Until now i had all my BOffs equipped with a Pulsewave Rifle. Mk XII purple. Now i am not sure if that is still a good choice or if High intensity or Split beam would be better. I am not happy with Boffs carrying Full-Auto rifles because they tend to use the secondary firing mode without any need, making a firework without hitting anything.
I found myself switching to Beam weapons almost completely. Of course not normal Beam weapons but the Bio-Molecular Phaser Rifle, and the Exp. Proton Rifle
Pulsewaves are always good, they deal good damage and the secondary shot is maybe the more useful when used by boffs, but depends as well of your boff specie, class and skills. And depends as well on your boff defenses as well. For example, if one of your boffs is melee based, its good to give him a pulsewave, since he will go in closer distances to shot it (pulse waves have short range of fire) and he will as well use melee attacks faster (since he is already closer to the enemy). Now, if your boff is weak (he doesnt have a good armor, or the skills he have are more fited to used at long distances for example) probably it will be better to give him a sniper rifle, or just a split beam rifle. If your boff is a science, and he carries a few healing skills, again, it will be better to give him a weapon to attack at long distances and have him in your back, rather than in your front.
I mean, there are a lot of variables.
Split Beam rifles are as well really useful using em in your captain, but in boffs, not so much. Because they will not use the shot 2 in good situations, and shot 2 on a split beam rifle is even slower than the pulse wave. In this case, it is always better a high density one, and because the secondary shot of the high density one is more damaged based. If your boffs are going to use it without a clue, its better that at least they can inflict good damage.
For my captain, i always carry a pulse wave / split beam rifle / sniper rifle.
Sniper rifles are good for science boffs , because they will at safe distance to shot the enemy and use healing abilities as well, what i do is to give my science officers a patrol point, so they dont go by emselves to fire my target and they always are in a safe position.
For my boffs, depends, if they have good armor or melee skills, i give em pulse waves. If they are science characters, i ususally give em a sniper rifle as i said. I must say i dont use any other weapon that those 3 i posted lol. Well, in a couple of boffs i gave em a battlech, but just because it is the battlech from the event time ago, and i like it, thats all (and because they have melee skills). But it is not my recommendation to give your boffs melee weapons. Dont do it.
And yes, auto rifles and automatic pistols are sometimes good, sometimes bad. It is not a overall good weapon, because depends on really specific situations. I almost never used em, in my entire STO life.
Automatic pistols look really great on female sexy characters :P, but thats all.
personally i found that the best is a combination.. 2 of the away team on pulsewave and its my fav to + a falchion (i love running like a crazy man!!! and u have free lunge with the falchion) the rest is on high density or borg tac for the distance
Last time i checked the High Density beam rifles have an extra 5 meters range with there primary attack than the base attack with the Sniper rifle. So the BOFFs with sniper rifles need to get closer to use there standard attack, which they are going to do.
Last time i checked the High Density beam rifles have an extra 5 meters range with there primary attack than the base attack with the Sniper rifle. So the BOFFs with sniper rifles need to get closer to use there standard attack, which they are going to do.
Try to have a mix of Exploit and Expose Weapons to make the best use of both.
A well timed expose attack followed by an exploit will be a lot more effective than all of one type in my experience.
Also, and this is just my aesthetic preferance, I like to have a mixture of weapons for the diverse appearances.
My Medics use Pistols, Tacs use Rifles, and Engineers use Snipers since the range is useful when I order them to stay with all their generators
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The best boff weapon is the Dyson proton rifle. Its secondary fire changes from an expose to an exploit automatically, which negates some of your boffs' stupidity- they don't use exploit attacks well. If you don't want to buy five of those (who would?), I usually give my boffs expose weapons, like full-auto rifles and wide-beam pistols. The pulsewave works, but they rarely close to point-blank-range to use it most effectively.
Or go for aesthetics like the guy above. Frankly, that's no worse than any other method for arming boffs.
I find that I can roll with a full team of engies each using mine barrier I and phaser turret III. Put a shield gen, med gen, quantum mortar and whatever other random skills you want in the mix. Give one of your boffs the Omega set with team ambush field. Put turret duplicating doffs (phaser and shield/med gen) on duty. Then just sit back and watch. Your team should be able to handle many things without you lifting a finger.
As to OP's question, split beam is my preference with above away team.
I normally make my BOff's as Shield or HP healers since the AI is too stupid to use attack abilities efftectively.
for weapons i give em Splitbeem Rifles due to its secondary attack being a instant attack would put my BOff back to using their abilities quickly, if i give them a weapon like a minigun and they use its secondary attack which is not instant, it will lock out thier abilities for a certain amount of seconds which prevents them from healing me or my other BOff's.
I use what I have on hand and train them to use drones I can call out 3x flying drones. When it comes to Cover Shields, I found that one of the crew get stuck behind it and sometimes 3x of them. Weapons mix bang I keep assortment of them with me the crew will get what I use mostly. Tran BoF I had gave him the CRM2 with some cryo grenades to use but again he doesn't use then when I need them to use.
Undine AP Rifle is good
Voth AP Hand Pistol and Split Beam Rifle is even better. If you can get Level XII purple get those instead of XI. DPS higher the better along with the AoE.
I see to many players using mini gun like a machine gun. But whatever your up against you need to have some options with you in your inventory. The Boss General on Voth Ground Battlezone that guy and his body guards you need a lot more firepower an help to take him out. If you do it just right you can take him out even on your own.
I find that I can roll with a full team of engies each using mine barrier I and phaser turret III. Put a shield gen, med gen, quantum mortar and whatever other random skills you want in the mix. Give one of your boffs the Omega set with team ambush field. Put turret duplicating doffs (phaser and shield/med gen) on duty. Then just sit back and watch. Your team should be able to handle many things without you lifting a finger.
As to OP's question, split beam is my preference with above away team.
Close enough ...
Expose, Exploit? Who cares?
Get down with 4,2 or 1 engies ( depending whether it's a regular away mission or Dyson battlezone or New Romulus), give each of them a falchion and mine barrier 1, mine barrier 2, phaser turret 2, quantum mortar 2.
Sit, watch and grab popcorn while they bomb everything around.
The double mine barrier is designed to counter the Boffs' stupidity who would activate the mines as soon as they spot an enemy light years away lol but then, during the mines cooldown, they will have to get a melee distance since I have given them a falchion ... once they are at melee distance, they'll activate the mines again ... this time in front of the foe ... together with turrets and mortars of course.
Unless you care of aestethics or you love rolling specific Boffs for fun : I used ( and use ) to do new episodes with my main toon, a human eng and a team made of an android engie, Jem'hadar, the Breen and Nelen Exile
Just give them all Phaser IIs from the TOS bundle. Or you can get them by running "Night of the Comet" a few times. Then you could throw a couple Phaser Is or Phaser IIIs in there for good measure.
Recommend taking some rifle, probably sniper rifles, to balance the problem of all short-range encounters with Pulsewaves. If you are feeling crazy you could try to give one of your better suited Tac BOFFs a melee weapon.
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Comments
I mean, there are a lot of variables.
Split Beam rifles are as well really useful using em in your captain, but in boffs, not so much. Because they will not use the shot 2 in good situations, and shot 2 on a split beam rifle is even slower than the pulse wave. In this case, it is always better a high density one, and because the secondary shot of the high density one is more damaged based. If your boffs are going to use it without a clue, its better that at least they can inflict good damage.
For my captain, i always carry a pulse wave / split beam rifle / sniper rifle.
Sniper rifles are good for science boffs , because they will at safe distance to shot the enemy and use healing abilities as well, what i do is to give my science officers a patrol point, so they dont go by emselves to fire my target and they always are in a safe position.
For my boffs, depends, if they have good armor or melee skills, i give em pulse waves. If they are science characters, i ususally give em a sniper rifle as i said. I must say i dont use any other weapon that those 3 i posted lol. Well, in a couple of boffs i gave em a battlech, but just because it is the battlech from the event time ago, and i like it, thats all (and because they have melee skills). But it is not my recommendation to give your boffs melee weapons. Dont do it.
And yes, auto rifles and automatic pistols are sometimes good, sometimes bad. It is not a overall good weapon, because depends on really specific situations. I almost never used em, in my entire STO life.
Automatic pistols look really great on female sexy characters
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ground_weapon
same for primery
the borg tac is just 30 range :eek:
A well timed expose attack followed by an exploit will be a lot more effective than all of one type in my experience.
Also, and this is just my aesthetic preferance, I like to have a mixture of weapons for the diverse appearances.
My Medics use Pistols, Tacs use Rifles, and Engineers use Snipers since the range is useful when I order them to stay with all their generators
Or go for aesthetics like the guy above. Frankly, that's no worse than any other method for arming boffs.
As to OP's question, split beam is my preference with above away team.
I'd do 3 with Dyson and one with carbine with myself having both
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
for weapons i give em Splitbeem Rifles due to its secondary attack being a instant attack would put my BOff back to using their abilities quickly, if i give them a weapon like a minigun and they use its secondary attack which is not instant, it will lock out thier abilities for a certain amount of seconds which prevents them from healing me or my other BOff's.
Undine AP Rifle is good
Voth AP Hand Pistol and Split Beam Rifle is even better. If you can get Level XII purple get those instead of XI. DPS higher the better along with the AoE.
I see to many players using mini gun like a machine gun. But whatever your up against you need to have some options with you in your inventory. The Boss General on Voth Ground Battlezone that guy and his body guards you need a lot more firepower an help to take him out. If you do it just right you can take him out even on your own.
Time will only tell!
Close enough ...
Expose, Exploit? Who cares?
Get down with 4,2 or 1 engies ( depending whether it's a regular away mission or Dyson battlezone or New Romulus), give each of them a falchion and mine barrier 1, mine barrier 2, phaser turret 2, quantum mortar 2.
Sit, watch and grab popcorn while they bomb everything around.
The double mine barrier is designed to counter the Boffs' stupidity who would activate the mines as soon as they spot an enemy light years away lol but then, during the mines cooldown, they will have to get a melee distance since I have given them a falchion ... once they are at melee distance, they'll activate the mines again ... this time in front of the foe ... together with turrets and mortars of course.
Unless you care of aestethics or you love rolling specific Boffs for fun : I used ( and use ) to do new episodes with my main toon, a human eng and a team made of an android engie, Jem'hadar, the Breen and Nelen Exile
http://imgur.com/twnc4s8
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Recommend taking some rifle, probably sniper rifles, to balance the problem of all short-range encounters with Pulsewaves. If you are feeling crazy you could try to give one of your better suited Tac BOFFs a melee weapon.