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Command BO skills. Which are the best?
kozar2
Member Posts: 602 Arc User
Having played with them a bit I'm wondering what others think. Which skills are really good and worth while.
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I have an idea for what Season 11 should be; Season 11: The Big Bug Fix.
I have not been able to read my bug tickets in over a year, not even the tickets about not being able to see my tickets.
I find the drama of your signature proof of your immaturity, this means you, DR whiners.
Some of the Intel, yeah. But only one ship can use them on the kdf side and I have it.
Tried the command and I am not sure what it is doing.
Gave up and went to my t5u ships that are better
It's going to depend on what you're doing.
Overwhelm
Rally Point
Concentrate
And er...lol...I couldn't tell you what any of the others are off hand...doh!
The main problem isn't whether the abilities are good or not, those decisions have already been more or less made. The problem is whether or not they're worth the opportunity cost from replacing an ability from a main career. Honestly, I feel like Suppression Barrage 3 could be worth more than Aux2SIF 3, but others feel differently. A lot of it comes down to what you're trying to do with your ship. Command abilities lend themselves to support/tank, and most people aren't willing to give up their precious damage output for those.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably."
The thing to remember about Command BOFF abilities is that they're team oriented abilities in general. Yes, they can benefit the ship that uses it also but when you look at the descriptors and uses for them, they're intended to benefit the team you're on. A supportive type of specialization that helps, enhances the team.
However, the vast majority of Command BOFF abilities suck H-A-R-D. When they first came out, there was only 1 ability that I felt was very useful.
Rally Point - Very good team heal and hazard cleanser for anyone entering it's area. In the fight against Borg, this is a very useful ability or against NPCs that land lots of hazards (not that many) or just team wide heals.
The rest were very underwhelming or complete disappointments.
Cryptic tweaked them a bit a few weeks after Command spec's release. They still suck balls as a whole but I will now add 1 more useful Command ability.
Concentrate Firepower 3.
Not CF1. Not CF2. *Only CF3*.
CF3 marks a target and provides a "Round Robin" effect among the team; A chance for a single team member, to include hangar units, that hits the target with a torpedo to get these benefits:
- Torpedo immediately reloads to ready.
- Gets a free HYT1
This "Round Robin" effect is on a very short, 2 second timer. This is why CF3 is so superior to CF1 and 2. 1 & 2 have much longer timers and felt like hardly anything was happening.
And yes, I said hangar units are affected also. Easy example: On a Romulan Command FDC, slot any of the CF abilities. Keep the default, freebie Scorpions on there, no Elite Scorps. The freebie Scorpions do not have the HYT ability of Elite Scorpions.
Now go in combat, launch your Scorpions, have them attack a target. Now use Concentrate Firepower on it and sit back and watch. You'll then see the occasional, single Scorpion fire a HYT Plasma Torp, which on paper, isn't possible since the free Scorpions have no HYT ability. But with Concentrate Firepower, you give a chance for 1 of them to do that attack every now and then.
There is a trade off to hangar units doing that though. It means that the Round Robin effect of CF was used in a pitiful hangar unit and not by your ship that has much heavier torpedoes and possibly even TS/HYT.
The other trade off is that when on a team, other ships of course can use that Round Robin effect of CF3 and not necessarily you, and most especially if other members have hangar units of their own.
If I were to use a Command FDC taking full advantage of Concentrate Firepower 3 for the torpedoes on MY SHIP, I would drop the hangar unit entirely or adopt one that has no torpedoes on it at all.
I noticed the effects of CF3 when playing with my Delta Operative on a Command FDC to get traits. I took the gamble to make a PADD of CF3 then built a cheap A2B Beamboat (Uncommon quality Technicians; Does the job well enough) with the Wide Angle Quantum and flying with the standard Type 8 shuttles it comes with (no torpedoes). The effect especially on Solo Play was immediate.
- Mark target for CF3
- Fire a single, non HYT of Wide Angle Quantums
- Get the CF3 effect, immediate reload with free HYT1 but I use my slotted HYT3 instead and fire.
- Get the CF3 effect, while HYT3 is recharging, I use the "free" HYT1.
- With CF3 effect going on, I'll keep the torps streaming and plug in HYT3 when I can. A2B was there to lessen the CD of CF3 and HYT3, as well as other BOFF abilities. Yes, it nukes my Aux Power but I can keep the HYT3 and CF3 going more frequently.
Keep in mind again, this is possible to do this for your ship when solo and not using hangar units with torpedoes. Once you have hangar units that do have torps and/or play in a team, the CF3 effect is shared among the entire team, even their hangar units.
I'd like to test this out later with some other torpedoes: Neutronic and Transphasic especially, as well as the AP Torpedo from last CE Event. But right now I'm mired in other things. The idea of taking Neutronic Torp with its long reload and sending streams of it is... enticing.
Overwhelm Emitters, and Suppression Barrage.
Honestly, I don't touch any of the others. These are the only two that I ever use.
My character Tsin'xing
That they do a cinematic strafing run means they blow up a lot of...nothing...as they go along. If it worked more like the Spatial Charge Launcher console, where they targeted a specific area...hrmm...
You know the PVE in this game is **** when I'm sitting stationary with my Fed ship and NPCs miss you and my Reciprocity Trait is just proc'ing away.
The real strength of Suppression Barrage is the slow. You can bring multiple targets to a crawl and completely butcher their defense value - letting everyone deal more damage to them.
Concentrate Firepower.. is great for bypassing shields with weapons that are normally harshly penalized by them. I shudder to think what the Borg would do to people if they started using this ability on players.
Otherwise, Overwhelm Emitters is nice way to mark priority targets and keep other players in the fight.
Likewise, Rally Point can be used in conjunction with the CC Shield Bubble to create a 'space bunker' while everyone is hammering away at bosses/big targets. It also has a passive hull regeneration effect that most people tend to overlook.
I find the rest to be highly situational.
Ambush marker can be decent if you're holding a point where you're expecting waves of mobs to come in - Federation/Romulan points in the Undine Battlezone, for example.
Call Emergency Artillery is a bit cumbersome to use effectively and the damage output really doesn't match the light-show.
Phalanx Formation can be used in some situations - like when everyone is closing in on a planetkiller, or switching sides/lanes in various Queues. However, the bonuses aren't really worth the amount of required coordination, in my opinion.
Conversely, Return Fire and Strategic Analysis are fantastic ground skills that I generally try to stuff on all my away teams.
Overwhelm Emitters 1-3 - Simply because it grants a little extra chance of getting some shields back with each shot on the marked target.
Rally Point - Solid means to allow for sitting and tanking, as well as providing a brief respite to all teammates who pass through it.
Concentrate Firepower 3 - Devastating on single-target Plasma Torpedo builds; you can literally spawn HY RomPlas, Omega Plas, and Emission Plas torps one after the other and just stack those green balls of hell. Works especially well with the Sheshar's mastery trait, which also adds yet another HY1 into the torpedo queue after using HY1-3. Use with the Reman or Rom set to boost HY plasma torpedo speeds for maximum effect. Outside of Plasma torpedoes, the skill is somewhat lacking.
Outside of that, almost all the rest are useless (more useless than the Intel skills they all nerfed). The Emergency Ally Support ability might be useful; if only to both take advantage of a dying teammate to short-warp to.
I see the powers as OK but not great. They could use some serious buffing.
The trade offs don't bother me much. But the others mentioned are probably better.
Also use the runabouts so i has tractor beams.
Artillery 3 is amazing, just dont try hitting fast ships. Also try to launch it when you have ships between you and the target.
If you are fast enough you can swing round to the other side an start blasting another shield facing down increasing damage. (at least i swear it damages each unshielded facing.)