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Beamscort theorycrafting
captainobvious09
Member Posts: 182 Arc User
I know the consensus is to put cannons on escorts, but fed side does not have a flightdeck carrier, so I am thinking of trying something different with my HEC, as I am bored of the same old BORING cannon build, and the new Nukara tetryon beams might be interesting to play with.
Please leave your "cannon fanboy" hat at the door. I know you guys, you would put cannons on any ship, even your grandma's Buick, but that is not what I want to theorycraft here. thx!
Please leave your "cannon fanboy" hat at the door. I know you guys, you would put cannons on any ship, even your grandma's Buick, but that is not what I want to theorycraft here. thx!
Post edited by captainobvious09 on
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NOTE THAT THE BELOW IS SPECULATION ONLY, I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS BEFORE.
You basically have 2 options.
First is the standard broadside beam ship. You would probably place 3 beam arrays fore and aft, as well as a Torpedo launcher in front to do damage once the hostile shields are down. Ofcourse you don't need to go rainbow ship: choose one damage type of your liking and stick to it. The ability of your choosing should be Beam: Fire at Will, since that is smarter for broadsiding than Overload.
The second option is more appealing for escorts and is the beam version of cannons: dual beam banks. If you place 3 of those in front you can do quite some damage. Also place a torpedo launcher in front. In aft you basically have 2 options for weapons: you either place normal beam arrays (maybe a torp launcher) for when you turn, or you place a couple of mine launchers to max out your forward DPS. If you do place mines, you can change the forward torpedo launcher with another dual beam bank. The ability of your choosing should be Beam: Overload.
Since you are an escort, you can activate many damage-boosting abilities. Ofcourse you will run Tactical team, and you will use Beam: Fire at Will/Overload. If possible, train your boffs in the III version of the beam powers. Fire at Will is possible for tac captains to train, so a shout out in ESD should help you out.
You can also use the subsystem targeting abilities on the HEC's. I would reccomend that you use Shield and Engine targeting, since as a "Flight-Deck carrier" you will leave the real damage to your fighters and try to support them.
As for your weapon choice: Nukara weapons aren't that great. They MIGHT cause damage on nearby foes, but thats it, so Fire at Will or Torp: Spread will do just that for you. Personally I am still a convict to fleet weapons, but Romulan Reputation guns might also work: especially if you can get the set with the experimental beam array, the torp launcher and the console.
An always present option is to replace one aft weapon with the Cutting Beam. That will never be a mistake.
Hoped to have helped you.
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My build
In my case, I often focus on locking down opponents to help make up for the diminished damage, but there are other things you could do with the HEC's more engineering focus.
You can use whatever type of weapons you want to
If you want to use beams so badly, roll an engineer/cruiser :P
Cannons belong on escorts. They are our main source of DPS output, and beams just dont cut it. Beams on an escort is a serious flaw and is taking away ALOT from its potential damage output...
I have seen escorts join my STF's and Fleet actions before with beams. Simple solution for me is to just leave, that basically sends my noobism meter into overdrive.
Having said that, if I were to make a beamscort I would put as much power as I could into engines, and rely heavily on defensive bonus. I would do tight circles at about 5k distance, do not fly around the target you will spread out your low DPS even more. Probably 6 disruptor beams, 1 fast torp (throw it everytime you turn), and 1 KCB. Also if you are looking at the c-store HEC it has the missile console? that could be useful for getting into the hole.
I know exactly how you feel, and yes if I see someone running beams with an escort, I think the same thing, but the sad fact is on an average day, I can do 2x the damage of the average guy in an escort with one of my cruisers (I have 3 toons with cruisers/dreads). So at this point I want to come up with a way to run beams on an escort that will match or exceed the long haul DPS (not burst) of cannons, and I think its very do-able.
We wont mention what I say in vent when I see a Rainbow Starcruiser.
As for dual beams, my honest opinion is they suck no matter how you use them, so I am only considering arrays. A 6 beam broadside has dual 90 degree kill zones, and allows you to roll around to the other side if you get the shield on one side annihilated.
I have the Hyper-Plasma torpedo to get the 3 piece set. I also use the Cutting Beam for the 2-piece Borg set.
I've loaded the science console slots with plasma DOT embassy consoles. Here's the crazy thing about these....not only do they boost my plasma damage and plasma DOT (from the beams and the torpedo), they also give me 3x 190 DOT procs on my Cutting Beam. And, as far as I can tell, when one procs, they all proc. They also boost each other (which is why I have 3x 190 DOT procs).
My 60k crit x3 beam overload would like to have a word with you.
The problem is that not many escorts can pull that build off. Both the jemmy HEC and the fed HEC can pull it off and the jemmy ship is a lot better in the role.
I found it usefull many time to keep a beam or two (and even beam console) in the inventory. I toss them on for those cases where I know i'm outgunned. Suddenly you have the option to sideways, give the forward shield a break to heal and still pluck away beams and 360 cannons. Toss in a cannon scatter, or a quick roll forward to pound him with cannons or a torpedo
Enemy blow up, you don't, so it's a success in my book!
Other's i'm sure were perfect from your their first character and havn't needed to resort to such tactics :P
A beam escort surly has less spike damage potential, but they can keep up their damage for quite some time.
Theoreticly you have some advantages few care to work with.
1. You can move freely with high speed wich leeds to a high defensive value.
2. more weapons on target for a longer time
3. 2 zones of maximum damage.
4. no problems with weapon arcs while atacking from below or above
5. beam abilities work in all directions and you dont need that many so you have more room for attack patterns.
6. beams allow for subsystem targeting wich , in combination with some points in flow capacitors and sensors, can be very devastating, especialy tss shields and tss engines wich both leavy your enemy very vulnerable for not only your attack but attacks from the whole team
7. more damage at range
8. beams work very well with torpedoes, especialy when used with beam overload III or a high tier of target subsystems shields. torpedoes have a very high dps.
When it comes to ships i recommend the HEC standart or fleet variant, the fleet escort refit, the fleet advanced escort, the fleet tactical escort , the steamrunner and the Bug.
Having 5 tactical consoles sure give you alot of potential for your beams.
However, the HEC and the Steamrunner work very very well with torpedos wich work quite well with beams.
I recommend a 5 beams 2 torpedo setup. The benefit of a sixth beam is marginal as the power drain starts to get noticible and your ability allows for alot of torpedoes to be fired.
I recommend photons or quantums for their high dps and speed.
Another option i use alot is a mix of cannons and beams. My favorite steamrunner usees 2 DHC a quantum torpedo and a beam array in front. A beam array a turret and another quantum torpedo make up the aft weapons.
I use the cannons and RF III and THY III to break shields and TSS Engines II to lower their defensive bonus or Beam overload III for spiking or to strike while turning away after my attack run. All of them are used to break the shields for a nice load of THY III quantums.
I use plasmonic leech, wich i highly recommend for any ship with beams and a graviton pulse generator to lower defences.
Another posibility is to use an escort with good engineering or science abilities and load it up with target subsystem shields, max specced flow capacitors and sensors, plasmonic leech and flow capacitor console. That way you dont depend on the damage of your beams but on their draining efffects. The rest of the work is left to your torpedos.
That configuration allows you to run low on weapons energy and high on shields, speed and aux for alot of other abilities you might want to use.
That makes the ship a torpedo boat. Works as well on Science ships.
On escorts that configuration is probably best used on the HEC or Fleet HEC as it can use its torpedo point defence in conjunction with loads and loads of photon torpedoes boosted by 4 photon detonator consoles.
Its a supporter or herrasser but it gets realy nasty once shields drop.
Another thing about a beam escorts with torpedo back up is that they work very very well against other escorts. They cant run away from you and you can deny them a firing solution while you can do consistent damage.
And if nothing works just spiral to the top of the map and then down again , as steep as you can. they will have alot of trouble to keep you in their forward arc.
Beam escorts are usable. It just takes a bit more preperation. But its relativly easy to use.
DHCs are fine but fairly limited in arc, tactics and in consistent damage. Alot of players just dont work well with cannnons, but the overuse of dhcs and escorts make them look more usefull than they realy are.
If you in an stf with 5 dhc escorts you may see it finished fast but 1 or 2 players usually die alot because they are getting the aggro, if aggro was shared equaly they all would look pretty bad.
On a sidenote: Some escorts are very survivable due to their speed and manouverability and in some cases relativly high shield modifiers and hull. When equipped with beam arrays and torpedoes they are outmatching alot of cruisers in what is supposedly meant to be their role, rtanking and pressure damage.
Some Escorts like the Steamrunner, HEC and Advanced escort can also have good healing qualities.
Its a pity cruisers and science ships are so pityfully neglected in this game.
I have to disagree with you there. I use beams on my Fleet Defiant and it is one of my highest DPS ships. To put it in perspective (since people use different tools to parse), it scores about 6500 DPS per run of ISE. My beam cruisers get about 4000-4500, and my escorts about 55-5800. The only one I can think of that beats it is my main ship, a Fleet Advanced Escort with DHC/Turret build.
U.S.S. Praetor, NX-99501
Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit
Fore: 2x Romulan Plasma Beam Array Mk XII, Experimental Romulan Plasma Beam Array, Romulan Hyper Plasma Torpedo Launcher
Aft: 3x Romulan Plasma Beam Array Mk XII
Deflector/Engines/Shields: Romulan Advanced Prototype Mk XII
Warp Core: None Yet
Devices: Red Matter Capacitor, Shields Battery
Engineering Consoles: Assimilated Module, Zero-Point Energy Conduit, Tachyokinetic Converter
Science Consoles: 2x Emitter Array [-Th][Pla]
Tactical Consoles: 5x Plasma Infuser Mk XI
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
6500 DPS is low. His point is that you can get in the 10k+ club with cannons. "Your Best DPS" isn't the same as "Best DPS possible".
A person walking backwards can have a "best marathon time" but he won't be close to the people that win marathons.
1. Me too and still outdamage your beams
2. I still outdamage your beams with less time on target
3. I still outdamage your beams with 1 zone of maximum damage
4. Stop being lazy
5. How many Attack Patterns do you possibly need?
6. Enemies dying faster support your team more then simply weakening them.
7. My Cannons will still outdamage your beams at maximum range
8. Torpedos don't have high DPS, they have high spike damage, and CRF/CSV still chews through shielding just as fast as a BO3 and faster then SST:S3
Oh, and if Escorts are popping fast, either there's no one healing the DPSers or Tanking for the DPSers. Yes, there are still dedicated Tanks and Healers in this game where 98% of every thing is More Pew Pew.
Secondly, no Escort could possibly hope to out-tank my Engineer Cruiser.
Sorry bro, I just took the base DPS, unbuffed, in Earth Orbit with only Passives from my Escort, it totals to 7078 DPS, that's not even counting my rear weapons or any buffs. Granted, I DO use 1 DBB, but that's purely for OLoad spike damage.
And I don't even have all +30% Damage consoles.
Might be using a different parsing tool/plugin. I've only ever seen one person break past 7000 DPS in all the almost a year I've been tracking my ISE runs. PuGs/Premades, and every type of ship build from rainbow to actual good builds. Hence why I provided the other numbers to put it into perspective of what I usually see.
Not that I care what anyone thinks of my DPS, I just like to personally know where I stand with my builds so I can tweak them a bit if I'm not up to my personal standards. But I am almost always first place in DPS in my runs. When I'm not, I'm a close second, or very rarely 3rd or 4th but thats usually when things go to hell and I start popping a lot
I do agree that escorts are typically DHC/Turret ships, and for the most part if you don't run that you're gimping your potential. But the right beam build used the right way can be quite devastating, and if you think beamscorts are completely useless you probably aren't building/using them to their full potential.
I'm not talking about the tooltip of the weapons or what have you. My numbers come from a run of ISE, beginning to end. The DPS is an average damage per second of the whole time you parse. Parts of the battle I'm not shooting anything, hence 0 DPS. Part of the time I am shooting constantly. The number I get at the end is a culmination of the entire battle from start to finish, including losing DPS if I die (dead people do no damage!) and other things. I find it to be a somewhat consistent way to compare various builds in a real combat type of way. Numbers cant tell you everything (*AHEM* Cryptic...) but these numbers at least give me a more realistic view of what my damage usually will be than looking at tooltips or status screen outputs or what have you that dont factor in downtime/some buffs/enemy difficulty or whatever else. Thats why I usually do it that way.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
One of my dil farm tacs uses 2 quantum torpedos, 2 DBBs, 3 turrets, no fleet gear, no rep gear, and no AoE abilities (i use HY2 x2 + BO3 x2). All equipment bought off the exchange for peanuts. Sounds horrible, right? Well I still manage to pull 5-6k encDPS with it in ISE.
I'm not advocating that the setup is the ultimate uber setup(the build was created so I could relax and sit back at over 8km range), but noobs will do noob DPS regardless of gear and build.
1. moving freely while on target all the time. you are forced into a head on attack.
2. I run Fleet assault cruisers with close to 10000 dps - you dont outdamage that easily with an escort that needs to turn away . A beam escort with 5 tac consoles can do more than 10000dps. And those parsings dont say much it only is a reference value against low defence high hull targets. And that is a far cry away from what is possible in this game when it comes to evaluate damage done compared to potential damage.
3. Only in that zone, try to keep another escort in that zone
4. Its a defensive move against other cannon builds, happens to work. And I prefer attacking from above.
Its harder to see with the stock camera angle - And altitude is life afterall
5.Delta is nice , beta is very usefull if you use torpedoes. Omega is a must have
6. What enemies? stf borg spheres? Every good tac cruiser can defeat more of those simultaniusly than any escorts. In pvp you either surprise someone or overpower him in numbers. In Pve there are no targets.
7. Only when buffed, and for a short time then you either hang in a tractor beam or get subnuked
8. Oh they do , try photons with 3 projectile officers. Oh and full projectile weapon skillpoints. Potential damage over time is still higher than a dhc if buffed and skilled equaly. And its an additiond to other weapons as they arre needed to break shields. then torpedoes outshine dhcs by a fair margin.
Dedicated tanks and healers? Havent seen those in quite some time. I tried that on my sci and engineering toons, most of the time you get responses like, bring something with firepower followed insults and by ship suggestions wich are quite unrealistic to some. I have most ships fedside including lockbox fleet and zen but if everyone promoting teamplay is greetet like that i dont see the point of teaming up with those kind of people.
Your engineering cruiser will probably survive but will it kill anything? All it takes is to seperate you from your team, or them from you and cruiser tanking becomes irrelevant. You might survive , your team wont. You might have the discipline to stay and fight and heal but you cant be everywhere and engineering abilities have alot of shared cooldowns.
You might help them and die yourself or you survive and they die.
Defencive values beyond 80 plus apo and you only chip paint of someones hull. taking less damage > outhealing
USS WARRIOR NCC 1720 Commanding Officer
Star Trek Gamers
Oh gee, is this a PvP thread? No!? It's NOT!? Then none of it actually applies.
So sorry.
1 photon torp front + torp spread 3
1 photon mine back + dispersal beta 3
1-2 photon consoles. torp point defense console.
3 dbb front, 2 beams back.
all other skills faw, tac teams ans so on. beta maneuvers wont hurt either as well as disruptors to lower the resistance.
pro - you doing a massive kinetic burst damage. who cares about raw dps if you can toss 12 tops to 5 target at once and kill half of the spawn with one blast. and torp point defense console will do some freaking numbers.
contra - u need to learn how to handle mines to be really nasty.
btw mines got buffed somewhat, they now penetrate shields like transpasic, juts not as much.
My problem with builds like this is you are wasting *some* of your weapons 100% of the time.
Front arc? Rear weapons do zero DPS.
Dead starboard/port? only rear arrays are doing any damage, DBB's and torp's can't reach unless you wiggle around to get them in the arc, losing time on target and therefor DPS.
Enemy in Rear? Why are you piloting an escort then?
DHC/turrets are superior (on escorts) because they allow you to throw the most damage in one direction, the one direction you should EVER face an enemy, forward. a single DBB is fine, as well as torpedoes, but the advantages of an escort demand that you adapt your weapons thusly. Think about it... what does more damage, 3 weapons on target, or all 7?
Real Life example:
B-17 bombers (cruiser), being a slow, lumbering bomber, would have gun turrets covering all possible directions- top, bottom, rear, sides, etc.
P-51 Spitfires (escort) were much faster, more maneuverable and had all their weapons facing forward in a very small arc.
in most cases there more than 1 target around you. beams with faw will clear those nasty nets, pop pesky widows and interceptors, blow green ball torps.
for example, azure nebula. you got net-ed with your shiny cannon boat. what will you do? point every web net node and shot them individually? aside the fact that is hard to target them since the net blocks normal weapon attacks. a single faw will get rid of all of them within 2 seconds and doing further damage on mobs. its "fire and forget" weapon.
also while you fighting cubes, gates and other structures they are so big so even back beams will hit them. thats not the point. point is to use faw and cover whole space around you with dozens beams softing the targets for torps and mines to hit harder.
and in a dogfight situation there are always targets around you to hit with faw. escort isn't a dreadnaught with endless tank, you have to fly to utilize your defense supermacy, preferably with maximum speed.
so its either you stand still like a sitting duck and soaking tons of damage or you have to do fly-by where at least half of the time you will have target on the side or on the back.
really, you can't count on that the targets will be so nice to gather themselfs in front of your nose. its actually 7 weapons (and torp console of course) throwing wrecking havoc in all possible directions producing insane quantities of burst damage.
who needs dps if the most targets are dead after 5 second? think about it...
the _only_ problem of this build is to survive in long fights, its an agro magnet.
First off, I edited it after you quoted, but I changed the weapons to 7 too, maths iz hard.
I understand what you mean about Azure nebula and dealing with "aoe spam" type stuff, and yeah, the wide firing arcs help a lot there, no doubt. But, you either have to dedicate yourself to 100% broadsiding, so that means either torpedoes aren't firing every cooldown (unless wide-angle quantums), or you sacrifice kinetic damage by not equipping one.
As far as movement/firing arcs go, I understand the benefits of making runs at targets and everything, and I guess its partly my fault for not specifying, but I'm talking about eSTF's only (which is where DPS/etc really matters, even then... not really...) so with that assumption in place, we can assume that 90% of targets are immobile, or have very predictable patterns. But for sure for daily missions or fleet defense actions and stuff a broadsiding ship can be fun and effective. i don't mean to say "all beamboats are bad" but "Primary Beams on an Escort in an ESTF is not optimal for DPS, sustained or burst"
It's not as glamorous or canon, but I find myself and other players just sitting at 2-5 km, and scooting forward at 1/4 impulse, then reverse, going back and forth to not have a negative defense value, but not much more movement. This way its trivial to keep the gate/transformer/tactical cube in your front sights. There's no need to run around like a banshee if you don't have aggro. I can survive an alpha attack from a Tac cube enough, with enough Eng/Sci skills to keep myself up until I can get to full speed and lose aggro.
You mention Azure nebula, and like with all Tholians, if a cannon escort gets webbed they have less and slower options to break out, that's true. I'll typically fly in a tight circle, tabbing each target, my turrets/KCB usually kill a node fast, so I can find an exit in about 2 laps or so, but the best strategy is to run in at full impulse guns blazing, keep running up to them until you are at point-blank range (<2km), that way they don't launch their webs, and even "in an escort" (Fleet Patrol Escort mainly, so its a little tougher than say, a Kumari or Defiant) I can facetank a group of Tholians (even the ones guarding Scimitar's) at a *dead stop* and be just fine. Anecdote's aren't substitutes for evidence, but I've solo'd Ha'pax spawns faster than 3 players clearing a Dhelan (hurr durr I'm better than idiots!)
If I do get aggro, mostly from a tac cube, then yeah I'll fly around with evasive maneuvers and get out of range, by then it's moved on to someone else and I can get back in range. I use two embassy [-th] consoles, so I don't really get aggro in an STF anyway.
Again, beams have advantages - subsystem targeting, one tier lower for bridge abilities (CSV1 starts at Lt., BFAW at ensign), better range dropoff, wider firing arcs, etc. But, those don't play to the strengths and weaknesses of an escort at all.
subsystem targeting = Tac escorts shouldn't bother with CC/disables
Bridge Abiltiies = Meh, escorts have enough bridge slots to not be affected. It also means BFAW3 is 'weaker" than CSV3 (all other factors even)
range dropoff= Escorts can get in very close, and have the engine oomph to get out fast if needed. Plus, with a polarize hull or AP"omega, even tractor beams can't hold you down.
firing arcs= Escorts have the turn rate to keep a target in it's sights almost 100% of the time.
No need to be 'sorry'. I simply asumed its about the general idea wich can be done in both pvp and pve. Because if we talk pve exclusivly than it doesnt matter that much wich configuration your ship has. For Pve there are few things that do not work if your build and skill choices arent too far off.
And what works in pvp will simply rip apart pve targets.
I didnt mean to bash pve play though. I do alot of stfs and my daylies myself but i realy dont understand why so many seem to have so much trouble to get beams to work on escorts.O anything else beside an escort+cannon combo.
The cannons works pretty well and the concept is easy so its used alot but other weapons work quite well to if played to their strenghts.
right in the middle of the havoc and nuking around like crazy freaking berserk. then look closer to the attributes. my usual escort setups have 80% def rate. standing still is a -15% def penalty.
so killing a structure isn't a chalenge, they don't shoot back. but to draw agro of the whole spawn of battleships in mirror event for example and survive the retaliation afterwards and continuing to do damage meanwhile - that's another story. its either you don't do enough dps yourself and some one in team does more or you "cheat" with fleet consoles.
as for me i am 80% of cases the primary target of cubes, gates.
i survive it and produce enough damage to maintain first place on agro table. i know it and i do the same. still half of the time they got me in net. that's first concern.
second is while you are at point blank range most likely you will be hitting only 1 or 2 ships with dhc, which will rend scatter volley kinda useless.
faw on other hand will work in both situation and from 8 km distance since beams do have longer falloff. i got similar experiences on my hec, steamrunner and mogai
1 more speed and more speed tank
2 nimble maneuvering for forward firing weapons (which consist not only of dhc)
3 lot of tactical skills.
4 +15 on weapons
so, how those are limit a player to use only dhc and turrets?
dhc and dbb do the same league of raw dps. the difference between dbb and dhc only a 10%. also beams drain less power and are way more efficient weapons for the power they suck, which also ends up doing more damage overall.
sure with a single dbb you will be doing less damage than dhc, but only in that case where you have only one target and this target is small and standing on 2km distance.
in case of cubes and gates - orbit them with full speed on a low distance (or glue yourself to the top) and all the beams, torps and mines will hit them really hard cracking their hull. no, its not. bfaw will cover near 360 degree sphere with radius of 6-7 km pretty good. while csv only a 45 degree cone and up to 4 km.
i've tried to fly my karfi with cannons and turrets. man, it sucked badly, just horrible. have switched to dbb and beams and its feel like 3 times stronger than before. ... only in case when some sci tossed grav well
so the sum of all this:
1 you fire everywhere regardless of your position = more damage dealt
2 you fire on longer distance = more damage dealt
3 no weak arcs = more damage dealt
4 ts3 and dpb3 = tons of raw kinetic damage distributed all over the place
5 torp point defense console is a huge chunk of burst damage
only escort ships have enought agility to use this weapons correctly.
i really don't understand why you want to use beams on escorts.
However, beam arrays have their own benefits:
best of all, you can tank.
if you don't use cannons, well, you don't need CRF/CSV:
APB - it really increase your Dps
APO - increase dps and give you speed, agility and immunity to movement debuffs.
THY - deadly skill, if used correctly.
BO (2+) - deadly skill if used correctly.
you will never reach the cannon's Dps, but you can perform pretty good
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
I've got three ships I can bring to the table to this discussion.
a fleet ambassador, Steamrunner retro, and a vesta.
the steamrunner is captained by a tac, the other two are engis. both also use beams
Steamrunner parses ICE with ACT at about 5k-6k normally. my Beam vesta, with elite scorps in the hanger, does roughly the same, and the the Fleet ambassador is usually 6-8k in ICE.
difference is the disruptors on the vesta and steamrunner and the ambassador uses rom plasma.
steamrunner was built first and does alright, the ambassador was built second and took a lot of thought to put together, but does nicely as well. the vesta was refitted a week ago from DHC's and turrets to beams, and the DPS shot up about 2000 on average. I literally through it together in 10 minutes. still using common Disruptor consoles. I was stuck with a lot of heals to keep myself alive trying to get a target, those beams allowed me some Gimmicks to keep my having fun.
fact is, DHC's don't require too many gimmicks. my ambassador uses aux2bat and warp plasma sometimes to make its DPS, and my vesta uses elite scorps with constant APB1 running, and an isometric charge sometimes, and TBR3
My sister uses a half completed plasma beam setup on a fleet Prometheus, I believe she runs 4k average with that in ICE as a science officer. still has a lot of stuff needed.
fact is while DHCs will always get good DPS in PVE, Beams are still viable, especially if one handles beams better then cannons and builds around that. not all people want to fly fighters.
I've gotten I think, 6 ~76k crits using THY 1 with the omega plasma, on the tac cube in ICE, using the two engineers above. I've gotten one on the tac that I recall
I find Gimmicks more fun then a constant spam of APA and CRF1 and APO, so I only have three people out of 10 fed side that are cannons.
they may not do the best damage, but they do enough to be a game changer in any ICE. always at least 4k on all boats I've built at end game
actually the sad fact is: escorts are better with beams than cruisers. are they the best choice for escorts? debatable, and situational, cannons could be used in more situations with better end results, but a faw spam escort, will beat faw spam cruisers in PVE, even with the lack of 1 weapon slot
1. you dont need aux2bat on an escort. use EPTW instead, its better for DPS
2. use FAW spam
3. get Marion
4. move fast
5. use all weapon slots for beams, maximize your faw spamability
10k DPS Vesta threads: 1; 2
Huh, I was going to post the only reason beams on escorts lose out to (lt com tac) cruisers is the lost weapon, since power management is quite doable now. I need to see/test some high end escort beam boats. A2B I see as a benefit regardless, Marion is the same and DEM can be spammed more on A2B. You do get the speed defense/getting point blank on targets benefit though in an escort.