Swarmers Advanced vs Elite

jagdhippies

For PVE

I am wondering if anyone has noticed the difference or done the math between advanced swarmers and elite swarmers. Are the elites worth the cost or are the advanced about as good?

Also, is it worth switching from elite widows to either advanced or elite swarmer. I already have elite widows on this toon. I always see them applying their BFAW and I always have at least 4 of them alive and pewing at any given time. Has anyone done the math on widows vs swarmers in PVE. I found loads of data for PVP, but PVP does not interest me in STO.

This toon is an Eng CAPT flying a BFAW FHEC.

Thanks

nephitis

I personally would say the two best fighters are the Mir Fighters and the Spire Swarmers. They come with three things that yield very good results as far as pets are concerned.

1. They come with beam arrays which has a better firing arc than cannons. Also, pets with beam arrays tend to hit harder and can bring down shields faster because pet cannons are more like pow pow. Once such pets are on torpedo cooldown they can't do much damage with their cannons.
2. The Mir Fighters and Swarmers come with Beam Overload which is excellent for stripping enemy shields. It also gets them killed far less than Fire at Will which makes pets aggro a lot of targets which may be undesirable.
3. They also come with transphasic torpedos which is less useful for players because we can generally bring down shields easily on our own. However, for pets transphasic torpedos is significantly useful. It allows them to do damage through shields when you are not around to help them bring shields down. However, if you are always around then pets with Quantum and Photon torpedos can shine.

As for your Widow fighters. I wouldn't say they are bad because they do come with beam arrays and quantum torpedos. But they are weaker than the Swarmers because of the abovementioned reasons. They lack Beam Overload etc. But I would most definitely say that they are better than the Romulan Scorpion fighters.

glenn

I would think long and hard about buying Elite pets.

I have not found Elites worth the money compared with Advanced. If you have the dil and fleet credits then go for it, otherwise stick with Advanced.

Just my thoughts

gavinruneblade

the swarmers are one of the few where elite is a good value, but if you only care about damage there are much more affordable steps to take first. invest in the right consoles and gear, get critical components up to mk 14. move to elite swarmers before working on gold quality for already mk 14 gear. until then advanced are good enough.

one thing to expand on nephitis' advice which is solid. for players transphasics aren't just bad because we strip shields, they are just plain bad. photons do higher bleedthrough than transphasics over time because of faster recharge and higher base damage. but pet ai is so bad they don't fire right away. and per shot transphasics do more bleedthrough. so on a pet they really are a good option.

Edit: there are absolutely ways to make transphasics do what they are intended to do on a player ship. I'm just talking base stats of the weapon.