"Science-ing" the Tzenkethi?

reemus

Any tactics or something I am missing here? My damage against the Tzenkethi on my science character is absolutely dismal... Ticking off 1 to 200dmg with everything fired off and it never seems to break into the DPS I am used to on other NPC. Even with all my resist debuffs I sit there on a single mob doing nothing but scratches for several minutes. On my tac however I smoke them... I see other science ships dropping good dmg down on them but don't see what they have different than me (through parser). Any tips?

peterconnorfirst

Two things make Tzenkethi special. One is that they have a much weaker frontal arc than on the other sides. Try to attack them there.

The ships can also buff each other in close proximity. Try to kill the buffing support ships first and avoid at all cost to promote close proximity between threm over gravity wells.

My favorite sci powers against them are Tykens Rift, Destabilizing Resonance Beam an Structural Analysis launched from a front side attack.

reemus

I think that's what is hurting me...my grav wells

peterconnorfirst

reemus#2383 wrote: »

I think that's what is hurting me...my grav wells

Yea on all foes gravity wells are the basis to deliver good sci DPS. On Tzenkethi however they get quiet counterproductive the moment support ships are pulled in too. On the respective PvE I just exchange them with tykens to avoid that.

lordsteve1

Grav Well against Tzeks is a very bad idea. Those smaller cruisers that hang around the big battleships are able to buff each other to almost invincible levels so that anything bounces off them.
Add in the tougher shields on the flanks and they can be really a pain in the TRIBBLE to take down.

If you need to fight a group of their ships, concentrate on the cruisers first, those are the buffers, then take down the (hopefully alone) battleship. The fighters and escorts are not really too much of an issue, and not too dangerous on their own, i tend to ignore them.

I find drain attack work well on them, they can;t buff each other nearly so well when running on empty. An alternative that is barely ever used which i have good fun with is shutdowns like Viral Matrix. I know everyone says it's useless because it does no damage or whatever but when fully doff'd so it jumps to nearby ships and multiple systems it can really mess up a Tzenkethi day. A battleship is no worry if it has no engines, shields and its weapons are all offline!

reemus

Just made a quick 10min "kethi buster" build on this little UFO ship I got out of a box the other day. Figured I would put the ship to good use and run a quick red alert (gauntlet was on cool down). Video coming up here when it is finished uploading.

reemus

Seemed to be doing well as it looked like I was the only one engaging the mobs...the torps still made it past the stations and 4 other players however.....

https://youtu.be/6DjgkO2Fl08

reemus

Finally found a use for that ploymorphic console... That along with the my OWN viral matrix it shuts down entire mobs fast. (The plymorphic console fires off 3 probes that float around shooting VM). Just left Gauntlet with the Tzenkethi in it and I did very well (until I got a little too jumpy and hovered around the dread too long). I realized that I was doing my own mob. My dps was good for this STF and the repulsors are really nice to split the cruisers off from the battleships and dreads (also on Gauntlet it keeps them away from the stations...)

mustrumridcully0

I think the key thing to realize is that Gravity Well is kinda a buff to them, at least if their Cruisers are around. That can have ripple effects on your tactics and builds - for example, I love using Gravity Well and piling on powers like Subspace Vortex or Destabilizing Resonance Beam and a Quantum Phase Torpedo Spread - that works great because the enemies are in close proximity thanks to the GW and the other powers can work with maximum effectiveness.

Without the Gravity Well, this simply gets a lot less effective. I haven't really found the ideal build yet, though you can get passable results if you just limit the use of the Gravity Well and accept the other powers will be abi less effective. But you might want to get creative with other abilities. One key thing to remember is to stay in the front firing arc, though.

I think overall the Tzenkethi design was a pretty good idea to force science vessel captains out of their standard procedures and test whether there actually good alternatives to the science standard powers. I am not sure yet the latter is the case, though, but I must admit that I really haven't played enough lately to really give a final verdict.

reemus

Well if it is any help, my science build (that doesnt work on kethi) I have been running is around 100k DPS on most STF with 240k dps spikes (I run out of stuff to kill lol). Tholian Alert I kill the entire dread group usually before rest of team gets there..and if GW proc hits I pull in about everything but the last group low on the map.