Conflicting advice

fallenkezef

So I'm at that transition phase, past 65, leveling specialisations and rep while trying to update my gear and grind through remaining content.

I've been trying to plan my grind, I know R&D weapons are long term but short term I don't know if I should go for fleet antiproton guns or the Iconian antiproton (currently only toting the fluidic expnase mission antiprotons). When I looked it up I get a roughly 50/50 mix of opinions that the fleet guns are TRIBBLE and the best so could I have the wizened vets here on the forums wade in and advise me as I don't wan't to be wasting dil.

salazarraze

Fleet Advanced AP weapons are a clear better starting choice and a better choice overall over Iconian Rep AP. Fleet advanced weapons cost roughly 50% less dilithium compared to reputation store weapons and you can acquire the fleet credits needed much faster than you can grind reputation tiers.

Fleet Advanced AP weapons are also superior to Iconian Rep weapons in the proc department. Fleet AP has the standard AP bonus of 20% built in critical severity while the Iconian weapons have a pitiful proc that is a 2.5% chance to grant 1,000 temporary hull. Totally worthless compared to having permanent 20% critical severity bonus.

The reason that some people don't like Fleet Advanced weapons is that (since they come at Ultra Rare quality and Mk XII) they can be prohibitively expensive to upgrade to epic quality if that is your goal. They are also character bound instead of account bound like crafted weapons, and crafted weapons have identical stats and can more easily be upgraded to epic. So most people would recommend crafted weapons instead. Keep in mind that Iconian rep weapons are character bound as well.

Basically the main reason that someone would want to get fleet weapons is that they are good quality weapons for relatively cheap prices. IMO, there is no reason to even consider Iconian rep weapons on their stats alone. Only get them if you really like the way they look and are willing to sacrifice having superior weapons.

seaofsorrows

I am not sure why people say that Fleet Weapons are bad, they're absolutely not.

Fleet Weapons have one major drawback.. they're character bound. Which means that if you ever change your build and want to give the old weapons to an alt.. that's sadly off the table. The Lockbox weapons are account bound so that's one thing in their favor.

Fleet Weapons however, come at Ultra Rare right from the vendor and at Mark XII. With Phoenix Kits now being readily available anytime, they are a very inexpensive way to get some excellent performance. My favorite variant are Advanced Fleet Weapons with [CrtD] [Dmg]x3. Fleet Weapons can be re-engineered as well. You take those and just push them to Mark XV and you're in really good shape. You can continue to push them epic if you wish, but it's not necessary.. Mark XV Ultra Rare weapons with good mods will shred anything you want to fight with ease.

The lockbox ones are generally more expensive to acquire in EC and they come at Mark II-XII Very Rare so they also take more resources to upgrade. Hearld Anti-Proton do have the bonus damage but that is a chance proc and that chance proc is used in place of AP's normal mod which is an innate increase to crit severity. The bonus is a stacking Cat2 bonus which is nice, but still it's a 2.5% proc chance as opposed to the Fleet/Crafted innate bonus which is 100%.

If it's between these two options, I would go with Fleet Beams. They're cheaper to acquire (10k FC and 10k Dil each) come at Ultra Rare and with a couple Phoenix Kits you're good to go. Herald Beams cost more in EC, they are more expensive to upgrade and they trade a guaranteed proc for a chance proc.

If account shareable is important to you, then split the difference and craft some Mark II Antiprotons, get the mods you want and upgrade them using an Omega Kit and an accelerator.

I currently have a character that runs a full set of Fleet AP Dual Heavy Cannons.. outside of being character bound, they are fantastic. Between the two options you gave, I say Fleet all the way.

Herald AP really aren't as good as they sound.

lasonio

As everyone else said of the options you posted, you should never choose Liquid over solid.

Liquid stats is something that may happen, Solid stats is something that will happen.

So of the choices I would personally go crafted as the main, but go fleet for the moment.

Though personally I feel that antiproton is being left in the dust by the other energy types and would personally go phasers due to the multitude of builds and utility, but to each their own.

seaofsorrows

lasonio wrote: »

Though personally I feel that antiproton is being left in the dust by the other energy types and would personally go phasers due to the multitude of builds and utility, but to each their own.

While this is absolutely true, I am hoping that with the fact that The Alliance uses AP weapons that a new wave of AP boosting items is in the pipe. We'll see.. but it would certainly be nice.

The character I have that runs AP acquired it back when it was the king of energy types. I kept him on AP because of the Endeavor System (I have a character with each energy type.) Overall, he's not noticeably stronger or weaker then my phaser builds but the abundance of Phaser and Disruptor buffs does make those builds much easier to put together.

darkbladejk

A big thing I would say first off, there is no winner take all "best" set of weapons or gear, with the same being true of ships. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you. There are certain items and ships that lend more tools and advantages to certain builds than others but that's where what is "best" ends. With that said, far as to what is best for you and your build will be determined by what you like to fly and what you want to do.

If you want good weapons on the cheap, then fleet weapons are a great option as they start at mk xii ultra rare requiring minimal resources to get to mk xv. However they bind to character. Crafted weapons have their advantages in the fact that it's usually easier to get them to epic quality as it's possible to have an epic item as early as mk iv, but there's also the possibility that the item won't flip to epic or even ultra rare and will run out of research points by mk x. If that happens then you're going to have to invest alot more resources to flip that item to epic quality. With crafted weapons you can also get mods like [over] or similar crafted mods, but those mods aren't always that valuable.

Then there's reputation based weapons, especially those tied to set bonuses that can have value. In fact if the goal is pure damage I would consider certain reputation based weapons to be mandatory depending on energy type. Personally I use a mixture of various antiproton weapons. Temporal Defense AP, 1-2 Delphic, 1-2 Herald, Advanced Radiant, Crystalline Conversion. Just depends on what your goals are.

fallenkezef

lasonio wrote: »

As everyone else said of the options you posted, you should never choose Liquid over solid.

Liquid stats is something that may happen, Solid stats is something that will happen.

So of the choices I would personally go crafted as the main, but go fleet for the moment.

Though personally I feel that antiproton is being left in the dust by the other energy types and would personally go phasers due to the multitude of builds and utility, but to each their own.

Going antiproton to mesh with the Khitomer console. I'll be doing crafted eventualy but I'm a casual; player so R&D is a long term thing.

To everyone, thanks for the advice! I'll go fleet for now till I can craft

cbrjwrr

darkbladejk wrote: »

but there's also the possibility that the item won't flip to epic or even ultra rare and will run out of research points by mk x. If that happens then you're going to have to invest alot more resources to flip that item to epic quality.

For future reference, it is much more resource efficient to scrap the Mk X failure and try again with a whole new weapon, especially so for crafted items at Mk II, which if you want to do with Antiproton, is what you should do.

felisean

in addition you could farm omega techs atm, so the best time to get your mk ii to gold