So far, I noticed there are three ways to determine DPS:
1) Burst DPS: Within a very short time (i.e 10s or less) can deliver a huge spike damage
2) Average DPS: One can keep letting out consistent high amount of damages
3) Total DPS: The number of DPS at the end, which is very similar to Average DPS.
Is it true that Burst DPS is excellent in PvP, and needs DBB and Cannons, while Average DPS is better in PvE and possibly overall, and requires A2B and Beam array?
Generally if you want Cruisers to do high DPS you need A2B - Beams just tend to be used in conjunction with FAW to get big DPS numbers.
I have never really found there to be much difference between PvP and PvE. Most Cruisers use A2B for PvP and most Escorts use Burst for PvE.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
So far, I noticed there are three ways to determine DPS:
1) Burst DPS: Within a very short time (i.e 10s or less) can deliver a huge spike damage
2) Average DPS: One can keep letting out consistent high amount of damages
3) Total DPS: The number of DPS at the end, which is very similar to Average DPS.
Is it true that Burst DPS is excellent in PvP, and needs DBB and Cannons, while Average DPS is better in PvE and possibly overall, and requires A2B and Beam array?
Average DPS is your DPS over the entire encounter. When the enemy doesn't regenerate or have ways of negating your damage, increasing your average DPS means defeating the encounter more quickly. Dealing consistent damage is often called "Pressure" DPS... but it doesn't matter if it's in quick, massive bursts or moderate but consistent waves, the average DPS is what will determine engagement times against non-regenerating targets.
Burst or Spike DPS deals much higher amounts of damage less frequently. It can work out to the same average or total DPS as pressure damage, but the attraction of it is that you can potentially burn through the enemy before they can respond defensively, and it drastically reduces the impact of regeneration, which makes it valuable for PvP: 5k average DPS that results in a kill (i.e. from a 75k spike every 15 seconds) is more valuable than 10k DPS that is healed off when the game is scored by kills.
However, in the current meta, the highest DPS builds often bring enough pressure to the fray that it's extremely difficult to stay healed, so high-DPS pressure builds often result in kills anyway.
"Pressure" DPS is far less lethal than Spike Damage, because one can react defensively to this: You can avoid the damage and thus not be killed through expedients like "getting out of the way", whereas spike damage will just pop you like a balloon instantly, and you're dead before you ever got the notification you were fired on at all.
2 builds of the same ship, capable of running both a A2B build or just running dual copies of what you need. Say a Jem Dread. Ship power levels are 125/75/60/65 (just giving numbers) Ship is equipped with an elite AMP core and plasmonic leech. So with the leech going power levels at +20.
With A2B you are capable of keeping 3 of 4 subsystems above 75 for the AMP. While running a dual copy version you can keep 4 systems all above 75.
Is the 4th subsystem increase going to do more DPS than cycling abilities marginally faster on a 3 purp tech A2B build.
I use to do 100K DPS, but then I took an arrow to the knee.
Your Ramming Speed III deals 242658 (243540) Kinetic Damage (Critical) to you.
So far, I noticed there are three ways to determine DPS:
1) Burst DPS: Within a very short time (i.e 10s or less) can deliver a huge spike damage
2) Average DPS: One can keep letting out consistent high amount of damages
3) Total DPS: The number of DPS at the end, which is very similar to Average DPS.
Is it true that Burst DPS is excellent in PvP, and needs DBB and Cannons, while Average DPS is better in PvE and possibly overall, and requires A2B and Beam array?
DPS is all about the Average. Burst as you call it is what is called Volley damage and is another thing altogether.
Beam Arrays offer horrible DPS and even worse Burst. Thus it would be wise to learn to fly your ship and equip it to the ability to keep its nose on target enough for either Dual Heavy Cannons or Dual Beam Banks. Fighters also add a LOT of firepower. Elite Scorpions for instance can jump your DPS more than a couple tactical consoles or a few fore weapons. However they are MOSTLY useful in PvE due to all the massive AoE spam in PvP.
Now Total DPS can be extremely deceptive because you can waste a LOT of damage on shields or tickling a massive number of targets (ie. Beam Fire at Will with Arrays) generating HUGE numbers that in reality mean very little.
The main question will be what is your target? Things that tank just by having massive hit points are best killed with heavy DPS or what you call Average DPS.
Things that tank Via Speed will require some way to stop them from moving preferably combined with Volley damage.
Things that tank Via massive heals and hardening (read: Players especially) are going to require well timed Volley damage. I have a tactical captain in a cruiser who can outlast DPS boats all day long and punch a hole through their warp core so hard they won't have time to abandon ship. This is because many good heals work over time and add resistance thus making raw DPS less and less effective. The way to kill this sort is to get them to expend these heals and then erase them with Subnuke or wait until they are in cooldown and hit them with such a powerful Alpha Strike that you destroy them before they get a chance to heal again.
The last thing to note is the ever terrifying Drain Boats... If you can shut down an enemy's power completely they are helpless. Aux 2 Bat boats can be extremely vulnerable to having their Aux powered off which means they cannot heal effectively and thus they are sitting ducks for this sort of assault. Also Romulan ships have low power levels and hate being drained. Even Borg Cubes and Gates fail to be dangerous when they cannot DO anything. The one issue here is that a good and powerful drain build requires that you be dedicated to making it happen and requires expensive things like Aceton Assimilators, Plasmonic Leech Consoles, and preferably a Science Ship or the Chel'Gret.
I used to fly a B'rel Retrofit that was a mean Drain Boat that could tank Elite Tactical Cubes just because they were so drained they could not really put up a worthwhile fight and that was BEFORE all these passives were in play.
Comments
I have never really found there to be much difference between PvP and PvE. Most Cruisers use A2B for PvP and most Escorts use Burst for PvE.
Average DPS is your DPS over the entire encounter. When the enemy doesn't regenerate or have ways of negating your damage, increasing your average DPS means defeating the encounter more quickly. Dealing consistent damage is often called "Pressure" DPS... but it doesn't matter if it's in quick, massive bursts or moderate but consistent waves, the average DPS is what will determine engagement times against non-regenerating targets.
Burst or Spike DPS deals much higher amounts of damage less frequently. It can work out to the same average or total DPS as pressure damage, but the attraction of it is that you can potentially burn through the enemy before they can respond defensively, and it drastically reduces the impact of regeneration, which makes it valuable for PvP: 5k average DPS that results in a kill (i.e. from a 75k spike every 15 seconds) is more valuable than 10k DPS that is healed off when the game is scored by kills.
However, in the current meta, the highest DPS builds often bring enough pressure to the fray that it's extremely difficult to stay healed, so high-DPS pressure builds often result in kills anyway.
2 builds of the same ship, capable of running both a A2B build or just running dual copies of what you need. Say a Jem Dread. Ship power levels are 125/75/60/65 (just giving numbers) Ship is equipped with an elite AMP core and plasmonic leech. So with the leech going power levels at +20.
With A2B you are capable of keeping 3 of 4 subsystems above 75 for the AMP. While running a dual copy version you can keep 4 systems all above 75.
Is the 4th subsystem increase going to do more DPS than cycling abilities marginally faster on a 3 purp tech A2B build.
Your Ramming Speed III deals 242658 (243540) Kinetic Damage (Critical) to you.
DPS is all about the Average. Burst as you call it is what is called Volley damage and is another thing altogether.
Beam Arrays offer horrible DPS and even worse Burst. Thus it would be wise to learn to fly your ship and equip it to the ability to keep its nose on target enough for either Dual Heavy Cannons or Dual Beam Banks. Fighters also add a LOT of firepower. Elite Scorpions for instance can jump your DPS more than a couple tactical consoles or a few fore weapons. However they are MOSTLY useful in PvE due to all the massive AoE spam in PvP.
Now Total DPS can be extremely deceptive because you can waste a LOT of damage on shields or tickling a massive number of targets (ie. Beam Fire at Will with Arrays) generating HUGE numbers that in reality mean very little.
The main question will be what is your target? Things that tank just by having massive hit points are best killed with heavy DPS or what you call Average DPS.
Things that tank Via Speed will require some way to stop them from moving preferably combined with Volley damage.
Things that tank Via massive heals and hardening (read: Players especially) are going to require well timed Volley damage. I have a tactical captain in a cruiser who can outlast DPS boats all day long and punch a hole through their warp core so hard they won't have time to abandon ship. This is because many good heals work over time and add resistance thus making raw DPS less and less effective. The way to kill this sort is to get them to expend these heals and then erase them with Subnuke or wait until they are in cooldown and hit them with such a powerful Alpha Strike that you destroy them before they get a chance to heal again.
The last thing to note is the ever terrifying Drain Boats... If you can shut down an enemy's power completely they are helpless. Aux 2 Bat boats can be extremely vulnerable to having their Aux powered off which means they cannot heal effectively and thus they are sitting ducks for this sort of assault. Also Romulan ships have low power levels and hate being drained. Even Borg Cubes and Gates fail to be dangerous when they cannot DO anything. The one issue here is that a good and powerful drain build requires that you be dedicated to making it happen and requires expensive things like Aceton Assimilators, Plasmonic Leech Consoles, and preferably a Science Ship or the Chel'Gret.
I used to fly a B'rel Retrofit that was a mean Drain Boat that could tank Elite Tactical Cubes just because they were so drained they could not really put up a worthwhile fight and that was BEFORE all these passives were in play.