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KDF advanced carrier pets - which are worth buying?
harrymonkley
Member Posts: 100 Arc User
I have a KDF science officer in the Vo'Quv carrier - I have bought and tested every carrier pet available for EC, hoping to get an idea of how they perform and been underwhelmed.
Based on forum writings in the PvP section - syphon drones are hugely OP, and capable of redering elite tactical cubes helpless - but even with a full set of flow cap consoles and spec into flow cap skills, the regular syphon drones can't even disable a probe in the empire defence scenario.
Orion slavers - mine never stole anything, but they did seem a bit more effective than the standard To'Duj fighters which were almost completely ineffective.
The B'rel BOPs work ok.
The specs of the advanced versions look better, but how does that translate in practice?
I'm wondering wether the Vo'Quv was a bad mistake, and whether I should just cut my losses and walk away now rather than spend my small stockpile of dil on new pets.
Based on forum writings in the PvP section - syphon drones are hugely OP, and capable of redering elite tactical cubes helpless - but even with a full set of flow cap consoles and spec into flow cap skills, the regular syphon drones can't even disable a probe in the empire defence scenario.
Orion slavers - mine never stole anything, but they did seem a bit more effective than the standard To'Duj fighters which were almost completely ineffective.
The B'rel BOPs work ok.
The specs of the advanced versions look better, but how does that translate in practice?
I'm wondering wether the Vo'Quv was a bad mistake, and whether I should just cut my losses and walk away now rather than spend my small stockpile of dil on new pets.
Post edited by harrymonkley on
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Most of the Advanced versions just add a higher tier skill (like Torpedo Heavy Yield II instead of I) or else they increase the pet's defenses so they last longer. They do cost more, but they really do improve the effectiveness.
The power drain drones are fine with a full power drain build. Enhanced FlowCaps, Tyken's Rifts, Power Drain deflector powers all add together for monstrous draining, but you really have to commit yourself. Plasmonic Leech plus Polarons plus FlowCaps plus Drain Drones plus Tyken's Rift plus Siphon Beam plus Breen Siphon all add up to powerless opponents. The fewer items you add in, the less likely you'll actually shut them down. Even without a gung-ho build, the target my still be moving and shooting, but you'll notice that their energy weapons are so weak that they don't actually hurt your shields. You don't have to shut them down completely to take them out of the fight.
I was in my own BOP doing a typical lurking strategy, waiting for the big guys to get aggro so I could unleash my attack from safety but it seriously wasn't required. I had a hard time getting to a targeted cube on time before it got busted up and destroyed by the BOP spam.
Extremely impressive, I've never seen Borg go down so fast! The cubes were popping like they were spheres.
Makes me wat to roll up an Eng and put him in a Carrier!
Launch BoPs...constantly. As fast as you possibly can, max aux, Flight Deck Officers, anything to launch em as quick as you can.
The reason why is because every time you launch a new carrier pet, it has no cooldowns. So every new BoP that pops out, has another HY 2, another CRF, and so on ready to go.
That's partially why they can be so nasty, some captains had their fighter pets launching within seconds (less than 5), constantly releasing a whole slew of new pets with no cooldowns, over and over and over.
Even with the Flight Deck Officer nerf we had recently, it's still a good idea to run them, especially 3 purples if you have the EC.
I'd go Advanced BoPs for a Vo'Quv, the Advanced Slavers do steal Contraband, but it's luck as to when. Bad luck you might be wondering if they are even working at all, good luck you'd get Contraband 6x every couple of STFs as well as smattering of other commodities and trickles of EC.
I like the Advanvced BOPs and the Advanced Slavers a whole lot.
They don't steal much but they do steal...I was leveling a officer to 50 to use the new destroyer...on the way through 40 I used the marauder. So I used slavers hoping I would get something good. Well I didn't get any contraband but I did get some EC and some med supplies.
DPS (PVE): BOPS then Tojui (both worth the dili ones)
PVP: Siphon Drones (overpowered and you will get a bad reputation esp in a Kar'Fi, and the only advantage in the dili ones is that they have shields) then Kar'Fi Frigates (dili are an improvment over the ec ones but not as much as BOPS and Tojui).
Not sure about the other pets but these are the good ones from what I can tell with descriptions (also the energy weapons (at least in cannon form) do about 5% of the total pets DPS the torps and mines do the rest according to my combatlog).
B'rolth birds: YES. Hands-down better in every way than the B'rels. These things are incredibly mean.
Advanced To'duj: NO. Since 90% of your pet DPS comes from torpedoes, and quantum torpedoes have lower DPS than photon torpedoes, I think you can guess how these stack up against standard To'duj. (If you could somehow get your launch time down to 6 seconds, these should hypothetically be better...)
In general, based on trying all the cheaper versions of the pets, only To'duj and Birds are worth equipping for damage. Slavers look very impressive with the massive furball of beams, but in reality since pets have no weapon skills or boosted weapon power, they do absolutely pathetic damage.
And they're just overall really really nice, too. Especially with the way the carrier command is bugged out at the moment, I could, if I wanted, in Infected Space Elite have my B'rotlh's fly over to the other side of the map and take out the second cube while we're still cleaning up the spheres from the first.
Last i checked on mine they spend 90% of their time flying full speed and turning... (not firing cannons torps/whatever... just turrets.)
Im going to have to test this out this evening... ive been leaving them sit in the bank.
Oh, and as for the to'duj vs the adv to'duj.....
the adv do WAY more damage.
Its not photon torp vs quantum torp.. its micro photon vs full quantum. (especially when you consider that with doffs i launch 2 new wings every 6-7 sec...)
Not even in same ballpark. adv all the way!!
Advanced slavers *do* steal contraband, but not very much of it... I doubt mine will ever pay for themselves. Not worth it.
The B'rolth advanced BoPs were worth their dilithium asking price. With HY2 and quantums, those things do super spike damage. I look forward to buying the fleet BoP pets when my KDF fleet gets to tier V someday.
I don't believe any of the other advanced pets would be worth buying, though.
The To'Duj are worth it. def worth it.
Jury is still out on the BoP's. because unless theyve fixed the flightpath... having the extra cannons and torps is useless if they are never firing. (im curious to know if it is because i spend the 60K to get them right away then shelved them in favor of the toduj when i found out the pathing issues)
would like to get some use outta that 60K dil...
as for the slavers, they've already stolen over 100 contraband for me. (comes in spurts. 2 here 6 there etc.. I've gotten 16 on a single stf once)
and at 2000 for 5 of em.. they are on the way towards paying for themselves. *plus the green beams absolutely everywhere are fun to see!
They're a little wild and predictable compared to the fighters, because yes they fly in big swooping circles and they take their own sweet time when it comes to choosing when to fire. But when they do fire...! Their projectile weapon damage is boosted significantly. Single quantum torps hit for 10-11K each, and when they choose to use their torpedo salvo that's about 27K damage.
So,
Fighters:
+ Extremely fast and agile, their response to target changes and the delay between attacks is low
- Die like flies, damage output is okay but unremarkable
Birds of Prey:
+ Higher spike damage, higher total damage, survives a few hits
- Clumsy fliers, response time to your commands and delay between attacks can be unpredictable.
Unless your fleet is unlikely to reach T5 in the next month or two, in which case you should probably ignore my post entirely. (in other words, if you're not in a large fleet advancing at a considerable rate. frankly, no idea what you SHOULD buy, though my own funds will go for birds of prey.)
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
energy weapon damage hits around 200-400 damage per hit average
torps hit around 8000-10,500 average
crit hits are pretty rare (seems like 1 outta 20-30 hits)
energy crit hits 500-700
torp crit hit 16,000-20,000
Now, I haven't bought the 30,000 dilithium advanced b'rotlh pets yet....anyone out there mind running the same kinda test?:D
This was ISE but I think you get the idea....
Team members ranked by mission DPS. It was a pretty weak team, but still, at almost 5000 DPS the B'rolths were as strong as most players all by themselves.
And here's the breakdown of their weapon contributions. Energy weapons helped, but like all pets they are generally terrible with energy because they don't run maxed out power levels. Their torpedoes however, are devastating.
Is it better or worse than the regular B'rel?
Again, I suspect the fleet birds of prey will be far superior, but it's not bad to get some info in advance.
Infinite possibilities have implications that could not be completely understood if you turned this entire universe into a giant supercomputer.
voquv only pets id go for slavers dmg is ok and they loot .
karfi pets id go for skull fighters or friget
My VoQuv had no problems dealing with most targets.
Tykens Rift 1 + Target Subsystems Shields 3 with a well-timed Advanced BOP alpha strike
generally = death for my targets.