I've seen a lot of players prefer antiproton for their toons/ships; is this due to the CritD bonus?
I'm using phasers, right now, and they seem to tear through enemies in quick order, so are the differences in the types (simply) nuanced and more for the min./max. obsessed, or can using tetryon (which some players seem to poo-poo) really ruin someone's offensive power?
I'm curious, because with my KDF player that I'm creating after finishing the PVE missions for my FED, I'm planning on concentrating on disruptor fire; likewise with plasma for my ROM toon(s). Don't the weapon types seem to balance each other out, to a point; such as disruptors not really tearing through shields, but melting hulls, and plasma isn't overly impressive on either but has a nasty potential DoT? Or, if I were to acquire a Jem'Hadar ship, and used polaron (especially with the relevant space set), wouldn't its secondary effect make me potent against power-intensive enemies like the Tholians and Elachi?
tl;dr
Is the advantage of antiproton realistically significant, or rather minor, outside of PVP?
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I use Phasers to actually be weaker as I want a challenge on default difficulty. Most other weapon types have procs that will take more health/shields off of enemies.
I don't know the maths but Antiproton used to be a favourite because of the big damage numbers people could get with them, but to get them numbers you'd also need the right consoles etc. From the way it used to be, I was told you'd want a crit chance of at least 15% to make the most of the critD on AP weapons. With how things have changed now, I'd say it's easier to get that crit chance now than it was before the revamp.
One piece of advice I got one time was just pick what you like. You like the color of Tetryon? Roll Tetryon if you want.
While certain damage types like AP and Disruptor tend to dominate DPS, every damage type is viable.
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Its the proc difference between weapon types and thier effectiveness that nakes them more or less desirable.
What many people like about antiproton over most weapon types is that the proc from them is more crit, and more crit is always good.
Phasers for example have a chance to knock a subsystem offline, but in pvp this is usually only for a second or two at best so it's not the most desired weapon type for dps chasers. That said you can always do respectable damage with phasers, I have a couple of phaser builds myself.
There are things like agony phasers and phased biomatter that are more effective for dps than standard phasers due to thier procs but they are expensive with good mods.
Plasma and disruptor can not be discounted and can be most effective, I am personally loving both at the moment. Elachi and coalition disruptors, and romulan and plasmatic biomatter variants.
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As a fun fact it could be that this statement has never been so true as it is right now.
On the strongest builds I have seen as of late peeps integrate the terran beam, one herald beam and the rest is whatever they like to bring and that has decent mods. The +beam locaters from fleet spire and the fact that plasma infused consoles and haste stuff outweighs energy specific tac consoles seem to make this possible.
I myself use all of the main energy types on my 10 toons, including one rainbow build. Disruptor and Antiproton seem to have the strongest impact on general pve but toons which don’t have those don’t feel at that much of a disadvantage. Use what you like.
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Then there is the proc...some are good for certain builds, but don't work at all on others.
antiproton works extremely well for high crtH builds...but that is not that easy to get. getting around 30%ish crtH before weapon mods is what you'd need for AP to work. There is a free set for AP even that gives a huge buff, but it includes a warp core, so no romulan ship can use that.
and so on...there really is no ONE best type...bu there are certainly weaker ones if implemented with a build that doesn't fit.
Norway and Yeager dammit... I still want my Typhoon and Jupiter though.
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Other than that I can only say that if top end DPS is not your goal then you can really pick whatever you want. As PeterConnorFirst stated, it might be worth going for +Beam consoles so that you can mix different reputation beams for their set bonuses.
Pretty much it is due to what nephitis has stated regarding CritH (ground) / CrtH (space). By default your starship has a 2.5% critical chance (or critical hit if you prefer). That critical chance is fairly easy to increase with traits that you can while leveling up reputations. An example is Precision (New Romulus) which increases you critical chance in space by 4%. Another is Enhanced Rending Shot (Delta Alliance) which increases you critical chance in space by 1.5% every time a weapon hits, but does not result critical hit which in turn causes critical severity (or critical damage). This can stack up to 10 times assuming you do not make a critical hit. Once you do make a critical hit, then the stack disappears. Rending Shot (Delta Alliance) is the ground version.
Just to be clear, only "plain / regular" antiproton weapons has the [CrtD] innate modifier. All other anitproton weapons (such as Voth) have some sort of 2.5% proc. The great thing about plain 'ol antiproton weapons is that you can craft with [CritD]x3 / [CrtD]x3 modifiers. When you upgrade the rarity you have a chance to make 'em ultra rare [CrtiD]x4 / [CrtD]x4 so that they can do up to 80% critical severity, plus the innate [CritD] / [CrtD] ability to boost critical severity to 100% or double the weapon's not critical damage.
Of my 10 captains only 1 uses antiproton in space. On the ground plasma weapons tends to be used the most (either primary or secondary weapon) because of the Romulan Imperial Navy Kit Frame that boosts plasma damage by 20%. Antiproton (specifically Voth Antiproton) is the next most common ground weapon my captains use. My Boffs use a mix of different energy types.
For example, tetryon rips away shields(even has a weapons line with double proc chance at 5%, that is easy to bulk up on), and has a good number of massive damage actives(Nukara T5 rep trait, Nukara space tech with engine/shield/deflector active, 3 piece Antichroniton Tetryon set active, and Apex Predator 3 piece set active with 12km range AOE blast). Tetryon also has the longest ranged energy weapon in the game, with a 12km range and no damage decay for range with the long range tetryon burn cannon purchased from lobi store.