I enjoy using the science ultimate on most of my characters (that 50% CritH is pretty sweet when your weapons are CritD focused), however I'm thinking of changing it up for my Romulan. Her CritH fluctuates around 30% anyway so I'm wondering if the Tactical Ultimate won't be better.
For weapons, there's a 'tipping point' with CritH in which Crit focused damage becomes worthwhile. Is there also a 'tipping point' with CritH in regards to which Ultimate I should use? I haven't seen any discussion on the topic (although between all the forums I have access to, I might have missed it. If I have, my apologies and please reply with a link to the discussion).
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Answers
Focused Frenzy: From what I understand, this ability "marks" the target so once you destroy that target, the effects are lost. Switching targets also cancels out the effect. If this is inaccurate, please someone point it out. If this is correct, it should only be used on very large HP enemies like Tactical Cubes, The Crystalline, etc. If you add "team frenzy" to the mix, then it becomes an even better option for using against "boss" type enemies. Using it on a typical enemy like a Sphere is pointless since they die quickly anyway and the bonus is only good on the first targeted foe.
Also, frenzy only works by using energy damage so it's useless on a torp boat. It works in stacks. You gain bonuses like firing haste and damage per stack which increases over time. This also seems to point to "Frenzy" only being good against boss type enemies. It seems to me like it's really limited in it's usefulness
Probability Manipulation: IMO a typical non min/max player will have better results from using Probability Manipulation. Like the OP said, it instantly sets your critical chance to 50%. This is a huge benefit for many players. The ability doesn't "mark" a single foe so it's useful against single boss enemies or a large group of weaker enemies. The enhancers are really good too since they decrease target damage resistance, increase the ability's duration, and even help with tanking. It's a very good all around ability.
If you're talking about which is better from a skill tree standpoint, that's more of a tough call. It really depends on what your goals are as a player and which gear/race/faction you have. There are optimized skill trees for very specific build types. For most players, I still think that the full science route would be better since you can possibly generate more damage while having some fantastic defensive bonuses from going full science.
So maybe a Romulan Tactical character can best use Focused Frenzy? These player characters can already have the highest crit chance and can focus on "team damage" with focused frenzy, attack pattern beta, among other abilities. Maybe if the entire team is also using coalition disruptors and/or regular disruptors. Hopefully some experienced min/maxers will chime in.
To get to those ultimates, you have to dump a serious amount of points into those 2 pertinent lines. If you're focused on traditional energy weapons and projectile combat, are all those points you dumped into shields and exotic buffing your build?
Maybe, depending on the build, but I don't think many players run a hybrid tactical-science build.
The ultimate are great if you can make use of the skills needed to get that far, otherwise I'd say save your points for stuff that more accurately reflects your build style and gameplay.
With regards to the ultimates themselves I've found Probability Manipulationto be very good for my sci torp boat. I believe it interferes with the particle manipulator trait though (if this is wrong and they stack pleas correct me), so that could be worth taking into account.
I find the boost to critH means I don't need to worry about slotting items on my build that boost it, so it frees up some console space.