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Tactical Analysis: Crystalline Catastrophe
aexrael
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Crystalline Catastrophe
Summary
Summary
The Crystalline Entity was thought to be extinct but another have appeared 40 years after the destruction of the original entity. Attempted communications have resulted in loss of life as the entity have shown nothing but violent hostility. It is worse as Tholians have taken a great interest in the entity for reasons unknown.
The Federation, Klingon Defense Force and the Romulan Republic have all sent ships to aid in the defeat of the new Crystalline Entity.
What follows is a tactical analysis of the Crystalline Catastrophe mission.
Tactics
Tholians
Tholian fleets appear to protect the entity during the event. These are your typical Tholians encountered elsewhere. They should be considered a High Priority threat as they utilize Weapon Subsystem disabling attacks, which will drastically affect the performance of the entire fleet facing the entity.
Two Tholian fleets are present at the beginning and two more show up during the course of the event.
Protective Aura
Be aware that both Tholian ships and Crystalline Fragments are heavily resistant towards damage, to the point of it being futile shooting at them, should they be in the vicinity of the entity.
If Crystalline Shards are targeting you it is best to move outwards and away from the entity in a direct line, so that others may assist you in combating the fragments.
Flying in circles around the entity in close proximity or sitting still in front of the entity getting bombarded by fragments is a terrible idea.
The protective aura stops functioning at around a 6-8 km radius around the entity.
Absorption Phase
This event is triggered the first time when the entity reaches 66% Health and the second time at 33% Health.
The duration of an Absorption Phase is 30 seconds or 15 seconds for the Elite variant.
A Tholian fleet appears at the beginning of each of the two phases.
During an Absorption Phase the Entity absorbs incoming damage and accumulates counters which modifies the damage of the Antiproton Wave it sends out after the absorption period. The more damage is dealt to the Entity during this period, the higher the damage of the wave.
During this phase the Entity is highly resistant towards incoming damage, captains are advised to focus their fire against the Tholians which appear during the Absorption Phase instead of the entity as these should be considered a high priority.
Starship captains are advised to stay at 11km to guarantee avoiding the wave successfully.
Should you choose to remain in the blast radius, or get caught unaware, it is advised to equip Antiproton Resistant shields and Parametallic Hull Plating, as well as utilize any buffs which increases resistances against Antiproton damage such as Polarize Hull.
Note that the wave does not discriminate between friend or foe and will damage all Crystalline Shards and Tholian ships in the 10 km radius.
Crystalline Fragments
As the Entity sustains damage it will periodically release Large Crystalline Fragments.
These Large Fragments tracks Starships unless you can get far enough away from them to break their tracker on you. They will however seek out another target in your place in that case.
It is advised that starship captains remains a comfortable distance from the Entity at all times, so there is appropriate time to react to any incoming fragments.
These Large Fragments should ideally be destroyed as soon as possible, however if they are in the vicinity of the entity it may prevent their destruction by reducing incoming damage dramatically. It is advised that starship captains keep a close eye on the damage done towards Fragments as well as Tholians in the vicinity of the entity so as not to waste time firing in vain.
Unlike the behaviour of the old Crystalline Entity, these fragments will ignore smaller targets, such as Mines, Torpedoes, Hangar ships, fleet reinforcements and so forth.
In the event that a Crystalline Fragment shatters against the hull of a Starship, the Large Fragment will split into two Small Fragments, which will beeline straight back to the entity.
Should a fragment reach the entity before being destroyed it will add 1 Re-Crystallize stack on the Entity.
1 stack increases the Entity's damage output by 2%, the cap for the amount of stacks is very high.
Also unlike the old Crystalline Entity these Small Fragments will not heal the entity upon their return to it.
The Re-Crystallize stacks can be removed from the Entity using the following abilities.
Tachyon Beam
Charged Particle Burst
Energy Siphon
Tyken's Rift
It is strongly advised that starship captains intended on facing the entity come prepared with at least 1 of these abilities. Tachyon Beam is strongly suggested as it appears to be the most effective.
Armament & Defenses
The Crystalline's main weapon is an Antiproton Matter Conversion Beam, this beam will hit multiple targets in range of the Entity.
Antiproton resistant shielding is advised. Antiproton resists are designated by [ap] for regular shields.
The Crystalline's secondary armament consists of the ejection of an Antiproton energy wave after the conclusion of an Absorption Phase. The range of the wave is 10 km centred from the entity.
The entity also sheds Large Crystalline Fragments which tracks starships and deals damage directly against the hull bypassing shields entirely.
The Crystalline Entity:
It has a High HP Regeneration rate.
It is Highly Resistant towards Kinetic Damage.
It is Very Highly Resistant towards Energy based damage.
Special weapon effects such as those from Phasers, Polaron or Tetryon weapon types do not have any effect on the entity. Neither does targeting or disabling subsystem abilities work such as Subsystem Targeting or Viral Matrix.
Jam Sensors, Scramble Sensors and similar abilities are ineffective as well against the entity, but may have an effect on Crystalline Fragments.
Movement control or multiple targeting abilities such as Gravity Well, Singularity Jump and so forth are not advised to be used against the entity itself, however their use against Fragments separated from the entity have merit. Use with caution.
Auxiliary Information
Season 7 Dev Blog #43
Crystalline Catastrophe Event
Do note the Crystalline Catastrophe event is no longer running, so shards cannot be obtained unless the event is re-run by Cryptic.
Post edited by aexrael on
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Comments
On the elite version the antimatter beam is powerful enough to rip through an escorts shields and part of the hull in a single hit. Cruisers will be able to recover but all ships can't stop moving and turning facings.
Using gravity well and TBR can almost eliminate the crystal fragment threat if done by 2 or more ships.
Some food for thought:
Similar tactics to fighting the borg queen may be relevant.
Heavy energy drains could make the main weapon less devastating.
Overloading the CE with an endless stream of targets like torpedoes could take the pressure off of friendly ships by redirecting the targetting of the antimatter beam.
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You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
Post-LoR, Tholians can also gain a massive hull damage resistance buff. (I think it's a bug, but maybe it's just an undocumented mechanic.) If you notice that your target is only taking ~4 hull damage per shot, it's best to move onto the next target and come back later.
Observations from a few ships have reported that the damage resistance buff effects both Tholian ships and Crystalline Fragments within a range of 7 Km to 8 Km of the Crystalline Entity. However, the buff is removed from any Tholian ships and Crystalline Fragments that are further than that distance, but will return if they go back within the 7-8 Km range.
I added an additional paragraph to further detail this.
2. i can confirm, that energy syphon does not remove the stacks. tyken's rift and tachyon beam are working fine.
If you follow thoes advices, the CE is much easier to defeat.
But i didnt try those Sci-abilities, might be worth the shot if anything goes wrong. Good Guide
you drop that close to the entity, for a time it's beam attacks hit less. and can also act as a grav well and hold Fragments.
want to be moving fast when doing so.
As far as I can tell it is a fixed rate of counters cleansed per tick regardless of any outside effects, but I haven't tested this extensively and I only tested with Tachyon Beam 1.
Tip You can increase the effectiveness of the Accuracy debuff from Singularity Jump utilizing a Singularity core with the sufffix [Jump].
I wonder if ES is only effective on removing the (I think they're called) "Energy Storage" counters the CE gets during it's absorption phase...
Hmmm... I'll have to try and pay closer attention when using my drain builds.
I've witnessed the same. Tachyon Beam I, regardless of Aux level, seems to remove 5x Re-Crystallize stacks. I haven't used higher levels of Tachyon Beam.
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.