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wotertool
Member Posts: 96 Arc User
Hello everyone,
I hope that I don't ask a question which has been asked a billion times in the past two seasons, but I will ask anyways
What can I do as Sci ? What should/can I skill as Sci ? What weapons should/can I use and what can/should I fly as Sci ?
For example, I have a romulan sci at level 51 (KDF aligned) which currently sits in a Mirror Valdore T5 Ship (Mogai Class called ingame).
I bought that one form the exchange because I dislike the alternatives (non C-Store ones) (-> I value aestatics ^^).
My gear is currently horrible because I am trying to get some EC together, so I play with a low tier torp from a mission, 2x Heavy Dis Cannons and a very rare Heavy Polarn Cannon which I got today from a reputation box. In the back, I have 3 turrets. My Cores / Deflectors are nothing special and the Shield is also from a Mission.
I also did not spend many skill points (tbh none at all) because I thought, I will save them until I know where I can spend them. For example a PvP built.
So, I read that a romulan Sci Cpt is currently the worst decision for making a character. - Great ...
I also read that this KDF C-Store console for increased power levels help but I think I do not own the ship so far. If there will be a -50% sale again, I can buy it.
Sooo ... what would people suggest me to do ?
(I also have a FED Sci Cpt but that one is just level 25 so far. I do own a few FED Ships (thx to the last sale, like the C-Store Intrepid or the Nebula))
Thank you in advance.
I hope that I don't ask a question which has been asked a billion times in the past two seasons, but I will ask anyways
What can I do as Sci ? What should/can I skill as Sci ? What weapons should/can I use and what can/should I fly as Sci ?
For example, I have a romulan sci at level 51 (KDF aligned) which currently sits in a Mirror Valdore T5 Ship (Mogai Class called ingame).
I bought that one form the exchange because I dislike the alternatives (non C-Store ones) (-> I value aestatics ^^).
My gear is currently horrible because I am trying to get some EC together, so I play with a low tier torp from a mission, 2x Heavy Dis Cannons and a very rare Heavy Polarn Cannon which I got today from a reputation box. In the back, I have 3 turrets. My Cores / Deflectors are nothing special and the Shield is also from a Mission.
I also did not spend many skill points (tbh none at all) because I thought, I will save them until I know where I can spend them. For example a PvP built.
So, I read that a romulan Sci Cpt is currently the worst decision for making a character. - Great ...
I also read that this KDF C-Store console for increased power levels help but I think I do not own the ship so far. If there will be a -50% sale again, I can buy it.
Sooo ... what would people suggest me to do ?
(I also have a FED Sci Cpt but that one is just level 25 so far. I do own a few FED Ships (thx to the last sale, like the C-Store Intrepid or the Nebula))
Thank you in advance.
Post edited by wotertool on
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Comments
1. Build according to the ship you're planning to fly. Engineering bird? Build as an engie. Sci ship? Then you'd begin to look at "science-y" builds...
2. On the off chance you're planning on flying, for Rom, the Ha'nom Sci ship, A Dyson ship, or one of the science-y lockbox/lobi/freebie carriers, that's what gets you looking at science builds...
The "big" builds for science are:
Healer
CC via Area Denial - Grav Gen build
CC/AoE attacker - Part Gen Build
Drainer/denial - Flow Caps and decompiler.
I've listed the "crucial" skill(s) after the builds...
CC - Area Denial is a build type where you're focusing more on massive graviton generators to give your "movement" effects (TBR, Grav Well, etc.) massive amounts of movement. Reports are out that high Grav Gen builds can create gravity wells that suck in anything within 20km of the well. Combined with the Xindi crafting oriented DOff that tacks "20% chance for engines offline while in a GW" and an aftershock DOff (top of map Romulan area Nebula support) can create massive (and longish lasting) area denial ranges. TBR, properly controlled, can send targets to the far side of the map.
CC/AoE attacker focuses on the science crafting level 15 trait that gives massive crits off of the part gen skill then attempts to get as close to 400 part gens as possible. At 400 part gens with that trait, all sources of exotic damage have a 100% crit chance - 200 part gens = 50% crit chance, etc. You could go TBR (pull DOff) and GW, use the PBAoEs, exotic proccing torpedoes, etc. to set up houses of pain and get close to (if not surpassing) escort levels of DPS...
Most any way you look at it, science can be a very... expensive... class/type to kit out properly (but then again, most classes are like that)
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
> My gear is currently horrible because I am trying to get some EC together, so I play with a low tier torp from a mission, 2x Heavy Dis Cannons and a very rare Heavy Polarn Cannon which I got today from a reputation box. In the back, I have 3 turrets. My Cores / Deflectors are nothing special and the Shield is also from a Mission.
Do some patrols, the crystalline event, story missions. Pay attention to the gear drop stats -- a white mark XII torpedo will do more damage than a blue mark VIII.
Make sure you don't have "rainbow beams" or "skittle cannons" -- pick one damage type like Plasma and stick with it. You can put the other types (of mark XI or better) in your bank in case you decide to change later. Buy some white XI - XII tactical consoles off the exchange that match the specific damage type. If you're missing a beam array or cannon look for a white XII one on the exchange.
Do the Romulan mark rep missions on New Romulus and get the daily rep boxes. Some will give you Romulan Plasma space weapons which are very good. Eventually you'll have enough marks and dil to get the Romulan hyper torpedo, zero point console, beam, shield . . . .
If you have been doing the Crystalline Event, keep doing that for the 50K dil.
However, I will suggest getting the Solanae space set from the episode "A Step Between Stars". It is T5 rep system quality, and is really good for survivability. You will not be able to get the 4 piece bonus unless you buy the DSD from the Lobi story, but honestly, it isn't worth that much Lobi just for the warp core it has. So, I would just stick with the rep system gear.
With DR, the games focus became heavily focused on DPS. But there is no rush to get it. Take your time, you still have an extremely long time to get to level 60 anyway. If you are going to do Advanced queued missions (like STFs/PVEs) then you will need to focus more on DPS. So, the space set from the mission will help keep you alive while you work on other things.
If you just want to put your character in a science ship, I would suggest looking at the ship itself, and see what you feel you are more comfortable with. Some players want to do high DPS, Drain builds, or some like to do CC to keep enemies from moving. They each are fun to play with.
If you don't max out your individual skills in your skill tree, you can have a more universal build, so you can put your character in about any ship. This will mean no more than 6 ranks in each skill.
However, if you want to min/max, there are some skills that you can add the last three ranks into them so that together they will give a good bonus to squeeze the last little bit out.
For weapons, like someone else mentioned, it is good to keep the same energy type, and your tac consoles increase that energy type (example: Plasma, Antiproton, Phaser, etc), instead of tac consoles that focus on a weapons type (example: cannon, torp, or beam). The ones that focus on energy types will give a larger bonus to all of those energy weapons at the same MK, and quality of console.
In the end, no one can really tell you what to do, or say for you to build the ship a certain way. We can only offer suggestions. It is up to you to see what you like best.
If you have a sub, or LTS, then you should have gotten respec tokens as you leveled. If not, then you will probably want to do research on the subjects of Drain builds, AOE builds, CC builds, and DPS science builds. It will give you an idea of what is needed to make those builds more effective.
And if you see one that you have a question about, then feel free to ask more questions about it. Engineers, and Science characters have a much larger style of game play they can branch out in, and still offer something to the team in queues. But what works for one person may not work for another.
In space, the only difference between the classes is 3.5 powers. Everyone gets a "fleet support" power, everyone gets a "class fleet" where the bonus is class dependent (Science = shields & defense, Engie = hull resist and heals, tac = moar dakka). The other three is where your "class" shines...
Science has sensor scan - decent attack buff and can be a touch of a debuff with the right DOff. Subnuc beam is the debuff-of-doom skill, but the NPCs rarely use enough skills to make using it worthwhile. Scattering field is an AoE defense booster. These are up against Engineering's power booster and massive self heals, or Tactical's DPS boosts.
So, you could skill your "science" captain as a Tac, and toss him into an escort, and he'll do "near Tac" levels of DPS, with those couple of "extra defensive" powers to slightly enhance survivability and/or clear the rogue power like the Cardassians with FBP and the Mogai's Tac Team. You could skill him as a tanky engineer, toss into cruiser, and use those science-y bonuses to save some hull or sensor scan up that touch of extra DPS on occasion.
I gave some ideas as to what you might want to focus on, skill wise, for various "science" builds - aka those that almost require a ship with a Cmdr Sci slot. Since those are few and far between in the Romulan fleet - it's going to be harder to keep ship(s) worthwhile for a Science build. Yeah, Roms have that "weaker power levels" singularity stuff, however, many good Rom Sciences have turned that into an "advantage" - slot an Energy Syphon with at least some flow caps, Plasmonic Leech console, batteries everywhere, torp boating, etc., appropriate use of singularity powers, especially the warp jumper one - all are used to mitigate and/or add "extra science" to the average Science build (that warp jump leaves a singularity behind that can trap a few baddies for a teammate...)
Of course, once the course is chosen, then we can elaborate on gear etc. For example:
I tend to go "generalist Science" - not a min-max build. Especially on my Rommie Sci, I went 6s in each and every science power, grabbed shield, resist, and power skills from engineering, rest went tactical for DPS. This guy can toss an Energy Syphon II out of a Lt Cmdr BOff slot for +21 power to all 4 stats after a 4 or so second delay - dang close to a RMC out of a BOff slot. The 6 in Graviton Generators + a couple graviton consoles means that even a Grav Well I can snare a few guys from almost 7-8km out. Having this base on a DSD means that I can take advantage of CSV & Spread with my Dyson rep store / Rep protonic sets - energy syphon and plasmonic leech gets past a lot of those low power level issues - while shifting over into a T'Varo with EBC on a plasma torp bomber type build has him lobbing piles of hot death into the middle of messes, and the GW keeps many targets clumped up enough for splash (or destabilized beachball of warm fuzzyness) to be useful. Torp build on the T'Varo means that I can ignore the weapons power number (15) and shields (15) - torps don't care about weapons, cloak means no shields - focusing on engines for speed-oriented defense and aux for the powers to hurt.
What sucks as a Science is that if you do like I do (Syphon and Part Gen based AoE damager), you'll never really be good at either because it seems almost every other science power needs a different skill to start with - and you want to line your science consoles with whatever skill booster affects the skill you focus on - or you're "wasting BOff slots" on powers that don't use the skill you're focused on...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
Really the choice now is what do you want to do with your Sci captain in space and find a ship that'll fit that. If aesthetics are that important to you, really it shouldn't matter at all what you do unless you're trying to get to a level that you can do elites then skills are more important then looks.
Okay so as a romulan yes you're in a horrible position. Romulans are arguably the queens of tactical and not so bad at engineering, but horrible at science. They have some science ships out there (dysons for example) but the energy loss you'll give up for a dyson can be a mitigating factor on what path you take.
First you can do what everyone else does and go the standard energy weapon route. This isn't bad for the Romulans at all, though it's kind of the generic everyone can do it (just tac captains do it better), but it requires very little imput from the Captain itseld and is more dependant on gear, BOffs, DOffs, and player skill.
This will unfortunatly play to only a few of your science abilities, but it will give you more survivability (play up the shield tank stuff that science gets). But it's not a "science" thing... it's the "everyone is doing it cookie cutter" option. If you want "science" this isn't it, but it's certainly doable and effective.
That leaves you, as a Romlan two options really. First is Find a good lockbox/science ship (Voth Pallisade is good if you can find one, as are the Dysons from the C-store... remember you can change the skin to look less albino and more Romulan looking). Second is go the Hybrid route.
We'll start with the Hybrid route first. Here you find a decent ship with Tac or Eng CDR and Science LCDR and use the Universal (they should have one) for science or tactical depending on your roll. You'll give up some firepower and/or survivability/exotic powers but you'll blend it. Quite a few Romulan ships fit into this spot (like the new Intel warbird). What you do is decide on Drain, CC, or Exotic damage and try and do both well. You'll never top the leader boards but you'll be able to hold your own and adapt to almost any situation if you get a good build.
The other route is pure science. Here you tend to give up pure firepower (usually in the energy weapon department) and go more exotic damamge or drain ability. Romulans have a horrible time with this since a) they get less energy anyway and b) most of their ships don't have CDR science spots or give bonus to AUX). Feds have it much, much easier since they have a literal plethora of ships to choose from (and at this point you're picking details like a more tac orientated sci or a more eng orientated or a more science orientanted sci).
As others have said, once you choose a route, stick with it, because you're not going to see a huge amount of returns early on (unless you go the energy weapon cookie cutter route which is quicker to see results). Purer science builds take a while to build up, but once they do you can generally do very, very well quite often being in the top of leader boards.
Also for gear, the quick and cheap way to go is skip EC and go the Reputation route. Most of it requires only time and dilithium, saving your EC for other things like DOffs and consoles.
I am currently trying to get an all Dirsuptor Set, though I am not sure yet if I decide to make a Sci-Tac thingy and buy cannons, or try to get some of the special ships and put beams into it.
I think I will leave the CC - Area Denial build to my FED Sci. It sounds appealing and I will try to find a guide in the forum for that.
Maybe the CC/AoE could work with a romulan Sci ? Or maybe I should put my Cpt into an Escort. I do not own a worthy escort Cpt so far.
Yes, this is why I asked for options, thank you ^^
I do not own any respec tokens on that new character, just on my really old ones. This is a reason why I have not spent any skill points so far.
This sounds very appealing, especially since I think that making a min/max with a romulan sci is close to impossible for me.
Can you tell me more about it, maybe even via this? http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner
However, this also sounds like something I might want. ^^
Yes, I also thought this is the best way.
At the end, the Sci-Tac Hybrid and the General-Sci are left. I kinda like both ideas, though I wonder if the Mirror Mogai Heavy Warbird Retrofit is suited for any of these two.
Lt Cmdr = Hazard Emitters 1, Science Team 2, Gravity Well 1
Lieutenant = Polarized Hull 1, Energy Siphon 1
As suggested by someone else, you should make it a point to get the Solanae space set as quickly as possible. It is a very good set that you can get for free with the exception of the singularity core. All you need to do is play "A Step Between Stars" 3 times to get the deflector array, shields and impulse engines. The singularity was only free for the 4th Anniversay Event when you turned in your 1,000 Qmendations for the free Aves Dyson Science Destroyer. The only way to get that ship now is from the Lobi Store for 600 Lobi Crystals, but it is not worth doing so unless you really want it.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Solanae_Hybrid_Technologies
It is good that you have not spent any of your skill points yet because now you can truly play around with allocating skill point before you commit to any of them. I did the same for a Fed tactical toon I made where I did not spend any skill points until I reached level 50. If you want to be a generalist, then it is a good idea not to allocated more than 6 points into any abilities. However, since Romulans trades off 40 power points for singularity abilities I would max out Starship Warp Core Potential and Starship Auxiliary Performance. As a science captain it is important your auxiliary power is a high as possible since the effectiveness of science abilities is dependent on your aux power. I personally shoot for 75 or higher. Allocating 6 points to Starship Engine Performance and Shield Performance means they get a power bonus.
The Plasmonic Leech, which can be obtained by purchasing the T3 Vandal Destroyer, is a nice device to have, but for a Romulan scientist I consider it a requirement to help offset the lack of power. My Romulan science toon is Federation aligned so I would need to buy the console from the Exchange for around 36 - 40 million EC. I did not do that, instead my Romulan science toon is flying the free T6 Breen Carrier from the 2014 Winter Event because it is "science heavy" and it uses a warp core instead of a singularity core. While not my ideal ship, it is adequate for the moment.
The Mirror Mogai will probably serve you well until you creep closer to level 60 because enemy starships will do more damage and have stronger hulls as you level up. Playing STO with a T5 ship at level 60 is doable, but it will be tough.
as a passionate science captain I can recommend to do what scientists do: make experiments.
Try different builds and different combinations. For example combine the cc effect of the gravity well to group targets with drain abilities to deplete their shields and eliminate them with a nice torpedo spread. Or go for support and combine your grav well with strong healing. etc...
Most scientist usually work on low budget. So take cheap stuff first and take advantage of the free gear you get in episodes. One of my favorites there is the dominion polaron beam array from "boldly they rode". Polaron and tetryon proc combined plus a nice pink color makes a nice sciencey weapon. Add in Jem hadar deflector + shield or engine (polaron dmg boost) and you are already nicely equipped for a drain build. Or go for the free solanae deflector (or the whole set) for the high bonus to particle generators. Search through the episodes. There are so many nice free things to get, e.g. Kobali set, polarized (they have different name now i think) and piercing tetryons, breen and vaaudwaar cluster torpedoes, tractor beam mines, plasma-disruptor hybrid weapons, caustic plasma weapons, hargh peng torps, etc..
Good scientists do some research on the recent literature first
Gravity well - is a deflector ability. Equipping deflector doffs can reduce the cool down from 60 s down to 40 s. A gravimetric scientist has the chance to add another gravity well. A xindi-doff (forgot which type) adds a chance to knock off enemy engines. Cast EP2Aux before the grav well with a xindi technician and you get a nice damage boost.
Another nice example is the voth doff that turns the tractor beam repulsors into a pull.
As rom there is an interesting option besides science vessel: the T'varo. With lots of sci slots possible you can build a sci heavy torp boat. This ship has enhanced battle cloak, which means you can fire torpedoes and grav wells while cloaked. You can also ignore weapon damage and run full aux which further boosts damage and stats, if you have the nukara T4 rep. And unlike other rom vessel, the T'varo is very small and maneuverable.
Thank you for the tipps. I aquired the Solanae Space Set and my BO Skills were like you suggested.
Doing experiments. I am not such a big fan of it, but I looked around in videos and the forum to find a nice built. Though I can't decide, especially since I probably will take a Tac/Sci mix for the Valdore/Mogai Class Ship.
I also thought about the T'Varo. Maybe I'll buy it when it's on sale again, but until then, I have the BoP with a Sci KDF Char.
What I probably need most at the moment is a suitable skill tree for a Sci/Tac mix.
You will not do max DPS, or max drain, or max anything. But you can go from an escort, to a cruiser, to a science ship without any problems.
I don't have any points in Driver Coil because it is pointless unless you are focusing your character for Tour the Galaxy.
There are other skills that I left points out of. These include Threat Control, because anyone that is doing more DPS that you will almost always draw threat anyways, so those points are better spent elsewhere. Starship stealth is useless, unless you are doing PVP. And even then it can become useless when going against the right build.
Starship Subsystem Repair is not the best option because even maxed out with 9 points, it will still take about the same amount of time for them to come back online. It may have been useful in the past when the game first came out, but not now. If you are worried about subsystems going offline, then just carry a weapons, shield, and engine battery. If you don't move around much, then swap the engine batt for an Aux so your science skills are still useful.
Starship Power Insulators is not going to keep shield drains from zapping your shields almost instantly since the boost to Tach Beam. It is best to have Boff heals that will stop the drain, and then shield heals to replace what was lost. Then, those skill points can be used in places they are going to benefit you better for.
For ground, Will Power will add a little help, but there is rep gear that will offer that for you. This means more points into better options.
Inertial Dampeners are empty because you can again use Boff heals for this.
Starship Sensors are more for PVP.
For Admin rank, this is where it is more for the individual person. If you want to boost the effectiveness of some science skills, then moving points from another skill here will help. But, I would suggest keeping the points in Aux. The reason is because the higher your Aux power, the better your science skills will become.
Keep in mind that your skill tree is going to be your foundation for your builds. If you have a specific direction you want to go, then you want your skill tree to be the foundation for that build. If you want to do an universal build, there are changes that can be done to the skill tree I did to focus more on what you want to do more often.
I have a heavily science focused build on one of my characters, and can so awesome drain builds. However, I like to fly different types of ships. So he i very limited in what he can do in some. This build lets my other science characters to go from one ship to another, and from one build to another. They might not be able to max out a specific build, but they are not far behind when switching to another one.
I hope this skill tree helps you out in finding what fits your personal play style.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=scitacrazar_0
Have fun, and happy gaming.
Razar.