What is "Aux2Bat" and how does it work?

stardestroyer001 · February 2013

I've been reading up on some different cruiser builds, and I've come across an vague concept called "Aux2Bat" layout.

Couple questions:

1) How is it set up?

2) What are the advantages/disadvantages compared to standard tanking setup/tactics?

3) My main cruiser is the Galaxy-X (reluctantly being replaced by an Excelsior-R in the next ship sale, then the Fleet Excelsior-R immediately after that). How can I properly set up the Aux2Bat layout on that ship, and what BOFF/DOFF abilities do I need?

Thanks

ursusmorologus · February 2013

http://www.stowiki.org/Ability:_Auxiliary_to_Battery

Pretty much what it says on the label. The points in your Aux are spread out as points in weapon energy, shield energy and thruster energy. So if you have 30 AUX, you get 10/10/10. I use it on my Eng Escort when I am about to attack a boss, makes a big difference, does more damage, and gives me more defenses.

pmadi32382 · February 2013

The other advantage is when you pair Aux2Bat with technician DOFFS, which reduce CD time on your BOFF abilities.

reginamala78 · February 2013

The part where it drains your Aux power and transfers it into other systems is really incidental next to the main purpose, which is reducing cooldowns when combined with Technician duty officers. You slot Aux2Bat and three purple technicians, then bind it to like your spacebar or something else you'll be sure to hit at least every 30 seconds, and now all BOFF cooldowns (but not captain or special abilities) will be reduced by 30% every time the power is activated. That means running always-on Emergency To Shields with just 1 instead of needing two, Tac Team (which on a cruiser you're probably only getting 1 of) cut to 20 seconds instead of 30. Long-recharge powers like Reverse Shield Polarity or Direct Energy Modulation will get the cooldown proc activated multiple times and will be reduced to their global cooldowns. Etc etc. Its a very powerful ability, especially on cruisers that have the engineering space to really use it.

However there are big weaknesses to offset this newfound power. For one thing, using it requires a Lt engineering slot (or even run 2 of them, but 1 is usually sufficient), as well as 60% of your DOFF active-duty slots. Second, you will have your Aux power reduced to 4 or so, which means any abilities that depend on aux power (like Hazard Emitters or Transfer Shield Strength) are gimped while its active (1/3 of the time, plus recovery). You can partially offset this by using batteries or running Emergency To Auxiliary and making sure to activate it after A2B and get some of your juice back, but then you have to really pay attention to your timings, and on the common beam cruiser running Emergency To Weapons you can't really fit it in anyways. Third it shares cooldown with Aux To Structural, which means that half the time you can't use one of your best heals. Fourth if someone subnukes you (Breen, Hirogen, Jem Hadar, PVP science), you're even more screwed than normal as even once you get your powers back on normal cooldown, then you're still waiting beyond that to get everything buffed back up again. Fifth, you have to get your timing down and ensure that its always either active or on cooldown, or all the other abilities you've chained to it now have holes in their coverage, which can be a big problem when thats your Emergency To Shields. Keybinding everything important to spacebar helps a lot with #5.

Its a very powerful ability, and can do awesome things to cruisers (the Regent, Excelsior, and Fleet Tor'kaht in particular were just built for it) and engineering-heavy escorts (Steamrunner is unholy), giving you basically extra boff stations. But the price is you have to micro-manage and accept that anything Aux-dependant just became a lot less effective. Like everything else, its a tradeoff, but a damn fun one.

redricky · February 2013

First here's this for A2B. Then this post from this thread is a great A2B Excelsior build. You can post questions in either of those threads if you want and they'll get an answer for sure.

xxxhellspawnyxxx · February 2013

Here's an Aux2Bat Build of a Galor I used in December. Made some equipment changes in the meantime and switched Beta 1 and Fire at Will to FaW2 and Omega 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1BFnEgpxCQ The video gives a good impression of the cooldown reductions.

The Galor is the perfect ship for Aux2Bat since it doesn't suffer from too many science BO slots.

Another fun build I used in October was a Trico Spam Chimera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA9B3bXaZss

That design works well with the recent changes to tricobalt mines which match the CD of Dispersal Pattern Beta nowadays. The Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier has a decent BO layout for such a build btw. Escorts are quite hard to pilot with full engine power and AP:Omega...

redricky · February 2013

xxxhellspawnyxxx wrote: »

Here's an Aux2Bat Build of a Galor I used in December. Made some equipment changes in the meantime and switched Beta 1 and Fire at Will to FaW2 and Omega 1.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1BFnEgpxCQ The video gives a good impression of the cooldown reductions.

The Galor is the perfect ship for Aux2Bat since it doesn't suffer from too many science BO slots.

Another fun build I used in October was a Trico Spam Chimera:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA9B3bXaZss

That design works well with the recent changes to tricobalt mines which match the CD of Dispersal Pattern Beta nowadays. The Jem'Hadar Heavy Escort Carrier has a decent BO layout for such a build btw. Escorts are quite hard to pilot with full engine power and AP:Omega...

I tried an EWP/mine layer for some of the SB defense stuff. It's kind of jive but dropping a second dispersal pattern 15 seconds later despawns the first set of mines. Now if those mines have already detonated, no problem, but it can't be used to set up a serious minefield. If you run 2 of the same mine, it also despawns, but if you run two different kinds of mines you can drop a DPB twice in 30 seconds.

Galor is an awesome fit for A2B, and the Jem HEC is my current favorite for double A2B, despite the adverse effects on the hangar recharge.

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

Interesting, I'll have to give this a try on my cruisers. Thanks

lagunad · March 2013

ursusmorologus wrote: »

http://www.stowiki.org/Ability:_Auxiliary_to_Battery

Pretty much what it says on the label. The points in your Aux are spread out as points in weapon energy, shield energy and thruster energy. So if you have 30 AUX, you get 10/10/10.

It certainly doesn't work like that for my Engineer.

At 76 Aux power, with Aux2Bat1, I get:

-71.3 Aux
+30.2 Weapons
+30.2 Shields
+30.2 Engines

That is with the Warp Theorist passive and max EPS skill (which also buffs EPtSh, EPtAux, and EPS transfer).

The point being, with a decent EPS skill bonus you gain a significant amount of power.

I run one copy of Aux2Bat on my tanking Odyssey, and it's extremely useful even without the Technicians. Nice damage boost for beams, hardens the shields, boosts regen, and improves mobility.

addsin15 · March 2013

some good replies in this thread. thx for the info

bubblygumsworth · March 2013

stardestroyer001 wrote: »

I've been reading up on some different cruiser builds, and I've come across an vague concept called "Aux2Bat" layout.

Couple questions:

1) How is it set up?

2) What are the advantages/disadvantages compared to standard tanking setup/tactics?

3) My main cruiser is the Galaxy-X (reluctantly being replaced by an Excelsior-R in the next ship sale, then the Fleet Excelsior-R immediately after that). How can I properly set up the Aux2Bat layout on that ship, and what BOFF/DOFF abilities do I need?

Thanks

Here is a video where we are running two Aux2Batt Galxy-x builds, one has cannons the other has beams

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

Thanks everyone for the input!

I've begun testing Aux2Bat builds on my Galaxy-X, using a combination of the above poster's video and the green tech doff I could find. Although today's server seems really out of shape (lots of server D/C and rubberbanding), I have been able to test this in Kerrat, to some success. My increased power levels in... well, everything except Aux, have been phenomenal. I've been able to shield tank like never before - EPtS and Rotate Shield Freq. really likes this power. Of course, the severe lag issues have impeded my ability to really assess the build second-by-second, but it looks positive.

bitemepwe · March 2013

The fleet Vorcha and the Pegh also make good A2B platforms.

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

Just ran a couple in Ker'rat, with mixed results:

Going solo against 3 to 5 enemy players: Incredible, I lasted longer than I usually do.

Going solo vs some guy in a BoP with Alpha Strike lined up: Not so good, but that's due to the fact that TT can't reallocate the shields fast enough. However, in a 1v1 with this guy, I lasted a bit longer than I would have, compared to using my old setup.

Going solo v some other guy in a BoP: Success, I was able to outlast the guy and keep my shields up while tearing into his hull. Took about two to three minutes to bring him down to 10% before he fled.

Overall, it's a promising build. I just need to find the better technician boffs to go alongside A2B, to reduce the CD on the second Tactical Team, and close the 5 second gap.

xxxhellspawnyxxx · March 2013

stardestroyer001 wrote: »

I just need to find the better technician boffs to go alongside A2B, to reduce the CD on the second Tactical Team, and close the 5 second gap.

Chaining TT will always leave you with a 5 second gap. Activating it will put your team skills into a 15 second global cooldown, so after it runs out you'll have to wait 5 seconds to start it again.

Aux2Bat can't reduce cooldowns below their global cooldown timer.

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

Ah okay, thanks.

redricky · March 2013

In case you don't want to read my masterpiece of a thread, you can get purple tech doffs for completing the B'Tran chain and then critting the repeatable. Also, 2 purples with 2 copies of A2b is really enough, you can save the other 3 precious doff slots for something else. Going to 3 purples knocks a couple of seconds off of the shorter stuff but the longer abilities receive no benefit from taking it from 2 to 3 because A2B will still cycle multiple times during their cd.

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

redricky wrote: »

In case you don't want to read my masterpiece of a thread, you can get purple tech doffs for completing the B'Tran chain and then critting the repeatable. Also, 2 purples with 2 copies of A2b is really enough, you can save the other 3 precious doff slots for something else. Going to 3 purples knocks a couple of seconds off of the shorter stuff but the longer abilities receive no benefit from taking it from 2 to 3 because A2B will still cycle multiple times during their cd.

I skim read that, actually. I loved the detail and information

I'll be sure to start doing that soon.

orondis · March 2013

The Aux2Bat boff power cooldown reductions is very useful. However since I prefer aux based healing, such as hazard emitters and Aux2SIF, I find Aux2Bat to be more of a liability. Also the doff requirement restricts your doff setup.

Certainly a poor setup for a cannon excelsior if you're planning on using 2x conn officers to reduce tac team cooldown.

It's all fine for PvE though.

stardestroyer001 · March 2013

Agreed, I have found that I must activate A2B at the start of a match, quickly switch power setting to shields, and then once the power sloshes back to Auxiliary, then I kick in TSS and HE, or any other kind of Aux power buff. Alternatively, using EPtA after starting A2B to recover from power loss seems to work, but this starts a shared cooldown with EPtS.

Also, while flying in Ker'rat and enjoying my heightened power levels and slightly reduced cooldowns, I find I'm susceptible to burst damage. Although I activate Tactical Team and Rotate Shield Frequency right before an escort unloads on me, I find that the shields are quickly reduced, and other than EPtS, I have no other shield boosting power (other than the captain Miracle Worker, but that's more of my trick-up-the-sleeve). I then use RSP and activate the other Tactical Team, but we all know that lasts only so long, before the shields are drained again - and I'm all out of options.

I had hoped that with the increase in shield power levels, that the shields would be more effective. I'm currently running MACO XII shields. Any suggestions?

Addendum - Boff layout for Galaxy-X

B:O
TT1

TT1

EPtS
A2B
DEM
Extend Shields

Eng Team
RSP
Aux to SIF

TSS
HE2

This build is designed for two purposes: 1), survivability, 2) support of a team. It does 2) very well, I just need to work on 1).

What is "Aux2Bat" and how does it work?

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