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Qib, BFAW vs SS?
senatorvreenak
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
I just sunk my hard earned Zen into a nice new Qib Intel battlecruiser, my first pure intel ship.
I would like to know which would give me the best mileage as a Tactical captain. Building a BFAW boat? or going for the post-nerf Surgical Strikes? Some people used to swear my OSS3+SS3 but I have no idea how competitive it is now.
This is for PvE btw, hoping to try and push at least 30k dps eventually.
I would like to know which would give me the best mileage as a Tactical captain. Building a BFAW boat? or going for the post-nerf Surgical Strikes? Some people used to swear my OSS3+SS3 but I have no idea how competitive it is now.
This is for PvE btw, hoping to try and push at least 30k dps eventually.
Post edited by senatorvreenak on
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But for today's newest content, the Heralds, there's uses for both:
Single Target focus capability with SS while still having the tactical usefulness of beams in any combat situation is great. If you ever decide to switch up your weapons loadout with some mix of cannons/beams, it will still work out. Because SS buffs all energy weapon types. SS is important because it lets you focus ALL your damage on the priority target while still using Beams/Beam heavy builds. In an age where many players are BFAW and hitting stuff that isn't necessarily the main target that has to be brought down NOW, someone being able to focus their damage when there's tons of stuff around is a good thing. The Heralds spam an ungodly amount of things, a lot of which isn't that easily cleared. Someone with the ability for high damage focus on a target for quicker killing is nice. But SS will not be as useful in clearing spam. SS is useful in focus killing.
BFAW? FOTM tactical ability with very little weakness. Absolutely great in clearing trash all around you and negating the threat of targetable torps/mines, fighters, etc. And IF the target is alone, then BFAW will profit mightily. BFAW is a critical ingredient in dealing with Heralds. They spam lots of little objects like Probes, Solar & Oblivion Gateways (very dangerous), Raiders that ram you and bypass shields, and just tons of ships. BFAW clears the weaker stuff which is important but may not have that single target capability until most things are cleared.
If your'e using Beams with either BFAW or SS route, it's still a very safe way to fight. At least you're not one of those crazy DHC guys trying to fight at close range with the Heralds. BFAW/SS with Beams still lets you stay at range and do some hurt still while not exposing yourself to close ranged dangers of the Heralds.
And what about SS? One or two instances? If one were to say run 2x attack patterns in the Lt.Cmdr tac slot.
In a Bird of Prey...listening to THIS!
Life is hazadous in a Bird of Prey already. DHC life in a BOP fighting Heralds is a whole different level of crazy. Short of PVP in a BOP level of crazy, mind you :cool:
That depends again. You technically can double up on OSS abilities to run like how people had 2 EPTx abilities. I've done that before and the Qib / Eclipse can support it. If doing that, I suggest having good Subsystem Repair to minimize the side effect of OSS.
But if all you need is just the effects of OSS to surge your capability when your abilities are all lined up and ready, just 1 copy of OSS is enough then.
If you're just chasing numbers instead of kill priority though, absolutely go for BFAW. OSS+BFAW + the usual tac damage boosts is just untouchable for applying general damage to everything.
Surgical Strikes is the Qib's/Eclipse's ace for Single Target Focus. It buffs both cannon and beam weapon types so there is no need to worry about having TAC abilities useful for both types if you decide to mix them.
Despite its recent nerf, it's still a hard hitting ability to hurt single targets. It only comes of course on the Intel/ENG Cmdr BOFF seat. You can slot SS3 at Cmdr level and still have room to stuff in OSS3 at LtCdr. Or if you want to double up on SS, you can have SS1 and SS2/3 taking up LtCdr and Cmdr level stations. And you'd STILL have space for 1-2 copies of OSS, ranging from OSS1-2.
Then you still have the fixed LtCdr ENG and LtCdr TAC stations.
Typically when I build a Single Target Focus Qib, the TAC station is used only for Tactical Team and Attack Patterns. For the Attack Patterns, APB1 and APO1 synergize very well with their timers. Of course, that's not the only way of doing things.
And I still have that LtCdr ENG to play with and it's more than enough. If I need a bit more ENG because of using the Cmdr station for 100% Intel, I still have a Universal Ensign. And the fixed Lt SCI station covers the basic necessities from that school of abilities.
I've flown the Qib in both FAWboat or SSboat formats. It works well either way and I will never fault anyone for choosing one or the other. However, unless you're in a Science Vessel, FAWboats are all over the place. I traditionally go SSboat for my Qib because, like I stated before, SOMEONE out there needs to be able to focus kill instead of spreading damage all over the place but not the main threat, objective. Whether I SSboat the Qib with 7 beam arrays, or some mix of cannons and beams, or cannons/turrets, it didn't matter. The key was the Cmdr hybrid station with Intel providing the freedom of the build to go as far into offense, defense, or repairs as you wanted. Give or take, of course.
IIRC, you and I had a similar spat about this when we compared the Qib to the T5U Vor'Cha in another thread. The Vor'Cha has the raw TAC seating to do cannons and beams well and the handling to play both capably. Not even the Feds' Avenger can match that capability. In raw TAC seating, the Qib is worse off. But only, IMO, if you refuse to tap into the Cmdr Hybrid station for more offense.
The Qib is simply a different bird. I love it for the flexibility it gives me to do more than what a quick glance at its BOFF seating can say. By being a near copy & paste of each other, this also extends to the Fed Eclipse. While the KDF has its Battlecruisers in, to put it bluntly, very close performance, the Fed Eclipse is so different and such a night & day experience from the rest of the Fed Cruisers... it's just in a league of its own in their lineup.
IMO, of course
I do have the B'rothl freebie and got Point Defense Turret back in the day when it was cheap as dirt.
But why KDF Fleet disruptors and not CrtD x3 or x4? Or is that just what you happen to be using?
I never got a mixed FAW & SS build working well, any tips?
To have a decent FAW, you need to use the higher ranks of it, which cuts into the limited Tac space the Qib has for Attack Patterns (which would be handy to enhance SS). If you go with rank I of FAW, most of the time you're doing a fraction of the damage and clearing utility you could be doing in the target-rich environments that most of the PvE is made of now. FAW and SS optimize in differing ways, for FAW Spire Locators, [dmg] on weapons, and all Embassy Plasma consoles is the go-to on Tacs, no need for Accuracy at all, whereas Embassy Plasma consoles are near useless for SS, [crtD] for weapons, Spire Exploiters (minor difference in damage compared to Locators) and Accuracy boosts can come out to more damage due to Accuracy overflow and the insane Accuracy SS has. How do you balance this to make a worthwhile platform?
The only thing I greatly enjoyed was OSS3 and Battlecloak on the Qib. With the Kurak being out you make a much nicer FAW boat with OSS3 on that platform, which handles the majority of content better, which just leaves SS3 and battlecloak (which is situational, but nice) being the Qib's claim to fame... which I never got working well post SS nerf.
Blended optional BFAW+SS builds is possible but as you found out, BOFF seating forces major concessions. Between EPT_, OSS, SS, BFAW, and of course an Attack Pattern, that is a very taxing demand on any build, even the Qib and Eclipse. You can slot them all in somehow but the ranking of some of those abilities will be low.
I've done BFAW+SS before for flavor, just to have that AOE or Single Target Spike in the middle of combat when there's lots of things around still. But it was just not as powerful as a dedicated BFAW or SS boat. It doesn't help of course that Tactical energy weapon buffs have a shared CD with SS. As you also showed, optimal gear for both is different.
As for the Qib, if you don't want that SS3 slotted in the Cmdr spot, you still have Ionic Turbulence 3 to land very nasty effects, including resist debuffs, on top of whatever attack buffs and debuffs you're already doing. EMP Pulse Probe 3 is also there to disrupt what's going on in a cluster of enemies with careful use but Ionic Turbulence 3 is in general, more useful, IMO. IT3's resist debuff alone is awesome.
Having that option of landing a powerful debuff like IT3 while freeing up the rest of that ENG/Intel station is a huge benefit that the T6 Mogh / Avenger doesn't have.
Enough so that I mistook "I took surgical out" for meaning that it was being used, like 'taking the car out for a drive', instead of its intended meaning of 'removed'.
I briefly had a Qib in use on my (then) way under-leveled Delta alt shortly after the Reciprocity trait became available to KDF, and it was a bit different than the last I had one out and about thanks to that trait. Lots of new stuff since then.
I don't recall getting much utility out of Ionic Turbulence, did it get buffed at some point, or does it really become powerful at rank 3?
That's the beauty of Ionic Turbulence. It doesn't replace, throw into a shared cooldown other debuffs like Attack Pattern Beta. Hell, you can land stuff like APB and IT on a target with the same ship. The nice thing about IT is that it has a small AOE to it so anything closeby will get that debuff.