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Eng toon or Tac toon?
spartacuszero
Member Posts: 27 Arc User
I currently have a VA Tac toon using escorts. I'm thinking about using cruisers on the side, but I've been told that unless you're an Engineer, stick with the escort. What would the Engineer give me that my Tactical does not?
Post edited by spartacuszero on
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Pretty much this.
You don't need to start a new toon just to fly a different ship since the performance depends more on your playstyle and skill (as in "knowing what to do)" anyway.
A tac toon flying a cruser gives you more DPS potential, thanks to all your captain skills, than a engi toon. On the other hand the engi would have stuff like Miracle Worker (I love this) which lets you sruvive and tank a whole lot more but lacks all the damage output buffs your tac has. Someone told me engis have also a nice synergy with science ships, just never tried it myself since the only sci ship I currently have is the dyson ship and I really don't like its design.
I prefer a Daffy Duck over the Bugs bunny -toon.
Sorry, i couldn't resist.
Seriously, you can use whatever combination you find interesting.
Heres a fine summary which should help you decide:
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showpost.php?p=8288731&postcount=599
Put a tac in a cruiser, watch your DPS rise from the various tac buffs you've got. Put an eng in an escort, your DPS will be high (not AS high as a tac, but still high because of the tac boff seating and DHCs), but your survivability will be higher than it would normally be. A sci in an escort can do some nasty things too, a tac in a science vessel can do more damage with science powers.
A lot of combinations can work in really interesting ways.
You got your order of sci and eng reversed. In space at least.;)
Other combinations of captain and ship classes are more sublte, but engi in a cruiser is just a turtle build: hard to kill hard to do damage.
your captain selection acts like a sub class to that.
A TAC captain will add a lot of dmg to any ship you put him in, the engi will add a lot of survivability and power management.
The SCI has a little bit of both combined with an extra surprise.
problem is, that regularely it is better to mix ship type and captain, than going def cruiser + engi or SCI in SCI vessel, because they tend to lack dmg to an extend that even normal content becomes unnecessary longdrawn.
Tac in escort ofcourse doesn't suffer from that.
But there are allways exceptions too, for instance SCI in SCI vessel, build as a harasser or drainer, is very effective in PVP.
im a engi in a fleet patrol escort refit and clear 15k dps easy and the best part is i survive alot of situations from being an engi i love it :cool:
p.s. i use DHC's and a torpedo also :cool:
Tac captains give a little more spike damage to the combat.
Eng captains give better heals, and also get a skill that will let your weapons use less energy.
Sci captains will be able to debuff the enemy, and allow more damage to be done.
In all, they all have their advantages that they will bring to the ships they are in. Therefore, if you want to put your tac captain into a cruiser, then go for it. In the end, no matter which way you go, the captain's skills are only a small part of the whole picture.
What I mean by that comment is that your complete setup, and how well you use it is what will be the biggest deciding factor. Your space gear, weapons, consoles, DOFFs, and BOFFs will all play a part in how you, and your ship perform.
The answer was essentially ... A Tac in an Escort can add to the Escorts already formidable tactical advantages and strengths, however a Tac in a Tac ship requires some skills as it compromises between survival and damage output.
The same goes for an Engi in a Cruiser, you can add to the Cruisers already excellent tanking ability, but you can't really bring much extra damage to the table ...
Cross Shipping however, can and does add a whole new dimension to the game ...
Tac captains for instance have their own Tac abilities such as Attack patterns, CD Timer Buffs and Crit/Damage Buffs ... So put them in a cruiser that doesn't have great Tactical BoFF seating, and you can load the Tac BoFF's with other skills (BO, BFAW, CRF, CSV , TS etc ...) instead of the Attack Patterns and Buffs ...
In other words, you can use the Captain's Abilities Instead of, or as an extra set of, BoFF abilities ...
This can make a "Tacruiser" do way more damage, or in the case of an Engi, make an "Tankscort" last a lot longer in battles.
Science Captains and Sci ships need a lot more planning and careful building, but if done right they can make deadly adversaries.
in a way it is...engis provide more energy for all your subsystems. More power in engines means more turnrate. It is only a little bit, but still.
Other than that, no captain class offers a "special buff" if combined with a specific ship type. Not even the captain sci abilities receive any recogniceable buffs from science skills. Although they do profit from high aux levels.
There are lots of ways to play this game. I would first stop listening to people that make any sort of absolute assertions of this nature.
An engineer can do amazing in an escort; they can keep it alive while pounding away. I have an engineer in a BOP and there is nothing quite like losing all your shields and 2/3 of your hull and just full healing without breaking a sweat. A tac can do high dps in a "cruiser" with less risk of being splatted after drawing aggro.
Now, there are some things that work better than others. A tac captain probably still wants at least a 4 tac console ship, even if its a big, tanky ship. Some examples include the "fleet assault cruiser", the obvious "avenger" class, or one of my favorites, the tal shiar adapted battle cruiser. A 3 tac console ship would be playable as well, and open up a lot more options, but I would look for a 4 that suits first, and go to 3 only if you have a very good reason to do so.
When you break it down, captains give you a small handful of skills. These skills can be used really in one of 2 ways: they either make a doubled down build (tac on tac, for example, the classic tac captain in an escort, or engineer in a tank, or sci in a sci ship) or they can be used to fill in the gaps (as above, a tac in a tank, or a engineer in a gunboat).
not to repeat the wiki too much but
engineers get: power buff (boosts all power levels for a while, very nice for using BO3 or feeding an amped warp core), miracle worker (massive self heal that can be hit twice in a row), and a shield heal with resistance buff.
tacs get: alpha:a high dps attack pattern, fire on mark target debuff, go down fighting (get yourself shot up on purpose for a damage spike), and some sort of cooldown officer buff that does not seem to do much.
It is pretty easy to get swarmed by many enemies in Storming the Spire and The Breach. Cannons only allows you to focus on one enemy at a time while beam weapons can fire at multiple enemies using Fire At Will; but it will be random targets. This can be useful when swarmed by many fighter crafts or if you have a capital ship in front and behind you. Since The Breach takes place inside a huge ship you may find that you do not have much room to maneuver which makes getting your cannons on target a bit more difficult. Since, you are basically getting attacked from all sides, the weak hull strength and lower shield modifier of an escort could be a disadvantage.
Fed escorts can be equipped with cannons or beams, but most Fed cruisers can only be equipped with beams. That means with an escort you can at least switch out cannons for beams when doing missions where you know beams can give better tactical options than cannons.
That post is 101% PvP focused.