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Category "A" Starship Traits - pick three
mournblade
Member Posts: 74 Arc User
As shown on the DPS League's updated list here, there are quite a few Category A Starship Traits available for DPS builds. Incidentally, the categorization is a player invention that was conceived several years ago as a means to list Starship Traits from most desirable/advantageous to least. Semantics aside, my question pertains to six of the more commonly used Cat A Starship Traits for TAC DPS beam builds, which are in no particular order:
Supremacy (bonus weapon power)
Emergency Weapon Cycle (cycle haste)
Promise of Ferocity (Cat 2 damage)
Calm Before the Storm (defense, then cycle haste)
Super Charged Weapons (Cat 1 damage, Crit/CritD, assuming torpedo use)
Redirecting Arrays (extends FaW duration when damaged)
I'll assume that everyone is familiar with these, and so I'll move straight on to my question. If you could only use three of the six aforementioned Starship Traits, which three would you use, and why? And for the three you don't select, why not? I have my own opinion here, of course, but I'd like to hear from the community. There are obviously some other good ones out there, such as Ruin of Our Enemies and Cold Hearted, but for the purposes of this thread, I'm limiting it to the six listed above.
Supremacy (bonus weapon power)
Emergency Weapon Cycle (cycle haste)
Promise of Ferocity (Cat 2 damage)
Calm Before the Storm (defense, then cycle haste)
Super Charged Weapons (Cat 1 damage, Crit/CritD, assuming torpedo use)
Redirecting Arrays (extends FaW duration when damaged)
I'll assume that everyone is familiar with these, and so I'll move straight on to my question. If you could only use three of the six aforementioned Starship Traits, which three would you use, and why? And for the three you don't select, why not? I have my own opinion here, of course, but I'd like to hear from the community. There are obviously some other good ones out there, such as Ruin of Our Enemies and Cold Hearted, but for the purposes of this thread, I'm limiting it to the six listed above.
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The exception would be Emergency Weapon Cycle, if you're running an energy weapon build and have that trait it should be slotted pretty much always.
If you're not using an Aux2Bat Build, then I would absolutely use Supremacy. If you are using Aux2Bat then I would swap that for Cold Hearted if available.
Redirecting Arrays would also be high on the list to try and extend FAW Duration. Personally, I am not a fan of this trait because it only works under constant fire.. but if you're running beams you take what you can get. You don't have a trait like Withering Barrage for Beams, so this is the closest you're going to get.
My next in line would be Promise Of Ferocity, really good trait.
Super Charged Weapons is great, but not useful for me.. I don't use torps.
Calm Before the Storm is also excellent, but I don't have that ship.
I would also like to mention a couple that aren't on the list.. For Phaser Builds Heart of Sol, for Polaron Persistance of the Founders, and for Plasma Pride of Mol'Rihan. I also frequently use Improved Critical Systems but again.. that trait is sadly no longer available.
So ranked from your list..
1. Emergency Weapon Cycle
2. Redirecting Arrays
3. Supremacy.
If running Aux2Bat swap Supremacy with Cold Hearted. If you don't have access to Cold Hearted, then swap Supremacy for Promise of Ferocity.
That's just how I would personally do it.
If you don't have crazy silly dps then it's a damn good trait against crowds, apart from that, it's probably worth slotting more haste as this will lead to a third activation of faw, thats extending total faw time beyond that little 10 second window. So haste also increases faw uptime.
With haste plus redirecting arrays, you can enjoy 4th and 5th activations and more if you're threatening, but not instant killing lol
I'd avoid PoF and CbtS because they lose all stacks at the end of combat. It depends on the STF, but you absolutely have problems in some STFs where combat is over quickly and you have to move to the next section, or the delay before the next combat is just long enough to drop you out of red alert. If you can move fast enough and make it work for you, then I'd bump CbtS up for the third trait.
EWC is just obvious to slot.
As mentioned with SCW you need to mind actually firing a torpedo. If it is a broadside boat that can be a problem if you're not using a 180 torp, and sometimes even if you are.
For supremacy or redirecting arrays, I have no experience with either, but my guess is that supremacy is hard to keep up outside of FAW, and will fall off before you can get the next one going, so that lowers its value. However, I'd use it over RA if a) I'm wrong on that point, or b) it helps you trigger AMP on your warp core, or c) if you are also using The Best Diplomat.
Another trait not on that list which I think is pretty good on a FAW boat is History Will Remember. Its just 30% cat 1 damage and 30% hull once you've built up your stacks, but unlike CbtS and PoF it doesn't fall off unless you die, and with FAW it is pretty easy to build up stacks quickly.
shouldn't have exed out Cold Hearted, Vaulting Ambitions, and the best of them all Entwined weapons matrices that has great synergy with Super charged weapons since those have way more uptime and use in dps builds.
Anyhow, of the ones you posted I use supremacy to maintain power levels across the board to maintain my ships powers since I am constantly firing weapons and absorbing dps and aggro. Especially with AMP or The Best Diplomat (Not so much since they nerfed its energy from needing 240 to reach 30% to 300 to reach 30% which is pretty hard unless you use bajoran set and supremacy.)
supercharged is one of my lower end top five and is often replaced with other dps skills like sup air denial but since i use 5 advanced phaser's (The max crit dps they allow is fifty so meh) so i use two torps on my ships. Prologned in the back and quantum phase in the front) So i constantly keep the 3 stacks up with out much thought.
Thats it of that list.
Promise of ferocity is not good to me, requires you to be in and maintain red alert, with a beam boat it is far easier and better to just use improved peddle to the metal which on requires you to maintain your max speed.
Emergency weapon is really good trait but it is in the same lace as supercharged weapons and literally is switched out often for other traits when i am experimenting.
Calm, I barely use that at all. There are just more useful traits out there in my opinion and its hard to pull it in unless we get another star ship trait slot.
Redirecting arrays just isn't that good in any of my dps builds, at times actually hindering and often getting in the way of them, it's no where near as good as entwined so it's been shelved for a long long long long time. Now if you can get it with say target rich environment or something you may be fine.
Here's generally what I prefer when using beams (FaW):
Emergency Weapon Cycle
Super Charged Weapons
Calm Before the Storm, Promise of Ferocity, Redirecting Arrays
For me personally, I only run cannons with CSV in Elite TFOs, which obviously changes which traits I'm using (specifically, I'm slotting Withering Barrage). For everything else in the game, I run beam FaW. I also run Drake builds on all my TAC DPS builds, regardless of whether it's beams or cannons.
With a Drake build, EWC becomes more valuable because I'm maintaining 100% uptime on emergency powers. So it's slotted 100% of the time.
I tend to use SCW over the others because I run a single torpedo on all my TAC DPS builds. Yes, it's not optimal DPS to do so, but I find a pure beam boat to be too boring - having a torpedo gives me a little extra something to do, and it gives me some added flexibility for ordnance sets. As long as I'm firing a torp every 20 seconds, I stack the buffs.
As for the third trait, I swap that out depending on the TFO...
The reason I like CBtS for general use is because it gives me some good Defense up front, then shifts over to cycle haste. In either case it's useful. Cycle haste, like Cat 2 damage, is always good. Admittedly, it's even better during FaW.
I really like PoF for the Cat 2 damage, but as others have said, there's just too many TFOs with breaks in combat that cause you to lose all the stacks. It's really good in Hive Onslaught, for instance.
With Redirecting Arrays, while I love that trait, if at any time I'm not taking damage it quickly loses its value. This becomes more problematic when I'm grouped with fleet mates who have equally good DPS builds, or if I ever ran with a dedicated tank.
I don't use Supremacy anymore simply because it's only really good on beam FaW builds so I'd constantly have to unslot it when I'd run cannons with CSV in Elites, and the additional power seems to be only a marginal improvement for a Drake build with Emergency Power to Weapons 3.
I do use Cold Hearted, but only in PvP.
I don't have Heart of Sol or the others that @seaofsorrows mentioned.
Overall, I'd agree with @coldnapalm in that aside from EWC, the others can be situational. As we saw from the responses so far, there's a good bit of variety in what players prefer, but I think most of us agree on that. If anyone else would like to chime in with your "pick three", please do!
Btw, has anyone gotten and tried "Over-powered and Over-gunned" (scaling cycle haste) from the Legendary NX-Refit yet? The Legendary ships aren't on console yet, and on paper this Starship Traits looks simply amazing.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
That's disappointing, to say the least. From a Legendary ship no less, though I shouldn't be surprised.
The best diplomat used to be good, till they nerfed / "Improved it" Now not so much unless you can trigger 300 points of stat in everything combined other then weapons energy. Three hundred so thats 100 in aux eng and sheild. Need a few of the leach traits like supremacy or shunt or greedy emitters or so. Maybe the bajoran set or even plasmonic leach might help...
And the other being Temporal anchor. IF you can get this with spore, check mate, Terran machinations, improved grav well would just be dangerous left and right for a grav well build.
But yeah over powered and over gunned is a major step back from other traits. Most of the legend traits are just gimmicky and useless. I am not sure what the thought process was behind them but as of now not a single one of them is good enough to crack my set 5 for star ship traits.
Perhaps having so many choices made these legend traits bad for me, but for others they may find a use for one or two and would like to hear about it
E.g. On my engineers traits like The Best Diplomat or Weaponized Time Crystals are VERY potent.
The first because on engineers it is easy to keep power over 300 (or use a Red Matter Capacitor when needed) and the second because the lingering DoT is an aggro magnet and is close to a heaven's gift for tanks (the guys keeping the glass cannons alive).
Overall, the "best" traits depend on your weapon layout and intended role .
B.t.w. thumbs up for the temporal Anchor/improved GW and spore combination. Especially Spore infused Anomalies gives a new lease of life to underused science powers like Scramble Sensors,Tachyon Beam or Viral Matrix.
That said, some of my more recent testing has revealed a rather interesting exotic damage synergy for/unique to engineers if you invest in the science skilltree over the traditional tactical focus. Specifically, picking up Drain Infection with EPG to effectively give you a 'death aura' when you activate Intrusive Energy Redirection - and it works with any other drains you can fit/maintain. (I still need to test it with Plasmonic Leech.) Furthermore, if you synergize with Control Amplification and a pull effect(Multi-tractor or S'torr console, grav well, inverted TBR, etc.) you can debuff resistances while you collect things into your 'death aura'. Naturally, the close proximity means better weapon damage, and opens other potential synergizes like Point Blank Shot.
I'd say your Captain Space Traits are arguably more important than your Starship Traits for Engineer Captains though. Nadion Bypass being of particular note for ENG to help with weapon damage.
The DPS League list is just the list of the most effective traits for optimal DPS. Just because they recommend the traits they do, that's not the same as saying that all other traits are 'bad.'
If you're trying to push your DPS, those traits are the most optimal ones for energy weapon builds regardless of class. No one is saying that those are the only traits you should use or that there aren't other effective ones.
If you have other traits you like, then by all means.. use those.
I understand and i can hardly blame them for the choices made. DPS league is focused on players trying to gain maximum DPS and thus that will be their area of expertise.
It is like asking a special forces commando to perform brain surgery on a terrorist, he/she is going to assume this involves a 9mm parabellum double tap through the frontal lobe.
Danger with this topic and linking to the DPS league trait list is that people go for a one sided view on the value of specific traits. Traits and their value depend on build and intended role.
Edit: i would love to see specific leagues for e.g. tanking with the same degree of organization and dedication behind them.
So a few thoughts here...
Space magic absolutely counts as DPS. DPS is DPS. It doesn't matter what build is behind it. There are SCI builds that are capable of putting out ridiculous DPS, just as there are for TAC. And of course there are hybrid builds that combine both such as SCI/TAC. And to be clear, I'm referring to spec, not the profession of the Captain.
The Best Diplomat is STILL good even if you're only managing to hit 200 subsystems power (which equates to 20% Cat2 damage for that trait), which I'm able to do on my TAC builds. Why? Because it's Cat2 damage, and 20% is still quite good. Granted, 30% is even better if you're able to push your relevant subsystems up to 300, but even at only 20% Cat2 damage, I'd slot Best Diplomat over Calm Before the Storm, over Supercharged Weapons, and over Redirecting Arrays. Incidentally, I don't use Supremacy anymore on any build.
I totally agree with you that Temporal Anchor + Improved Gravity Well = awesomesauce. However, I don't run Checkmate anymore with Improved Gravity Well because I'm not running any other CTRL abilities on its list, which means that Checkmate only procs for me once ever 40-45 seconds or so, and it's only Cat1 damage. For my build, it's my opinion that other SCI Starship Traits are better in this circumstance. For example, Assimilated Power Conduits gives you 5% critical chance and 25% critical severity for your Exotic attacks. Combined with Particle Manipulator, you're putting your Exotic attacks at 55% critical chance and around 85% critical severity or higher (crit severity isn't capped on Particle Manipulator, so at 600 EPG you're getting 60% severity, and you get 25% from Assimilated Power Conduits). And as you mentioned, Spore Infused Anomalies has very good synergy with Improved Grav Well and Temporal Anchor. Another really good trait that I run is Improved Photonic Officer.
In summary, I agree that the best two Starship traits that came out of the Legendary pack were The Best Diplomat and Temporal Anchor.
#LegalizeAwoo
A normie goes "Oh, what's this?"
An otaku goes "UwU, what's this?"
A furry goes "OwO, what's this?"
A werewolf goes "Awoo, what's this?"
"It's nothing personal, I just don't feel like I've gotten to know a person until I've sniffed their crotch."
"We said 'no' to Mr. Curiosity. We're not home. Curiosity is not welcome, it is not to be invited in. Curiosity...is bad. It gets you in trouble, it gets you killed, and more importantly...it makes you poor!"
Bingo. But I do agree that the two of those have such good synergy, they are almost meant to be run together.
In my eyes a dps build must constantly be up, it must be static across the board, i press this, and this will happen and without burst. A constant stream. As opposed to a spike build that says I press this and that and babysit it for a while then i press that and bam everything goes away. A beserk like build that spikes damage here and there.
So weapons synergy would never crack my top five due to the long down times, not because it's not a good trait, but because it doesn't fit my limited and narrowly tailored ideals of what a dps build is. The shield pen is good but usually by the time torps hit my target the shields have already been stripped or the torp spread itself has already stripped the shields for the second salvo.
So If it was my build I would go with ceaseless momentum + super charged weapons + Vaulting ambition + Entwined weapons matrices + Improved pedal to the medal. Or I would go with Automated shield alignment for survivability plus dps.
Problem for me, with dps is there really isn't much innovation in it the stronger you become or the more traits and skills you gain. You are eventually shoe horned into molds that aren't easy to break. This skill, that skill, painting yourself into a corner with no way out. Just five choices for most becomes 1-2 choices for dps'ers and even then you don't really have a choice.
So chasing DPS is actually a double edged sword. it usually will lead to stagnation and a deterioration of skills or imagination. Even in my case even though I have an extremely op build on ships I too can see the stagnation and diminishing returns on builds but its hard to argue against builds that see 14-27k crits per hit with beams and 75-100k crits on torps even if I know I can and did do better. Because most people can't do better then that. And those that can, they are far and few between. So you just rot from the inside out.
I feel that I can step higher and further then that but i also feel there is a ceiling to all of this. That the game will say this far and no further. Cross this line and we will limit you. If you break the game when and where does it draw the line and force your numbers down to be inline with it's logic. Then again, maybe I'm the only one that feels that way.
Personally. I feel. That the game was so much better before I started chasing numbers. DPS, will both save you and kill you without moderation. Then again. I'm just odd that way.