Thanks for the tip I will adjust my build as you suggest. I have the rom ulna plasma torpedo on the rear now and since it turns on a dime it's no problem to whip it around and fire. I also have the romulan beam array on the rear. Put those together with the zero point module and I have the entire romulan set complete with plasma hyperflux ability. Haven't directly measured DPS while firing, and I realize it doesn't fire 360 degrees, but it's one of the few tac abilities I retain even though there are no tac officers in my setup. Thoughts?
Coincidentally, the predecessor to the Pure Science build uses a very similar set up as yours, see the screenshot here : USS Infinity
This one dated from the first days of LoR. It uses the Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp fore while the Experimental Plasma Beam Array in the aft.
For a very long time, I flew under the set up shown above so I can speak knowledgeably about the build you are thinking of.
- Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp on the rear can be a very logical fit for some builds because it then becomes a great defensive weapon given how each shot fires 3 torps
- The Hyper Plasma Torp can also be used to clear pursuing spams such as mines or Cluster torp or other pets
- Downside of the Hyper Plasma torp is that they pose a significant risk of doing splash damage to yourself, if used as a fore weapon, less so as a rear weapon
- The Hyper Plasma Torp is excellent for PvE but with more limited use in PvP due to them being destructible projectile and move relatively slowly
- Romulan Experimental Beam Array pretty much requires you to have a Plasma build or use it as a stand-alone energy weapon on an otherwise torpedo boat so the question is : Do you want to specialize into a plasma build?
- Wells is maneuverable enough to equip DBB in lieu of Beam Arrays, if you place the Exp. Beam Array in rear, it means not all your weapons will be able fire from the same direction unless you turn yourself into a Beam Boat, which you aren't given you already have the Hyper Plasma Torp installed. Anytime you have a weapon sitting idle doing nothing is essentially lost dps. You have to ask yourself, do you want to sacrifice DPS here just to use this special beam array?
- The zero-point energy console is a very useful and practical console, the only question I'd ask is whether you have the room for it or not
- The Plasma Hyperflux can be surprisingly powerful even though it has a somewhat long CD. It is not as powerful as a real BO but the side effect (decreased damage resistance) and plasma DoT are nice to have. The question is whether the opportunity cost to have this ability by being forced to have all 3 of the above mentioned items worth the trouble or not?
-Get ride of field generators, 4 Partigens is gonna put your particle generators over 250. That will buff A LOT all your exotic dmg (Gravity Well, FBP, EWP, etc.) Also, plasma infused ones from the Fleet Embassy for more hull eating damage!
-With 20k shields you'll need a TSS3 to keep that monstruosity up. With 10k shields you're better and you can get rid of TSS3 in exchange for some lt.com more useful skill (example, FBP2 at max aux. with 250 partic will reflect 90% of incoming dmg). But basically this, if you're into sci damage, you'll want 4 partigens, which are like our tactical consoles for sci.
1) Particle Generator skills, unlike Flow Capacitors skill, have very significant diminished returns the higher you go. By slotting 4 PG consoles will not buff your exotic damage much at all, let alone "A LOT". How do I know? I already tested it myself and have screenshots as proof :
As you can see, PG skills nearly double with 4 X Embassy Mk XII PG consoles but the overall FBP deflecting factor barely moved. FBP II moved by a negligible 17%, while FBP III moved up by 20% - that is after spending a total of 4 precious console slots on this skill. Know that only 50% of the said increase will actually go through shields, so for FBP II, the net gain of adding these 4 Consoles = an additional hull damage of merely 8.5% to the target - can't possibly find a more spectacular waste of console slots than this.
Put this another way, FBP II with 4 X Embassy Mk XII PG consoles will end up having a lower deflecting factor than a FBP III with zero PG console - the diminishing returns can't be more blatant. Anyone who have been playing with all these extra PG consoles thinking they have boosted their exotic damage by a lot are sadly mistaken because they didn't bother testing before playing.
Finally, if I want a high FBP deflecting factor, I don't need any PG consoles, just see here :
By using my Captain's abilities, I can boost the deflecting factor of FBP III from 0.90 to 1.60, that is 350% more efficient than wasting slots on 4 PG consoles. In other words, even if I could possibly fit 10 X Embassy PG Consoles onto the ship, which is impossible anyway, I would still have a far lower FBP deflecting factor than just buffing FBP with my Captains' abilities.
As shown above, PG consoles are an exercise of futility when your PG skill is already above 100. Anyone reading this thread, whatever you do, don't waste your Science console slots on PG consoles.
2) "Also, plasma infused ones from the Fleet Embassy for more hull eating damage!"
You really need to start doing some calculation in lieu of speaking in such generality :
Assuming proc happens, the damage = 111.2 additional DPS
Given 2.5% of proc chance : 111.2 X 2.5% = effective additional DPS = 2.78
Really, an miniscule effective increase in DPS of merely 2.78 = "more hull eating damage"? That's assuming the DoT is not cleared by abilities such as Hazard Emitters or the Romulan Warp Core Engineer with an ability to remove all debuffs.
The Plasma Infused consoles are helpful when your build is a Plasma build, anything else, the proc chance is just a waste of time as can be seen from the calculation above. The downside of Plasma Build in PvP is that many end-game shields have an inherent 20% Plasma Damage resist, even higher with Resist B Elite Fleet Shields. These inherent resists pretty much neglect any damage boost you may get from these Plasma Infused consoles.
3) "That will buff A LOT all your exotic dmg (Gravity Well..."
I guess you are not aware so here goes nothing, Gravity Well II and III are currently bugged as they do not benefit from PG skill or Aux power :
Therefore, all those PG consoles will have zero effect on the damage. Even the proposed fix on Tribble calls for diminished returns of PG and Aux power because the developer fear it will make GW too powerful.
So no, your claim that these PG consoles will buff "A LOT" GW is simply false at this time. In any event, I did not propose the use of GW in the recommended PvP build, so the point is pretty moot one way or the other.
4) "With 20k shields you'll need a TSS3 to keep that monstruosity up. With 10k shields you're better and you can get rid of TSS3 in exchange for some lt.com more useful skill (example, FBP2 at max aux. with 250 partic will reflect 90% of incoming dmg). But basically this, if you're into sci damage, you'll want 4 partigens, which are like our tactical consoles for sci"
I...don't know how you make a 10K shields out of a Wells... Even without slotting any Field Generator consoles, my shield facing is 17K each : USS Utopia without any Field Generator Console
You have to botch your Wells build completely to get a 10K shielding out of a Wells. If there is a race towards the lowest shield possible, I am certainly not aware of one - better just to remove your shield completely if that bothers you so much.
But let's compare TSS II to TSS III to see the difference for educational purposes :
Total Heals per Facing : TSS II = 5681 ; TSS III = 7090
Difference = 1409 per facing
Shielding per Facing = 27K
1409 / 27K = 5.2%
Conclusion : While 5% increase in shield heal is significant, it is by no means build breaking given the build also specs 3 additional shield heals via EptS, ST and RSP. TSS II working with EPtS I, ST I, RSP II along with maintaining Shield Power at 130 will have no trouble keeping the shields up short of extreme circumstances.
-Your skill build is... kinda messy. Too many points in skills like warp core potential and efficiencies in general while those skills gives nothing over 6 points. 2 or 3 points in warp core potential and warp core efficiency is what you'll usually want. Check this table to learn how to set up a good skill build.
I appreciate your feedback but I respectfully disagree. Generally speaking, most of these skills aren't very impactful. They are all in the same boat. It's not just Warp Core potential or efficiency, pick any skills and the same can be said about each of them. In allocating these skill points, it pretty much turns into which skill sucks less than the other. In other words, if you don't allocate as much points into the above said skills, could you have allocated those points elsewhere to make them more impactful for the chosen build? My answer is a resounding negative. If you feel you could have allocated the points differently and make the build better, by all means, please show us how you would have allocated the points differently and let us critique your choices.
pst...btw, the table you linked contained seriously outdated information. You may want to stop referring to it. There is a more up to date table in the PvP forum, do a search and you can find it.
-Dont use a2battery build. That build, made up by DDIS a year ago, was ment and only works in tactical cruisers and a very few escorts. For sci-damage you'll want your auxiliary power level at 130 all the time. A2B is not for a science vessel.
We are going to have to agree to disagree. Sci ships do not need Aux power at 130 at all times because your Sci skills have down time and not all Sci skills are Aux dependent. Furthermore, Sci skills are dependent on Aux power only during activation, not the whole time that the said skill is active. In other words, you could hit Energy Siphon at Aux 130, which will make it last 24 seconds, even if you were to hit A2B 3 seconds later, the duration of the ES will not change as can be seen on your ES icon count down timer. Many people have tested this build with A2B and it works very well for them as well. In any event, this ship carries Auxiliary Batteries for a reason, precisely to deal with some situations where A2B can't be timed perfectly with certain Aux dependent skills. Large Aux Batteries provide +100 Aux power, along with Energy Siphon and boost from Plasmonic Leech, this is more than sufficient to cover most situations.
-If you could switch to torp build, you could get rid of all your weapon energy level into full aux, and give more power to your shields. You'll need nothing else. Also Adapted Maco Deflector and Engines, for the bonus set for torpedo dmg. Plasma torp or transphasics are the way to go! But if you stick with tetryon or polaron energy, and you are using flow cap skills, you may want to use omega deflector and engines, which grant you a bonus shield drain with every single hit according to your flows!
In combat, this vessel is capable of sustaining maximum power to all 4 subsystems. Others were able to independently duplicate my results, thereby confirming this is doable.
You are recommending a Torpedo boat build but a few sentences earlier you were selling the benefits of having Plasma Infused Embassy consoles. These two recommendations conflict each other because the Plasma Infused proc only works on Energy weapons and the DoT aspect of Plasma Torpedo, not its kinetic damage. Perhaps you want to review your recommendations to make sure they don't conflict each other?
This build already has the Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus to Torpedo from Adapted MACO Shield & Deflector. I would not recommend the Adapted MACO Engines due to it being a Combat Impulse Engine that doesn't do very well at high Engine power. Given this vessel maintains very high engine power, the only logical choice of engine is Hyper Impulse Engines.
Simply put, Tetryon Glider works better on a rapid firing Escort or a BFAW Cruiser with 8 Beams. On a Science vessel with no special tactical ability, it is simply not worth the trouble.
1) Particle Generator skills, unlike Flow Capacitors skill, have very significant diminished returns the higher you go. By slotting 4 PG consoles will not buff your exotic damage much at all, let alone "A LOT". How do I know? I already tested it myself and have screenshots as proof :
FBP II
PG = 144, Aux = 130, FBP II = 0.72
PG = 271, Aux = 130, FBP II = 0.89
FBP III
PG = 144, Aux = 130, FBP III = 0.90
PG = 271, Aux = 130, FBP III = 1.10
As you can see, PG skills nearly double with 4 X Embassy Mk XII PG consoles but the overall FBP deflecting factor barely moved. FBP II moved by a negligible 17%, while FBP III moved up by 20% - that is after spending a total of 4 precious console slots on this skill. Know that only 50% of the said increase will actually go through shields, so for FBP II, the net gain of adding these 4 Consoles = an additional hull damage of merely 8.5% to the target - can't possibly find a more spectacular waste of console slots than this.
So far, the only diminishing return properly speaking exists in the damage resistance gained from damage resistance magnitudes (as they come in consoles, boff, doffs...). What you have here is just different abilities intentionally programed to gain different bonus damage from their respective skills until its cap (which in your example, FBP, is 90% damage reflection for FBP2 and 110% for FBP3)...
As you have noticed, the difference goes to 70% to 90% damage reflection, which is what I'd personally call it A LOT, but that's a matter of taste, I guess. You've also noticed that FBP 2 with partigens equals a FBP3 without it, so in that A LOT I may also include gaining a Commander ability using FBP2 instead of 3.
As I said, tho, it's a matter of taste and considerations. While, unlike me that I am a sci, you're flying a tac-wells and you can use your captain skills to buff a copy of FBP3 to 160% damage reflexion, I call it useless since FBP is by itself one of the most extremely situational skills in this game, basically a burst-damage supressor and the best alpha-striker killer so far.
Anyway, while usually an exotic damage build is not a damage spike build by definition (which is mainly control-disable with high pressure damage) I can understand if you're running a mix of particle and flow build, you're exotic damage window is quite reduced so you may choose adding some spike moments using your tac abilities. Very good. But that would discharge FBP for a build like that, at least outside PVP.
You're missing other imporant and way less situational particle damage dealers than FBP, as a GW3 which goes from 1200 without partigens to 1500 kinetic damage per second, usually working (in pvp) in combo with TB1 which also get its boost from 100 to 160 kinetic damage per tic. Again, usually combined with Eject Warp Plasma, which gets a 100% shield ignoring damage per sec from 300 to 400 kinetic damage per second. Or Isometric Charge, that goes from 20.5k to 27.5k in its last hit (that's even used by many tac-escorts capable to stack 2-3 partigens).
Etc, etc. So, when I say A LOT I mean at its best.
You really need to start doing some calculation in lieu of speaking in such generality :
2.5% chance of 111.2 plasma damage per sec for 15 seconds
Assuming proc happens, the damage = 111.2 additional DPS
Given 2.5% of proc chance : 111.2 X 2.5% = effective additional DPS = 2.78
Really, an miniscule effective increase in DPS of merely 2.78 = "more hull eating damage"? That's assuming the DoT is not cleared by abilities such as Hazard Emitters or the Romulan Warp Core Engineer with an ability to remove all debuffs.
The Plasma Infused consoles are helpful when your build is a Plasma build, anything else, the proc chance is just a waste of time as can be seen from the calculation above. The downside of Plasma Build in PvP is that many end-game shields have an inherent 20% Plasma Damage resist, even higher with Resist B Elite Fleet Shields. These inherent resists pretty much neglect any damage boost you may get from these Plasma Infused consoles.
3) "That will buff A LOT all your exotic dmg (Gravity Well..."
I guess you are not aware so here goes nothing, Gravity Well II and III are currently bugged as they do not benefit from PG skill or Aux power :
Therefore, all those PG consoles will have zero effect on the damage. Even the proposed fix on Tribble calls for diminished returns of PG and Aux power because the developer fear it will make GW too powerful.
Some typicals myths here and there, my friend. First of all, the reputation shields (MACO's, Omega...) have indeed a 20% resistance against plasma energy weapons (ResB is 15%, not higher, but whatever). The build I'm suggesting is based on plasma torp, which has nothing to do with that plasma energy resistance.
As for the bug in GW, it does benefit from particles, I don't know where did you read that. In fact, it benefit too much from particles for its damage, so is that that it's currently being nerfed in tribble. Bug in the tooltip refers to the ability not being propertly getting benefit from the aux level (which is also being fixed in tribble along with the nerf in its particle damage). Read your own link...
I...don't know how you make a 10K shields out of a Wells... Even without slotting any Field Generator consoles, my shield facing is 17K each : USS Utopia without any Field Generator Console
You have to botch your Wells build completely to get a 10K shielding out of a Wells. If there is a race towards the lowest shield possible, I am certainly not aware of one - better just to remove your shield completely if that bothers you so much.
But let's compare TSS II to TSS III to see the difference for educational purposes :
TSS II : Aux = 130, 1076 Shield Regen + 307 per sec for 15 sec
TSS III : Aux = 130, 1345 Shield Regen + 383 per sec for 15 sec
Total Heals per Facing : TSS II = 5681 ; TSS III = 7090
Difference = 1409 per facing
Shielding per Facing = 27K
1409 / 27K = 5.2%
Conclusion : While 5% increase in shield heal is significant, it is by no means build breaking given the build also specs 3 additional shield heals via EptS, ST and RSP. TSS II working with EPtS I, ST I, RSP II along with maintaining Shield Power at 130 will have no trouble keeping the shields up short of extreme circumstances.
Of course I can get 17k with my wells if I put a covariant shield such as the Adapted Water, I mean Maco :P 17k of pure water surrounding your ship, that's it. Before LoR nobody, nor even the klinks with their KHG used a TRIBBLE such a shield with 10% bleedthrough. Now with so many build, weapons and combos that specialized in shield ignoring damage, much less you should... Instead, I have 12k with my adapt resilient (and yes, resB). And yes, I'm way more shield tanking.
As for TSS3, you're right, I forgot to mention an obvious copy of epts 1. But look, right now your maxed shield power, plus those two skills puts you more on less in a 60% shield damage reduction when both abilities are up (max power x tss2 x epts1, 0.65 x 0.78 x 0.78 = 0.39), while you can reach the 75% cap with your blind eyes if you just use a adapt elite shield...
I appreciate your feedback but I respectfully disagree. Generally speaking, most of these skills aren't very impactful. They are all in the same boat. It's not just Warp Core potential or efficiency, pick any skills and the same can be said about each of them. In allocating these skill points, it pretty much turns into which skill sucks less than the other. In other words, if you don't allocate as much points into the above said skills, could you have allocated those points elsewhere to make them more impactful for the chosen build? My answer is a resounding negative. If you feel you could have allocated the points differently and make the build better, by all means, please show us how you would have allocated the points differently and let us critique your choices.
pst...btw, the table you linked contained seriously outdated information. You may want to stop referring to it. There is a more up to date table in the PvP forum, do a search and you can find it.
I mentioned efficiency skills (warp core, potential, x (shield/weps, etc.) efficiency, etc.) which are in the group of the less efficient skills. In the contrary, the group of most efficient skills are those that gives you dmg resistances, which are the only resource of direct damage rating gaining not affected by the diminishing returns the game has (appart from some accolades and some very neglictible special traits in special races like joined trills...) Skills like threat control gives you a very considerable all damage resistance bonus, and instead of wasting thousands of points in efficiency skills wich gives nothing noticiable past 3 points, you may also want armor reinforcements, which at 6 points grants you a final 10% kinetic dmg resistance (or 12% at 9 points, which is still a lot compared with the low ganance of other skills, but expensive as an admiral skill). Yeah, and not to mention weapons specs (admirals too), which gives you 25% critical severity :rolleyes:
As for the table itself, it is updated with the latest skill tree, of course, will always have flaws, but it's sticked in the front page in the PVP forum... If you really have a better table, you may also want to share it
We are going to have to agree to disagree. Sci ships do not need Aux power at 130 at all times because your Sci skills have down time and not all Sci skills are Aux dependent. Furthermore, Sci skills are dependent on Aux power only during activation, not the whole time that the said skill is active. In other words, you could hit Energy Siphon at Aux 130, which will make it last 24 seconds, even if you were to hit A2B 3 seconds later, the duration of the ES will not change as can be seen on your ES icon count down timer. Many people have tested this build with A2B and it works very well for them as well. In any event, this ship carries Auxiliary Batteries for a reason, precisely to deal with some situations where A2B can't be timed perfectly with certain Aux dependent skills. Large Aux Batteries provide +100 Aux power, along with Energy Siphon and boost from Plasmonic Leech, this is more than sufficient to cover most situations.
That would be unnecessary. You probably only read the last few posts and skipped the beginning of this thread. One of the primary characteristic of this build is this :Weapons Power = 125 (150 with resistance buff), Shields Power = 130, Engines Power = 125, Auxiliary Power = 130
In combat, this vessel is capable of sustaining maximum power to all 4 subsystems. Others were able to independently duplicate my results, thereby confirming this is doable.
Well mate, if you can sustain all that levels at all time, you got me. But if you can't have your 130 aux all the time, it is pointless for a pure particle damage build, since like I said, they're not about burst but control+pressure damage. But again, that's just a difference in our build, since you're particle damage window is lower than mine and you can burst your particle damage in those more specific windows, I guess... So same goes for the use of a2b! Well done here, sir!
You are recommending a Torpedo boat build but a few sentences earlier you were selling the benefits of having Plasma Infused Embassy consoles. These two recommendations conflict each other because the Plasma Infused proc only works on Energy weapons and the DoT aspect of Plasma Torpedo, not its kinetic damage. Perhaps you want to review your recommendations to make sure they don't conflict each other?
Basically... false. Plasma Infused consoles from Fleet Embassy adds the same proc to any kind of weapon, including torps and mines. In fact, with plasma torp (same for plasma energy) the proc from the weapon and the proc from the console stacks. Yeah, here and there, you finally get lots of hull eating damage after all
Oh, and dont forget, romulan torpedo and romulan experimental beam behind, for the systems targeting, they both add even more bonus damage to plasma weps along with adapted maco engines + deflector to the torps. Two sets, one single purpose: tons of boooms!
Simply put, Tetryon Glider works better on a rapid firing Escort or a BFAW Cruiser with 8 Beams. On a Science vessel with no special tactical ability, it is simply not worth the trouble.
Coincidentally, the predecessor to the Pure Science build uses a very similar set up as yours, see the screenshot here : USS Infinity
This one dated from the first days of LoR. It uses the Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp fore while the Experimental Plasma Beam Array in the aft.
For a very long time, I flew under the set up shown above so I can speak knowledgeably about the build you are thinking of.
- Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp on the rear can be a very logical fit for some builds because it then becomes a great defensive weapon given how each shot fires 3 torps
- The Hyper Plasma Torp can also be used to clear pursuing spams such as mines or Cluster torp or other pets
- Downside of the Hyper Plasma torp is that they pose a significant risk of doing splash damage to yourself, if used as a fore weapon, less so as a rear weapon
- The Hyper Plasma Torp is excellent for PvE but with more limited use in PvP due to them being destructible projectile and move relatively slowly
- Romulan Experimental Beam Array pretty much requires you to have a Plasma build or use it as a stand-alone energy weapon on an otherwise torpedo boat so the question is : Do you want to specialize into a plasma build?
- Wells is maneuverable enough to equip DBB in lieu of Beam Arrays, if you place the Exp. Beam Array in rear, it means not all your weapons will be able fire from the same direction unless you turn yourself into a Beam Boat, which you aren't given you already have the Hyper Plasma Torp installed. Anytime you have a weapon sitting idle doing nothing is essentially lost dps. You have to ask yourself, do you want to sacrifice DPS here just to use this special beam array?
- The zero-point energy console is a very useful and practical console, the only question I'd ask is whether you have the room for it or not
- The Plasma Hyperflux can be surprisingly powerful even though it has a somewhat long CD. It is not as powerful as a real BO but the side effect (decreased damage resistance) and plasma DoT are nice to have. The question is whether the opportunity cost to have this ability by being forced to have all 3 of the above mentioned items worth the trouble or not?
I'm not a big fan of pvp. That may be sacrilege for some to hear, but I mainly stick to fleet actions and PVE's (infected conduit elite is my fave).
I've run plasma setups in many ships and find it quite adequate in terms of DPS. There is an embassy sci console that helps with plasma DPS although that is for non plasma weapons.
In my fleet Prometheus (my main ship) I routinely get the 11 BNP's on infected and I use the Borg cube as a test of a new setup. If I can kill it by myself then I know I'm on the right track.
With the wells I've gotten 6 BNP's once but usually I get one. I'm optimistic about that though because my tactics are evolving being used to DPS laden escorts. On the positive side I'm not dying like I used to ( the drawback of an escort weak hull), and the Wells is a sweet ship! I may switch to plasma to experiment and see what happens, but for now I'll keep the setup I have. If I were to switch weapon type, which is best? It's my understanding that plasma is best against the Borg.
I'm not a big fan of pvp. That may be sacrilege for some to hear, but I mainly stick to fleet actions and PVE's (infected conduit elite is my fave).
I've run plasma setups in many ships and find it quite adequate in terms of DPS. There is an embassy sci console that helps with plasma DPS although that is for non plasma weapons.
In my fleet Prometheus (my main ship) I routinely get the 11 BNP's on infected and I use the Borg cube as a test of a new setup. If I can kill it by myself then I know I'm on the right track.
With the wells I've gotten 6 BNP's once but usually I get one. I'm optimistic about that though because my tactics are evolving being used to DPS laden escorts. On the positive side I'm not dying like I used to ( the drawback of an escort weak hull), and the Wells is a sweet ship! I may switch to plasma to experiment and see what happens, but for now I'll keep the setup I have. If I were to switch weapon type, which is best? It's my understanding that plasma is best against the Borg.
Ok I've been working on this for the past week. I've removed the romulan set and replaced them with omega torp fore and two fleet tetryon turrets rear. I bit the bullet and sprang for all purple mk xii field generator consoles. This ship is EXACTLY as you recommend . I'm generally happy with the result although as an DPS laden escort captain it's a challenge to do with science abilities what used to be done with straight pew pew pew.
I'm thinking about modifications that I wanted to run past you that I haven't seen being mentioned that maybe need to be. What about the two piece temporal set? God knows that would come in handy! I know this means probably sacrificing a shield console but I have to ask if you've considered this and if so what is your opinion? Rewinding time and reversing damage seems like a good ability to me and the consoles cost enough! Thoughts?
Ok I've been working on this for the past week. I've removed the romulan set and replaced them with omega torp fore and two fleet tetryon turrets rear. I bit the bullet and sprang for all purple mk xii field generator consoles. This ship is EXACTLY as you recommend . I'm generally happy with the result although as an DPS laden escort captain it's a challenge to do with science abilities what used to be done with straight pew pew pew.
I'm thinking about modifications that I wanted to run past you that I haven't seen being mentioned that maybe need to be. What about the two piece temporal set? God knows that would come in handy! I know this means probably sacrificing a shield console but I have to ask if you've considered this and if so what is your opinion? Rewinding time and reversing damage seems like a good ability to me and the consoles cost enough! Thoughts?
I don't think the 2 pieces temporal set is a good idea. The Mobius console is nicknamed "suicide console", almost no one uses it all because NPCs automatically shoot your past copy and you will die. Temporal Backstep can be useful but its 5 minute CD is too long.
I wouldn't recommend it even in PvE.
If you do mostly PvE, I would recommend using Tyken's Rift III as your Science Commander ability. TR III works great in PvE. You will notice many of the big bosses such as Tactical Cubes will become shiedless, stopping pretty much all your enemies, save for the cheating Donatra.
OK an update:
After some grinding I've acquired the nukara mine weapon which I've put on the rear to complete the nukara space set. I also added a space duty officer that increases damage vs the Borg. I'm pleased to report that the science ship and I won the 11 BNPs in infected elite last night! The combination of tachyon beam plus energy syphon plus gravity well proved most effective after I respeced my flow capacitor and particle generator skill to maximum.
This ship has graduated from work in progress to full fledged butt kicker and is now my main ship. It's been a bit of a slog and a LOT of EC but I am happy with the result. I might even try pvp! Thanks for the inspiration and the advice!
OK an update:
After some grinding I've acquired the nukara mine weapon which I've put on the rear to complete the nukara space set. I also added a space duty officer that increases damage vs the Borg. I'm pleased to report that the science ship and I won the 11 BNPs in infected elite last night! The combination of tachyon beam plus energy syphon plus gravity well proved most effective after I respeced my flow capacitor and particle generator skill to maximum.
This ship has graduated from work in progress to full fledged butt kicker and is now my main ship. It's been a bit of a slog and a LOT of EC but I am happy with the result. I might even try pvp! Thanks for the inspiration and the advice!
You are very welcome. A note of caution on PvP - it is badly broken at the moment. Just to give a few examples, there is bug affecting CRF such that APA and Tactical Fleet resulted in multiplicative effect on its DPS, making them about 400% more effective than they should. As a result, Escorts can one-shot most ships within 2 seconds. BFaW + DEM is also bugged due to an incorrect cap on weapons power, causing them to fire like Beam Overload at Will
Many of the Sci powers that work great in PvE can be easily countered and are not useful because balanced in not a word in Cryptic's dictionary.
Would any of these bugs and issues ever be fixed? It is doubtful at this point. All we have is a Dev who is on the defensive and partially acknowledged the issues but no offer of timeline or expectation that when or if they will be corrected.
I wouldn't recommend doing PvP in any ship without a Battlecloak unless you have a unkillable tank/cruiser build.
I just procured the Wells for my sci captain who recently broke level 50. It's going to be a while before I can get any omega rep equipment so I bought purple mk xii shields deflector and impulse they will have to do for now.
I found a build that suggests antiproton beams and chroniton torpedoes. Since I can't procure high level stuff yet I'd appreciate your thoughts about energy types and stuff that can be procured on the exchange. I. Might open some lock boxes to get the lobi crystals and pick up components for the temporal warfare set but that is also some time off.:D
I just procured the Wells for my sci captain who recently broke level 50. It's going to be a while before I can get any omega rep equipment so I bought purple mk xii shields deflector and impulse they will have to do for now.
I found a build that suggests antiproton beams and chroniton torpedoes. Since I can't procure high level stuff yet I'd appreciate your thoughts about energy types and stuff that can be procured on the exchange. I. Might open some lock boxes to get the lobi crystals and pick up components for the temporal warfare set but that is also some time off.:D
Aegis used to be the State of Art technology for the best ships in the fleet. However, they have since been surpassed. You can craft Aegis sets at Memory Alpha or purchase them from the exchange directly using EC. Some people like the Elite Fleet Shields, I am somewhat indifferent towards Elite Fleet Shields. However, a reasonable combination is to use Aegis Deflector and Engine for the cool extra +10 Defense, then add an Elite Fleet Shield instead of Aegis Shield. Note that if you do that, you'll lose Set 3 bonus of Reactive Shielding.
Do you have access to Adv. Fleet weapons? If you do, you can start to procure for your end game equipment using Adv. Fleet weapons since those are separate from the reputation system.
Antiproton is a very popular energy type. Prior to adopting Tachyon builds and Transphasic builds, it is my preferred energy type. The caveat of Antiproton weapons is that its Mk XII Tactical consoles (blue & purple) are very expensive. I do not believe Antiproton has any Mk XII purple DBB available for sale on exchange, they simply do not exist for some odd reasons. The only way to procure MK XII purple DBB is through your Fleet Store.
Chroniton Torpedo makes more sense in PvP than in PvE given most of the big boss in PvE barely move or the Chrontion proc simply doesn't work on them, think Donatra, Unimatrix Ship, Queen, Tactical Cubes. Chroniton Torp is otherwise not a popular choice of Torpedo in PvE. They don't hit as hard as Photon or Quantum, don't bypass shields like Transphasics and have long CD time. Prior to getting the Omega Plasma Torp, I would recommend getting a Photon Torpedo at its place. Photon fires very rapidly. With a Projectile doff, if you have space for that, it can fire as fast as 1 per sec. It would be a fair proxy for the Omega Plasma Torp until you can get it.
I recommend Elite Fleet Hyper-Charged Warp Core Mk XII [Eff][W->A][ECap][AMP][Trans]
The major difference being instead Shield Power cap to 130, it's Engine Power now capping at 130 instead. W->A attribute is particularly useful when the ship goes into A2B because as the Weapon Power is energized to maximum, it creates a feedback loop reinforcing the Auxiliary power, which helps to prevent Aux becoming offline due to over-drain that sometimes happen. Notice, I haven't used a single Aux battery because this new Warp Core drastically reduce the occurrence of Aux being offline during A2B.
Because this build emphasizes on max power to all subsystems, it greatly benefits from the AMP effect, which adds +13.2% to its damage across the board.
You'll also notice the build now uses Tractor Beam Repulsors III as its Commander Science ability. The reason being with many of the Sci powers being broken or nerfed to complete useless, this is one of the few left that are actually useful in PvE or PvP. TBR can really carry a punch and works great in both high Aux and low Aux environment, in particular when the ship goes into A2B. Against the Crystalline Entity, it will constantly hit at the CE for 10 sec and push away the large Fragments that may collide with you.
I noticed you're a tac captain. While this is normally not a problem, I have to ask exactly how effective your GW III and/or FBP III are when AP-A / FoMM aren't running, with but 2x Part. Gen consoles I pack a 153 skill, and my GW III is not a fearsome thing, rough calculations show ~22k kinetic damage over the 20 ....
At the risk of exposing my complete noobness, I've been playing for a few years now and only recently have I become more interested in the intricate mathematics of building a ship &/or character... and now that I'm finding myself looking through the forums for info like this I still find myself lost somewhat.... it's not the math that eludes me so much as the acronyms... "GW III / FBP III / AP-A / FoMM" I have no idea what any of those are.
Also I am not skilled enough to recognise the Consoles / Gear from the ICONS shown on the screen shots...
Would I be asking too much to request that you please clarify the acronyms ans list the gear by name?
Thanks - Nice build by the way ... I recently got extremely lucky and obtained that Sci Vessel and I'd like to start working my way to such a build
At the risk of exposing my complete noobness, I've been playing for a few years now and only recently have I become more interested in the intricate mathematics of building a ship &/or character... and now that I'm finding myself looking through the forums for info like this I still find myself lost somewhat.... it's not the math that eludes me so much as the acronyms... "GW III / FBP III / AP-A / FoMM" I have no idea what any of those are.
Also I am not skilled enough to recognise the Consoles / Gear from the ICONS shown on the screen shots...
Would I be asking too much to request that you please clarify the acronyms ans list the gear by name?
Thanks - Nice build by the way ... I recently got extremely lucky and obtained that Sci Vessel and I'd like to start working my way to such a build
I've put Iskandus build as good as I could on the skillplanner which can be found here.
Please do mind, it's not my build, it's Iskandus. All credits for a good build go to him.
Note 2: it might not be up to date.
I recommend Elite Fleet Hyper-Charged Warp Core Mk XII [Eff][W->A][ECap][AMP][Trans]
The major difference being instead Shield Power cap to 130, it's Engine Power now capping at 130 instead. W->A attribute is particularly useful when the ship goes into A2B because as the Weapon Power is energized to maximum, it creates a feedback loop reinforcing the Auxiliary power, which helps to prevent Aux becoming offline due to over-drain that sometimes happen. Notice, I haven't used a single Aux battery because this new Warp Core drastically reduce the occurrence of Aux being offline during A2B.
Because this build emphasizes on max power to all subsystems, it greatly benefits from the AMP effect, which adds +13.2% to its damage across the board.
You'll also notice the build now uses Tractor Beam Repulsors III as its Commander Science ability. The reason being with many of the Sci powers being broken or nerfed to complete useless, this is one of the few left that are actually useful in PvE or PvP. TBR can really carry a punch and works great in both high Aux and low Aux environment, in particular when the ship goes into A2B. Against the Crystalline Entity, it will constantly hit at the CE for 10 sec and push away the large Fragments that may collide with you.
I've always used TBR even when it was basically the only science ability I used. Now I spend more and more time on my sci captain. I find the combination of ES2 with FBP2 and GW3 effective against the Borg. Now that my Sci captain has advanced to level 3 omega rep I've outfitted her ship with the assimilated module and the cutting beam.
I don't know if sci abilities are nerfed or not, but I'm getting the 11 BNP's on infected elite about 50 percent of the time (more than my main character, a tac captain)
I used to pooh pooh science abilities. You may now consider me converted lol
This is a bad TRIBBLE ship!
I recommend Elite Fleet Hyper-Charged Warp Core Mk XII [Eff][W->A][ECap][AMP][Trans]
The major difference being instead Shield Power cap to 130, it's Engine Power now capping at 130 instead. W->A attribute is particularly useful when the ship goes into A2B because as the Weapon Power is energized to maximum, it creates a feedback loop reinforcing the Auxiliary power, which helps to prevent Aux becoming offline due to over-drain that sometimes happen. Notice, I haven't used a single Aux battery because this new Warp Core drastically reduce the occurrence of Aux being offline during A2B.
Because this build emphasizes on max power to all subsystems, it greatly benefits from the AMP effect, which adds +13.2% to its damage across the board.
You'll also notice the build now uses Tractor Beam Repulsors III as its Commander Science ability. The reason being with many of the Sci powers being broken or nerfed to complete useless, this is one of the few left that are actually useful in PvE or PvP. TBR can really carry a punch and works great in both high Aux and low Aux environment, in particular when the ship goes into A2B. Against the Crystalline Entity, it will constantly hit at the CE for 10 sec and push away the large Fragments that may collide with you.
Can't say I've played the crystalline entity levels all the time though I have in the past. In the beginning of this build I added A2B and have had it available ever since.
Maybe it's the nature of the build, but I find that a few seconds after I begin firing, the aux power level raises on its own to maximum. I usually pop A2W to keep my DPS at maximum effectiveness (around 1400 per beam bank), but I've found that under normal combat conditions the power levels all raise by themselves to maximum, therefore making A2B not necessary, for me anyway.
I notice from your screenshot you have RSP in your arsenal and I would definitely find that useful so maybe I'll switch it someday. For right now I'm pleased with the setup as it is, especially with my sci captain! This build probably is best for a sci character but my main toon is tactical and the ship does well there too.
Can't say I've played the crystalline entity levels all the time though I have in the past. In the beginning of this build I added A2B and have had it available ever since.
Maybe it's the nature of the build, but I find that a few seconds after I begin firing, the aux power level raises on its own to maximum. I usually pop A2W to keep my DPS at maximum effectiveness (around 1400 per beam bank), but I've found that under normal combat conditions the power levels all raise by themselves to maximum, therefore making A2B not necessary, for me anyway.
I notice from your screenshot you have RSP in your arsenal and I would definitely find that useful so maybe I'll switch it someday. For right now I'm pleased with the setup as it is, especially with my sci captain! This build probably is best for a sci character but my main toon is tactical and the ship does well there too.
Sorry for the late reply. First of all, this ship is build around maximizing all subsystem power whenever possible. The reason why you are seeing a progressive power buff is due to two things: 1) Your Energy Siphon kicks in 2) Plasmonic Leech starts to siphon energy from your target and channel them to you
The raison d'etre of A2B in a build where power maximization is not difficult is in fact to reduce the CD time of boff abilities whereas power boost is secondary. I should have explained the intent of A2B more clearly since this obviously led to confusion among some people as to what does a Science vessel do with A2B?
RSP is mostly practical in a PvP or in a situation where you have a high risk of getting gangked such as a whole fleet of Tholian swarms or nasty Klingons who like ambush people in Kerrat. Also, if a RSP is used in the build, then A2B becomes mandatory or else its CD time become too long.
One of the earlier criticism of this build is that this thread was built around a Tactical Captain in a Sci ship. It was also revealed later that I have in fact started a Science Captain toon who happened to get lucky and got a Wells of his own from a Temporal lockbox lottery - Ludavix is his name. I have sidelined him for some time doing nothing at all until recently when it became apparent that PvP in STO will die soon. Happy to report I have finally started to level him up the Reputation tree as of yesterday even though he is still at Tier 0 everywhere. His gear is as basic as one can get, only the generic deflector, engines and shields : Bare bone Sci Wells with Sci Captain Even the flow capacitor are the plain ones bought from the Exchange since Ludavix doesn't have the fleet credit to buy the gear from the Embassy yet and he doesn't have the EC to get any Field Generator Mk XII either. With Tier 0 in Reputation everywhere and such basic gear, you think he'd be toast in Elite STF. Well, it turns out, he is beating fully leveled and geared ships easily, see proofs :
CE (Elite) is considered one of the hardest STF out there, some think it's undoable. Take my fleet, a large one, for example, I am not aware of anyone else doing it. They do all kind of eSTF but skip the CE (Elite). If they do it, it's only on Normal difficulty, not the Elite version. I pug it all the time, just wasn't sure how Ludavix would fare in it with such basic gear and no reputation bonus at all. I probably played CE Elite around 6 or 7 times since starting Ludavix on his reputation grind. In no event did he finish outside of Top 3 in every instance and to be sure, he doesn't finish 1st every time either. But given the consistency of his placements and winning quite many times, I say it's pretty impressive for a Sci Captain who is just starting out and not relying on any fancy gear or items or ability. Notice in both screenshots, the crew are pretty much all dead even thought the ship and shields are intact. That's because, compared to Iskan's ship who has the benefit of Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus to protect it, Ludavix is using a free deflector dish and a shield that cost merely 60K on the Exchange. To be honest, I was surprised myself too he is doing so well.
Suffice to say, Ludavix's ship will look very different a month or two from now. In fact, I can tell you his ship will look quite a bit different from that of Iskan, including Energy Type and gear. I'd say they would be different in as much as 80% of their gear & equipment & weapons. The fundamental principles will not change, there will not be any use of Tactical stations as it is already shown in these screenshots - and will continue in the tradition of Pure Science, though some of the elements under review is the use of A2B. As can be seen already, the ship is already kicking TRIBBLE without A2B at Tier 0 in Reputation. It may be possible to optimize a Sci Ship commanded by a Sci Captain without using A2B. I will need to run more testing but so far this looks promising.
Sorry for the late reply. First of all, this ship is build around maximizing all subsystem power whenever possible. The reason why you are seeing a progressive power buff is due to two things: 1) Your Energy Siphon kicks in 2) Plasmonic Leech starts to siphon energy from your target and channel them to you
The raison d'etre of A2B in a build where power maximization is not difficult is in fact to reduce the CD time of boff abilities whereas power boost is secondary. I should have explained the intent of A2B more clearly since this obviously led to confusion among some people as to what does a Science vessel do with A2B?
RSP is mostly practical in a PvP or in a situation where you have a high risk of getting gangked such as a whole fleet of Tholian swarms or nasty Klingons who like ambush people in Kerrat. Also, if a RSP is used in the build, then A2B becomes mandatory or else its CD time become too long.
One of the earlier criticism of this build is that this thread was built around a Tactical Captain in a Sci ship. It was also revealed later that I have in fact started a Science Captain toon who happened to get lucky and got a Wells of his own from a Temporal lockbox lottery - Ludavix is his name. I have sidelined him for some time doing nothing at all until recently when it became apparent that PvP in STO will die soon. Happy to report I have finally started to level him up the Reputation tree as of yesterday even though he is still at Tier 0 everywhere. His gear is as basic as one can get, only the generic deflector, engines and shields : Bare bone Sci Wells with Sci Captain Even the flow capacitor are the plain ones bought from the Exchange since Ludavix doesn't have the fleet credit to buy the gear from the Embassy yet and he doesn't have the EC to get any Field Generator Mk XII either. With Tier 0 in Reputation everywhere and such basic gear, you think he'd be toast in Elite STF. Well, it turns out, he is beating fully leveled and geared ships easily, see proofs :
CE (Elite) is considered one of the hardest STF out there, some think it's undoable. Take my fleet, a large one, for example, I am not aware of anyone else doing it. They do all kind of eSTF but skip the CE (Elite). If they do it, it's only on Normal difficulty, not the Elite version. I pug it all the time, just wasn't sure how Ludavix would fare in it with such basic gear and no reputation bonus at all. I probably played CE Elite around 6 or 7 times since starting Ludavix on his reputation grind. In no event did he finish outside of Top 3 in every instance and to be sure, he doesn't finish 1st every time either. But given the consistency of his placements and winning quite many times, I say it's pretty impressive for a Sci Captain who is just starting out and not relying on any fancy gear or items or ability. Notice in both screenshots, the crew are pretty much all dead even thought the ship and shields are intact. That's because, compared to Iskan's ship who has the benefit of Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus to protect it, Ludavix is using a free deflector dish and a shield that cost merely 60K on the Exchange. To be honest, I was surprised myself too he is doing so well.
Suffice to say, Ludavix's ship will look very different a month or two from now. In fact, I can tell you his ship will look quite a bit different from that of Iskan, including Energy Type and gear. I'd say they would be different in as much as 80% of their gear & equipment & weapons. The fundamental principles will not change, there will not be any use of Tactical stations as it is already shown in these screenshots - and will continue in the tradition of Pure Science, though some of the elements under review is the use of A2B. As can be seen already, the ship is already kicking TRIBBLE without A2B at Tier 0 in Reputation. It may be possible to optimize a Sci Ship commanded by a Sci Captain without using A2B. I will need to run more testing but so far this looks promising.
Welcome back!
I'm still having lots of fun on both my main character and my sci captain.
The other day I got the eleven BNP's on my main captain, switched to my sci captain, and got the eleven on that one too! My science captains name is Rebbeca and she's getting the eleven on infected the conduit elite more often than not! She just made tier 4 omega rep and is grinding out the omega torpedo which should be done tonight.
I've gotten into the habit of using ES plus GW3 plus FBP2 at once to attack the cube with good results. As for gear I used my main captain to go to memory alpha and make up an Aegis set for her, and with the omega torpedo she's good to go.
However she still uses plasma weapons so at some point I may switch to tetryon, but, as the saying goes, don't argue with success.
I should also add that when I get the eleven BNP's there is usually a Scimitar or some behemoth ship loaded with cannons and all the bells and whistles. This is a great build and I'll be playing it for some time to come!
By the way I sent you a friend request from my main toon
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch." "We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Passion and Serenity are one.
I gain power by understanding both.
In the chaos of their battle, I bring order.
I am a shadow, darkness born from light.
The Force is united within me.
not only that, it can also be considered naming and shaming, which is against forum rules...so yeah, i'd remove that if i were you
The said poster went into a private PvP, in which you can see he cloaked in the middle of the battle. After being told doing so is considered forfeit, he continued to do so. You can see he has no regard for rules or fair play, therefore, breaking forum post rules would obviously be fairly low priority on his list.
He is obviously proud breaking rules and thinking doing so will gather him a lot of attention, that's why he chose to come to this thread. Suffice to say, he is wrong. He will get attention, just not the type he wants. Furthermore, I can confirm that the Combat Log and Parsing failed to show many of the hits that were supposed to be registering, which you can see in the youtube clip, I was already questioning after the first match. Draw whatever conclusion you want from this, I will no longer be playing with this person and I advise others to do the same - this person just wants attention, nothing more. We all know what will happen next so don't waste your time with this person, ignore him here and in game, this is the best course of action.
The said poster went into a private PvP, in which you can see he cloaked in the middle of the battle. After being told doing so is considered forfeit, he continued to do so. You can see he has no regard for rules or fair play, therefore, breaking forum post rules would obviously be fairly low priority on his list.
He is obviously proud breaking rules and thinking doing so will gather him a lot of attention, that's why he chose to come to this thread. Suffice to say, he is wrong. He will get attention, just not the type he wants. Furthermore, I can confirm that the Combat Log and Parsing failed to show many of the hits that were supposed to be registering, which you can see in the youtube clip, I was already questioning after the first match. Draw whatever conclusion you want from this, I will no longer be playing with this person and I advise others to do the same - this person just wants attention, nothing more. We all know what will happen next so don't waste your time with this person, ignore him here and in game, this is the best course of action.
The said poster went into a private PvP, in which you can see he cloaked in the middle of the battle. After being told doing so is considered forfeit, he continued to do so. You can see he has no regard for rules or fair play, therefore, breaking forum post rules would obviously be fairly low priority on his list.
Riddle me this...
If 5 Romulans (which all have battle cloaks) were to fight 5 feds in their dual A2B BFAW cruisers, would that be considered cheating as well?
Using your ship the way it was meant to be can hardly be called cheating or disregarding rules.
What do we get next? A ban on Elachi weapons for the extra shield bypass?
And from what I can tell from the clip you pinned you down with tractor beam which killed your defense. That, the lack of TT to compensate shields and his fully buffed 7 beams can explain the reason you died imho.
Edit: forgot the decloak buff + possible boffs and their traits.
If 5 Romulans (which all have battle cloaks) were to fight 5 feds in their dual A2B BFAW cruisers, would that be considered cheating as well?
Using your ship the way it was meant to be can hardly be called cheating or disregarding rules.
Good question, so I'll answer this. One of the reason why cloaking during a private PvP is considered forfeiting is because you can cloak, run away and regenerate your hull, which is precisely what happened here. As you can see, the said person's hull fell to 34% or so, immediately cloaked and ran away. This is considered forfeiting. Additionally, if both ships have cloak, this would be endless. Then the question becomes what would have happened if the said player did not cloak and ran away, what would have happened? Unequivocally, he would have died given his hull was buckling badly already while mine were at 99-100% with full shields.
I didn't make those rules to be sure. This derived from the PvP community's experience ever since STO exist and elite PvPers accept there are actions you shouldn't take to waste people's times or engage in foul play. I created this thread to be cheese free and have always made fair play a centerpiece here. If you are looking for cheesy build and tactics where one could score 100K+ damage in 2 seconds, this is really the wrong place for you. There are even threads where you can go to find about all the latest exploits and bugs, this is not the place for it and I am not interested in catering to people who are excited about these mechanics.
What do we get next? A ban on Elachi weapons for the extra shield bypass?
These are two separate issues.
And from what I can tell from the clip you pinned you down with tractor beam which killed your defense. That, the lack of TT to compensate shields and his fully buffed 7 beams can explain the reason you died imho.
Your explanation is overly simplified. He was cloaked while I was wondering where the hell he went. I wasn't even sure if he was still in game or not. To be honest, it caught me totally off guard, my bad - I was confused. I have encountered hundreds of decloaked alpha before and defeated those easily, you think he invented this? Clearly, there was something more to it.
Anyway, I am far from invincible, I am just a casual player who believes in fair play and I hope my thread can continued be used solely for the purpose of sharing build tips on the Pure Science style with fellow Federation Captains and I thank Bran for intervening and bring us back on track.
Good question, so I'll answer this. One of the reason why cloaking during a private PvP is considered forfeiting is because you can cloak, run away and regenerate your hull, which is precisely what happened here. As you can see, the said person's hull fell to 34% or so, immediately cloaked and ran away. This is considered forfeiting. Additionally, if both ships have cloak, this would be endless. Then the question becomes what would have happened if the said player did not cloak and ran away, what would have happened? Unequivocally, he would have died given his hull was buckling badly already while mine were at 99-100% with full shields.
No offense, but you didn't answer the question. How would 5 cloakers vs 5 BFAW boats look like? Come to think of it, a scenario even worse; 5 cloaked boats like his running BFAW vs 5 BFAW Fleet Assault Cruisers or Fleet Avengers..
Is there a rule in place that specifies the ratio of cloakers vs non cloak?
Don't get me wrong, I understand that it can be very frustrating to fight a cloaked ship but STO wouldn't be ST without the cloak.
I didn't make those rules to be sure. This derived from the PvP community's experience ever since STO exist and elite PvPers accept there are actions you shouldn't take to waste people's times or engage in foul play. I created this thread to be cheese free and have always made fair play a centerpiece here. If you are looking for cheesy build and tactics where one could score 100K+ damage in 2 seconds, this is really the wrong place for you. There are even threads where you can go to find about all the latest exploits and bugs, this is not the place for it and I am not interested in catering to people who are excited about these mechanics.
How come? Both are build into the game by Cryptic and many believe they are some form of hax as there is very little you can do except bring alot of A2SIF, HE and ET.
Your explanation is overly simplified. He was cloaked while I was wondering where the hell he went. I wasn't even sure if he was still in game or not. To be honest, it caught me totally off guard, my bad - I was confused. I have encountered hundreds of decloaked alpha before and defeated those easily, you think he invented this? Clearly, there was something more to it.
Anyway, I am far from invincible, I am just a casual player who believes in fair play and I hope my thread can continued be used solely for the purpose of sharing build tips on the Pure Science style with fellow Federation Captains and I thank Bran for intervening and bring us back on track.
I'm not saying he invented it, I'm just saying he is using it properly. And alpha strikes come in 2 different forms, pinned or unpinned. Unpinned the damage would be much less severe.
Combine pinned and AP weapons (if I'm correct) with possibly the CritD/CritH consoles and you've got yourself a one shot crit hitter again.
No offense, but you didn't answer the question. How would 5 cloakers vs 5 BFAW boats look like? Come to think of it, a scenario even worse; 5 cloaked boats like his running BFAW vs 5 BFAW Fleet Assault Cruisers or Fleet Avengers..
Is there a rule in place that specifies the ratio of cloakers vs non cloak?
Cloaking is allowed in 5 vs. 5 Arena matches. It is only considered forfeit in private matches of 1 vs 1 for the reasons already stated. If you cloak in a 1vs1, you forfeited and is thus considered the loser, end of story. I think you should have done your homework first before asking your rhetorical question.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that it can be very frustrating to fight a cloaked ship but STO wouldn't be ST without the cloak.
Don't get me wrong, I think you should have understood we are not talking about any arena matches or for that matter, that cloaking be banned. That's because you failed to make the distinction between 1 vs 1 challenge and general 5 vs. 5 Arena matches. They are not the same thing.
At such high SDR, you can see all cloaked ships easily within 10KM and more with the help of Tachyon Detection Field. However, you will not see this ship in 1 vs 1 challenges because it only functions while cloaked, suitable for Kerrat or Arena group matches. If someone asked me for 1 vs 1 challenges in Kerrat, I change toon and ship into a non-cloaking ship. Many Kerrat regulars do the same. They have their vapers for Kerrat but specify the ship isn't used for 1 vs 1, especially the Klingons. That's why people have multiple toons and ships. Nobody brings a vaper to a 1 vs 1 as a Vaper requires extensive cloaking and opportunistic decloaking - at the very least, if a vaper is used, then they foregoe the cloaking aspect.
Furthermore, a Sci ship can also bring abilities such as Charged Particle Burst or Photonic Shockwave or Gravity Well to counter the cloaks. It's actually very easy to fight a cloaker these days, that is if you are expecting it, especially with GW III + aftershocks. You can chain GW III + After Shock constantly with A2B and its AOE is so large that cloaked ships will be unable to maintain their cloak. Here is the problem: Not expecting any cloaking trouble in a private 1 vs 1, I didn't have GW. Had I known this was going to be an issue, you bet I would have brought it.
How come? Both are build into the game by Cryptic and many believe they are some form of hax as there is very little you can do except bring alot of A2SIF, HE and ET.
Elachi weapons has a 2.5% proc and 5 sec internal CD for one single shot that hits. Phaser proc is in fact far more popular than the Elachi weapons because Phaser can disable your shields for several seconds allowing all your shots to hit hull directly. Elachi proc is strictly limited to that one single shot and cannot happen more than once every 5 seconds. In fact, there was a dig at Elachi Weapon in the PvP forum about using Elachi Turret - the turret fires so rapidly that using Elachi Turret, causing them to proc every 5 sec or so shut down all other procs for every other weapon except that single turret volley. In other words, it's being ridiculed as close to useless when used with Turret.
As far as I am aware, there is no discussion about disallowing them in 1 vs 1 Challenges or any Arena or C&H matches. I never had any issue with Elachi weapons nor have I ever heard anyone suggesting they are hax. Rather, I think you need to back up your claim with a cite or link to a thread with discussion about them being hax, in order to show you didn't just make this up.
I'm not saying he invented it, I'm just saying he is using it properly. And alpha strikes come in 2 different forms, pinned or unpinned. Unpinned the damage would be much less severe.
Combine pinned and AP weapons (if I'm correct) with possibly the CritD/CritH consoles and you've got yourself a one shot crit hitter again.
I feel I am repeating myself over and over because you refused to understand cloaking in the middle of a 1 vs 1 challenge in order to save yourself from dying = cheating / forfeit. It's a part of the code of conduct for fair play in 1 vs 1 challenges only - making it clear it doesn't apply to group matches. I wouldn't play anyone who doesn't believe in fair play.
In a 1 vs 1 challenge when both ships are cloaked, how are you supposed to play? Do you ask the other person to delcoak first so that you can alpha him? Or should he say: "No, you first?" Worse, when somebody cloaked for an extensively long period of time, leaving you hanging there and wandering around doing nothing, you are supposed to wait there wondering - did he leave or something? Use your common sense to guide you, instead of asking why? why? why? in a pushy manner when you are only asking rhetorical question, that's just going to put the person you asked feel like you already have an answer/opinion, why are you asking?
With that, that's the end of our conversation. If you have any more objections regarding use of cloak in the middle of a 1 vs 1 challenge, please refer to the PvP forum. You can start a thread asking people there their views. This discussion is off topic and shall be the end of it.
Comments
Coincidentally, the predecessor to the Pure Science build uses a very similar set up as yours, see the screenshot here : USS Infinity
This one dated from the first days of LoR. It uses the Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp fore while the Experimental Plasma Beam Array in the aft.
For a very long time, I flew under the set up shown above so I can speak knowledgeably about the build you are thinking of.
- Romulan Hyper Plasma Torp on the rear can be a very logical fit for some builds because it then becomes a great defensive weapon given how each shot fires 3 torps
- The Hyper Plasma Torp can also be used to clear pursuing spams such as mines or Cluster torp or other pets
- Downside of the Hyper Plasma torp is that they pose a significant risk of doing splash damage to yourself, if used as a fore weapon, less so as a rear weapon
- The Hyper Plasma Torp is excellent for PvE but with more limited use in PvP due to them being destructible projectile and move relatively slowly
- Romulan Experimental Beam Array pretty much requires you to have a Plasma build or use it as a stand-alone energy weapon on an otherwise torpedo boat so the question is : Do you want to specialize into a plasma build?
- Wells is maneuverable enough to equip DBB in lieu of Beam Arrays, if you place the Exp. Beam Array in rear, it means not all your weapons will be able fire from the same direction unless you turn yourself into a Beam Boat, which you aren't given you already have the Hyper Plasma Torp installed. Anytime you have a weapon sitting idle doing nothing is essentially lost dps. You have to ask yourself, do you want to sacrifice DPS here just to use this special beam array?
- The zero-point energy console is a very useful and practical console, the only question I'd ask is whether you have the room for it or not
- The Plasma Hyperflux can be surprisingly powerful even though it has a somewhat long CD. It is not as powerful as a real BO but the side effect (decreased damage resistance) and plasma DoT are nice to have. The question is whether the opportunity cost to have this ability by being forced to have all 3 of the above mentioned items worth the trouble or not?
1) Particle Generator skills, unlike Flow Capacitors skill, have very significant diminished returns the higher you go. By slotting 4 PG consoles will not buff your exotic damage much at all, let alone "A LOT". How do I know? I already tested it myself and have screenshots as proof :
FBP II
PG = 144, Aux = 130, FBP II = 0.72
PG = 271, Aux = 130, FBP II = 0.89
FBP III
PG = 144, Aux = 130, FBP III = 0.90
PG = 271, Aux = 130, FBP III = 1.10
As you can see, PG skills nearly double with 4 X Embassy Mk XII PG consoles but the overall FBP deflecting factor barely moved. FBP II moved by a negligible 17%, while FBP III moved up by 20% - that is after spending a total of 4 precious console slots on this skill. Know that only 50% of the said increase will actually go through shields, so for FBP II, the net gain of adding these 4 Consoles = an additional hull damage of merely 8.5% to the target - can't possibly find a more spectacular waste of console slots than this.
Put this another way, FBP II with 4 X Embassy Mk XII PG consoles will end up having a lower deflecting factor than a FBP III with zero PG console - the diminishing returns can't be more blatant. Anyone who have been playing with all these extra PG consoles thinking they have boosted their exotic damage by a lot are sadly mistaken because they didn't bother testing before playing.
Finally, if I want a high FBP deflecting factor, I don't need any PG consoles, just see here :
PG = 144, Aux = 130, FBP III = 1.60
By using my Captain's abilities, I can boost the deflecting factor of FBP III from 0.90 to 1.60, that is 350% more efficient than wasting slots on 4 PG consoles. In other words, even if I could possibly fit 10 X Embassy PG Consoles onto the ship, which is impossible anyway, I would still have a far lower FBP deflecting factor than just buffing FBP with my Captains' abilities.
As shown above, PG consoles are an exercise of futility when your PG skill is already above 100. Anyone reading this thread, whatever you do, don't waste your Science console slots on PG consoles.
2) "Also, plasma infused ones from the Fleet Embassy for more hull eating damage!"
You really need to start doing some calculation in lieu of speaking in such generality :
2.5% chance of 111.2 plasma damage per sec for 15 seconds
Assuming proc happens, the damage = 111.2 additional DPS
Given 2.5% of proc chance : 111.2 X 2.5% = effective additional DPS = 2.78
Really, an miniscule effective increase in DPS of merely 2.78 = "more hull eating damage"?
The Plasma Infused consoles are helpful when your build is a Plasma build, anything else, the proc chance is just a waste of time as can be seen from the calculation above. The downside of Plasma Build in PvP is that many end-game shields have an inherent 20% Plasma Damage resist, even higher with Resist B Elite Fleet Shields. These inherent resists pretty much neglect any damage boost you may get from these Plasma Infused consoles.
3) "That will buff A LOT all your exotic dmg (Gravity Well..."
I guess you are not aware so here goes nothing, Gravity Well II and III are currently bugged as they do not benefit from PG skill or Aux power :
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=846611
Therefore, all those PG consoles will have zero effect on the damage. Even the proposed fix on Tribble calls for diminished returns of PG and Aux power because the developer fear it will make GW too powerful.
So no, your claim that these PG consoles will buff "A LOT" GW is simply false at this time. In any event, I did not propose the use of GW in the recommended PvP build, so the point is pretty moot one way or the other.
4) "With 20k shields you'll need a TSS3 to keep that monstruosity up. With 10k shields you're better and you can get rid of TSS3 in exchange for some lt.com more useful skill (example, FBP2 at max aux. with 250 partic will reflect 90% of incoming dmg). But basically this, if you're into sci damage, you'll want 4 partigens, which are like our tactical consoles for sci"
I...don't know how you make a 10K shields out of a Wells... Even without slotting any Field Generator consoles, my shield facing is 17K each : USS Utopia without any Field Generator Console
You have to botch your Wells build completely to get a 10K shielding out of a Wells. If there is a race towards the lowest shield possible, I am certainly not aware of one - better just to remove your shield completely if that bothers you so much.
But let's compare TSS II to TSS III to see the difference for educational purposes :
TSS II : Aux = 130, 1076 Shield Regen + 307 per sec for 15 sec
TSS III : Aux = 130, 1345 Shield Regen + 383 per sec for 15 sec
Total Heals per Facing : TSS II = 5681 ; TSS III = 7090
Difference = 1409 per facing
Shielding per Facing = 27K
1409 / 27K = 5.2%
Conclusion : While 5% increase in shield heal is significant, it is by no means build breaking given the build also specs 3 additional shield heals via EptS, ST and RSP. TSS II working with EPtS I, ST I, RSP II along with maintaining Shield Power at 130 will have no trouble keeping the shields up short of extreme circumstances.
I appreciate your feedback but I respectfully disagree. Generally speaking, most of these skills aren't very impactful. They are all in the same boat. It's not just Warp Core potential or efficiency, pick any skills and the same can be said about each of them. In allocating these skill points, it pretty much turns into which skill sucks less than the other. In other words, if you don't allocate as much points into the above said skills, could you have allocated those points elsewhere to make them more impactful for the chosen build? My answer is a resounding negative. If you feel you could have allocated the points differently and make the build better, by all means, please show us how you would have allocated the points differently and let us critique your choices.
pst...btw, the table you linked contained seriously outdated information. You may want to stop referring to it. There is a more up to date table in the PvP forum, do a search and you can find it.
We are going to have to agree to disagree. Sci ships do not need Aux power at 130 at all times because your Sci skills have down time and not all Sci skills are Aux dependent. Furthermore, Sci skills are dependent on Aux power only during activation, not the whole time that the said skill is active. In other words, you could hit Energy Siphon at Aux 130, which will make it last 24 seconds, even if you were to hit A2B 3 seconds later, the duration of the ES will not change as can be seen on your ES icon count down timer. Many people have tested this build with A2B and it works very well for them as well. In any event, this ship carries Auxiliary Batteries for a reason, precisely to deal with some situations where A2B can't be timed perfectly with certain Aux dependent skills. Large Aux Batteries provide +100 Aux power, along with Energy Siphon and boost from Plasmonic Leech, this is more than sufficient to cover most situations.
That would be unnecessary. You probably only read the last few posts and skipped the beginning of this thread. One of the primary characteristic of this build is this : Weapons Power = 125 (150 with resistance buff), Shields Power = 130, Engines Power = 125, Auxiliary Power = 130
In combat, this vessel is capable of sustaining maximum power to all 4 subsystems. Others were able to independently duplicate my results, thereby confirming this is doable.
You are recommending a Torpedo boat build but a few sentences earlier you were selling the benefits of having Plasma Infused Embassy consoles. These two recommendations conflict each other because the Plasma Infused proc only works on Energy weapons and the DoT aspect of Plasma Torpedo, not its kinetic damage. Perhaps you want to review your recommendations to make sure they don't conflict each other?
This build already has the Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus to Torpedo from Adapted MACO Shield & Deflector. I would not recommend the Adapted MACO Engines due to it being a Combat Impulse Engine that doesn't do very well at high Engine power. Given this vessel maintains very high engine power, the only logical choice of engine is Hyper Impulse Engines.
Lastly, you are thinking about Tetryon Glider but it is already covered and analyzed here : http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=12283061&postcount=113
Simply put, Tetryon Glider works better on a rapid firing Escort or a BFAW Cruiser with 8 Beams. On a Science vessel with no special tactical ability, it is simply not worth the trouble.
So far, the only diminishing return properly speaking exists in the damage resistance gained from damage resistance magnitudes (as they come in consoles, boff, doffs...). What you have here is just different abilities intentionally programed to gain different bonus damage from their respective skills until its cap (which in your example, FBP, is 90% damage reflection for FBP2 and 110% for FBP3)...
As you have noticed, the difference goes to 70% to 90% damage reflection, which is what I'd personally call it A LOT, but that's a matter of taste, I guess. You've also noticed that FBP 2 with partigens equals a FBP3 without it, so in that A LOT I may also include gaining a Commander ability using FBP2 instead of 3.
As I said, tho, it's a matter of taste and considerations. While, unlike me that I am a sci, you're flying a tac-wells and you can use your captain skills to buff a copy of FBP3 to 160% damage reflexion, I call it useless since FBP is by itself one of the most extremely situational skills in this game, basically a burst-damage supressor and the best alpha-striker killer so far.
Anyway, while usually an exotic damage build is not a damage spike build by definition (which is mainly control-disable with high pressure damage) I can understand if you're running a mix of particle and flow build, you're exotic damage window is quite reduced so you may choose adding some spike moments using your tac abilities. Very good. But that would discharge FBP for a build like that, at least outside PVP.
You're missing other imporant and way less situational particle damage dealers than FBP, as a GW3 which goes from 1200 without partigens to 1500 kinetic damage per second, usually working (in pvp) in combo with TB1 which also get its boost from 100 to 160 kinetic damage per tic. Again, usually combined with Eject Warp Plasma, which gets a 100% shield ignoring damage per sec from 300 to 400 kinetic damage per second. Or Isometric Charge, that goes from 20.5k to 27.5k in its last hit (that's even used by many tac-escorts capable to stack 2-3 partigens).
Etc, etc. So, when I say A LOT I mean at its best.
Some typicals myths here and there, my friend. First of all, the reputation shields (MACO's, Omega...) have indeed a 20% resistance against plasma energy weapons (ResB is 15%, not higher, but whatever). The build I'm suggesting is based on plasma torp, which has nothing to do with that plasma energy resistance.
As for the bug in GW, it does benefit from particles, I don't know where did you read that. In fact, it benefit too much from particles for its damage, so is that that it's currently being nerfed in tribble. Bug in the tooltip refers to the ability not being propertly getting benefit from the aux level (which is also being fixed in tribble along with the nerf in its particle damage). Read your own link...
Of course I can get 17k with my wells if I put a covariant shield such as the Adapted Water, I mean Maco :P 17k of pure water surrounding your ship, that's it. Before LoR nobody, nor even the klinks with their KHG used a TRIBBLE such a shield with 10% bleedthrough. Now with so many build, weapons and combos that specialized in shield ignoring damage, much less you should... Instead, I have 12k with my adapt resilient (and yes, resB). And yes, I'm way more shield tanking.
As for TSS3, you're right, I forgot to mention an obvious copy of epts 1. But look, right now your maxed shield power, plus those two skills puts you more on less in a 60% shield damage reduction when both abilities are up (max power x tss2 x epts1, 0.65 x 0.78 x 0.78 = 0.39), while you can reach the 75% cap with your blind eyes if you just use a adapt elite shield...
I mentioned efficiency skills (warp core, potential, x (shield/weps, etc.) efficiency, etc.) which are in the group of the less efficient skills. In the contrary, the group of most efficient skills are those that gives you dmg resistances, which are the only resource of direct damage rating gaining not affected by the diminishing returns the game has (appart from some accolades and some very neglictible special traits in special races like joined trills...) Skills like threat control gives you a very considerable all damage resistance bonus, and instead of wasting thousands of points in efficiency skills wich gives nothing noticiable past 3 points, you may also want armor reinforcements, which at 6 points grants you a final 10% kinetic dmg resistance (or 12% at 9 points, which is still a lot compared with the low ganance of other skills, but expensive as an admiral skill). Yeah, and not to mention weapons specs (admirals too), which gives you 25% critical severity :rolleyes:
As for the table itself, it is updated with the latest skill tree, of course, will always have flaws, but it's sticked in the front page in the PVP forum... If you really have a better table, you may also want to share it
Well mate, if you can sustain all that levels at all time, you got me. But if you can't have your 130 aux all the time, it is pointless for a pure particle damage build, since like I said, they're not about burst but control+pressure damage. But again, that's just a difference in our build, since you're particle damage window is lower than mine and you can burst your particle damage in those more specific windows, I guess... So same goes for the use of a2b! Well done here, sir!
Basically... false. Plasma Infused consoles from Fleet Embassy adds the same proc to any kind of weapon, including torps and mines. In fact, with plasma torp (same for plasma energy) the proc from the weapon and the proc from the console stacks. Yeah, here and there, you finally get lots of hull eating damage after all
Oh, and dont forget, romulan torpedo and romulan experimental beam behind, for the systems targeting, they both add even more bonus damage to plasma weps along with adapted maco engines + deflector to the torps. Two sets, one single purpose: tons of boooms!
Edit: Nevermind, tetryon glider's not a proc.
I'm not a big fan of pvp. That may be sacrilege for some to hear, but I mainly stick to fleet actions and PVE's (infected conduit elite is my fave).
I've run plasma setups in many ships and find it quite adequate in terms of DPS. There is an embassy sci console that helps with plasma DPS although that is for non plasma weapons.
In my fleet Prometheus (my main ship) I routinely get the 11 BNP's on infected and I use the Borg cube as a test of a new setup. If I can kill it by myself then I know I'm on the right track.
With the wells I've gotten 6 BNP's once but usually I get one. I'm optimistic about that though because my tactics are evolving being used to DPS laden escorts. On the positive side I'm not dying like I used to ( the drawback of an escort weak hull), and the Wells is a sweet ship! I may switch to plasma to experiment and see what happens, but for now I'll keep the setup I have. If I were to switch weapon type, which is best? It's my understanding that plasma is best against the Borg.
Ok I've been working on this for the past week. I've removed the romulan set and replaced them with omega torp fore and two fleet tetryon turrets rear. I bit the bullet and sprang for all purple mk xii field generator consoles. This ship is EXACTLY as you recommend . I'm generally happy with the result although as an DPS laden escort captain it's a challenge to do with science abilities what used to be done with straight pew pew pew.
I'm thinking about modifications that I wanted to run past you that I haven't seen being mentioned that maybe need to be. What about the two piece temporal set? God knows that would come in handy! I know this means probably sacrificing a shield console but I have to ask if you've considered this and if so what is your opinion? Rewinding time and reversing damage seems like a good ability to me and the consoles cost enough! Thoughts?
I don't think the 2 pieces temporal set is a good idea. The Mobius console is nicknamed "suicide console", almost no one uses it all because NPCs automatically shoot your past copy and you will die. Temporal Backstep can be useful but its 5 minute CD is too long.
I wouldn't recommend it even in PvE.
If you do mostly PvE, I would recommend using Tyken's Rift III as your Science Commander ability. TR III works great in PvE. You will notice many of the big bosses such as Tactical Cubes will become shiedless, stopping pretty much all your enemies, save for the cheating Donatra.
After some grinding I've acquired the nukara mine weapon which I've put on the rear to complete the nukara space set. I also added a space duty officer that increases damage vs the Borg. I'm pleased to report that the science ship and I won the 11 BNPs in infected elite last night! The combination of tachyon beam plus energy syphon plus gravity well proved most effective after I respeced my flow capacitor and particle generator skill to maximum.
This ship has graduated from work in progress to full fledged butt kicker and is now my main ship. It's been a bit of a slog and a LOT of EC but I am happy with the result. I might even try pvp! Thanks for the inspiration and the advice!
You are very welcome. A note of caution on PvP - it is badly broken at the moment. Just to give a few examples, there is bug affecting CRF such that APA and Tactical Fleet resulted in multiplicative effect on its DPS, making them about 400% more effective than they should. As a result, Escorts can one-shot most ships within 2 seconds. BFaW + DEM is also bugged due to an incorrect cap on weapons power, causing them to fire like Beam Overload at Will
Many of the Sci powers that work great in PvE can be easily countered and are not useful because balanced in not a word in Cryptic's dictionary.
Would any of these bugs and issues ever be fixed? It is doubtful at this point. All we have is a Dev who is on the defensive and partially acknowledged the issues but no offer of timeline or expectation that when or if they will be corrected.
I wouldn't recommend doing PvP in any ship without a Battlecloak unless you have a unkillable tank/cruiser build.
I found a build that suggests antiproton beams and chroniton torpedoes. Since I can't procure high level stuff yet I'd appreciate your thoughts about energy types and stuff that can be procured on the exchange. I. Might open some lock boxes to get the lobi crystals and pick up components for the temporal warfare set but that is also some time off.:D
You can consider the Aegis Set for now : http://sto.gamepedia.com/Aegis_Technological_Research
Aegis used to be the State of Art technology for the best ships in the fleet. However, they have since been surpassed. You can craft Aegis sets at Memory Alpha or purchase them from the exchange directly using EC. Some people like the Elite Fleet Shields, I am somewhat indifferent towards Elite Fleet Shields. However, a reasonable combination is to use Aegis Deflector and Engine for the cool extra +10 Defense, then add an Elite Fleet Shield instead of Aegis Shield. Note that if you do that, you'll lose Set 3 bonus of Reactive Shielding.
Do you have access to Adv. Fleet weapons? If you do, you can start to procure for your end game equipment using Adv. Fleet weapons since those are separate from the reputation system.
Antiproton is a very popular energy type. Prior to adopting Tachyon builds and Transphasic builds, it is my preferred energy type. The caveat of Antiproton weapons is that its Mk XII Tactical consoles (blue & purple) are very expensive. I do not believe Antiproton has any Mk XII purple DBB available for sale on exchange, they simply do not exist for some odd reasons. The only way to procure MK XII purple DBB is through your Fleet Store.
Chroniton Torpedo makes more sense in PvP than in PvE given most of the big boss in PvE barely move or the Chrontion proc simply doesn't work on them, think Donatra, Unimatrix Ship, Queen, Tactical Cubes. Chroniton Torp is otherwise not a popular choice of Torpedo in PvE. They don't hit as hard as Photon or Quantum, don't bypass shields like Transphasics and have long CD time. Prior to getting the Omega Plasma Torp, I would recommend getting a Photon Torpedo at its place. Photon fires very rapidly. With a Projectile doff, if you have space for that, it can fire as fast as 1 per sec. It would be a fair proxy for the Omega Plasma Torp until you can get it.
Result : 1st place @ Crystalline Entity (Elite)
I recommend Elite Fleet Hyper-Charged Warp Core Mk XII [Eff][W->A][ECap][AMP][Trans]
The major difference being instead Shield Power cap to 130, it's Engine Power now capping at 130 instead. W->A attribute is particularly useful when the ship goes into A2B because as the Weapon Power is energized to maximum, it creates a feedback loop reinforcing the Auxiliary power, which helps to prevent Aux becoming offline due to over-drain that sometimes happen. Notice, I haven't used a single Aux battery because this new Warp Core drastically reduce the occurrence of Aux being offline during A2B.
Because this build emphasizes on max power to all subsystems, it greatly benefits from the AMP effect, which adds +13.2% to its damage across the board.
You'll also notice the build now uses Tractor Beam Repulsors III as its Commander Science ability. The reason being with many of the Sci powers being broken or nerfed to complete useless, this is one of the few left that are actually useful in PvE or PvP. TBR can really carry a punch and works great in both high Aux and low Aux environment, in particular when the ship goes into A2B. Against the Crystalline Entity, it will constantly hit at the CE for 10 sec and push away the large Fragments that may collide with you.
At the risk of exposing my complete noobness, I've been playing for a few years now and only recently have I become more interested in the intricate mathematics of building a ship &/or character... and now that I'm finding myself looking through the forums for info like this I still find myself lost somewhat.... it's not the math that eludes me so much as the acronyms... "GW III / FBP III / AP-A / FoMM" I have no idea what any of those are.
Also I am not skilled enough to recognise the Consoles / Gear from the ICONS shown on the screen shots...
Would I be asking too much to request that you please clarify the acronyms ans list the gear by name?
Thanks - Nice build by the way ... I recently got extremely lucky and obtained that Sci Vessel and I'd like to start working my way to such a build
I've put Iskandus build as good as I could on the skillplanner which can be found here.
Please do mind, it's not my build, it's Iskandus. All credits for a good build go to him.
Note 2: it might not be up to date.
I've always used TBR even when it was basically the only science ability I used. Now I spend more and more time on my sci captain. I find the combination of ES2 with FBP2 and GW3 effective against the Borg. Now that my Sci captain has advanced to level 3 omega rep I've outfitted her ship with the assimilated module and the cutting beam.
I don't know if sci abilities are nerfed or not, but I'm getting the 11 BNP's on infected elite about 50 percent of the time (more than my main character, a tac captain)
I used to pooh pooh science abilities. You may now consider me converted lol
This is a bad TRIBBLE ship!
Can't say I've played the crystalline entity levels all the time though I have in the past. In the beginning of this build I added A2B and have had it available ever since.
Maybe it's the nature of the build, but I find that a few seconds after I begin firing, the aux power level raises on its own to maximum. I usually pop A2W to keep my DPS at maximum effectiveness (around 1400 per beam bank), but I've found that under normal combat conditions the power levels all raise by themselves to maximum, therefore making A2B not necessary, for me anyway.
I notice from your screenshot you have RSP in your arsenal and I would definitely find that useful so maybe I'll switch it someday. For right now I'm pleased with the setup as it is, especially with my sci captain! This build probably is best for a sci character but my main toon is tactical and the ship does well there too.
Sorry for the late reply. First of all, this ship is build around maximizing all subsystem power whenever possible. The reason why you are seeing a progressive power buff is due to two things: 1) Your Energy Siphon kicks in 2) Plasmonic Leech starts to siphon energy from your target and channel them to you
The raison d'etre of A2B in a build where power maximization is not difficult is in fact to reduce the CD time of boff abilities whereas power boost is secondary. I should have explained the intent of A2B more clearly since this obviously led to confusion among some people as to what does a Science vessel do with A2B?
RSP is mostly practical in a PvP or in a situation where you have a high risk of getting gangked such as a whole fleet of Tholian swarms or nasty Klingons who like ambush people in Kerrat. Also, if a RSP is used in the build, then A2B becomes mandatory or else its CD time become too long.
One of the earlier criticism of this build is that this thread was built around a Tactical Captain in a Sci ship. It was also revealed later that I have in fact started a Science Captain toon who happened to get lucky and got a Wells of his own from a Temporal lockbox lottery - Ludavix is his name. I have sidelined him for some time doing nothing at all until recently when it became apparent that PvP in STO will die soon. Happy to report I have finally started to level him up the Reputation tree as of yesterday even though he is still at Tier 0 everywhere. His gear is as basic as one can get, only the generic deflector, engines and shields : Bare bone Sci Wells with Sci Captain Even the flow capacitor are the plain ones bought from the Exchange since Ludavix doesn't have the fleet credit to buy the gear from the Embassy yet and he doesn't have the EC to get any Field Generator Mk XII either. With Tier 0 in Reputation everywhere and such basic gear, you think he'd be toast in Elite STF. Well, it turns out, he is beating fully leveled and geared ships easily, see proofs :
1st place @ Crystalline Entity (Elite)
1st place again @ Crystalline Entity (Elite)
CE (Elite) is considered one of the hardest STF out there, some think it's undoable. Take my fleet, a large one, for example, I am not aware of anyone else doing it. They do all kind of eSTF but skip the CE (Elite). If they do it, it's only on Normal difficulty, not the Elite version. I pug it all the time, just wasn't sure how Ludavix would fare in it with such basic gear and no reputation bonus at all. I probably played CE Elite around 6 or 7 times since starting Ludavix on his reputation grind. In no event did he finish outside of Top 3 in every instance and to be sure, he doesn't finish 1st every time either. But given the consistency of his placements and winning quite many times, I say it's pretty impressive for a Sci Captain who is just starting out and not relying on any fancy gear or items or ability. Notice in both screenshots, the crew are pretty much all dead even thought the ship and shields are intact. That's because, compared to Iskan's ship who has the benefit of Adapted MACO 2 piece bonus to protect it, Ludavix is using a free deflector dish and a shield that cost merely 60K on the Exchange. To be honest, I was surprised myself too he is doing so well.
Suffice to say, Ludavix's ship will look very different a month or two from now. In fact, I can tell you his ship will look quite a bit different from that of Iskan, including Energy Type and gear. I'd say they would be different in as much as 80% of their gear & equipment & weapons. The fundamental principles will not change, there will not be any use of Tactical stations as it is already shown in these screenshots - and will continue in the tradition of Pure Science, though some of the elements under review is the use of A2B. As can be seen already, the ship is already kicking TRIBBLE without A2B at Tier 0 in Reputation. It may be possible to optimize a Sci Ship commanded by a Sci Captain without using A2B. I will need to run more testing but so far this looks promising.
Welcome back!
I'm still having lots of fun on both my main character and my sci captain.
The other day I got the eleven BNP's on my main captain, switched to my sci captain, and got the eleven on that one too! My science captains name is Rebbeca and she's getting the eleven on infected the conduit elite more often than not! She just made tier 4 omega rep and is grinding out the omega torpedo which should be done tonight.
I've gotten into the habit of using ES plus GW3 plus FBP2 at once to attack the cube with good results. As for gear I used my main captain to go to memory alpha and make up an Aegis set for her, and with the omega torpedo she's good to go.
However she still uses plasma weapons so at some point I may switch to tetryon, but, as the saying goes, don't argue with success.
I should also add that when I get the eleven BNP's there is usually a Scimitar or some behemoth ship loaded with cannons and all the bells and whistles. This is a great build and I'll be playing it for some time to come!
By the way I sent you a friend request from my main toon
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Please keep the QQ to a minimum.
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I think you should edit-out that PMs.
Publicating PMs is a demonstration of little respect for someone's privacy.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Please keep the QQ to a minimum.
>>>PUNISH THE FEDs<<<
>>>Positive Feedback from a PvE HERO<<<
The said poster went into a private PvP, in which you can see he cloaked in the middle of the battle. After being told doing so is considered forfeit, he continued to do so. You can see he has no regard for rules or fair play, therefore, breaking forum post rules would obviously be fairly low priority on his list.
He is obviously proud breaking rules and thinking doing so will gather him a lot of attention, that's why he chose to come to this thread. Suffice to say, he is wrong. He will get attention, just not the type he wants. Furthermore, I can confirm that the Combat Log and Parsing failed to show many of the hits that were supposed to be registering, which you can see in the youtube clip, I was already questioning after the first match. Draw whatever conclusion you want from this, I will no longer be playing with this person and I advise others to do the same - this person just wants attention, nothing more. We all know what will happen next so don't waste your time with this person, ignore him here and in game, this is the best course of action.
Don't forget, you challenged me bro...
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Please keep the QQ to a minimum.
>>>PUNISH THE FEDs<<<
>>>Positive Feedback from a PvE HERO<<<
Riddle me this...
If 5 Romulans (which all have battle cloaks) were to fight 5 feds in their dual A2B BFAW cruisers, would that be considered cheating as well?
Using your ship the way it was meant to be can hardly be called cheating or disregarding rules.
What do we get next? A ban on Elachi weapons for the extra shield bypass?
And from what I can tell from the clip you pinned you down with tractor beam which killed your defense. That, the lack of TT to compensate shields and his fully buffed 7 beams can explain the reason you died imho.
Edit: forgot the decloak buff + possible boffs and their traits.
Good question, so I'll answer this. One of the reason why cloaking during a private PvP is considered forfeiting is because you can cloak, run away and regenerate your hull, which is precisely what happened here. As you can see, the said person's hull fell to 34% or so, immediately cloaked and ran away. This is considered forfeiting. Additionally, if both ships have cloak, this would be endless. Then the question becomes what would have happened if the said player did not cloak and ran away, what would have happened? Unequivocally, he would have died given his hull was buckling badly already while mine were at 99-100% with full shields.
I didn't make those rules to be sure. This derived from the PvP community's experience ever since STO exist and elite PvPers accept there are actions you shouldn't take to waste people's times or engage in foul play. I created this thread to be cheese free and have always made fair play a centerpiece here. If you are looking for cheesy build and tactics where one could score 100K+ damage in 2 seconds, this is really the wrong place for you. There are even threads where you can go to find about all the latest exploits and bugs, this is not the place for it and I am not interested in catering to people who are excited about these mechanics.
These are two separate issues.
Your explanation is overly simplified. He was cloaked while I was wondering where the hell he went. I wasn't even sure if he was still in game or not. To be honest, it caught me totally off guard, my bad - I was confused. I have encountered hundreds of decloaked alpha before and defeated those easily, you think he invented this? Clearly, there was something more to it.
Anyway, I am far from invincible, I am just a casual player who believes in fair play and I hope my thread can continued be used solely for the purpose of sharing build tips on the Pure Science style with fellow Federation Captains and I thank Bran for intervening and bring us back on track.
No offense, but you didn't answer the question. How would 5 cloakers vs 5 BFAW boats look like? Come to think of it, a scenario even worse; 5 cloaked boats like his running BFAW vs 5 BFAW Fleet Assault Cruisers or Fleet Avengers..
Is there a rule in place that specifies the ratio of cloakers vs non cloak?
Don't get me wrong, I understand that it can be very frustrating to fight a cloaked ship but STO wouldn't be ST without the cloak.
Neither am I.
How come? Both are build into the game by Cryptic and many believe they are some form of hax as there is very little you can do except bring alot of A2SIF, HE and ET.
I'm not saying he invented it, I'm just saying he is using it properly. And alpha strikes come in 2 different forms, pinned or unpinned. Unpinned the damage would be much less severe.
Combine pinned and AP weapons (if I'm correct) with possibly the CritD/CritH consoles and you've got yourself a one shot crit hitter again.
Cloaking is allowed in 5 vs. 5 Arena matches. It is only considered forfeit in private matches of 1 vs 1 for the reasons already stated. If you cloak in a 1vs1, you forfeited and is thus considered the loser, end of story. I think you should have done your homework first before asking your rhetorical question.
Don't get me wrong, I think you should have understood we are not talking about any arena matches or for that matter, that cloaking be banned. That's because you failed to make the distinction between 1 vs 1 challenge and general 5 vs. 5 Arena matches. They are not the same thing.
It's in fact very easy to fight cloaked ships, no frustration required : http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/703981943196700639/C8D0E02C4612B8195C47F02CAE31B9559FE77AD9/
Stealth Detection Rating : 1524
At such high SDR, you can see all cloaked ships easily within 10KM and more with the help of Tachyon Detection Field. However, you will not see this ship in 1 vs 1 challenges because it only functions while cloaked, suitable for Kerrat or Arena group matches. If someone asked me for 1 vs 1 challenges in Kerrat, I change toon and ship into a non-cloaking ship. Many Kerrat regulars do the same. They have their vapers for Kerrat but specify the ship isn't used for 1 vs 1, especially the Klingons. That's why people have multiple toons and ships. Nobody brings a vaper to a 1 vs 1 as a Vaper requires extensive cloaking and opportunistic decloaking - at the very least, if a vaper is used, then they foregoe the cloaking aspect.
Furthermore, a Sci ship can also bring abilities such as Charged Particle Burst or Photonic Shockwave or Gravity Well to counter the cloaks. It's actually very easy to fight a cloaker these days, that is if you are expecting it, especially with GW III + aftershocks. You can chain GW III + After Shock constantly with A2B and its AOE is so large that cloaked ships will be unable to maintain their cloak. Here is the problem: Not expecting any cloaking trouble in a private 1 vs 1, I didn't have GW. Had I known this was going to be an issue, you bet I would have brought it.
Elachi weapons has a 2.5% proc and 5 sec internal CD for one single shot that hits. Phaser proc is in fact far more popular than the Elachi weapons because Phaser can disable your shields for several seconds allowing all your shots to hit hull directly. Elachi proc is strictly limited to that one single shot and cannot happen more than once every 5 seconds. In fact, there was a dig at Elachi Weapon in the PvP forum about using Elachi Turret - the turret fires so rapidly that using Elachi Turret, causing them to proc every 5 sec or so shut down all other procs for every other weapon except that single turret volley. In other words, it's being ridiculed as close to useless when used with Turret.
As far as I am aware, there is no discussion about disallowing them in 1 vs 1 Challenges or any Arena or C&H matches. I never had any issue with Elachi weapons nor have I ever heard anyone suggesting they are hax. Rather, I think you need to back up your claim with a cite or link to a thread with discussion about them being hax, in order to show you didn't just make this up.
I feel I am repeating myself over and over because you refused to understand cloaking in the middle of a 1 vs 1 challenge in order to save yourself from dying = cheating / forfeit. It's a part of the code of conduct for fair play in 1 vs 1 challenges only - making it clear it doesn't apply to group matches. I wouldn't play anyone who doesn't believe in fair play.
In a 1 vs 1 challenge when both ships are cloaked, how are you supposed to play? Do you ask the other person to delcoak first so that you can alpha him? Or should he say: "No, you first?" Worse, when somebody cloaked for an extensively long period of time, leaving you hanging there and wandering around doing nothing, you are supposed to wait there wondering - did he leave or something? Use your common sense to guide you, instead of asking why? why? why? in a pushy manner when you are only asking rhetorical question, that's just going to put the person you asked feel like you already have an answer/opinion, why are you asking?
With that, that's the end of our conversation. If you have any more objections regarding use of cloak in the middle of a 1 vs 1 challenge, please refer to the PvP forum. You can start a thread asking people there their views. This discussion is off topic and shall be the end of it.