ENG or TAC toon for escort?

f8explorer

Ok ... rolling a new set of cats for the new escorts.

My question is ...

With the new space changes, am I better with a tac as it was previously or rolling an ENG for increased survival and power?

warmaker001b

TAC always has and will still be better for everything. That said, an ENG on an Escort makes a lot of sense.

For one, Engineers by nature don't bring much attack power. The Escort alleviates that by providing Cmdr TAC BOFF seating and swift handling to make any weapons build easy to use.

Secondly, Engineers by nature bring ruggedness to any ship they fly. An Escort compared to any Cruiser or a high aux power Science Vessel is less sturdy and can be prone to quick destruction if not careful. Engineer captains bring toughness to that. There's also the abundant power levels Engineers bring, so any ship they fly benefits from higher performance that doesn't require extra effort. You don't need some lockbox trait or some console for an Engineer to feed lots of power to the ship.

The way captain abilities and how ships are, Escorts are a good place for Engineers.

valarauko43

I have 3 tacs, 2 engineers, and 2 science characters. The only one who was able to get the Starbase 24 trophy was an engineer in a mirror patrol escort. Just sayin'.

duncanidaho11

warmaker001b wrote: »

Secondly, Engineers by nature bring ruggedness to any ship they fly. An Escort compared to any Cruiser or a high aux power Science Vessel is less sturdy and can be prone to quick destruction if not careful. Engineer captains bring toughness to that. There's also the abundant power levels Engineers bring, so any ship they fly benefits from higher performance that doesn't require extra effort. You don't need some lockbox trait or some console for an Engineer to feed lots of power to the ship.

The way captain abilities and how ships are, Escorts are a good place for Engineers.

Pretty much this. Below the min-max level a TAC in an escort is going to find themselves under pressure to increase healing or damage resistance (without much room to build it in). An Engineer has that built in, so their escorts can focus on raw power. It's an easier build, just go one way whereas the TAC has to perform a balancing act to avoid exploding too frequently (that is until they develop to the point where everything vaporizes on sight.)

discojer

Right now I fly an escort and raid on my two engineering characters. Mostly because right now, those are the only ships where Miracle Worker actually is useful

With that said, I'm skeptical that escorts (or engineering characters) will be useful even with these changes. But it can't get worse. It takes about 3x as long to kill a borg cube on my pilot escort with 5/2 (all dual heavy cannons at MK14) as it does on either my all beam arbiter or Mogh.

nimbull

Haven't played on test to try the changes on my engineer but that being said I'm having more fun flying an engineer on a Mat'ha raptor lately and a 31st century raider ship. I went beam weapons and they hold together nicely while my setup keeps them on average unbuffed at 125/75/75/75 power levels. Tough little ships they be when powered right between gear choices and spec.

Also I'm running beams/torp on them so I'm not a cannon pusher. That being said I'm still doing decent DPS (for me) because gear/spec/boff choices.

rattler2

discojer wrote: »

It takes about 3x as long to kill a borg cube on my pilot escort with 5/2 (all dual heavy cannons at MK14) as it does on either my all beam arbiter or Mogh.

Well... currently Beam Fire at Will spam melts everything, so that's understandable. Also you need to actually aim more with a cannon ship than you do a beam ship.

peterconnorfirst

warmaker001b wrote: »

TAC always has and will still be better for everything.

I do not want to disagree with you because you are right with that for like 99% of the cases in STO the past 7 years.

Still the 1% I’d like to point out. Have you played on ground as tac the past three weeks? I have. The balancing killed the fun for them while engineers and scis begin to rock the show and cut through the content like buttah.

As a fun fact my friends and I also stopped running into many tacs in our pug matches the past weeks. It’s like they are all on sick leave or so.

I know that the upcoming space changes will be different from ground but just think of the possibilities if they are not.

salazarraze

Tac obviously is better than an engineer on an escort and will continue to be better after the upcoming changes. Their ability to stack damage with their captain powers can best make use of an escort's capability generate firepower.

Tacs are only vulnerable to blowing up if you don't know what you're doing. And there's a lot of people that don't know what they're doing in this game.

avoozuul

I only really put engineers in tactical based cruisers (tac star cruiser, presidio, battlecruiser, etc) but never with fully tactical ships such as escorts, raiders, or warships.

warmaker001b

peterconnorfirst wrote: »

warmaker001b wrote: »

TAC always has and will still be better for everything.

I do not want to disagree with you because you are right with that for like 99% of the cases in STO the past 7 years.

Still the 1% I’d like to point out. Have you played on ground as tac the past three weeks? I have. The balancing killed the fun for them while engineers and scis begin to rock the show and cut through the content like buttah.

As a fun fact my friends and I also stopped running into many tacs in our pug matches the past weeks. It’s like they are all on sick leave or so.

I know that the upcoming space changes will be different from ground but just think of the possibilities if they are not.

Most of my combat is in space so that has always come first and foremost to me. But yes, right now, SCI & ENG is real nice on ground. I'm not happy at all with what happened to my TAC for ground combat.

peterconnorfirst

My friends and I really tried the past weeks, lol I mean really tried. No matter what module or traits we slot for tacs the gaming experience with them on ground feels like a spasm while for engineers and scis it’s like a relaxing massage. Low light yesterday was one friend almost calling of KDF-Tuesday cuz he only has a tac toon on the red side and did not want to play it.

I really hope the changes in space won’t be that extreme.

storules

Tacts will still rule no matter what they do with balancing. It's a safer way to go.