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I need help building my new T6 Heavy Escort Carrier. Advice would be much appreciated.
odstparker
Member Posts: 466 Arc User
I recently bought the Alita class Tier 6 Heavy Escort Carrier from the store, since I had 3000 zen saved up from lifetime membership. Basically, enough to buy the ship and its Fleet variant. I love carriers, I love escorts, and above all, I love the Akira class. Perfect match!
Now, to preface this, know that I'm only just now returning to play STO on a regular basis, as I've been going on and off recently. I'd get on, do some daily stuff, and get off again to go play Destiny or do something important (Destiny). However, I'm getting back into it now. This means that I'm severely lacking in the fields of recent equipment, gear, and upgrade materials. I only have a few upgraded pieces, the rest is still stuck at Mk XII. Once I figure out a build that I like, I'll be grinding for it and upgrading it as fast as possible.
So, here's the thing. I have no idea what I'm doing. With the addition of so many new space sets, consoles, weapon types, specializations, and duty officer special attributes, I'm completely and utterly lost in a sea of new **** that confuses and scares me.
Right now, I'm using the M.A.C.O. space set (not adapted), Fleet consoles (all three categories) with a few reputation ones thrown in (Borg, Undine), and anti-proton weapons. I managed to get together three dual heavy cannons (two fleet, one wide angle), two omni-directional beam arrays (one from a mission, one crated), and the anti-proton torpedo launcher from the Crystal Entity event. It's working well enough so far, but it's definitely not the best.
My abilities are focused on a split between single and multiple target weapon enhancements, along with a pair of tactical, engineering, and science teams to keep my health up and my damage boosted. I'm searching for an EPtS III to put on my engineer/pilot, but until then I'm using reinforcement fighters in that slot.
My duty officers are geared for torpedo recharge and increased accuracy of my Peregrine wings.
Well, there you have it. It's probably mediocre, at best it could use a lot of improvement. If you have any tips, tricks, or builds to suggest, I'd appreciate anything you can tell me.
Now, to preface this, know that I'm only just now returning to play STO on a regular basis, as I've been going on and off recently. I'd get on, do some daily stuff, and get off again to go play Destiny or do something important (Destiny). However, I'm getting back into it now. This means that I'm severely lacking in the fields of recent equipment, gear, and upgrade materials. I only have a few upgraded pieces, the rest is still stuck at Mk XII. Once I figure out a build that I like, I'll be grinding for it and upgrading it as fast as possible.
So, here's the thing. I have no idea what I'm doing. With the addition of so many new space sets, consoles, weapon types, specializations, and duty officer special attributes, I'm completely and utterly lost in a sea of new **** that confuses and scares me.
Right now, I'm using the M.A.C.O. space set (not adapted), Fleet consoles (all three categories) with a few reputation ones thrown in (Borg, Undine), and anti-proton weapons. I managed to get together three dual heavy cannons (two fleet, one wide angle), two omni-directional beam arrays (one from a mission, one crated), and the anti-proton torpedo launcher from the Crystal Entity event. It's working well enough so far, but it's definitely not the best.
My abilities are focused on a split between single and multiple target weapon enhancements, along with a pair of tactical, engineering, and science teams to keep my health up and my damage boosted. I'm searching for an EPtS III to put on my engineer/pilot, but until then I'm using reinforcement fighters in that slot.
My duty officers are geared for torpedo recharge and increased accuracy of my Peregrine wings.
Well, there you have it. It's probably mediocre, at best it could use a lot of improvement. If you have any tips, tricks, or builds to suggest, I'd appreciate anything you can tell me.
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Comments
You mentioned that you have 3 cannons, so I assume you're looking to make a front facing cannon build? Do you have a preference in Energy Type? (Phaser, Disruptor, etc?) Certain rep sets give different bonuses to certain energy types, so that will be a factor.
Are you looking for a straight on DPS Build? Or something more balanced? I know a lot of Engineers in Escorts tend to try for the more well rounded style, but you never know.
How far have you progressed in the Reputation Schools? Are you Tier 5 in any of them? If not, it's fine.. you can throw some green/blue Mark 12 items on your ship and roll with that until you unlock what you need, just trying to figure out how far a long you are.
Approximately how much can you spend in Energy Credits and Dilithium?
Those are my basic questions to get started. Also, if you still haven't found Emergency Power to Shields III and you need it, drop me your account handle and I'll be happy to send you one free of charge. If you need other bridge officer abilities, I have several characters that are maxed out in crafting so I can likely help you out.
I am definitely looking for a DPS build that's focused on fore weapon damage. However, I'd also like to have my hull made of something other than glass, so a more balanced build would be preferable. Unfortunately, I'm a tactical officer, so I'm not sure how effective that'll be.
I don't really have a preference of damage type, especially if one will work better on a build than another. Since I've been using either phaser or anti-proton weapons for a while now, I have more of those and their respective damage consoles stocked up. I'd also like to try out a dual photon torpedo build at some point, since that worked well on my old Tier 5 Fleet Akira. With my duty officers, I can get torpedoes out very quickly with a good chance of a near instant recharge. Most of the time, I can fire six or seven without a single full recharge.
I'm done with every reputation track, but I haven't gotten every item from them. I'm low on the elite materials since I haven't run many queues in a while.
I'm holding steady at around 200,000 dilithium, but I'm on the lower side with EC. I've only got around 5 mil. I also haven't bought many of the items from lockboxes. Traits, duty officers, etc., all too expensive for me, and I don't want to waste money on buying keys.
If there's any other information that could be useful, let me know.
I think if you go with a cannon build, 3 DHCs + 1 Torpedo or 3 DHCs + 1 Dual Beam Bank are still the way to go.
Keep in mind that these days however, BFAW beam or dual beam builds are also very popular. Visually it will probably look pretty good on the Akira, too.
The Akira should be pretty sturdy already. A lot of healing in my experience nowadays comes from secondary sources like starship or reputation traits and set bonuses. I believe the Iconian reputation has a trait that turns a percentage of your damage into healing? That should be helpful. And I believe the Radiant Anti-Protons from the Iconian reputation also provide some healing?
But engineering and science are still your standard healing sources. I tend to rely on Emergency Power to Shields, Science Team, Transfer Shield Strength, Hazard Emitters and Auxiliary to Structural Integrity in some form. (Not necessary all of them. Engineering Team I use pretty much only on Cruisers.)
I am not convinced the Anti-Proton Torpedo is the best torpedo. Sure, it works well with your already existing AP boosts, but I believe the base damage of the torpedo is already less. The Particle Emission Torpedoes and the Gravimetric Torpedoes have been to me the most interesting ones, I think. Both have small AoE damage capabilities. Though maybe I am a bit biased due to flying mostly Science Vessels or science-focused vessels with Gravity Well. Guess that needs some experimentation.
In my opinion, a far more economical and easy method to use is going the Phaser route. Phaser damage gets a 7.5% boost for using 2 of the 3 parts of the Counter Command Ordinance Set. It also has the huge benefit of being very easy to get. You can take your ship as is, and head to the Undine Space Zone. That's the space battle zone in the Dyson Sphere, the one where you fight planet killers. This is a large PVE zone that has a lot of players doing it at all times. You can easily survive here with even the most basic gear. Help take points, kill off the planet killers.. rinse and repeat. Doing this will grant you Undine Marks, Isomorphic Injections, and Dilithium. You get everything you need to get the complete space set, which is actually pretty nice. You can use 3 Dual Heavy Cannons in the front along with the Bio-Molecular Torpedo from the Ordinance Set. In the Aft, you can use a Omni-Directional Phaser Beam (fairly cheap on exchange,) along with the Borg Omni Beam (From the Borg Reputation,) and the Heavy Bio-Molecular Phaser Turret. This will give you a front facing build that lets you fire all 7 weapons when facing forward. The Torpedo and the Turret give you the 2pc bonus to Phaser Damage, and you can use the Assimilated Console (Borg Rep) to get the 2pc Bonus with the Cutting Beam.
The Undine Reputation store also sells Phaser Weapons so if you need better Cannons/Beams you can get some descent ones there. You can also find them fairly cheap on the exchange. If you hang out in the Undine Zone you'll also quickly fill your inventory with 'vendor trash' and occasionally find some nice stuff you can sell on the exchange. It's a fairly descent way to pull in some money. The type of mods you use on your weapons depends on what you're going to use for Tactical consoles, more on that later.
You can find the full stats on the Undine Space Set here.
Now, if you want to just be able to deal the most damage, you'll want to consider getting the Shield and Deflector from the Nukara Space Set, along with the Prototype Impulse Engines from the Romulan Space Set. You can use the Obelisk Warp Core (Free) or grab one from your Fleet if you're in one. This combination gives you a +2.5% all Damage Bonus and the Impulse Engines give you bonuses to Attack Patterns making it one of the higher pure DPS combos.
The Undine Set will give you good damage with more survivability overall. The Nukara/Romulan route will gives you a more offensive approach.
Are you in a fleet? Because that will effect what type of Tactical Consoles we're going to look at. That will effect what type of Weapon Mods you're going to want.
I'm definitely considering the phaser route above all, since I already have the full Undine space and ordnance sets. They're not upgraded, but I can work on that.
The Nukara/Romulan combination might work if I start using more attack patterns instead of cannon and torpedo abilities, but I think I'll stick to the more balanced Undine build for now.
I am in a fully upgraded fleet (we're still working on the Research Lab, obviously), and I already have a few consoles that have been working very well on my builds. I have three phaser consoles (critical chance), four engineering (all damage resistance, increased hull), and one science (decrease threat, shield emitters). My current AP dual heavies are advanced fleet versions, but I can easily get advanced or elite phasers instead.
Ok, great.
It actually sounds like you're in pretty good shape and on the road to what could be a pretty powerful build. Let me ask you this though.. how sold are you on Cannons? Would you consider the possibility of swapping out your cannons for Dual Beam Banks? The reason I ask is because using front DBB's will give you the DPS you love from Cannons, but with several advantages. First, using beams would free you from one of the biggest pit falls of cannons, the reduction in damage from distance. To really take full advantage of Cannon DPS, you really need to be within 2km Radius of your target which can be difficult. Outside of 2km Cannons start to really fade in damage the further away you get. Dual Beams would also allow you to take advantage of Beam Fire At Will, which lets face it.. is the 'be all end all' if you're going for damage. Fire At Will will allow you take better advantage of your fleet Embassy Plasma Consoles since as things are right now, the plasma explosions only crit with Fire at Will, and not on Cannon Skills. Beam Banks also have twice the firing arc of Cannons (90 degrees vs. 45 degrees) meaning things are MUCH easier to keep in your firing arc.
I would consider picking up some AP Dual Beam Banks, preferably ones with CritD on them. You can get CritDx2 Banks from the Iconian Reputation store, for higher then that you'll have to craft them or get them off the exchange. To start out, you could probably pick up some blue Mark 12 CritDx2 beams for dirt cheap and just try it out to see if you like it.
The next suggestion will be hot button with some people and you might not like it, but here it goes.. consider dropping torpedoes completely. The introduction of Delta Rising really hit Torps hard, enemies were made stronger and that was done by considerably boosting their shields as well as their shield recharge rate. Getting that 'bare hull' hit with a Torp is harder then it ever was, and there is no sign it's going to get any easier. The other disadvantage is in your characters skill points. If you don't use Torps, you can re-spec and take points you might have had in those abilities and put them into skills that gives you a better advantage. I know that 'cannon' Star Trek ships have Torpedoes, it's part of the Trek lore.. but in this game, they really do hinder DPS if you're not really good with them.
For your ship, your best DPS numbers by far will be achieved by using 4 dual beam banks in the front with 3 Omni Beams in the back. In your Commander Tactical, use Tac Team 1, Attack Pattern Beta I, Beam Fire At Will 3, and Attack Pattern Omega 3. In the Lt. Tactical use Tac Team 1, and Beam Fire at Will 2. This would give you 2 Attack Patterns, 2 Tac Teams, and 2 Fire At Will to keep maximum up time.
In the Lt. Commander Engineering you can use Engineering Team 1 for hull heals, Emergency Power to Shields 2, and Emergency Power to Weapons 3. If you really want to use Pilot skills in this station (I'm not very familiar with Pilot abilities) then swap those in and use the Lt Universal for the skills you substituted.
Lt. Science I would go Hazard Emitters 1 and Science Team 2. This gives you a cleanse, another hull heal over time, shield heal and a science de-buff.
The Lt Universal you can use as you see fit. If you used Pilot abilities in the hybrid station, then I would go Engineering here, otherwise I would probably go Science and use Polarize Hull with Transfer Shield Strength 2. If you do stick with a Torp in front, you can consider Tachyon beam to help get the shields down. You could also consider doubling up Engineering to get in a Directed Energy Modulation.
Tactical Consoles: Fleet AP Spire Locator Consoles x 5
Science Consoles: Fleet Embassy Plasma Console (-Threat) x3 (x2 if you don't have the Fleet Version.)
Engineering Consoles: Borg Assimilated, EPS Flow Regulator, Ship Universal Console. (If you can, the optimal console here would be a Plasmonic Leech down the road, or maybe a Lobi Console like Bio-Neural Infusion Circuits.) You could also consider using Bio-Neural Gel Packs from Delta Rep to lower cooldown times. If you do end up getting a Leech console, then make sure your Embassy Science Consoles are (+Flow.)
Space Boffs: 3 Damage Control Engineers- Emergency Power Variant. You can start with 3 blues and slowly try to get purple ones. 1 Warp Core Engineer- Subsystem Power Variant. Again, blue will do until you can get a Purple. Last one is flavor to taste, personally on Escorts I like to use a Conn officer to lower recharge on Evasive Maneuvers. I like to be able to zip around as much as possible. This one is your choice.
Ok, I guess I have droned on enough.. that's how I would personally do it. Again, some of it will be according to taste (like the torpedo thing) but ultimately it's up to you. Let me know if you have any questions on anything.
I hope you enjoy your new ship.
One, what space set would you recommend for the AP dual bank build? Undine? Nukara/Romulan?
Two, what fighters or shuttles should I consider for my hanger slot?
Three, why the Flow Regulator? I would think that another reputation console would be much more useful, but maybe I'm missing something.
I would personally go Nukara/Romulan. It's a very potent set and it's deceptively good for survival as well. It's really not a huge issue which one you go with, the Undine Set is a very solid set as well, you would just be getting a set bonus that did you no good (plus to phaser damage.) If you already have it though, by all means.. it's a solid set. Optimal would be Nukara/Romulan.
I would just go with the fighters it comes with to be honest. A while back they did a global nerf on hangar pets that makes that rarity mostly irrelevant. They did overall tests that showed that there was no difference between the Blue and Purple hangar pets performance wise, so breaking the bank on hangar pets isn't necessary. Honestly, the ones it comes with are pretty good.. my personal preference is Obelisk Swarmers. They're high DPS, but fragile, you can get them from the Fleet Spire, I would just go with the blue ones myself. Here is a description of them if you're curious. They also have a VR (Purple) and UR Elite Version.
EPS is a deceptively powerful ability. You're going to be pushing very high weapon power, and EPS will help you a lot with beam overcapping as well as if you ever need to transfer power between systems (switching to shield power when you're in trouble.) For a full breakdown though, I'll refer you to the expert on the subject and you can check out Sarcasm Detectors recent Video: EPS, The secret to DPS. He explains it far better then I do, I recently added 2 Epic EPS Flow Regulators to my Presidio build and it really boosted my damage. You can't craft them, but you can buy them on the exchange, I think the last time I looked a Purple Mark 12 was around 200k, so not too bad. If you wish, you can substitute another Rep console if there is something you think is a better fit. It's all about what you like.
If you're interested, I personally run a Fleet Phantom Escort, and this is my build: U.S.S. Revenant.
You can ignore the Bridge Officer Abilities, they are different from what you're doing. This build is a single target Intel build built around Surgical Strikes, not relevant to your build. I do have the skill trees all filled out as well as the traits I use and Space DoFFs are in the 'Notes' section. A lot of it won't apply because it's a different ship and a different type of build, but some of it might help. You can take a look at the Skills and stuff and see if any of that helps you.
They don't have the Alita on that site yet, or I would have done a sample build. Instead, they're going to make me type it all out.
[Edit:] Found the article on the Hangar Pet Nerf, some good information here.
For now, I'll stick with either the Undine set phaser cannon build, or the Nukara/Romulan set AP dual beam build. I tested the dual beam one in an advanced queue earlier, and it did pretty well. My ship's still made of glass, and the DPS is lacking a bit, but I'll learn to use it effectively.
Hell, I might eventually try to perfect my torpedo build with this Iconian set that everyone seems to love so much.
Thanks so much for your help and advice. You've really helped me get a great start with this ship (my new favorite already), and I appreciate it very much.
Ultimately, it's about what works best for you. Once you find the build that fits your style, you'll be all set. Good luck with everything and enjoy your new ship!