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BoP build basics
cadfael71
Member Posts: 54 Arc User
it's hard to search for Bop so I apologize if I missed this. I've got a Gorn Tac up to 46 on BoP's and I really enjoy the class. This is my second toon in the 2-3 weeks I've been playing - just got a KDF Rom eng to 50 a few days ago.
I've been making semi-educated guesses on build up to now. Here's the basics - heavy concentration on weapons skills (specifically energy weapons) with a few points thrown at hull and shield for survival sake, gone all disrupter DHC up front* with disruptor turrets in the back. Have tacs at top and bottom of the Boff ladder with sci and eng in between.
So can someone point me in the right direction on what to look for in a BoP build to take me to 50 and beyond? Have I started anywhere near what I should?
Blanking out on the details of skills etc so ask if you want to know something I haven't provided.
TIA,
Tony
Iggy@cadfael71
* got a couple of odd-balls right now I found a long the way that were better than the disruptors I had.
I've been making semi-educated guesses on build up to now. Here's the basics - heavy concentration on weapons skills (specifically energy weapons) with a few points thrown at hull and shield for survival sake, gone all disrupter DHC up front* with disruptor turrets in the back. Have tacs at top and bottom of the Boff ladder with sci and eng in between.
So can someone point me in the right direction on what to look for in a BoP build to take me to 50 and beyond? Have I started anywhere near what I should?
Blanking out on the details of skills etc so ask if you want to know something I haven't provided.
TIA,
Tony
Iggy@cadfael71
* got a couple of odd-balls right now I found a long the way that were better than the disruptors I had.
Post edited by cadfael71 on
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One dual beam bank for beam overload to drop the target's shields. DHCs to keep it down/tear down what is left (rapid fire). A torp launcher to breech the hull.
And then... you want to cloak again, so it would be nice to use something so you can cloak safely.
Your main defense is speed, not armor or shields.
The Jemmy set + Protonic Arsenal seems good with protonic polaron. Not only will the Jemmy set give a damage bonus because you use polaron, but also the Proton Particle Stabilizer, as well, on top of tactical consoles. Plus... the set bonus also improves on photon torpedo damage... plus the experimental weapon is a cannon/beam hybrid, which means you can use it for overload AND rapid fire (just overload first), plus (yeah, there is another plus) the set Gravimetric Photon Torpedo Launcher has the habit of opening gravimetric rifts (i'd still recommend firing spread volleys because the torps are then non-destructable), plus... the Jemmy set gives a shield damaging ability, as well and a 10% damage resistance on top.
All in all a pretty solid setup and not that expensive.
I'll guess that you picked up a Hegh'ta at lvl 40. That BOP has CDR, LCDR and 2 LT universal stations.
Your active duty roster duty officers will make a big difference. Since you are still leveling up the character, I'll assume you don't have great ones yet for cooldowns and keep it simple.
This is a single target setup.
TT1, CRF1, APB2, APO3
ET1, EPTW2, EPTW3
TT1, CRF1
ST1, HE2
EPTW3 can be trained by an engineer captain. Ask a buddy if he can train one of your bridge officers with EPTW3 for you. Trade the officer to your buddy, who trades it back to you with EPTW3 trained.
Set power levels to max weapon power, balance the rest across shields and engines. Activate EPTWx, CRF, TT1, then APBx, immediately decloak, fire at your target. If the engagement lasts long enough for APO to become available, you can use it to bug out, maneuver for a better shot, or get out of a tractor beam.
Heal up after you bug out, then repeat.
As for DOFFs for the active duty space roster, This focuses on using doffs to reduce engineering and science team cooldowns, which isn't necessary to have the best ones ( purple/ very rare) to make use of them. A maintenance engineer for engineering team helps, and the science team one escapes me right now.....
As you get better DOFFs, the setup can dramatically change. For now, keep it simple.
As for weapons, 3 dual heavy cannons fore and 2 turrets aft to rip the shields down, and a single torpedo to finish them off. For the torpedo, quantums aren't a bad choice if you get a shield facing down.
The ones that have good cloak can be stealth missile boats. You can make them a sci ship for a sci toon. You can make them a support healer. You can make them an alpha striker/ strafe run ship. Honestly, the only thing they can't do well is tank; and with the right officers and an engineer at the controls, they can even do that *somewhat*.
In PVE, you can move up behind a tough enemy (boss, cube, etc) for flanking, slow down or even stop, and cut it to ribbons with DHC. The "speed = defense" is not important for pve --- modest gear and a few self heals can take anything pve has to throw at you except the oneshot kill torps & boss special attacks. While you can carry a torp if you want, all cannons is just fine for this. If you do not need to do so (because you are being shot up and can't take the heat), doign fly-bys just cuts your dps in half. Sitting there flanked and vaping is much, much higher dps.
In PVP, speed is your defense... lol ... going slow or parking is not going to work. You still want some officer healing and defenses, but your goal is to pop up behind someone, cut them up with flanking, and then get out of there before they can swat you down.
So my take on a pve "fighter" style BOP is to load up sci and eng healing, sit behind the enemy and destroy them while surviving the return fire.
If you want an exotic build, save your pennies until you can get a fleet norgh. The better officers allow for a strong SCI or support or "offbeat" build. If you want raw damage, *start* with the fairly inexpensive mirror BOP that just came out, and upgrade if they offer something decent in the expansion.
One console to be on the lookout for will drop you behind an enemy, all set up to flank and vape. Its from one of the low tier BOP cstore ships; I forget which.
The T4 BoP C-Store one.
It also unlocks the far more pretty Ch'tang class skin for your Mirror Universe Ki'tang Bird-of-Prey Retrofit should you have one. (and you should, 1.x million EC, two Lt. Cm. Boff seats and 4 tac consoles makes for a very good BoP)
I think it is 60 seconds, but that is from memory. It is longish enough that you only want to use it on bosses/tough targets, or very strategically in pvp. Once you have it, you can get it on all your characters (kdf and kdf roms anyway) and it is somewhat interesting on other types of ships even without flanking. Moving a big cow into position comes to mind.
My Boff station layout is as follows. My Tactical KDF toon flies the Hegh'ta and I have devoted the Lt. Cmdr station to science so that I have access to Gravity Well 1. I have been in many situations where crowd control would have been very useful, but no ships had that ability. Cannon Scatter Volley 2 comes in handy for crowds, but I will likely change that to Torpedo Spread 3 later for more devastating results.
TT1, CRF1, CSV2, APO3
HE1, ST2, GW1
TT1, CRF1
EPTS1, ET2
I tend to do a bit of attrition engagement (I just can't help it sometimes), so I put in some skill points into armor and shield. It's fine for PvE, but it's a bad strategy for PvP. Playing the game at work to check on my captain skills is not a good idea so I can't exactly tell you what my skills are. However, I can tell you they are not really optimized because this was my 2nd toon and I really wasn't very familiar with all the different captain skill. I will need to retrain, but I will wait until after Delta Rising is released. At least I did not waste as many points compared to my 1st toon (Fed Engineer) which I will also retrain.
For weapons, I simply use 3 DHCs and the Hargh'peng torpedo for now. Since the Hargh'peng does not get buffed by any Boff abilities, there is no need for HY or TS. Aft weapons inlcudes a disruptor beam array and another Hargh'peng torp. That will change later when I start loading up some reputation gear...
Speaking of reputation gear, you will soon be able to start focusing on rep gear (level 50), however, I would hold off on actually purchasing any equipment until after Delta Rising is released. That's because max level gear is to increase to Mk XIII and Mk XIV. I will assume all mark levels for rep gear will also increase. Therefore, even though I have completed the Omega Rep and New Romuan Rep systems, I will not buy any rep gear until after the new expansion is released.
One of the primary reasons I did the New Romuilan Rep is to get the Romulan Hyper-Plasma Torpedo Launcher which can launch two plasma torpedoes per target when used with TS and each does area of effect damage. Used in conjunction with GW1, the combination can be pretty devastating. Additionally, Romulan Plasma Dual Heavy Cannons purchased from the rep store are arguably considered one of the best weapons in the game. Some even say they rival the best "fleet weapons" (must be in a fleet to get fleet weapons).
In PvP, with your BoP properly specified, you will only need this console once - its cooldown is in practical terms, irrelevant.
In PvE, I cannot think of a single opponent apart from the Crystalline Entity worth actually using it, and the tactical advantages it gives, on in the current PvE situation - subject to change with Delta Rising.
It is not required in PVE and whether you have room for it in the 9 console ships is a choice... but first ice cube, last ice cube, donatra, borg queen, undine dreadnoughts, .... to name a few it can be handy. Donatra esp; its a total win to escape the aoe blast to pile on the damage. Its one of those things that is nice now and then.
2 minute recharge.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/File:Console_-_Universal_-_Subspace_Jumper.jpg
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=torengor_4991
using 2 nausicaan & 2 lethean boff
My Wordpress Blog - Blogger
In Space, drinking or piloting, you must choose ! If you drink, put on the autopilot
Ok, a few things to use it on.
BTW just dinged 50. Haven't done any STFs yet - don't want to expose my inability to play
I've played my BOP Captain, lvl 50 Rom eng, lvl 15 fed tac, and lvl 13 rom sci all for a bit today and the BOP is definitely the most fun to fly.
Input some zen on my account so I need to decide if the B'rel retrofit or the mirror kiting is worth the price?
The Mirror Ki'Tang is a good ship...the only thing you wont be able to do with it is build a stealth bomber. If you never plan on building a stealth bomber then a mirror Ki'Tang is equal to the zen B'Rel maybe even better depending on what type of build you are going for. Retro B'Rel has a for eng/sci/tac consoles 3/3/3 while Ki'Tang has 3/2/4. The boff stations are all universal of course with the B'Rel having Cdr, Lcdr, Lt and Lt while the Ki'Tang has Cdr, LCdr, LCdr and Ensign for the Ki'Tang. The two LCdr boff stations on the Ki'Tang is what makes it really sweet. Even the Heghta is a good ship, the one you get at level 40 for free (if you spent you free ship token on it). It has the same weapon slots, same boff layout, same number of consoles as the B'Rel retro you just wont be able to fire torpedoes and mines from stealth. The Heghta even has slightly more hull hitpoints then the B'Rel.
EDIT: ohh and one other thing to consider is the price. A B'Rel will cost you 2000 zen. A Ki'Tang right now is selling for about 1.9 - 2.0 million EC on the exchange. If you have that much EC cool, if not then buy a Master Key on the zen store for 125 zen. Then sell that Master Key on the exchange, which as of right now you can sell for as low as 2.6 million EC, lower if you dont mind undercutting and want a fast sell.
Only time I die is with the Borg Invistorp from a gate once in awhile or if I forget to get out of the way of the CE's pulse wave in time.
Link in sig to my BoP. Some of my gear you won't be able to get until 50, but you should be able to find level appropriate counterparts,...
The main to remember with BoP's you don't have the innate hull strength so it's important to obtain armor consoles to give you what you innately lack. If you do that, there are multiple ways to "build & play" a BoP and cloak & run tactics are NOT the only one nor the only "most effective".
With proper armor consoles, a BoP can be just as tough as any other T5 ship of similar size. My BoP has almost as much hull as my Defiant, and no one would suggest hit, cloak & run tactics for it as the only viable method.
"There... are... four... lights!" ~Jean Luc Picard
Personally, I LOVE BoPs as well. Its already been said, but play what you have fun with. If you can swing it - get the B'Rel when you can. Firing torps and sci powers while cloaked is hella awesome. If you're having fun without a battle cloak and like disruptors, shop around the exchange for Nanite disruptors (turrets) and elachi crescent waves (DHCs). Some peeps like to mix a beam to take out shields, but I find this a waste of time IMO with elachi weapons as they have a chance to ignore shields. If you combine this with the disruptor and photon bonus you get from the 8472 reputation set (the undine disruptor turret rocks btw) and fleet disruptor tact consoles ... u will be an OP death dealer.
I like the flexibility of the BoP so sometimes I like running transphasic torpedo builds for PvE. Try a Breen cluster, a rapid reload, Borg transphasic with a fleet trans torpedo for giggles. It can be pretty fun. Keep in mind that in a Brel, u can fire them all cloaked and laugh.
Im fairly certain I still have a boxed Mirror Ki'tang somewhere. Put up your @handle and Ill mail it when I find it.
The B'rels main advantage is it's Enhanced Battle-Cloak - it can fire torpedos while cloaked, as seen in Star Trek VI. However, it does lack against some other BoPs - a Fleet Norgh has an Lt. Cm. Boff where a B'rel has a Lt. Boff.
Depends on what you want to do with it as to which is better.
Iggy@Cadfael71. Thanks.
BTW: what rep should I focus on to grab the right equips for it?
Just the first things off the top of my head.
See here for details and set items:
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Omega_Adapted_Borg_Technology_Set
Most people ignore the Omega Plasma Torp and just run the 2pc. If you want to run a torp there are far better ones than that. The 2pc bonus is pretty good, though.
Also the 360 degree AP array from the Sphere of Influence is pretty good. I think i had made comparisons a while back and even though the tac consoles didnt boost AP damage, and even without the obelisk warp core for the extra 10% ap damage it still did more damage then the turrets i had (which were matched up to the tac consoles type).
Its perfect esp if you go an all AP boat with high crit values. And BoP's thrive on high spike damage. So a good AP build with flank can be devastating. Feds will seethingly hate you!
We still live!!!!! Hahahahahahahahaa! We live and we will conquer!!!!! Hahahahahaaha!
-Roach, when asked about Klingon extinction!
Any of you guys feel this will work?
25% bonus not 50%
Breen 2pc bonus
Set 2: Superconducting Phase Channels
Passive
+30.5 Transphasic Projectile Damage
+30.5 Starship Electro-Plasma System
Honor guard 2pc
Set 2: Tactical Readiness
Passive
+25% Bonus to Torpedo Damage
+7 Auxiliary Power Setting
Slowly returns missing crew to disable status (works during combat)
+7 crew recovery rate
+70% resistance to crewman loss