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Cooldown reduction on an exotic build
vetteguy904
Member Posts: 3,943 Arc User
in The Academy
I have been doing some research on cooldowns for my Legendary exotic build. Right now, there are no cool downs in place. Photonic Officer is a possibility but i am not sure i even need/want a cooldown with improved GW. If I cool it down, I lose any benefit of the aftershocks.
For context, here is the build https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/403f9930ec21f73e0f34d238c604cda7
I've considered boimler. I think if I go that way, it won't hurt since I can use boimler on DEW builds
For context, here is the build https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/403f9930ec21f73e0f34d238c604cda7
I've considered boimler. I think if I go that way, it won't hurt since I can use boimler on DEW builds
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In hindsight my using "partial" or "outdated" or "unreliable" cooldown reduction was FAR from optimal. Then after taking care of things properly with Photonic Officer I found the difference was absolutely HUGE both offensively and defensively.
Thankfully there's a cooldown calculator available to give some numbers and even a visual indicator to all the various things that can be done to get bridge officer abilities firing as often as possible.
https://sites.google.com/view/stobetter (the link to the calculator is in the right sidebar)
First chart from the calculator shows your boff abilities with nothing but the readiness skills from your posted skill tree (2 tactical, 1 each science and engineering). Since you're using the improved gravity well (IGW) trait your gravity well would be almost the only thing at global. I didn't add your torpedo active duty doff or chrono-capacitor array reputation trait. They would help but would only achieve "partial" CDR (i.e. not all bridge officer abilities and not close to maximum uptime).
"The goal is to get the orange bar reduced to the gray (duplicate cooldown). If the gray and blue bar match, you have 100% ability uptime. This is not always possible"
In the second chart all that's been done is adding Photonic Officer 2 into the mix for cooldown reduction...
Comparing the modified cooldown times between the first chart without PO2 and the second chart with PO2. The difference is huge and most things seem to be at their maximum uptime. The orange color in the visual indicator is gone (this is good).
Currently 100% of my builds use Photonic Officer 2 when it's available. It's affordable and reliable. If PO2 isn't available use PO1.
I'd give it a try and see what you think. You'll still get the aftershock gravity wells from your duty officer and the IGW ship trait will still extend gravity well's duration but it won't be needed to reduce it's cooldown.
To add to this: cannon skills (CSV and CRF) and beam overload also do a tad better with Photonic Officer 2 versus 1.
BFAW is fine with PO1.
Not wanting to sacrifice Subspace Vortex 3 for Photonic Officer 2 is understandable as SSV is a purchase from the exchange.
More anomalies and secondary deflector procs is usually better so it would be a shame to drop anything.
Morphogenic set + ETM does well as it can help make room for a couple more offensive science abilities.
Photonic Officer of either rank should be a significant improvement with PO2 > PO1.
- using more anomalies and secondary deflector procs. This could involve converting a Lieutenant universal to science and reconsidering things like Science Team and Jam Sensors. There could be room for more i.e. destabilizing resonance beam, tykens rift, tachyon beam (and perhaps something like structural integrity collapse on engineering). Having just two aside from Gravity Well (subspace vortex and very cold in space) might leave a bit of a hole in an offensive rotation.
- another suggestion I read about that worked out very well is manually activating gravity well , and then putting *most but not all* anomalies on a separate anomaly key in order to fire them off more quickly and with less hunting around (clicking). The other advice of keeping a couple of offensive science boff abilities "on reserve" (not on the anomaly key) also worked out well. Pick two to save for use while the others used in an opening salvo are in cooldown.
This would require a keybind file and is kinda part II of using cooldown reduction.. now that things are firing more often with Photonic Officer, the second part is reliably firing them off more quickly.
- perhaps something like the Delphic Tear console to add some BONUS exotic damage?
Something like this (suggestion only) adds 3 more sec def triggers plus SIC in engineering.
The "science" of cooldown reduction is sound though.. everybody needs it and Photonic Officer makes it easy.
If you are in a fleet, you could improve the GW by replacing the 5 plain exotic consoles with Particle Focusers from the Fleet Research lab -- each is 1 full Exotic + 2/3 control console + slight exotic buff on either +heal or control power. That's +125 control expertise.
You could drop Very Cold down to Ensign (losing Jam Sensors) and add Charged Particle Burst 1 for the AOE radiation damage from the secondary deflector.
Do you have the Spore Infused Anomalies trait from the Somerville? With a bunch of anomalies it would be a shame not to.
The trait from the Presidio, the Phantom, even the Vonph on one toon. Lukari Boffs, Deflector Doffs, you name it.
When they released Boimler, I tried it on one toon. A dozen others, if not more, followed and I haven't bothered getting any of the mentioned traits or anything else on new toons since then.