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When is one "PvP ready" for space combat?
stobastiat
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Insofar as your ship, gear, DOFFs, and rep-powers go, anyway. I'm no stranger to PvP in other games (and even STO back in the beta/release days), so I understand the importance of keybinds and whatnot.
A Federation-aligned Romulan Science Captain is my current main character, but after playing a few matches recently + reading what others claim to be getting from their Beam Overloads, I certainly feel like I'm not "PvP ready" yet. It's mostly that my damage output just isn't there - Beam Overload 3 knocked out most of a shield facing on an unsuspecting Scimitar once, but the rest of the time it seemed to do nothing more than tickle my opponent(s). Survivability also seemed like it was way behind everyone else, but with a Romulan's ability to escape, I was in better shape defensively than I was offensively.
My current setup: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=nulvok_0 (My DOFFs are nothing special, other than Keel'el, whom I haven't put on duty yet)
I know the BOFFs could probably be re-worked a little, but I haven't done it yet since I'm not sure which ship I want to replace the Ha'feh with. At one point, I was "sure" about the Dhelan Retrofit and VM1 (hence the points in Subspace Decompiler), but now I'm really torn between the Dhelan, Mogai, and Ar'kif (perhaps even the Scimitar, though I'm not overly excited about the turn rate).
So, what general improvements can I make, and what can I do to get an alpha strike that actually feels like an alpha strike? I don't expect to do exceptionally well while I get the feel for PvP again (especially since I'll be pugging for now), but my damage was honestly quite pathetic in my recent foray into the matches. And I don't mean that it was only pathetic on the scoreboard, either - most of the time I could barely see anything more than minor twitching of the shield facing that I was firing at.
A Federation-aligned Romulan Science Captain is my current main character, but after playing a few matches recently + reading what others claim to be getting from their Beam Overloads, I certainly feel like I'm not "PvP ready" yet. It's mostly that my damage output just isn't there - Beam Overload 3 knocked out most of a shield facing on an unsuspecting Scimitar once, but the rest of the time it seemed to do nothing more than tickle my opponent(s). Survivability also seemed like it was way behind everyone else, but with a Romulan's ability to escape, I was in better shape defensively than I was offensively.
My current setup: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=nulvok_0 (My DOFFs are nothing special, other than Keel'el, whom I haven't put on duty yet)
I know the BOFFs could probably be re-worked a little, but I haven't done it yet since I'm not sure which ship I want to replace the Ha'feh with. At one point, I was "sure" about the Dhelan Retrofit and VM1 (hence the points in Subspace Decompiler), but now I'm really torn between the Dhelan, Mogai, and Ar'kif (perhaps even the Scimitar, though I'm not overly excited about the turn rate).
So, what general improvements can I make, and what can I do to get an alpha strike that actually feels like an alpha strike? I don't expect to do exceptionally well while I get the feel for PvP again (especially since I'll be pugging for now), but my damage was honestly quite pathetic in my recent foray into the matches. And I don't mean that it was only pathetic on the scoreboard, either - most of the time I could barely see anything more than minor twitching of the shield facing that I was firing at.
Post edited by stobastiat on
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Youre "pvp ready" when
1. You realize your role in a fight and have built to do that role
2. You have a generally good grasp of how everything works, including what your opponents might use on you and the counters for that.
3. You go from me me me to team team team.
4. You realize its okay to die, and that everyone dies
5. You have genuine fun PvPing and its not just something to do.
Id take anyone with those five traits with the worst ship possible in the game and the crappiest gear before id take a rich kid supership that didnt know anything but LOLSHOOTSOLOFIGHTER playstyle
Fleet Admiral Rylana - Fed Tac - U.S.S Wild Card - Tactical Miracle Worker Cruiser
Lifetime Subscriber since 2012 == 17,200 Accolades = RIP PvP and Vice Squad
Chief of Starfleet Intelligence Service == Praise Cheesus
2nd step is asking questions about improving your build
no rep
no doffs
mkX KHG shield
vorcha retrofit.
nothing else better then mkxi blue
i took it into the ques mainly to see what it would be like to pvp naked of 2 years worth of power creep, and on skill and keybinds alone i didn't do to shabby. cycled faw and through heals like a good eng, and wile it was unremarkable i only died once or twice between 3 matches, and was able to impact how the matches turned out.
your pvp ready if you know what everything does, what everything looks like, and how to react to or defend against it. dont get frustrated if you dont do all that well till you gradually build up rep and the latest gear, your a WIP, and theres still fun to be had.
Bottom line, you're ready when you feel like it. Don't let anyone tell you differently.
Just one other thing... I know you mentioned your dmg output, and others overload numbers. If your new to the game you may not know this. Science is not really a dmg class. Its great in pvp because things like Subnuke and Sensor scan will score kills. However big greesy 50+k overloads will ONLY ever happen if you are flying a tactical captain. Attack Pattern Alpha boosts dmg and CrtD to the point where your 20-30k sci crits would be 50-80k tac crits.
I don't mention that to discourage your form playing decloak attack sci... its just a different attack approch. Playing "sciscort" is more about efficent kills then flashy ones.
When you role a second toon. (we all do it makes the grind so much easier being able to refine 16k dilithium instead of only 8k every day) Consider a tac... you may find it more fitting to the style you want to play... the sci might be more at home in an actual science ship down the road.
No doubt wasn't trying to discourage... just set expectations... those big crazy overlaod numbers he sees posted.
R.I.P
A thousand times this........
Elite Fleet shield
Warp core engineer cleanser
Team heals
Weapons with as much acc as you can afford.
Removing any of those, puts you at such an unfair disadvantage.
You don't need the maximum vape doffs, or the best engines/boffs/boffs abilities(to an extent). But each if the above help you win by such a factor that flying without them is doing a crime against yourself.
But I'm on like day 6 of pvp...
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
I know for myself, any PvP based game be it a DOtA style, FPS, 4x, or MMO there is a steep learning curve. It takes a while sometimes to get a system down.
One of the first steps in any of these is to learn how to not die.
2. Having a good situational awareness, knowing when to strike, when to counter, and when to aid.
3. Not letting the rage get the better of you.
Elite Defense Stovokor
And there is always Kerrat.
aka scimitar a2b faw + tap spacebar aka plan of attack? :rolleyes:
Cheers and happy flying!
He?s right,.. if you want play in a Team PvP, lets make sure you are ready for this,
see Point 1-5.
Greetings
David
*** Aktiv since 03.06.10 ***
That's when you are ready.
Cheers!
-A.K.A Syrah R.R.W MJOLNIR ***SAD PANDAS***
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Here's what I enjoy in pvp. Since nearly EVERYONE wants to put out DPS, I don't. There's usually plenty of it so I go for something else. If playing as an engineer, I try to play a ship that is commonly considered the "juiciest" most "squishiest" looking ship I have, usually a Galaxy or Bortasqu. Since there will undoubtedly be plenty of DPS throwers on a team, my goal is to load up shields and repair/heal powers/skills. I want to draw fire and stay alive long enough that my team's escorts can destroy 2 or more enemy ships before I am destroyed. A 2 to 1 attrition rate will lead to victory. I also try to keep as many of my team's escorts alive as possible so they can keep doing the necessary damage. It's a tricky balance.
Since most of my ship power will got to engines and shields, I use weapons that don't need power; mines, torps and eject plasma. I use all beams and FAW to clean up enemy "trash but since my beams don't need to be powerful to destroy mines and the like, I can even commit the unpardonable sin of filling a tac console slot with a universal console for more healing or countermeasures. I like tractor and transphasic mines. I also like he anti-matter spread console. If I have the boff slots, I sometimes use a grav well and wait for enemy ships to pass through my grav well "cone". I try to be as annoying as possible to the enemy just so they will want to kill me in order to get rid of the mines, plasma clouds, tractor mines and grav wells.
Survival in pvp has much to do with drawing fire. If the other team chooses to focus fire on you, even an indestructible space brick is going to explode eventually. If it looks like the other team is ignoring me because of my strong defense, then when not on red alert, I often switch bridge officers mid-match and try to bring in more engine team, extend shields and other healer skills to keep teammates alive. I keybind heal powers so I can heal a teammate as they zip by. I try to become a space borne "medical turret".
As a sci captain, I try to do much the same but my "alpha" strike, if you can call it that, is to subnuke, grave well, anti-matter spread (console) and anything else that seems to be working., more or less "alpha-drain" strike. Sometimes it seems that people just want to kill me to stop the subnukes and antimatter spreads.
Everyone fights over the dps column on the tally sheet at the end of the game. I look at the heal stats and stroke my ego by "winning" that "trophy".
When are you ready for pvp? You're ready for pvp when you are just well equipped and skilled enough to enjoy it.
After being in some more matches recently, I have to say that I still don't fully understand how some people are obtaining the levels of damage and survivability that I'm seeing. I'm pretty sure that there are some players that could fly in a straight line, purposefully letting me keep my DHCs trained on them, and still never be in any real danger (outside of Subnucleonic Beam + my [Acc]x2 Dual Beam Bank not missing on the Overload, anyway). Meanwhile, I can 100% -> 0% some other people in fairly short order, even if they're trying to escape or survive. I know that individual behind-the-keyboard-skill has a lot to do with that, but it also feels as though gear, DOFFs, etc...matter quite a bit.
And some players are doing a whole lot more damage than most everyone else, even without "abusing" AOE skills for scoreboard padding. Do Tactical Captains really have that much more damage potential than the Science/Engineering Careers (with only some people being skilled enough to maximize said potential)? I can't see how weapons would be making that much difference, since I'm using Mk XI DHC's with [Acc]x3 and still barely scratch some people. I don't expect to do amazing damage against someone who's being actively healed/buffed by their teammates, but there are times that I've been 1v1, 2v1, or even 3v1 in a few instances, and my target seems to barely notice that they're being shot at. Then they flip around and quickly blitz down their attackers one by one (my TT1, EPtS1, and Aux2SIF1 seem like they're not even speed bumps to some players, though to be fair, the Borg Shields certainly don't have the highest capacity/resistance on the block).
It just seems that the people who are doing >= quadruple my damage + surviving a lot more incoming attacks, while flying a cannon-using Escort/Raider/Destroyer, must know something that I don't. I don't think it's all a matter of them being more experienced than me (though I do totally need more practice).
They do have access to APA and Tac Fleet, which add roughly 50% and 30% to damage (I think). That does help.
And experience is probably the most OP element in PvP, right before teamwork. If you look at some of Thissler's videos, for instance, you'll see good, experienced pilots getting blown up by a stock ship with common equipment and about 50k ec's worth of doffs. These people do know things you don't. And most of that has slowly trickled in across many matches and forum reading. God knows I got pulverised hundreds of times before I started to get positive kill/death ratio's...
My advice: have fun, keep trying and read the build threads in the PvP forums - even if they're for completely different ships/careers. Before long, you'll start to see patterns in builds/layouts/recommendations and beyond that it's practicing.
Browsing through some of these guides probably wouldn't hurt either: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=274791
And this tool can help you set up keybinds more easily: http://www.ifes.us/STOKeyBind/
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Lol, I second this
- Gohan (House of Beautiful /Sad Pandas)
I looked over the link in your OP...
I assume you are in the mirror ship because you are a new player and haven't picked up any of the other ships.
So you are looking for a high value low cost way to get into PvP on your rom.
First I know it sucks for me to say it but your not really in the right ship. As a Sci you have traits that will boost the dmg on your exotic dmging skills. (This would be things like Tractor beam Repulsors, Gravity Well, Tykens) pretty much any sci skill that damages. When you take dmg you will built up to +30% dmg on those skills. The ship your in doesn't really let you use any of them
My suggestion would be the Dhelan Warbird. It would allow you to run a Lt. Cmd Sci boff and use something like a gravity well, or a shockwave... or something of that nature mixed into your attacks.
On your build you posted there are a few things I would change... and I will suggest some stuff with value in mind. (assuming your going to be stuck with the mirror ship for a bit). Also note they announced the newest lockbox which starts the end of this week... and there is a Mirror Dhlean warbird in there. (not sure what the exact lay out will be yet, however it might be a better inexpensive option when that box drops).
On the ship you have now... dump the Aux to Sif.... Its not saving you. The heal is to weak and you can't run high enough aux power on a war bird to make it worth trading what you should have there... Emergency Power to Shields 2.
In the ensign slot put Emergency Power to Engines 1.
- Now for doffs... you want to get Damage Control Engineers 2 of them should be fine... and blue ones are also fine. What they do is give you EPTx skills a chance to reset there cool downs. You only need one to proc (on either of the 2 skills you are running) and you will have a perfect roll and be able to keep both Emergency to E and S up 100% of the time... Blue ones give you 30% chance on activation... Purple 35%... so as you see you can get away with cheaper blue ones until you have been around awhile more and can manage to afford some purple upgrades. (with 2 blue you will have a 75% chance to always have both skills running)
Another thing I would change would be the hazards 1. There is no point in really doubling up on hazards on that ship imo. You would be better off running either a Polarized Hull 1... or a Jam sensors 1. Polarized Hull will give you a large hull resistance while it is up. (and you can run it at the same time as hazards if you really really have to) it will also make you immune to tractor beams. The way the game works if you stop you die because you loose all your defense rating... by keeping it up you live... so PH is a good option. Jam sensors is along the same lines, some people like it better for breaking tractors. If you jam someone there tractor shuts off... however you can also use it to jam someone really hurting you long enough to cloak back up.
I think those are the only 2 major changes I would make right away.
As far as other doffs... I don't know what you are running.
But good doffs on the cheap.
Hazards doffs. (hull resistance with Brace for impact)... this one is underrated and a good doff for a cheap build. When you pop your brace for impact it is pretty much like putting an extra amrour unit on per doff.
Shield Disribution doffs. This is also still a great underrated doff... also works with Brace for Impact will have a very high chance to instantly give you a pretty strong shield heal.