Need help choosing betwen a T5 and T6 cruiser for a tac toon.

marokkrell

The ships I am trying to choose from is the Eclipse Intel Cruiser or Avenger Federation Battle Cruiser. I am playing a Tac-Toon and plan on building a beam boat build. I use to play on pc but stop playing before level 60 was introduced and I am currently playing on the Xbox on. I do like PvP, but I primarily play PvE. Xbox isn't much different from PC when it comes to PvP not many plays.

I have compared the ships side by side and each one has there up and downs. It seems The avenger is DPS heavy while the eclipse is more tanky. I rember how it use to be while I played before in elite PvE . I know DPS is crucial, especially to get optional. I am leaning towards avenger, but I would like some advice from those who have played those ships and end game content. I don't know to much about the new end game content. I just reached level 50. So any help would greatly be appreciate. Thank you for your time.

davefenestrator

You can't buy the T6 Arbiter (Avenger T6) yet, correct? That might be a reason to get the Eclipse now and maybe add the Arbiter later if you decide the Eclipse isn't good enough.

Eclipse wiki entry: http://sto.gamepedia.com/Eclipse_Intel_Cruiser

The Eclipse is nimble and does great DPS, especially using Beam Fire At Will. It's definitely tanky with the Battle Ready mastery trait giving a bit of defense and damage while the console steals hull points from enemies.

Commander level intel seating means you can use attack buffs like override system safeties and surgical strikes, defense (evade target lock), debuffs (kinetic magnet).

The Eclipse is a great ship, I just wish I could put the Guardian skin on it

gavinruneblade

I have both ships and enjoy them both on different characters.

The avenger is a small cruiser with 5 forward weapons. I found it works great with dual beams up front and the borg/omega cutting beam plus two omni beams in back. This does limit you to antiproton, tetryon, or polaron damage types. Or it also works with cannons and turrets which is how mine ended up. the unique console is hard to use. on xbox i have read it is buggy, but even on pc the vata torpedos move slow and this baby has enough firepower that single targets die before they hit. I don't regret the money spent on this ship at all as it is both powerful and fun, even in the era of t6 ships. I have the 4-piece iconian reputation set and disruptor cannons, including the terran reputation cannon and the gravimetric photon torpedo. The downside to cannons is they use up higher tier power slots. Since you said you want beams you will have an easier time of it than me. If you go this route i strongly recommend both the upgrade token and fleet ship upgrades when fleet shipyards come out. Small cost for big power growth.

Dave gave a great rundown of the eclipse. Some people didn't like the look as it appears squashed. I found the low profile grew on me. This one has 4/4 weapons so mostly beam arrays and broadsiding. One nice thing about it is the cloak and passive stealth. in queues and events many times you want to close rifts or perform some other interruptible action. the eclipse can minimize aggro which helps in these queues. it also gets my favorite two cruiser commands: damage and maneuvers. the starship trait is handy but not super amazing. Same with the console power. You will enjoy both, but i doubt you' ll go gaga over them. I run plasma weapons on my eclipse with the maco shield and romulan experimental beam. Combined with override subsystem safeties from intel and a fleet warp core, my weapon power stays over 100 while broadsiding even without a leech.

my biggest complaints about both is i wish they could use gravity well, especially the avenger with its forward weapons. Still they are good ships. I will agree with Davefenestrator and give the eclipse my recommendation over avenger because of intel powers. They are potent.

davefenestrator

The T6 Arbiter gets Lt. Commander science for gav well fun, that's another reason to wait for it over the Avenger.

breadandcircuses

For me, aesthetics would factor in too. I like the Arbiter kitbashed with the Avenger's saucer/nacelles far more than I do either design in and of themselves, and the Arbiter comes with access to the Avenger parts. That, and the T6 Arbiter (as stated by others) offers some major improvements in seating options over the T5-U Avenger as a result of the step up in tier; it's one of the designs where the tier increase makes a significant difference in what can be done with the ship. I'd agree with the others here in saying that it's worth waiting for the T6 version.