Best loadout of Personal Armor

gpatton3

I have toons that are my lowest importance characters. I have tons of spare common armor and was trying to decide what is the optimal personal armor for the bridge crew and myself for away missions. Physical, Recoil, Integrated, Pollyalloy, Energy Harness or Dampening. What should I arm an away team with (this will be all common gear, no Uncommon, rare, or very rare, will be mark x,xi, xii, xiii level).

Thanks

seriousdave

If you don't plan to bring those boffs along for adventure/battlezones then whatever you've got around. For your captain at least I'd reccomend stuff like the jem'hadar or romulan navy set from episodes so at least you can play properly at endgame.

maelwy5

If you're not going for a mixmash of set armor pieces, stick Energy Harness on Ranged BOFFs and Physical Augmentation on Melee BOFFs. Bat'leths or Pulsewaves or Split Beam Rifles and call them golden.

Any shield will do, but if you have some Personal Mobility Shields or Phase-Shifted Personal Shields lying around, throw those on for some extra fluff. One Low-cost but very effective away team combat setup is 2x Fabrication Engs, 1x Medic Sci and 1x Melee Tac.

dareau

Maelwy5 is most likely on the best track, at least in-so-far as what "models" are optimal...

However, why are you limiting yourself to whites (Commons)? "Used" loot drops are account bound, so a quick trip through the account bank or mail terminal would get greens / blues / heck, purples into the hands of these "neglected" alts.

Also, if you're doing stories, remember that a bunch of them give gear rewards, of blue/purple quality. More "upgrades" to these neglected toons...

javaman1969

I've been giving my crew polyweave armor for the high physical and kinetic resistence and giving them the best shields I come across in mission rewards to handle the energy. But that's just the way I'm rolling. Other people might have better ideas.

gpatton3

These are not serious toons, meaning they were "experimental" and over time they have worked their way up to 50 - 60. Some of them went on lvl 40 missions with mk iii gear, essentially whatever they had on them or got on missions. The good stuff was sold on the exchange or handed over to my top level serious toons. Since I have a mishmash of common weapons and armor (already took care of the shields with XI or XII or if they went on a mission that had bound gear that is at least mk x or greater).

I don't want to spend much time with these toons doing missions right now with the new season. They will help me understand the new skill system. So it sounds like I should match up weapon to armor. I always have my toons use rifles of various types (split, heavy, sniper, full) I don't use pistols or melee weapons or mini/assault guns. Since I don't plan these toons to get in close to fight, the one suggestion makes it sound like the physical armor is going to be useless if not going to melee with the boff. It also sounds like there is no true answer especially since these are expendable toons, I won't shed a tear if the die in a mission (unless I have to restart from the beginning).

I have usually also gone with pollyalloy because of the high resistance levels. However I don't have enough of them in common size for everyone, I have probably a 2:1 ratio of Energy Damp to Pollyalloy, so figure the energy damp armor is like the clearance bin.

eristhevorta

Remulan Navy Set is a good starting armor, and it's upgradable. I am using the Iconian ground set (MK 14) on my main and MK 12 on my primary alt.

markhawkman

you could always buy some on exchange for a few ec.

jaguarskx

All my captains wear the Romulan Imperial Navy Combat Armor and Personal Shield and they have been upgraded to at least Mk XIII. That is good enough for me to play advanced queued missions. I took a break from STO for a while so I am currently working on the Iconian reputation to eventually get the Iconian armor... unless I change my mind.

All of my Doffs wear rare / very rare energy dampening armor Mk XII (too cheap to upgrade) with the [HP] mod and whatever else that I cannot remember. They also use rare / very rare shields that are either Mk XI or Mk XII. I generally go for shields with a mix of the following mods: [Cap], [PBDmg], [PBKB], [Reg], [Rev].

As for weapons...

All my captains carry a weapon for exploit attack and one for expose attack. My 9 captains use various different weapons, but I would say my favorite weapons for exploit attacks are Split Beam Rifles (Voth Antiproton, Agony Phaser, Plasma, Disruptor), Plasma Wide Beam Rifles and Plasma Repeater Pistol. The Plasma Repeater Pistol can be obtained as a mission reward from the same mission (Uneasy Allies) that also gives the Romulan armor and shield as reward choices. However, I prefer to take my chances upgrading the the Plasma Repeater. There is no mission that rewards the Plasma Wide Beam Rifle so that must be upgraded to get mods on it. Both the Plasma Wide Beam Rifle and the Plasma Repeater Pistol are only available to Romulan captains from Romulan vendors (to the best of my knowledge). However from time to time I see Mk I versions of those weapons sold on the Exchange for some like 100k EC or more.

For expose attack weapons I primarily have some type of wide beam pistol. However, I will switch some captains to the Plasma Split Beam Pistol if I can craft some with mods that I like. The Plasma Split Beam Pistol is only sold by Romulan vendors (to the best of my knowledge), but they do appear on the Exchange from time to time.

As for my Boff's weapons, generally have two Boffs will have exploit attack weapons and two Boffs will have expose attack weapons. The typical exploit attack weapon is a Split Beam Rifle. Expose attack weapons include Pulsewave Assault Rifle, Wide Beam Pistol and Full Automatic Rifle. I am considering giving including the Plasma Wide Beam Rifle into the mix for exploit attack and the Plasma Split Beam Pistol into the mix for expose attack.


Expose attack weapons have a chance of making enemies more vulnerable to damage. Exploit attack weapons gives a chance to deal more damage. Attacking an enemy with a exploit attack weapon who has low health and has been exposed will kill the enemy (vaporized).

theraven2378

3 piece Terran set for me, armour looks really nice and the shield and rifle are very decent

timonicus

Would it be worth getting the terran 3 piece for my tac boff, thinking of making them melee with a healer science and two fabrication engineers, with me that makes 3 in the group

theraven2378

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Terran_Task_Force_Special_Ops, this should help

nephitis

Some of the free stuff you can get is actually pretty good for newcomers. For example, the 3 set bonuses and the individual gear of the Na'kuhl ground set provided by the current featured episode is very decent. The minigun has yet to be unlocked but I am a lover for any kind of AoE ground weapons.

When you gear up yourself of your BOFFs I would say the determining part in choosing your set should be based on what type of weapon you want. AoE vs single target primary and secondary fire... and close range versus long range. Even if the minigun is excellent at AoE you may not like its shorter range, and if that's the case the Na'kuhl set may not be for you. One of the best sets when it comes to team buffs is the Borg Omega set. The shield and armor are super good but the rifle may leave for more to be desired. In that case, the Dyson hybrid split rifle is a better choice, but the armor and shield is more lacking compared to Omega.

The best way to figure out what you want is to google the different sets and decide on what you want to be your primary determining factor and what you can compromise. Is it the armor, the shield or the weapon that you want to emphasize...

theraven2378

Adapted MACO ground shield and armour, the 2 piece set bonus is an extra heal