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adamkafei
Member Posts: 6,539 Arc User
in The Shipyard
Like others, I've been away for a while and need a bit of help with my build. This is my current build, including doffs: https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/81f9d8448706427d6d9e6363ad497124
Combat Power Levels (Before Leech):
125+/100
78/20
78/40
87/40
Last time I played routinely it was virtually immortal in pve but now it fails to stand up to advanced story NPCs. It does hold up better when I use my defensive power preset that have 125+ in both weapons and shields but that's still squishier than I'd like and the speed is part of the fun, I have thought about reversing my EptS and EPtW but my previous build knowlegde tells me that'd be an overreaction.
Any help would be appreciated.
Combat Power Levels (Before Leech):
125+/100
78/20
78/40
87/40
Last time I played routinely it was virtually immortal in pve but now it fails to stand up to advanced story NPCs. It does hold up better when I use my defensive power preset that have 125+ in both weapons and shields but that's still squishier than I'd like and the speed is part of the fun, I have thought about reversing my EptS and EPtW but my previous build knowlegde tells me that'd be an overreaction.
Any help would be appreciated.
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My main suggestions would probably be:
-Get the Discovery Rep DECS(deflector, engines, core, shield) set. You can keep the spire core and get a colony deflector if you prefer the fleet route/hybrid.
-Consider slotting the T2 Iconian Rep Space Trait - Energy Refrequencer. (basically gives your energy weapons a 'lifesteal')
-Consider replacing your Plasmonic Leech for a defensive/healing console. There are a bunch of options and Leech was heavily nerfed a while back.
Some alternatives, if you have it, the Priors world defense satellite console is very nice for saving your weapon power in an 8 beam ship, and giving you a little more damage. The Voth power subcore console is extremely good for hardening your shields and can give you a lot of survivability (except against Borg.) I'm not sure when you last played STO so you may not have those, however if you're willing to spend $$ on them, they are in MUDDs shop, just wait for a sale.
I think in the short term the Energy Refrequencer trait is definitely one of the biggest changes to make for survivability.
However, I also notice you have no armor at all. It can make a difference. You could go run through Ragnarok for the Trellium D plating console which is typically all I slot for armor on my ships, but its also true that killing stuff faster means you can have less armor.
How are you achieving boff cooldowns? On your Drake build active duty officers are doing a reasonable job with your EPtX skills and tactical team. Are you using a starship trait to get your single copy of the beam skill and attack pattern ticking over more quickly? Current specialization recommendations are Intel primary, Strategist secondary. Strategist combined with using threatening stance and a heal every 30 seconds helps with cool downs.
For a phaser build there some mission rewards that can really help.
Quantum Phase Catalysts Try the beam array and universal console. The torpedo is also one of the better ones if you ever decide to use one.
Trilithium Laced Weaponry Try the engineering console and omni beam array.
Temporal Disentanglement Suite Try the science console for shield capacity and extra CrtH as you have lots of auxiliary power.
Take note of the skill tree stats from both the quantum phase console (Drain X) and the reinforced armaments console (hull restoration and hull capacity) as well as the temporal disentanglement science console (shield capacity) as this can help with your skill tree. There's also additional shield capacity from Strategist as secondary specialization.
There are some ways to modernize your skill tree as well as a couple things to change if you like. The days of just picking a lot of Lt skills and power nodes are past.
For LtC level skill tree choices an extra point into EPS should help your beams. Full impulse energy shunt does absolutely nothing for you. At the Captain level 3 points into long range targeting sensors is recommended to reduce the distance penalty for your energy weapons to the greatest extent possible.
Other skill tree savings are possible in a variety of areas and could mirror changes I've made to a number of characters that seem to work very well.
Lt - 2 points max into hull cap usually suffices, with only a single point needed in hull repair, shield repair, and shield capacity. Additional hull restoration and capacity comes from a story console above. Extra shield capacity is also built into the Strategist specialization as well as the temporal disentanglement suite.
LtC - 2 pts into EPS without FIES as mentioned. Most players can't tell the difference between 2 or 3 pts into impulse expertise so go with 2. Eliminate the point each into control and drain. Some of your drain comes from the story console above as well as addition power transfer.
Captain - the second and third points into hull plating's can usually be left out (diminishing returns) and you can get more resists elsewhere if needed. 3 pts into long range targeting are pretty standard for energy weapon builds. I'd leave out the 4 lower secondary power node pts and just use the primary two.
So far there's a savings of 12 skill points. Dump them all into tactical and enjoy more zing with your beam weapons without any loss of sturdiness while maintaining good power levels and resists. Recover that bite you used have with a modernized skill tree.
Here is the skill tree I use on my engineers and tactical characters that are focused on directed energy damage. There are more way to move a couple points around for possible future synergies (i.e. torpedo use) while retaining 27 points into tactical. The ground spec also works very well for me and I've personally tested it on engineer, tac, and science toons (even new ones while ranking up).
For another look at a similar skill tree and a lot of helpful info have a look here Beam ships in the current century.
In Star Trek Online, when you have issues with survivability it usually means you’re not killing things fast enough. STO is not a game you win by attrition, you don’t generally want to be trading blows over a long period of time. STO uses large groups to challenge players and even if you build with all healing skills, they will get you eventually.
Your biggest issues are that your damage needs a boost and you need a method to improve your cool downs. On a ship like that with a ton of Engineering and little Tactical, you should be running an Aux2Bat build to manage your power and cool downs. The link protoneous provided for Beam Ships in the Current Century is a long read, but it does a very good job of explaining everything. If there is anything that isn’t clear, by all means feel free to ask. You can accomplish a lot by just slotting 3 Technician Duty Officers (even blue ones would work) and re-arranging your bridge officer layout. Then start working on the missions that give you +Phaser Gear and you’ll be doing much better rather quickly.
Thanks for the advice though guys, I'll have to see what I can swap out for some of the suggested items and then re-tailor my spec for that build, I either didn't notice FIES or took it for what I considered at the time to be a dump point.
I'm noticeing a lot of power transfer rate being suggested, I remember when I tripped over that myself but in my testing I found that too much was just as bad as, and in some cases worse than, not enough did that change sometime? And are there any other major changes made that affect building since around DR?
I am certainly not trying to be a downer here.. but if you don't want to use Aux2Bat, then I strongly recommend you consider changing ships. The Excelsior is a one trick pony, and that trick is A2B due to the heavy engineering focus. The problem you are going to have is with bridge officer cooldown reduction. Typically this is handled one of 3 ways:
1. Aux2Bat layout - This is the quickest, cheapest and most effective method of handling cooldowns in an energy weapon build. It's advantages are ease of use, it's disadvantage is that it requires a lot of engineering seats. This is why it is perfect for the Excelsior line.
2. Doubling up - This is also cheap and easy, you simply slot 2 of each tactical ability. When you hit Fire At Will for example, the second copy goes on it's global 15 second cooldown (you cannot reduce cooldown lower then 15 seconds) and this lets you keep a constant rotation of abilities. This method is not possible on the Excelsior due to it's limited tactical seating and is most common on Escorts as it's perfect for them.
3. Traits and items - You can find many traits and consoles that will help with bridge officer cooldowns, but they are all tied to other ships and this option is by far the most expensive. Depending on what you are after it could cost hundreds of dollars if you don't already have what you need.
Ultimately, if you want to improve your effectiveness, the sad truth is your choices are Aux2Bat or a different ship. Do you have access to any other ships you like? Maybe we can find something that works on that instead?
I know what you're saying about A2B builds. The not fun part of it for me ended after binding my rotation to a single key using a simple keybind as explained in this video so I could devote more time to piloting. I do retain Drake builds as well and can respect that A2B isn't for everybody but it works so well that it may be worth a revisit for it's cooldowns and power levels at least on some engineering heavy ships.
There were quite a few changes that affect builds in Season 13 (2017). Pretty much too many to list. All of them would be reflected in any advice given here.
There's were some good external links that list them but wasn't able to find my old favorite. Will post a link if I can track it down.
One small example is that your plasmonic leech is now capped at +7.5 max power per subsystem regardless of your drain level.
I'm going to get some of the gear mentioned in this thread, I've got a few ideas of what I can switch around to keep the fun elements of my build while bringing it into the modern era.
Unfortunately, the ship in question doesn't really comfortably accomodate Photonic Officer with it being restricted to a singular Lt. Sci seat. A LtCmdr. seat is the ideal minimum(ST1, HE2, PO2) for the setup if you do consider a jump to a different ship.
As far as the tactical seating goes, I might actually suggest building some Crafted Phasers with the [Over] proc. While it's not particularly reliable, it is a potential option when you don't have the room to double-up attack modes. I ran them on my old Regent because I was in a similar situation of not wanting to use Aux2Bat on it. (Thankfully, the Archon opened the door for PO2 while letting me keep the classic Sovereign appearance.)
You cannot hit global with 1 copy of Photonic Officer without using some other traits. Photonic Officer does not reduce cooldown on itself so you have to first use Improved Photonic Officer to extend it's duration and then something like Calm Before the Storm to further reduce cooldown. Just one copy and some points in reediness won't get you to global but it should get you at least an improvement over just waiting 30 seconds. I would have to put it in the calculator, but it would get you somewhere around 18-20 seconds. Even with the 2 traits, Calm can be a little wonky on when it does actually decide to apply the cooldown so it won't be perfect. That is why a single copy of PO is most commonly used along side a single copy of A2B with 3 Technicians. A single copy of Photonic Officer with points in Readiness cannot accomplish the same result as an Aux2Bat build.
I didn't suggest those options because it requires the acquisition of a Lobi Ship as well as a C-Store ship and still isn't a great option for a ship like the Excelsior for the exact reasons you outlined.
There is a reason the Excelsior is not a popular ship despite it's iconic look and popularity with Trek fans. People don't fly it because outside of an A2B build, it's almost impossible to find anything effective to run on it. The unfortunate truth is that if the OP isn't willing to use an A2B style build then they will always stuggle using this ship. It's unfortunate, but there is simply no way around it. The incredibly limiting Bridge Officer layout of the Excelsior pigeon holes it into one build that it can do well. It's just not flexible enough to do anything else which is why it's so unpopular.
There are other options for CD reduction, though. Reciprocity can work well, but so can Press the Advantage.
Perfectly fair.
Again though, the big issue is those traits require access to better ships. If you have Reciprocity, you have access to the Presidio which is a superior ship to the Excelsior.
You're thinking All hands on Deck. Reciprocity is the Phantom, and Press the Advantage is the JH Vanguard heavy raider.
And the Presidio can't wear an Excelsior skin, so it clearly is inferior.
Aesthetics are a matter of opinion of course, but I really like the look of both the Presidio and The Excelsior. I usually pick the Presidio just because it’s a better ship. They really did a grave injustice by giving a ship as beautiful as The Excelsior such a lackluster layout.. real shame.
For it to work properly you need a very decent load of threat and all sorts of things firing at you and missing. I can sometimes achieve this but if your threat goes out the window so does the operation of the trait.
That's why I'd label it as a work around trait versus a fix and might be hesitant to recommend it in a situation like the above where an experienced returning player is trying to update their build as your build already has to be pretty good just to make it work some of the time.
Disclaimer - if you already own it and are trying to work around something it can still help. I still use it on a few toons. It's just that the toons where I've taken care of cool downs in more reliable ways seem to perform much better. It has it's niche.
Reciprocity is a good trait to help with cool downs, but as your sole method, it’s unreliable at best. If the OP has access to the trait, then yes.. they absolutely should use it if they won’t run A2B, but it’s definitely not a complete solution.
OP, look into the impulse engines from the Competitive Wargames reputation. I understand your issue with Aux to Batt is that you would have to give up Aux to Dampers, and you really like the speed boost.
However, those engines give a much stronger speed boost.
The engines come in 3 variations, an Eng, a Sci, and a Tac one, and have 2 functions. Firstly, they reduce cooldowns of boff abilities of their respective career, and secondly, they trigger a significant speed and turn rate buff on use of different sets of abilities.
While the tac version could be interesting for its cooldown reduction, the engineering version's speed boost triggers on activation of any hull or shield heal (Eng team, Sci team, EPtS etc.) and is the easiest to activate.
With those engines you really don't need Aux to Dampers any more, and can set up an Aux to Batt build, which is simply way superior to what you have right now.
As has been mentioned above, I would try to get a Fleet Colony deflector for its crit boost, and 2 pieces from the Discovery Legends (aka Stamets/Tilly) set for its 2-piece bonus to hull regen (=survivability).
With FAW you'd be better off with Press the Advantage, as its way more likely to hit some random target's rear if you can fly aggressively, and you only need to do that every 6s to keep the buff up continuously.
I personally hate the competitive engines and avoid them like the plague, so for me I'd never use them as an alternative to A2D, but that is just personal taste.
I am sure you probably already know this.. but just in case.. this build works even better with the Emergency Conn Hologram from the Phoenix Box (Rare.) Everytime you use that EPTE your Evasive Maneuvers becomes available again. I will use this sometimes on a Pilot Escort just to see how fast I can move around the map, it's really quite good. All that speed also gives you a nice defensive bonus.