more spheres and tac cubes. Going into it with the same crowd of numbskulls you get doing the others though it is allot harder as it was made more towards endgame players and not mid game. But considerably easier than any ESTF.

admrenlarreck

For the command ship I just park my ship in the gun barrel. when it shoots the instakill plasma, it only kills the command ship.

jetwtf

skollulfr wrote: »

gonna have to call ymmv on that.
unless they changed it the only stf as hard as this was hive.
the issue isnt so much dying, as it was the probes healing the mothership completly in 12 seconds and the issue of there being clouds of them launched at a time.

I didnt see clouds of them. there were four healing probes when we got the mothership and 2 pooped out from each end with a torp and the usual generic probes during the fight. target the healers and ignore the others and you dont need to worry about them healing. the nanite probes are far worse in ISE if you dont kill the generators before they get from the gate to it, the ones in the alerts are easy to take care of.

annemarie30

Last few times i went in it was me and a freaking pair of t2 ships. I manged to clear the cubes but the command ship kept spamming me with the plasma balls

zombiedeadheaded

jetwtf wrote: »

I didnt see clouds of them. there were four healing probes when we got the mothership and 2 pooped out from each end with a torp and the usual generic probes during the fight. target the healers and ignore the others and you dont need to worry about them healing. the nanite probes are far worse in ISE if you dont kill the generators before they get from the gate to it, the ones in the alerts are easy to take care of.

It depends which sector you are in, IIRC Zeta Andromeda and Orellius are the toughest (Borg are rank 53/54.)

jetwtf

zombiedeadheaded wrote: »

It depends which sector you are in, IIRC Zeta Andromeda and Orellius are the toughest (Borg are rank 53/54.)

Orellius is the sector with the Breen missions isnt it? atleast thats what my map said and the wiki says. Thats the borg invasion I was talking about. Did my assist the deferi daily hit sector and plotted course to go to DS9 and the alert came up so I joined it. ESTF's are considerably more difficult than it was and the unimatrix wasnt pooping anymore healers than any other sector's alert.

If someone saw more than the usual amount fighting the unimatrix then they must not have been paying attention to one side and all those came over to the side they were on. that would give the apearance of more.

nikephorus

chairmanrob wrote: »

The only time I have ever had any issue or trouble with these battles is when lower-levelled characters and their respective ships are involved. They serve as a major handicap.

Quoted for truth. The Borg Alerts are rather easy without much strategy if you have 2 or 3 decent players with well built ships, but if you end up with 2 or 3 people in Miranda's you're in trouble.

zombiedeadheaded

jetwtf wrote: »

Orellius is the sector with the Breen missions isnt it? atleast thats what my map said and the wiki says. Thats the borg invasion I was talking about. Did my assist the deferi daily hit sector and plotted course to go to DS9 and the alert came up so I joined it. ESTF's are considerably more difficult than it was and the unimatrix wasnt pooping anymore healers than any other sector's alert.

If someone saw more than the usual amount fighting the unimatrix then they must not have been paying attention to one side and all those came over to the side they were on. that would give the apearance of more.

I don't disagree, the Alerts are easier then ESTF's, and don't require much in the way of 'strategy'. I was just pointing out that there is a certain level of difference of difficulty between sectors. But in my experience that apllies more to the number of spheres etc in the initial groups, I have seen no difference with the Unimatrix ship.