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I die a lot...any advice would be great
opak1
Member Posts: 1 Arc User
STO Academy Link
So I have been playing this game very casually off and on since beta. I have been trying to do some STF's and aside from CrystalC and Infected Space I have not been very effective and am a detriment to my PUG teammates. I die way too much.
I never did much grouping so I am also lacking in what basic group tactics I should in general be using. I read the threads on the specific STF's and understand the specific things I think I should be doing and I still litter the area with way too much debris. There is something fundamentally basic I am missing or not understanding.
I generally try to attack what everyone else is and try to stay about 9-10km away either at 1/4 or at a dead stop.
Could you all please take a look at my build and give me some tips on what gear to go after or changes to make. If there are some must read threads\sites that I should look at please point those out. Thanks!!
So I have been playing this game very casually off and on since beta. I have been trying to do some STF's and aside from CrystalC and Infected Space I have not been very effective and am a detriment to my PUG teammates. I die way too much.
I never did much grouping so I am also lacking in what basic group tactics I should in general be using. I read the threads on the specific STF's and understand the specific things I think I should be doing and I still litter the area with way too much debris. There is something fundamentally basic I am missing or not understanding.
I generally try to attack what everyone else is and try to stay about 9-10km away either at 1/4 or at a dead stop.
Could you all please take a look at my build and give me some tips on what gear to go after or changes to make. If there are some must read threads\sites that I should look at please point those out. Thanks!!
Joined: June 12, 1972
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." - James T. Kirk
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." - James T. Kirk
Post edited by opak1 on
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That is your first major problem. Defense rating is tied DIRECTLY to movement speed.
Secondly, visit http://hilbertguide.com and pay special attention to the keybinds section. Though it's intended as a guide for PvP beginners, everything in there will also greatly help you in PvE.
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." - James T. Kirk
A lot of players have good resists, either a fleet shield that adapts to whatever is thrown at it, or armor consoles that resist-all. For crystal, resist kinetic is good.
Another thing a lot of players do is adjust shields. For crystal, spamming the up arrow works but what you really should do is put the equalize shields button on a key. You don't need the exotic bot keybinds that spam skills for you, just put the darn shield balance on your bar
The final thing to do is to have good defensive officer skills. Things like tactical team, which pulls your shields (not in crystal!) to the facing that is taking the damage, so your enemy has to chew thru 4 facings instead of one. Engineer officer skill like emergency power to shields is nice, or science team. Hazard emitters heals your hull, removes debuffs, and is good to have. Gravity well can clean your vicinity (or the enemy cluster) from targetable mines and torps.
Those 3 are the nuts and bolts of staying alive. Keep moving is also important as someone already said. Controlling yourself is another.... run up the middle and mash FAW with no gear, guess what happens when 20 elite mobs get mad at you? You want to do that, play a tank ship and engineer... or wait until you have great items. Same for bosses etc.... don't pull the aggro if you can't take the heat. And get out of boss special attacks, crystal's big aoe, or scimitar's green blast, things like that are bad and stuff.
Also, range has a drastic effect on dps. Sitting at 10k is useless, your dps is cut in half or worse. Beams do better at range than cannons but you still want to stay within 5k of anything except bosses (several bosses have "too close"mechanics that force you to stay back). I do "park and shoot" at short range a lot, but if I start getting shot up I move on out. Its not a "never do this" thing, its a "play smart" thing.
Is that really what you face the most?
That is, when you "die a lot", is that because you are facing (example) plasma energy weapons and your shields provide no help in that regard? I am not a huge fan of covariant shields either. They have a good initial capacity, the regeneration suffers as a result. Once your shields get drained, they take much longer to come back up to full strength. Your hull takes a pounding as a result.
---Your ships turns decently enough....dump the turn console and get a Neutronium alloy for some all-around protection.
---Why use a quantum forward torp along with the photon torpedo defense system? If you switched to photon torp forward, you could get a photon console to boost the forward torp AND the defense system. Right now, you have a "45 torpedo barrage" you can use every three (?) minutes, and the tactical console you've chosen doesn't even boost it. Wasted space/opportunity somewhere in there.
Thanks everyone for the input. It's going to be really helpful.
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." - James T. Kirk
I also noted that you have the Assimilated Uni Console but you use a Quantum torpedo. You
are better off having the Omega Plasma torpedo that is part of the Assmltd Set. Just those 2 should help protect you a bit.
Depending on who you are fighting, take note that the Subspace Field Mod Device makes you very vulnerable to proton damage. Why not use a Shield Battery instead...the large shield battery is not that expensive.
You need Tactical Team. You don't need 2 torp spreads and high yield, since you only have one torpedo. It would be much better to decide on either high yield or torp spread.
Get yourself a Field Generator to increase you shield capacity.
I think you would be better off having TT1/CSV1/CRF2/APO (or APB or APD) on your Cmdr Tac and TT1/TorpSpread2 or TorpSpread1/TT2 on your Lt. Tac. [if you choose APOmega you may not need Polarize Hull and use Science Team instead]
And for your Ensign Tac you can have your High Yield or another Torp Spread. Unless the Ensign is a Universal one, then you can put some more defense or EP2W. If not have it at HY. and alter your Lt. Tac to have TT/APO1 [and use APB on you Cmdr. Tac.]
I am assuming that you have the Tray 7 active. There you will put all your TTs, TS, ST,EPtS.
etc..all your skills so that they are activated automatically. All you have to do is constantly press
your spacebar which fires your weapons and at the same time automatically balances you shields while your powers are activated one after the other in your Tray 7. [if there are still open spaces in the tray7 just fill them up with balance shields]
After the above is figured out by you, you now have to assign the right DOffs that will enhance the performance of the powers/skills you have assigned to you BOffs.
Now this suggestion comes from a Klingon Engineer, however, the principles are the same.
You can test them out by going in those Enemy Contacts in space and test it out.
Lastly, you must choose the right Set (Def/Engine/Shlds) depending on who you are going fight. It doesn't have to be a complete Set 2/3 is good to have the extras, but you may need more turn from a particular engine or additional Shield power. I use the Nukara Engine because it has a decent turn rate with a +5 to Shields. I don't like to constantly shift from weapons to shields unless absolutely necessary so I ensure that my weapons and shields are both at 100+ usually weapons at 125/100 or 120/95 and shields at 105/90 with the right Doffs they should both be just moving between 125 <-> 85.
Try it out and go kill something!
Also, I strongly recommend looking at your build in terms of the big picture - is there synergy between weapons, consoles and abilities? You know, making the whole better than the sum of its parts. be sure not consider the items by themselves.
Also, DOff do help with your build. Which are you using?
Finally, if you are not looking at the Fed Shipyards forum, do so. Use the search function as well because the build advice and suggestions are great. I learned a lot from just looking at what others asked
3 damage control doffs, rsp doff, 2 of your choice...warp core would be a good one.
That will be a big improvement
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
If you're going with phasers and a torp, you should have the Undine set torpedo and turret for the damage boost set bonus.
You shouldn't have a torpedo tac console, that's only 1/7th of your weapons. Get another phaser boosting console to boost 6/7th of your weapons instead. The emitter array is doing practically nothing, grab a Neutronium engineering console instead (preferably a Fleet one that gives +Turn).
IMO RSP is on too long a cooldown to be useful, when you don't have a regular EPtS cycle going (which hardens your shields). I'd rather carry Eng Team 1, EPtS2, and EPtS3 so you can have 100% uptime on EPtS.
Use I believe damage control doffs (rare/or VR), to aid the Epwr2Xsystem for quicker cycling.
Definitely could use a better space gear set, the counter command engine, or deflector isn't bad, but the shield array pretty much sucks.
Otherwise not too bad.
Praetor of the -RTS- Romulan Tal Shiar fleet!
Well, there's two options: One that has a chance to clear all debuffs when using Emergency Power to X. The other one grants a chance at +25(?) to power levels on using the same Emergency Power to X.
That's a good point. Let's go for both because several reference to "the warp core one" doesn't say much else. :P
I wrote down my DOFFs but forgot to bring the list with me. But they are a mix of uncommon\rare ones suggested here. Ill post specifics tonight.
I told my chief engineer to stay in engineering unless I needed his fuzzy butt for away teams. I splurged and got myself an efficient Saurian to man the bridge station and got her trained in EPTS3.
I really appreciate the time everyone took to help me out. You all made the game much more fun and gave me a better understanding of it. If anyone needs someone to fill a spot or some BOFF tactical training please don't hesitate to ask. Just give a yell @opak
"The more complex the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play." - James T. Kirk
I have a KDF toon that exclusively flies BoPs (currently the T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP) and although I have pretty basic gear (no rep gear, each piece of gear can be bought for less than 200k ECs on the Exchange) and the fact that wet tissue has more hull strength than a BoP, I can handle myself well enough even in elite STFs. I can go through elite STFs without blowing up about half the time I play. If I blow up in an elite STF is typically only happens once. Blowing up twice or more have so far been pretty rare (knock on wood).
Unfortunately, tactical is somewhat hard to explain especially without any visuals. You need to experiment and figure out what works for you. For example, when doing Crystalline Catastrophe Elite (CCE), I tend to also sit at around 9km and fire cannons. As stated by someone, firing cannons at that range lower DPS, but I have found it to be overall more effective that flying to around 5km. Shields and hulls are generally pretty weak for BoPs so if I am at 5km and I get it, then I have to start flying away to heal up. When I do that only my rear beam array and torp launcher can do any damage. If I continue to get hit, then I have to fly out of range to heal up which means I am not doing any damage at all. Sitting at 9km means I do not have to worry too much about maneuvering other than reverse speed and forward speed so that I always have my cannons aimed at the entity. This basically means I can activate my ET1 and EPTS2 abilities when necessary and reverse out of range if I have taken too much damage and my healing abilities are still cooling down.
Having the right tactical abilities helps too. I have two copies of TT1 and CRF1. The most important thing about TT1 is that shields are automatically redistributed to the side which is taking damage. If all I am doing is facing forward, then the only thing that really matters is to keep my fore shield up while the other sides can go down. This allows my KDF toon to stay in the fight longer. CRF1 help increase my firing rate so i can do more damage. When timing everything right I can get through CCE unscathed.
Fighting against the Borg is much more complex, but without going through an extremely lengthy explanation, it is all about know when to run away to heal up before closing in for more combat. I typically try to stay at least 4km away from the Borg since they can easily destroy you once your shield are down. Carriers cannot turn as fast as so it might be better to keep them at a distance. You will need to use your evasive maneuvers ability from time to time. Having engine batteries on hand is also a good idea to get you out of a jam as well. You simply need to experiment with tactics against the Borg because the tactics I use for my BoP probably will not work for a less maneuverable carrier.
One thing that I have recently done with my Boffs is I assigned my science Boff to the commander universal console. Many times I have been in PvEs and STFs where there are no science ships. These ships generally handle crowd control by using gravity wells which can make it easier to kill off multiple enemies. As a solution I have given my science Boff GW1 and GW3 which means anytime I going into combat there is always at least one person that can do crowd control (me). Granted I have no points allocated to science abilities and the only science consoles I have are field emitter amplifiers, but a weak gravity well is better than no gravity well.
Otherwise, you are running an escort, try not to shoot enemies to aggro them first, let others take the fire, that's their job (if they are tanks)
Get more defensive skills, you can take points out of engine performance skills and stuff and add that to armor skills and shield skills. After all, you aren't running an escort that needs a lot of speed or is built for a lot of speed in the first place.
GET THE BORG 2-PIECE SET AND AN ELITE RESILIENT SHIELD RES-B!!! It is the best setup overall.
Also a fleet warp core, preferably elite.