I Need Advice For A Beam Boat

calamar017

I am an engineer who recently decided to convert to beam-boat using Aux-to-bat after seeing a demonstration of just how brutally effective that build can be.

To that end, I obtained a Sovereign-class fleet ship and armed it with antiproton beam arrays. I added multiple 2-set bonuses....Borg, Adapted MACO, Obelisk.

Unfortunately, my prior skill tree had a lot of points invested in projectile weapons (I picked skills before I had any idea what I was doing). As a beam boat, I don't need skill points in projectiles anymore, which means I can respec those skills to something more useful.

The problem is that I don't know what "more useful" is.

Exactly how should I be speccing this? Skills that impact weapons power, energy weapons, and accuracy would seem to be no-brainers, but there are a lot of other skills that would seem to likewise be important. For example, I often get my shields completely drained by Borg drain attacks (so power insulators would seem to be a wise investment) and tractor beams bring me to a screeching halt (unfortunate in some situations in Mirror Universe when there are three Typhoon battleships around with support, so perhaps inertial dampeners would be good).

I also know that I'm supposed to stack certain DOFF's to maximize damage output, but I'm vague on precisely what DOFFs I should be obtaining (I know technicians are a godsend, and that beam special attack cooldowns are also important).

Can anyone describe to me what, precisely, I should be doing?

rck01

I'm a Tac officer and flying a slightly different ship (FAHCR vs. FACR), but many of the core principles will still apply, so...

First question: PvE or PvP?

And what do you see your role as in each? Assaulting fixed positions? Crowd control? Healer? Aggro-attracter?

Here's a beam-boat build that has worked quite well for me in both PvP and PvE:

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=rcktacfahcrevz_0

Notes:

1. If you want to go full-on PvE, switch out BFAW2 for APB1 and APO for BFAW3.

2. If you want to go full-on PvP, considering changing from 2x Aux2Batt to 1x Aux2batt/1x Aux2Damp and get the Anti-matter Specialist doff. That'll make you speedy and tanky all at once.

3. You can use my skill-tree as a template - i'm spec'd into Power Insulators, Flow Caps (for the Polaron drain), Inertial Dampeners (I hate being held/knocked) and have zero points in projectiles since I'm running an all-beams configuration.

4. In terms of doffs, the bare minimum for an Aux2Batt build is 3x purple techs (get them for free from the B'Tran Cluster doff missions). That'll get all of your Boff powers running at or near Global Cool Down and also give you a nice power boost to W/S/E whenever you activate it.

5. Other doffs to consider include a Warp Core Engineer (either the "cleanse" version or the EPtX version for the power boost), an AMS doff (see 2 above) and if you have six doff slots an RSP doff (Fabrication Engineer) for 20.1 sec uptime on Reverse Shield Polarity.

6. Some of the gear on the above build is outdated. For example, I've long since switched to the Fleet Locator consoles for my Tactical slots. And my weps are now Acc x3 for PvP play. Lastly, when I'm running a hybrid A2D/A2B build, I swap out ET for EPtE (for a very speedy cruiser) and use HE instead for hull heals.

The above should get you on your way towards 10K+ in PvE or serious competitiveness in PvP encounters.

Good luck!

RCK

ussboleyn

This is a basic Tac skill point set up.

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=basictacskills_0

This is a brilliant skill point guide.

http://home.comcast.net/~amicus/Skill%20Point%20Effects.htm