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Guide to Tanky ships
tenkari
Member Posts: 2,906 Arc User
Ok, so im putting this up cause Someone asked me to via PM after talking about ships with someone new via Zone chat.
This is mainly for new people, so i wont go into major details right away, but someone asked about "a tanky ship" so thought i'd give some info.
Please feel free to add to it if i missed something, or am missinformed, i'll update the main post often with relevant info.
Now, first off. Lets split up the types of Tanking that's possible.
so called "Speed tanking" - To me, this isnt a true form of tanking, however, i'll add it in anyway, as your mainly trying to avoid getting hit rather than taking damage. This type is usually done by fast smaller craft such as escorts/raiders and possibly some of the smaller warbirds.
This type of Tanking requires you to pretty much put as much as you can into speed, because of how the game calculates defense, which means how hard you are to hit, the more speed means the higher your defense value, therefore more speed = less damage taken. These builds usually also have a lot of hold breaks in them.
Shield Tanking - This form of tanking usually requires lots of shield boosting science consoles, and is more easily done on science ships, or lockbox ships with a high shield mod, since that means their shield heals and shield boosting consoles are more effective. however, weapons that bypass shields, or enemies like the borg, who can drain shields, make this form of tanking kind of unreliable since you cannot guarantee you'r shields will last long enough.
Hull tanking - Ok, this is what most think of when they hear "tank" in this game. Ususally seen done by Cruiser/carrier/dreadnought class ships, as they got high HP and lots of Engineering consoles to boosts their hull HP and resists. and with an engineering leaning these ships have plenty of abiltiies at their disposal to keep themselves alive.
Ok, those are the three main types of Tanking, here i'll list a few abilities/consoles that i know will help each type of tanking.
"Speed tanking" boosts:
Evasive Maneuvers (given to everyone)
Emergency Power to Engines (Engineering Bridge Officer space Ability)
Attack pattern Omega (Tactical Breidge Officer space ability)
Impulse Capacitance Cells (T2 C-store Escort, or console pack from exchange for KDF)
Shield Tanking boosts:
Shields: mainly the mods on them, and also, the less bleedthrough a shield has, the less damage the hull takes. (self explanitory i think)
Rotate Shield Frequency (Engineering Captain only Skill)
Emergency Power to Shields (Engineering Bridge Officer Space Skill)
Reverse Shield Polarity (engineering Bridge Officer Space Skill)
Field Generators, boosts shield HP (Science Console)
Transfer shield strength (Science bridge officer space skill)
Extend Shields: note this one only helps allies only, so someone's gotta use it on you. (Engineering Bridge officer space skill)
Tactical Team: Only mentioned for automatic shield distribution (Tactical bridge officer space ability)
Hull Tanking boosts:
Hull plating consoles. Now there are several types, however, at level 40-50, most go with Neutronium as it covers everything, though specialized type consoles might be better against certain enemys. (Engineering consoles)
Hazard Emitters (Science bridge officer space ability)
Auxilliary to the Structural Integrity field. (Engineering bridge officer ability)
Brace for impact: Kinetic (torpedo/Kinetic cutting beam damage) only (Captain skill)
Deflectors: can boost both shield and hull tanking with the right mods, so im putting that one seperately, it will slightly boost speed as well with the hold resist kind.
Ok, thats pretty much everything i can think of. Do note, some ships can do both shield/hull tanking with their bridge officer/console setups, so dont think you only HAVE to rely on one type of tanking. Also, some of you might wonder why i didnt post Engineering team/science team in the list. I only mentioned skills that will increase your resistances to damage, or increase your HP's.
This is mainly for new people, so i wont go into major details right away, but someone asked about "a tanky ship" so thought i'd give some info.
Please feel free to add to it if i missed something, or am missinformed, i'll update the main post often with relevant info.
Now, first off. Lets split up the types of Tanking that's possible.
so called "Speed tanking" - To me, this isnt a true form of tanking, however, i'll add it in anyway, as your mainly trying to avoid getting hit rather than taking damage. This type is usually done by fast smaller craft such as escorts/raiders and possibly some of the smaller warbirds.
This type of Tanking requires you to pretty much put as much as you can into speed, because of how the game calculates defense, which means how hard you are to hit, the more speed means the higher your defense value, therefore more speed = less damage taken. These builds usually also have a lot of hold breaks in them.
Shield Tanking - This form of tanking usually requires lots of shield boosting science consoles, and is more easily done on science ships, or lockbox ships with a high shield mod, since that means their shield heals and shield boosting consoles are more effective. however, weapons that bypass shields, or enemies like the borg, who can drain shields, make this form of tanking kind of unreliable since you cannot guarantee you'r shields will last long enough.
Hull tanking - Ok, this is what most think of when they hear "tank" in this game. Ususally seen done by Cruiser/carrier/dreadnought class ships, as they got high HP and lots of Engineering consoles to boosts their hull HP and resists. and with an engineering leaning these ships have plenty of abiltiies at their disposal to keep themselves alive.
Ok, those are the three main types of Tanking, here i'll list a few abilities/consoles that i know will help each type of tanking.
"Speed tanking" boosts:
Evasive Maneuvers (given to everyone)
Emergency Power to Engines (Engineering Bridge Officer space Ability)
Attack pattern Omega (Tactical Breidge Officer space ability)
Impulse Capacitance Cells (T2 C-store Escort, or console pack from exchange for KDF)
Shield Tanking boosts:
Shields: mainly the mods on them, and also, the less bleedthrough a shield has, the less damage the hull takes. (self explanitory i think)
Rotate Shield Frequency (Engineering Captain only Skill)
Emergency Power to Shields (Engineering Bridge Officer Space Skill)
Reverse Shield Polarity (engineering Bridge Officer Space Skill)
Field Generators, boosts shield HP (Science Console)
Transfer shield strength (Science bridge officer space skill)
Extend Shields: note this one only helps allies only, so someone's gotta use it on you. (Engineering Bridge officer space skill)
Tactical Team: Only mentioned for automatic shield distribution (Tactical bridge officer space ability)
Hull Tanking boosts:
Hull plating consoles. Now there are several types, however, at level 40-50, most go with Neutronium as it covers everything, though specialized type consoles might be better against certain enemys. (Engineering consoles)
Hazard Emitters (Science bridge officer space ability)
Auxilliary to the Structural Integrity field. (Engineering bridge officer ability)
Brace for impact: Kinetic (torpedo/Kinetic cutting beam damage) only (Captain skill)
Deflectors: can boost both shield and hull tanking with the right mods, so im putting that one seperately, it will slightly boost speed as well with the hold resist kind.
Ok, thats pretty much everything i can think of. Do note, some ships can do both shield/hull tanking with their bridge officer/console setups, so dont think you only HAVE to rely on one type of tanking. Also, some of you might wonder why i didnt post Engineering team/science team in the list. I only mentioned skills that will increase your resistances to damage, or increase your HP's.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
1: Speed is more of a dodge, and not tanking at all. Tanking means being able to take the hits, and not dodge them.
2: Under "Shield Tanking Boost" you put this: I think this is meant to be "Miracle Worker", which will repair both shields and hull at the same time. Whereas Reverse Shield Polarity is only a BOFF skill.
1. If you noticed, i did mention that it was more "avoidance based" than anything..... and i put it in " 's to show that its not true tanking, some people just call it that.
2. Actually, I meant rotate shield Frequency, as i wasnt including straight heals in the list, and was including just those that improved damage reduction/resists.
my version of tanky with DPS
**Note: The above list, and all of the below, benefit any Captain and any playstyle, so choosing which to use or put points into is a personal choice, however, when choosing a ship and Captain Class, you should always think about how you intend to play. As an example, some players use virtually no repair or resistance abilities or skills at all once they hit lvl 50, and rely purely on speed, and spike damage, to get them through, and play a in a truly "glass cannon" style.
Generic resistance skills:
Starship Hull Plating This skill improves your Starship's resistance to Energy damage
Starship Armor Reinforcements This skill improves your Starship's Damage Resistance to Kinetic and Physical damage
General "tanking" Skills: Primarily for hull tanking ...
Starship Hull Repair: This skill improves the passive hull regeneration rate of all Starships and related hull repair abilities.
Structural Integrity: This skill increases the hit points of your vessel's hull.
Shield 'tanking" skills: Primarily for shield tanking
Starship Shield Performance: This skill grants you a flat power increase to Shields, benefiting shield hit points, regeneration
Starship Shield Emitters: This skill improves all starship shield regeneration abilities.
Starship Shield Systems: This skill increases your shield strength (shield hit points).
Generic "defense" skills: Primarily for avoidance tanking ...
Starship Maneuvers This skill improves your Starship's Defense value.
Starship Impulse Thrusters This skill improves your Starship's Impulse Speed and Turn Rate.
A couple of additional Skills, that can help "tanking"
Starship Power Insulators: This skill grants resistance to enemy attacks which attempt to drain your shields, or power from subsystems.
Starship Warp Core Potential: This skill provides a flat bonus to all subsystem power levels
Starship Auxiliary Performance: This skill grants you a flat bonus to your Auxiliary power level.
A boat in the "tank" role must take and hold the aggro as well as survive.
Basically all the major MMO's have have an avoidance based tank. For example, EQ1 has the Monk, WoW has the feral druid, Rift has the Riftstalker, Final Fantasy XI has the Ninja, STO has escorts, EVE has interceptors, assault frigates and heavy assault cruisers and the list could go on ad nauseam.
The only problem with calling escorts tanks because of their speed is that complaints were never made about escorts being tanks, till they were able to actually take damage, not dodge. I am not saying that movement doesn't help a tank survive. However, in STO, dodging is not a tanking class.
The escorts are now able to tank because they can take more damage than what they use to. In just the last 7 months alone, BOFF skills, and the changes to the rep system traits have helped with the ability for escorts (and other ships) to tank better.
I know that in some games the ability to dodge is helpful to tanking. However, in none of them is dodging listed as one of the types of tanking, but as a skill, or game mechanic used to assist in tanking, just like in STO.
The OP said that "Speed" was one of the types of tanking in STO. It does help with tanking, but is not in itself tanking. I fly escorts, and cruisers a lot in STO. There are Shield, and Hull tanking. Both of these can be used together, or alone. For example, you can tank with shields, and not be able to take much hull damage at all. Or, you can have little shield tanking abilities, but be able to tank with the hull.
A ship that tries to use speed alone will not be able to tank. They will need to be able to take good shield, or hull damage. That is where their tanking is.
Whether you use shields, or hull for tanking, speed will assist in your tanking ability. Therefore, saying that "Speed" is a separate tanking ability is not true. It is an ability that assist in tanking.