New Skill System Advice

jagdhippies

Hello,
I am back after a year off and I am looking for some advice on the new captain skill point system. All of the guides that I have dug up are still based on the old skill system.

My primary toon is a fed tactical, already level 60, who flies a variety of ships based on the mission. Sometimes I go BFAW cruiser, other times I load up DBBs with BO3 in an escort, other times I go DHCs. I have lots of reputation set pieces for both space and ground and lots of fleet consoles. Most of my space weapons are Crit-Dx3 and I have the plasmonic leech plus a few other toys.

I cannot find any numbers on which skills are worth it and which ones are not. Below is what I am thinking about doing, can I get some advice on this please?


SPACE
=================================
Hull Capacity
Improved Hull Capacity
Advanced Hull Capacity
Shield Capacity
Advanced Improved Shield Capacity
Shield Capacity
Energy Weapon Training
Improved Energy Weapon Training
Advanced Energy Weapon Training
===============================
Electro-Plasma System Flow
Improved EPO Flow
Drain Expertise
Improved Drain Expertise
Drain Infection
Targeting Expertise
Improved Targeting Expertise
Advanced Targeting Expertise
============================
Hull Plating
Energized Hull Plating
Shield Hardness
Improved Shield Hardness
Weapon Amplification
Improved Weapon Amplification
Weapon Specialization
Improved Weapon Specialization
=============================
Offensive Subsystem Tuning
Weapon Subsystem Performance
Defensive Subsystem Tuning
Shield Subsystem Performance
Long-Range Targeting Sensors
Improved Long-Range Targeting Sensors
Advanced Long-Range Targeting Sensors
Hull Penetration
Improved Hull Penetration
Advanced Hull Penetration
=========================
Warp Core Potential
Improved Warp Core Potential
Engineering Readiness
Improved Engineering Readiness
Advanced Engineering Readiness
Scientific Readiness
Improved Scientific Readiness
Advanced Scientific Readiness
Tactical Readiness
Improved Tactical Readiness
Advanced Tactical Readiness



GROUND
==================
Weapon Proficiency
Weapon Expert
Weapon Penetration
Personal Shields Expert
Personal Shields Resilience
Improved Personal Shields Resilience
Endurance Training
Improved Endurance Training
Armor Expert
Armor Master

nephitis

I don't know why people keep posting these threads. It is as if people post before even looking into the skill system. All they have to do is pick what would be most suitable to them, read the requirements for unlocking each tier and deducing the order to pick skills to optimize the selection process. And avoid any filler node. Anyways, this is what I would do if I used your type of ships and weapons.


****Space****
Tier 1:
3 points in Energy Weapon Training
3 points in Projectile Weapon Training
2 points in Hull Capacity

Tier 2:
3 points in Targeting Expertise
3 points in Defensive Maneuvering
3 points in Impulse Expertise
2 points in Drain Expertise

Tier 3:
3 points in Weapon Amplication
3 points in Weapon Specialization

Tier 4:
3 points in Offensive Subsystem Tuning
3 points in Long Range Targeting Sensors
3 points in Hull Penetration
3 points in Shield Weakening

Tier 5:
3 points in Warp Core Potential + Efficiency
3 points in Tactical Readiness
3 points in Scientific Readiness or Engineering Readiness (*alternatively Coordination Protocols if you love carriers/dreadnoughts)


****Grounds****

1. Fill the entire upper left tree that boosts weapon damage, criticals and penetration.
2. Then pick either Endurance Training / Armor Expert, or Endurance Training / Kit Performance Expert, or go all out on Kit Performance Expert and Kit Efficiency.

jagdhippies

As I said, I could not find which skills are worth it. My experience with the old skill system was that many of the skills were simply not worth ANY input and others were worth 3 ticks but not 6 or they were worth 6 but not 9.
It is most certainly worth my pointing out that I have no interest in PVP in this game (my bad).

Now your suggestion sparks a few questions:
Why projectile weapon training? (unless you are after a torp boat or a canon build)
Is Impulse Expertise really worth it to someone like me with lots of gear or does it just sound good in theory?
Is Shield Weakening worth 3 points to someone who has lots of good gear? Armor penetration is more useful in more circumstances.
Is warp core potential and efficiency worth the points? They were not in the old system because after equipping plasmonic leech and a few other pieces I had energy flowing out of my ears.

nephitis

The challenge with the new system (as well as old one) is to minimize the number of wasted or filler points you spend in order to unlock the upper tiers. Or rather, to optimize the use of filler points when you are forced to spend them.

The reason why I picked Projectile Weapon Training is because it is generally more useful than anything else in Tier 1 except for Energy Weapon Training. Most certainly so for tactical characters... and it is also generally good to use at least one torpedo launcher than going full energy boat. You could most certainly pick Shield Capacity or something but by increasing Hull Capacity (which is the filler node to unlock Tier 2) you can increase your hull regeneration by a significant amount. The reason for this is because many hull regeneration traits (like Omega reputation trait) relies on %. The higher the capacity you have from the start, the more that % yields as opposed to shield regeneration that usually just gets a flat value boost.


As for Impulse Expertise, unless you want Electro Plasma System Flow or intend to use Control Expertise for a science build there isn't much else to pick in that tier. Remember that you need to spend points into something in order to unlock the next tier and you may as well put that into Impulse Expertise. It will give you more turn rate and speed. You can never go wrong with that regardless of your character class, build and ship. It is something you will have use for at all times unlike Electro Plasma System Flow and Control Expertise which you will only notice when you actually redistribute shields/power and use science abilities etc. Of course, if you don't find it that useful you can always opt for Shield Hardness but in this game you can enter a battle with the expectations that your shields will be drained beyond oblivion. In other words, not so useful as one could hope for.

Moreover, Shield Weakening is excellent in the next tier for a tactical player. To put it simple Shield Weakening allows you to strip shields faster because you cause more damage to them. I am not entirely sure of its mechanics but I suspect it works similar to how Armor Penetration negates damage resistance. In other words, I suspect Shield Weakening reduces the damage resistance of shields and thus providing you with free 10% extra damage applied to them. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind percentages (%) yields a lot when you compare them to flat numbers (like we did with hull regeneration) and apply that percentage to a high base value. It means you can make that 10 % make a significant impact if your build is very powerful or even super powerful. The yields of % can always be improved by increasing the value it is applied to, whereas static flat numbers cannot.

You can never go wrong with more power. Certainly Warp Core Potential only yields 5 extra power in all systems and may not seem much, but Efficiency is very helpful for the systems you have at their lowest (15 etc.) The lower your power in those areas, the more you gain. With the two combined you get 5 extra power for the systems that you maxed as high as possible, but a whooping 15 extra power for those that you have at 15. That extra power in two systems is not something to ignore. However, if you don't find this extra power useful then you can always pick Engineering or Science Readiness (or both if you ignore
Coordination Protocols.

Here is a sample of what you can get out of my proposed skill selection. Pay attention to both speed, turn rate and damage. The purpose of this video was something different at the time of recording so I played very casually. But you will still notice that my ship still caused some serious hurt to those enemies despite this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ld1zR4C6g90

jaguarskx

You can click the following link for some more info about the new skill system. It does not provide you with all the details.

http://sto.gamepedia.com/Skill


By the time a character gets to level 50 you will have 46 space points and 10 ground points to allocated. Those are the max points you can get. The new skill system is actually a simplified version of the old skill system. Instead of 9 points to allocate you only have 3 points. All space skills have 3 levels to them so the 1st space point gives you 50 skill points, then another 35 skill points and the last point to allocated will give you 15 skill points for a total of 100 skill points. There are a few skill that only has 2 skill levels to them so the 1st point you allocate gives you 60 skill point, the 2nd will give you 40 skill points and the last point to allocate will give a related "special ability". Lastly, and this mostly applies to science, the skills affects both offensive and defensive aspects for that skill. Below are two examples.


Hull Capacity - There are 3 levels to this skill giving you 50/35/15 skill points. If you allocate all 3 points to this skill, the base hull point of the ship will be increased by 30%. If you only allocate 1 space point to this skill to get you 50 skill point which means the base hull is only increased by 15%. Generally speaking bonuses from console that increase the effectiveness of a skill is only applied to the base; which means bonuses do not stack upon bonuses.

Drain - Drain actually only has two levels that will give you skill points so the 1st space point allocated will give you 60 skill points and the second space point allocated will give you another 40 skill points for a total of 100. A 3rd space point can be allocated to the related ability Drain Infection which cause some minor electrical damage to subsystem which most people feel is not worth it. Not only does this ability improve the effectiveness of the Plasmonic Leech (offensive), it also improves your resistance to Drain (defensive). In the old system they were separate.


You need to allocate at least 5 space points in a skill rank before the next skill rank is unlocked. Allocating up to 24 space points in a specific category (Engineering, Science, Tactical) unlocks an Ultimate Ability which may or may not be worth it and there are 3 "Ultimate Ability Modifiers" that you can allocate a space point to which further enhances the Ultimate Ability. However that means you need to devote at least 27 out of 46 space points to fully get the benefits of the Ultimate Ability. That leaves you with at most 19 points to be allocated into science and engineering skills. You need to determine of the Ultimate Ability is worth the sacrifice.

Additionally, every 5 points you allocate to a specific category will unlock two options along the category path to select. You do not have to select one immediately, but once you select one of them you are locked out from the other. The Ultimate Ability and it's 3 enhancers are along this path.

---

Since you want to fly both cruisers and escorts, then you need to figure out how best to allocate the 46 space points without resorting to using a captain retrain token every time you switch between the type of ship you want to fly. I think the price for the token has dropped to 300 Zen. This means while you many want to allocate 3 space points into a skill, you may need to allocate only 2 space points so that the 3rd point can be allocated to make up a weakness in the escort / cruiser. For example, cruisers have higher hull points than an escort so it is not necessary to allocate many points to the Hull Capacity skill. If you do allocate any space points, then that basically means you escort will be a glass cannon and at level 60 enemies can do their maximum damage against you. If you do not use torpedoes, then there is no need to allocate any points to that skill.

The best general advice I can give is to look at the gear you currently have or are working towards sort of work out on paper / spreadsheet how you would like to allocate you 46 space points to balance out maximum fire power and survivability. Begin with allocating 2 space points to the skills that you feel are best for your general cruiser / escort build. Then look back on it to determine how to allocate any remaining points. Or subtract points from skills that are not as important to you to max out other skills with 3 space points.

Since gear can improve certain aspects of your ship, you may feel that allocating just 1 point or zero points would be sufficient. Some Deflector Arrays will improve your Hull Capacity skill. The Ferrofluid Hydraulic Assembly (Terran Reputation Gear) will increase your base hull by 9.9%. Install that and maybe remove a space point from Hull Capacity (remember you are working this out on paper). That console also gives you +3 power to Weapons and Auxiliary. There is a 0.5 second reduction to shared torpedo recharge time which would be meaningless to a ship with no torpedoes. The Bio-Neural Gel Pack (Delta Rep Gear) reduces Boff ability cooldown by 7%... it might be worth shaving a point or two from each of the Readiness skill which means you have 3 or 6 space points to allcate elsewhere if you wish. It also improves your Starship Shield skill by 19.8 points which may or may not be enough to shave off a point there assume you allocated at least one to begin with. And it give +2 to all subsystems. So take gear into consideration while planning out how to spend space points.


Don't neglect to take your ship traits into consideration. If you have the Reciprocity trait, then it would be worth it to max out Defensive Maneuvering since a miss will cause tactical and intelligence Boff abilities to cooldown a little faster; 10% I think, but never below the global cooldown of each ability.

seaofsorrows

I use something really similar to the DPS Leagues suggested skill tree. I find it works pretty good for me.

If you want to make that a little more well rounded you can take the 3 points out of the tactical skills Coordination Protocols, Defensive Coordination and Offensive Coordination. These skills are for carrier pets and they suggest taking them just to max out the Tactical Ultimate. Personally, I don't go that route, I don't feel that the Tactical Ultimate is worth Maxing out. You can remove those 3 points, still have access to the ultimate and use those 3 points to pick up some extra hull and shields.

The thing with the new skill tree is that unlike the old, there is no accepted meta. There is no build that everyone agrees is best. A lot of people put all their points in Science just for the Science Ultimate, some go heavy Tactical.. it's really up to you.