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Vo'Quv: Weapon choices?
aesica
Member Posts: 736 Arc User
All right, so I (foolishly) bought one of these because I wanted to see what carrier-style gameplay was like. Currently, I'm saving up for something more fun, but in the meantime, I'd like to make my Vo'Quv time as painless as possible. So here's the deal:
I'm an engineer. I make heavy use of gravity wells and other such things that demand my ship be facing my target rather than sideswiping it, so I'm looking for something with turrents in the back and a torpedo of some type + fore weapon in the front. (I really don't want a beam boat...) However, I'm at a loss as to which fore weapon I should go with.
Dual/dual heavy cannons: (45 degree) This is the logical choice for maximum dps, but I can't see it getting very much uptime, given the carrier's abysmal turn rate. Is this a correct assessment?
Dual beam banks: (90 degree) Seems like a good alternative to the 45s that would allow for more weapon uptime without having to play the struggle-to-turn minigame so much. This would go well with torpedos because they both have the same fire radius.
Dual cannons: (180 degree) Minimal worry about turning at this point, but something of a dps hit.
Turrets all the way: (360 degree) Turning becomes a non-issue unless I want to use a gravity well or torpedo. Pretty awful dps though, I'd imagine.
- - -
So, recommendations, thoughts, etc from other Vo'Quv users?
Thanks!
I'm an engineer. I make heavy use of gravity wells and other such things that demand my ship be facing my target rather than sideswiping it, so I'm looking for something with turrents in the back and a torpedo of some type + fore weapon in the front. (I really don't want a beam boat...) However, I'm at a loss as to which fore weapon I should go with.
Dual/dual heavy cannons: (45 degree) This is the logical choice for maximum dps, but I can't see it getting very much uptime, given the carrier's abysmal turn rate. Is this a correct assessment?
Dual beam banks: (90 degree) Seems like a good alternative to the 45s that would allow for more weapon uptime without having to play the struggle-to-turn minigame so much. This would go well with torpedos because they both have the same fire radius.
Dual cannons: (180 degree) Minimal worry about turning at this point, but something of a dps hit.
Turrets all the way: (360 degree) Turning becomes a non-issue unless I want to use a gravity well or torpedo. Pretty awful dps though, I'd imagine.
- - -
So, recommendations, thoughts, etc from other Vo'Quv users?
Thanks!
Rubberband Dance has been unlocked!
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In any case...
3x dual cannon. Your choice of antiproton, disruptor or tetryon. The point of these dual cannons is to lower the target's shields quickly.
Rear: 3X turrets to match frontal weapon damage type.
Borg engine, universal module and deflector. KDF shield.
2 armor kinetic modules, 1 70% power relay in engineering.
dilithium store shield console (forget its name) and 2X shield boosters plus the borg univ. console here. Replace one shield booster with the plasmonic leech if you have it.
Tac match the weapon type to console for +dmg.
Boff:
Lt Cmdr Tactical
Tac team 1, Rapid fire 1, rapid fire 2 (or volley if you wish)
Sci Cmdr
Grav well 3, hazard 3, repulsors and polarize hull
Sci Lt
Sci team1, transfer shields 2.
Lt Cmdr Engineer:
Emg to shield 3, engineering team 2 , emg to shield 1
Use the dilithium store To'Dujs. Dont bother with the birds of prey... they're absolutely screwed up. ToDuj will outdamage the BoP by a wide margin and they respond instantly.
Using this setup is easy: You fly to 9.9km of target (if its static), sit there and blast away. In STF's where you can put yourself in the flight path of ships (aka probes heading to gate) you can simply gravity well & kill anything that comes your way. Repulsor beams are extremely useful for all situations.
Power setting: Wep 70 Shield 70 Engine 25 and anything left to AUX.
Borg kit and your own healing abilities will tank almost anything.
Voq'uv engineer- energy type polaron to give a bit more power due to proc.
Power settings. I like having weapon power maxed in stf. So max weapon 25 aux and engines with rest in shields.
Front weapons
2 single cannons
1 single beam array- for target subsystems
Rear weapons
3 turrets
This weapon setup allows me to move arround the target to keep my defense up.
Oh on boff.
tactical - TT1 cannon spread 1 cannon spread 2
science -Polarized hull 1, tikens rift 1, energy siphon 2 Gravity well 3
science - Hazard emitter 1 , science team 2
Engineering- emergency power to shields 1, engineering team 2, aux to structual 2
This setup allows me to tank pretty well. Ill use tt1 mostly but ill hit engineering or science team depends on what i need most while tanking. Tikens rift and Gravity well can be used while tanking to take out torpedos to save from being 1 shot. I love this shield to play tank with. Cannon spread seems to grab more agro than rapid fire does in my testing plus on probes it rocks killing 2-3 probes with 1 spread.
Consoles arent the best i could get but they are what i have gathered.
engineer 1 rcs 2 nautronien(or whatever the kinetic/resist console is)
science borg graviton and particle until i can afford to fill with shield emmitters
Tactical polaron 26+%
I use high guard deflector and shields with borg engines.
My tactical is similar but with dual heavy instead of single cannons.
I use advanced slavers mostly but sometimes i use birds of prey. They might not have super high dps but in my testing the fighters and bop come close to same dps totals. The slavers i use for probe duty due to the mine placement they use.
Movement.... if you need to turn about learn to use reverse to speed up your turning. I can turn on a dime and give you 9 cents change in my carriers
You do have a LCdr eng in your bridge layout so it might be worth looking at. I think it would allow you to come to a new head to unleash science but I'm not sure how viable it would be with a single eng boff to keep cannons on target reliably. I may not know but somebody here does.
If you weren't playing an Eng I'd ask you why you aren't in command of a Kar-Fi. High maneuverabilty (for a carrier:)) and bags of science trick goodness. The look of it takes some adjusting to and is probably the only thing I'm not sure I like about it (The metallic lion fish has grown on me somewhat). There must be someone around here who tried to command a Kar-Fi with an engineer and if they see this I'd like to hear about their experiences. Eng support on board is weak (Lt) but your captains abilities might give you a survivability bump .
Best of luck and don't write it off yet, the sky isn't falling.
Tactical TT1, cannon volley1, cannon volley2
engineering epts1, Engineering team 2, Aux to structual 2
science polarized hull 1, tikens rift 1, energy siphon 2, grave well 3
science hazard emitters 1, science team 2
I used tt1 with a con boff to help it refresh faster. ill use science or engineering teams between when i need them. Volley seems to allow me to hold better agro over rapid fire, and kill 3 probes fast at once. Tikens rift and grave well has the effect of killing off torpedos. Also using your fighters on intercept when tanking the tac cubes helps a bit with torpedos.
Anyway:
Ooh, I didn't even think of the beam array for subsystem targeting, so going all cannons would've locked me out of that. Is a single beam array actually effective with those?
A fleet mate of mine is now saving to get his carrier he has a heavy bop and wants more survival. Its all about pick the ship you enjoy. I can say the karfi doesnt have target subsystems is more manuverable and lays out a heavy bit of dps. with better survival than a bop but enjoy the bop if thats more to your liking too
The reason is simple: Its the equivalent of having the subsystem attack skill trained on a tac BO but putting no points into it. That is why the re-use timer on them is so infernally long.
Also, as they are tier1 abilities, they have a very low 'proc' chance. Meaning they cannot be relied on to drop a shield or slow a ship to a stop (tgt engine). It is only the tier3 ability that reliably pops those subsystems.
I tested a full beam array VoQuv using Shield Subsystem 3 and Engine subsystem 2 ... it IS helpful but only in very limited situations and the damage output is dismal compared to rapid firing cannons.
As for the issue of BoPs vs ToduJ fighters: The BoP's technically should do more damage but they do not because they spend 90% of their time aiming their noses away from the target hence they only shoot their turret. ToDujs on the other hand literally turn instantly to face target and fire.
Hint for using ToDujs: Launch them with RECALL order. Keep them close to you. When you have a target you want dead simply tell them to ATTACK...
and watch the ToDuj cloud fly forward as a group... and when they fire their torpedos RECALL THEM inmediately.
When the Toduj Torpedos hit target order them to attack again...and again when they fire their torpedos recall them.
This way you keep them flying back and forth between your carrier and target..they stay inside 5km from your carrier launching nonstop torpedo volleys.
In contrast, if you just leave them under attack order and see them fly to target and surround it the ToDujs will only fire their torpedos once as a group as they close in and then they will fire one torpedo at random every 10 seconds or so. BoP's wont fire torpedos unless their noses or rear are facing target...which is RARE because of their idiotically programmed flight attack patterns.
With such an abysmal turn rate, you should probably stay away from anything that has a 45 degree field of fire, because you'll have trouble keeping your nose on anything that isn't sitting still. Of course, there are situations where many of your targets will be doing just that, so you might carry different weapons in your inventory to take advantage of those situations. Regular cannons with their 180 degree field of fire are much easier to keep on target, since you need to worry less about keeping it in front of you and worry more about keeping it from getting around behind you. It is for this reason that some science skills will be more easily deployed than others. Things like Gravity Well and Tyken's Rift require you to face your target, but Energy Siphon has 360 targetting. Again, different tools for different applications and different situations.
With such a slow-turning ship, you would normally benefit from maintaining further distances, as a short turn of your nose makes for a lot of distance out at 10km, but your cannons and turrets would experience degraded performance with increased distance, encouraging you to move in closer to attack. There will probably be many times where your carrier will spend most of it's time in close combat actually going in reverse, just to keep things in front of your ship while allowing you to keep some speed going for maneuvers. Just remember, it doesn't matter how awesome the DPS is on a weapon if you can't actually shoot it at your target, and the more seconds you spend not shooting it at your target, the lower that "S" multiplier gets.
As a carrier you accelerate slow, and will often be fighting at long range, cannons and turrets don't work good past 5k, so beams are the way to go, but the carrier doesn't have the turn rate for DBB.
Don't listen to the guy saying he is sorry you bought the Voquv because its a big slow target, some people just don't know how to play carriers. With my eng in a voquv I am frequently at the or near the top in damage and kills in arena pvp, while still leading the team in heals to since I use heals in every sci slot I can, and I die less due to being able to tank like a cruiser. I frequently get comments in zone from the other team saying stuff like "damn carrier", and in STFs commenting how fast I bring gates down.
You should just make sure to use 2 hangars B'rotlh Bird of Prey refits from the dil store. Make sure to keep them recalled when before you start a fight so they stay cloaked and don't attack the wrong target. Then when you are within 15k click attack mode, and close range to 10k yourself so you can support with fire, the BOP usually should be hitting the right targets, if not you can always switch to their target and kill it off quickly it won't last very long against the games most damaging carrier pets. Also you can click recall mode then attack mode again to help get them on target. Relaunching more BOP during combat also helps make sure they are on target.
Anyway, having pets isn't attack wrong target isn't a big problem for me, just practice timing your pet commands right and you should be ok.
Also wanted to add that I think its more important to run 2 tac teams on a carrier, then take FAW3. Won't leave you room for attack paterns but lets you tank much better with continuous tac team.
Okay i have to stringently agree with these guys. Th Vo'Quv turns like a cruiser, treat it like one.
Like the second guy quoted said stick to beam arrays your speed and turn rate make using cannons or beam banks an excersise in futillity and the drop off on them means you really need to be inside a few KM to see the best usage out of them.
He's also spot on about having double tac team and beam fire at will 3. Withut double tac team you cannot efectivlly survive fire from multipule enmies using sheild tanking, you end up not being able to transfer fast enough for 20 secons out of every 30. You can hull tank in the Vo'quv, but it's not what i'd call the best at it. You really need double engeneir slots for that as double engeneering team is kind of vital to it, (with Hazrd emmitters and a couple of sheild heals to back you up if you find your team and AuxtSIF on Cooldown, a quick sheild heal can buy you the 10 seconds or so you'll need even though it doesn't last long).
I'm not sure i agree about grav well though. It really needs precise and often timely placment for best effect, the Vo'Quv is poorely suited to that. Whilst not necesserilly a "great" skill, Feedback Pulse 3 may be your best Cmdr skill. Energy Siphon 3 for the Lt Cmdr skill is a good idea though. You can't get high uptime unfortunatly due to your single copy, but if paired off with your target subsystem abilities it's a lot of drain on a single system. Comined it with plasmonic leech if you have the consle and quite a few PVE ships will lose a subsystem or two. Especially if you run polerons and they proc during that window of opportunity.
(Disclaimer: running Elite STF's, not PvP)
Fore: Photon Torpedo launcher x2, Dual Beam Bank
Aft: Turret x3
With 3 blue projectile doffs, torp spread 2 and 3, plus things like Grav well... its pretty dangerous in that forward arc. I don't seem to have much of a prob keeping that arc on enemies either.
I kept the DBB for subsystem targeting.
Could run 3x Quantums and toss the DBB, heh
It's me, Chrome. [Join Date: May 2009]
"Oh, I may be captain by rank... but I never wanted to be anything else but an engineer." ~Montgomery Scott~
You can either go beam boat or turret boat - I prefer the beam boat. One dual up front, the remainder singles. Gravity well is great for crowd control, lining up your targets for FAW. The Feds really hate the energy sucking drones.
It is the only ship that I fly that doesn't frustrate me when faced with the Fed carriers and all their hold abilities. I'm not going anywhere fast, so they can hold me all day long and it doesn't affect me.
Unfortunately, no one has really started (at least that I could find) a thread on Vo'quv builds.
STO Forum member since before February 2010.
STO Academy's excellent skill planner here: Link
I actually avoid success entirely. It doesn't get me what I want, and the consequences for failure are slim. -- markhawman
This is only possibble if you near constantlly move at minimum speed. It can work but it absolutly requires youminimise the list of things shooting at you.
EDIT: I've also started to really get my voquv gweared out, thanks to the extreme amount of flow capacitor consles i'm running for my plasmonic leach i'm seeing some pretty insane drain amounts from energy siphon and target X now. Most PVE ships lose their sheilds from siphon and the leech alone, all 3 takes anythings sheilds offline. In fact Target X plus leech plus siphon will take the targent system offline every time, thats a LOT more powerful than people give it credit for. My Voquv finds the Cube and Donatra and Assamilliated Carrier fights a total cakewalke now.
Pointing this creature at the bad guys is really sorta easy. Especially in the time frame of a gravity well.
Cheers.
And an engineer in a BOP is just a huge waste of engineer and bop. Honest. Get a Vorcha if you want to whip around all willy nilly. Or a siege destroyer. Or wait for the fleet scourge. All good engineer choices. Really anything BUT a bop.
Edit: As for my ship, I'm thinking I'll actually do this and call it good:
2 photon (maybe quantum to get the most out of spread) torpedoes, 1 beam array for subsystem targeting
3 turrets
With tractor beams and other sorts of immobilizing/control abilities, it's not hard (just slow) to get this hunk of junk facing and locked onto its current target.
Also, beam boating was what I'm trying to get away from since my gravity well demands that I face forward, yet my beams demand that I face sideways. Given the slow turn rate, that's a significant chunk of downtime for the rear beam arrays.
My new setup allows me to stay facing my target, ensuring nearly 100% uptime for all weapons and no need to turn in order to use my science abilities.
(My fed science ship is much more suited to beam boating because of its excellent turn rate, but not this thing. No way!)
Even then, I manage to use my forward arc science skills and broadside successfully against the probes when I play it :P.
Could go turrets, but I like fire at will. As well, I'm just pointing out what I use, not what's the best most awesome for PVE/PVP
As for the logic of not using beams because of turn rate and linking that to gravity well you need to put that under the 'because I feel like it category'. If you think it through you can see that the following cannot possibly be true.
My new setup allows me to stay facing my target, ensuring nearly 100% uptime for all weapons
Because eventually you do need to change targets. Or targets do get past you or past someone else. Or you die and need to move back in. Or the targets just happen to spawn on top of you. When any of these things occur, you will gain the benefit the greater arcs of the beams provide. And there's no reason to suffer significant dps loss from the rear arrays.
But its very easy to keep a target in the arc of all your beams. You do NOT need to be parallel to the target to do so. Just move off center enough that your rear beam arrays fire. Then it is a simple matter to nudge the ship over to allow for GW or the next torpedo salvo. Also some spawns come from different areas then the targets you may be working on. In those cases you COULD be broadside to a station, but aimed perfectly at the probes spawn point.
Engineers enjoy the ability to maintain high power levels. Combined with the beams this can be significant damage. Combined with evasive this can be significant maneuverability.
Or here. Don't use gravity well. Just use energy siphon. Don't even need to point the ship. Put chroniton borg torps on there too. Make those spawn move nice and slow.
Setup:
* 4x phased polaron beam array's (purple, MK XI -> so cheap on the exchange at this time...) 2 in the front, 2 in the back (specced into flow cap with 9 points + I have a purple flow cap console mk XI that I got as a reward somewhere)
* 2 photon torpedoes (1 front, 1 aft) (MK XI, purple)
Bridge Officers (ps; I am also fully skilled into attack patterns aswell; when you are a tactical its a must have)
* Lt. Commander Tactical: Torpedo Spread 1, Beam Fire At Will 2 and Attack Pattern BetaII (I tried AP Delta but I couldnt kill stuff fast enough so I switched back to Beta II)
* Commander Engineer/Lt. Engineer: Emergency Power To Shields I, Emergency Power To Weapons I (or is it II?) and Directed Enenrgy Modulation II/ Engineering team1, Auxiliary to structural integrity II
* Commander Science: Science Team I, Hazard Emitters II, Tractor Beam Repulsors II and Tykens Rift II.
I am however thinking about using Gravity Well together with Tykens Rift since most science ability's are trash so I am starting to think about combo-ing science ability's (Gravwell to stall ships in place + tykens rift to suck power to make 'em last even longer in the Well... thats the idea atleast...)
Note: I am flying this carrier like I would a cruiser (a very big and slow cruiser...)...
Hangars: both blue quality: 1x to'duj hangar, 1 mirror universe B'rel BoP hangar.
I am not doing PvP, only PvE...
(I hope I have the bridge officers stations right...)