Can we talk about Secondary Deflectors?

chastity1337

I have two toons running GW builds, and they use different secondary deflectors.

Hildegaard (Fed Sci captain) flies a Fleet Research Science Vessel Retrofit, with a Deteriorating Secondary Deflector at MK XV Gold, which does a 9 second Radiation DOT to "target of Science BOFF debuff abilities". This usually does about 8-9% of her total damage, but occasionally a lot less, like anywhere from 6% to <2%

Ayesha (KDF Tac captain) flies a Dyson Command Science Destroyer, with an Inhibiting Secondary Deflector at MK XIV Gold, which does a 4-second-delayed Radiation burst to "target of Science BOFF control abilities". This does a consistent 12-13% of her total damage.

Both captains have comparable amounts of EPG and CtrlX, both are level 65, both use GW3 and VCIS3, both do roughly equal overall damage, and both Secondary Deflectors are ones I crafted myself. Hilde is a slightly better-developed toon with a little more in the way of Endeavour space bonuses.

GW is definitely a Control ability. VCIS seems like a debuff, in that it reduces flight speed, but apparently isn't one for these purposes. See below.

The Radiation burst from Ayesha's Inhibiting Secondary Deflector shows up in the GW details when you read the "P" menu "available skills". It does not show up when you read the details about VCIS on that menu.

The Radiation DOT from Hilde's Deteriorating Secondary Deflector does not show up in either the GW or VCIS details when you read the "P" menu "available skills". Indeed, the only place I can find it is on Tachyon Beam. Yet it is consistently doing significant damage. This puzzles me greatly.

Granted there are some differences that make direct comparison problematic. We are not comparing apples and oranges, but arguably red apples and green ones. Then again, this is not about specific details, but overall performance.

The third type of Secondary Deflector is the Resonating, but that heals/buffs, and me, what can I say, I'm all about breaking things and hurting people.

Apologies if the above info isn't as well-organised as it might be. I spent half an hour writing this post, but it's a very complicated issue.

So, what do you use, how much of your DPS does it provide, and what do you think?

foxrockssocks

Well its not entirely clear what BOFF powers use which deflector from descriptions, and some use none. However tooltips are usually always accurate as far as I'm aware. If it is showing up there it should work.

It would help to know your other BOFF powers. GW is definitely control and so deteriorating deflectors won't be triggered by it, but will trigger inhibiting, along with tractor beams, and scramble/jam sensors powers. Tachyon beam and all the other shield or energy drains should be debuffs, though, and trigger a deteriorating deflector, and so are a few other things like the epilepsy beam (DRB) and structural analysis.

The wiki is usually a good resource, but it does not list specialist powers that trigger secondary deflectors. I know some temporal BOFF powers do. And I haven't tested, but it may be possible that some tac or engi powers do also, like possibly augment boarding party, though I'm 99% sure none of the original BOFF powers like APB or APD trigger a deteriorating deflector. It really depends on how they coded the newer ones.

Very cold in space and chronometric inversion field both should count as 'anomalies' for various things that look at those, such as the new Risian ship trait, but neither count as debuffs nor control despite being arguably both.

Now the issue with inhibiting is that it triggers a single burst of damage after 4s. If stuff dies before then it obviously won't trigger. With deteriorating, the damage starts right away but you only get the full amount after 10s have passed, and it takes 5 or 6 ticks to get the same damage output that the inhibiting deflector gets after 4. Also stacking isn't a thing with deteriorating, if you fire off 5 BOFF powers that should trigger the deflector, you're only going to get the one DOT, so you have to consider spacing out your usage to maximize damage on the targets that live longer. I'm not sure how stacking works with inhibiting, were you to say fire off GW, TB, TBR one after the other.

Edit: Pretty sure I'm wrong on that struck bit, and confused it with drain infection.