Crowd Control Thjolian Orb Weaver

avaultpress · July 2013

Hey fellow science captains,

I just finally scraped up the EC to buy my federation science captain a Tholian Orb Weaver. After playing my KDF tac captain in a B'rel torpedo boat, and my Romulan engineering captain in a D'Dedrix, I decided I wanted to run a truly science oriented Federation captain. Since I was tired to ships with crappy turn rates, the Atrox was right out. Tholian seemed like an excellent choice, and I have liked it so far.

However, because I don't fully understand how some mechanics work, and I don't understand how some people get the results they do, I have to ask some questions.

My science captain has 6 in all science skills. My Orb Weaver has been running with Aux of around 122-130 (been playing with power levels to optimize defense from speed).

I'm currently using Polaron weapons, with the Tholian Thermionic Torpedo. I'm tier 3 with Omega and New Romulas, but only tier 1 with Nukara. I have the Borg Cutting Beam for the lulz.

I've been swapping out MK XI purple graviton and particle generator consoles trying to find the right combination.

1) I want to focus on crowd control, so naturally I took gravity well 3 and tractor beam repulsors, and skills like that. My problem is that even with 3 MKXI purple graviton generator consoles, my GW3 won't stop ships dead in space. They only get stuck if they have some kind of power drain on them. I've read about other people stopping gobs of Borg probes and spheres with their GW3. What am I doing wrong?

2) I love power draining targets, but there are some things I don't fully understand about power drain. What power levels do mobs typically run? Or do they even have power levels at all? Do the power drain effects from Polaron + Thermoinic Torpedo + subsystem targeting + power siphon + Tykins Rift stack properly, or are there diminishing returns? Is it possible to shut down a subsystem with power drain effects, even if your subsystem targeting skill does not actually disable the system? (i.e. it takes power down to zero, like on a human ship).

3) Photonic officer: since this skill isn't improved by Aux, should I even bother? A 24% reduction in cool downs doesn't seem to be helping me drop more gravity wells or tractor beam repulsors on targets.

4) The Tholian Web: I love using this. I even webbed the Crystaline Entity yesterday (although the Tholians broke it out quickly), but as we all know, it has a failure rate. Other than targeting ships that are not currently moving, is there anything I can do to make it fail less often? (I know cubes make it auto-fail) Is it affected by Aux or any other power?

5) Shield consoles: They are expensive, but I've noticed that with just one, my shields are already awesome. Since I spend a lot of time corralling Borg probes and spheres while the tac captains kill all the nanite generators in STFs, I spend a lot of time getting shot at by the Borg. No problem, I've got plenty of shield heals. But I'm wondering if maybe I should get even more and just ignore graviton and particle generators since I'm not DPS focused.

6) Auxiliary to Battery: Yes, I have a ton of power in my Aux skill, but even I end up with skills on cooldown. I could just transfer power manually to other systems, but what does everyone think about throwing A2B in the skill rotation when the science skills are cooling down? It should radically improve my weapon and shield performance until it's time to science my enemies again. Or is that a bad idea?

Any help would be appreciated. I really want to have fun with science stuff right now, and I know there are some successful players out there. I just don't know what I'm missing.

tom61sto · July 2013

1) Borg Spheres now have Emergency Power to Engines with a buff to get out of holds basically, to effectively snare Spheres takes two Gravity Wells in close proximity unfortunately. This is a fairly recent change, so if you're reading older threads Gravity Well was awesome at grouping up Spheres, etc.

2) Mobs run 50 to all subsystems. No diminishing returns on NPC targets, and they will shut down basically if you can get and keep the drain up high enough to take 50 power from that subsystem.

3) It's iffy to bother with it.

4) Don't have Weaver, so no idea

5) I usually don't go beyond two of Mk XI blue and one shield regen one.

6) Not really, your Aux goes down to 5 for quite some time, so it's very iffy on a Sci boat with you almost having to use Emergency Power to Auxiliary each time after you fire it off. It does help with the other subsystems quite a bit, but there are other ways to get that power.

dknight0001 · July 2013

When the web fails on large ships it does instant damage so your not getting nothing for using it.

Install a Plasmiotic Leech console on your ship, that will help you suck power out of your foes. As a Fed character buy it off the exchange.

Grav Well is hard to use nowdays, I have a friend who drops tryken's rift on the same target as gravity well, which really helps but is impossible solo due to shared cooldowns.

hasukurobi · July 2013

1) GW is pretty craptastic. It takes a few moments to pull any ships in and even then only if they are not using anything that would help them escape. What you NEED is a Gravimetric DOFF, Preferably a High Rarity one, that will allow you to spawn multiple GW's. Those will actually suck targets in and hold them. Not sure why the secondary ones are so much more powerful but they are.

2) Generally mobs run with somewhat weak power levels. All things Stack but due to the massive effect of Power Insulators you will NEED to stack them a lot to bring a system to 0 in many cases. Polaron Procs are some of the best. Tyken's with a Gravimetric DOFF to spawn multiple TR's (yes they do that too) will really suck enemies dry fast at high Aux. Plasmonic Leech will be a big help as would the Honorguard (or Adapted MACO for FED) Deflector. You should also grab the Aeceton Assimiltor if you are a KDF Captain as its extra drain is great and is otherwise very useful.

3) No... It is pretty much a waste of a Science Skill.

4) Cannot comment on this one.

5) Definitely ignore Graviton Generators... They do too little to be concerned with. Particle Generators however are very useful. With those you can make your Tractor Repulsers deadly. Remember you can even use them against structures very effectively as those have no shields and take massive kinetic damage from TBR. Also invest heavily into Flow Capacitors to increase your power drain capabilities.

6) If you use it with the right DOFF you can drastically reduce the cooldown of all your other abilities which is nice. That combined with the ability to power up your other systems could be rather handy indeed. Just be careful that you are not out of Aux when you need it. BTW: It is a great idea to have LOW Aux before using TBR so that they deal maximum damage but do not push the target out of range too fast.

avaultpress · July 2013

Thanks for the input, folks.

I didn't even think about leech console. That's a damn good idea, and they aren't that expensive on the exchange.

And it turns out I have a blue gravimetric scientish hanging around my ship, so now he's doing something useful with his time. The multiple GWs make a difference.

I am wondering if maybe I should swap to tetryon once I get enough rep and gear with Nukara. And I am wondering if I should swap out the thermionc torpedo with the Omega or Romulan torpedo at some point. That might require some experimenting since I am only running with 1 tac officer in the ensign slot. (And he just spam tactical team for obvious reasons.)

insanerandomnes · July 2013

Oh god I love my weaver. I also run CC, though I'm more purely specced into CC. Personal opinion of mine is you should focus on one thing as a science captain, wether it be CC, drains, heals, whatever is your cup of tea.As people suggested, and as I saw you got one, Gravimetric Doffs work wonders.

The web is one thing I CAN comment on. It's built more for control of groups of smaller enemies, and it's useful in ANY STF, whther you're stopping nanite spheres, and buying some kill time, stopping the adapted nehg'vars and buying some kill time, or stopping the probes from reaching the gate and buying some ki - well, yeah, you get the picture. smaller weaker enemies are what it's best at. Using it on larger enemies isn't a good idea, cause it will normally just TRIBBLE them off, which is something thats not good in a science vessel.

The ship is fast enough, and specializes in science enough that you can basically choose what weapons you want to use. I prefer tetryon on this particular ship, and have scrapped the torpedoes. It's speed helps with using a single cannon/turret build, and it can still lay down a reasonable amount of hurt if you focus on a target. I've outstripped a couple of escorts with mine in damage numbers, often in the 150k range after an average STF. I still use a dual beam bank up front with the subsystem targeting abilities. It kind of works well that you can get a super-powerful tetryon beam array from the nukara rep now, and TWO tetryon lance sort of powers, one from teir 5, and one from the nukara three piece. Very good synergy there.

avaultpress · July 2013

Do you think the tetryon proc is worthwhile? And do you stack tetryons with any science abilities? I hear that Tachyon beam is TRIBBLE as a skill, but if there's a shield stripping method that works as a science ship, I'm all ears.

rcainx · August 2013

Just to make sure this is about PVE, right? Cause PVP is whole lot different. BTW do look at my points although they may sound absurd to you, but it works.

1) Gravity Well 3 + 3 Graviton generators MK XII + Purple/Blue Gravemetric Scientist will definitely work, I use GW 1 + 3 Graviton generators MK XII BLUE and I can trap all spheres together, strip their shields, dump tric mines, and one shot kill them all together before the transformers explode. If you're talking about after they explode, try this :

Use 3 Graviton generators, 1 Flow capacitor
GW all together, when Tyken rift comes up, hit it. That will probably make all them drop back into the gravity well. If you really have problems there, use a tricobalt mine, it pushes + Stuns them back into the Well.

Btw, NEVER USE TBR AS CROWD CONTROL. It messes everything up unless it's 1v1, and you're a really good pilot.

Chroniton + Spread also works very well and pushing them back into the GW.

2) Perfect combo is Flowcaps maxxed, Polaron weaps, Energy siphon 3/ Breen siphon (Breen set 3 piece, if you're running transphasics you can have the 30% more damage too), SIPHON DRONES (Big daddy, but a pity you don't have hangars), Tyken rift 3 + aceton assimilator + plasmonic leech.

Never tried thermonic torps tho, but i guess they'll work great, With Tyken rift 3 + Breen siphon + Siphon drones, I can shut down a gate for as along as 10 secs, with a target subsytem, you can guarentee no shields for them for around 15 Secs.

3) Never Try this. Ever.

4) Never owned a weaver

5) I don't think you need it. Use a resilient elite fleet shield, around 80 shield power + you won't need more shields, expecially in a sciship. Just use the console slots for boosting your sci powers.

6) Auxilliary to battery (ATB): NEVER ON A SCI SHIP. It kills your auxilliary power(Drops it to 5), and makes your sci vessle worthless, although with 3 purple tech doffs + 2 ATB, it makes you only need one copy of a skill and it works like 2, NEVER USE IT ON A SCIENCE SHIP.

Tetryons are worthless. Try using omega 2 piece + phased tetryons if you really want it.
Imagine = 400x4= 1600 Shield drain every 30 seconds, while other escorts are dishing away 5K per second and they still can't dent a sphere's shields.

Current shield stripping hax = None, shields are too strong, the only way is hitting it soo hard that it goes down. But if you really wan't them to have no shields, Drain them till they're dry, target shield subsystem 3 = No shields for around 5 secs, but always tell your teammates first, probably keybound, then do it, cause they're the ones who do the damage. The most often build used by sciships now are transphasic torpboats+ CC and scispam. Here is a nice build if you're playing PVE.

Weapons: FWD: 2x Quantum torps for damage/ 2x Chroniton for CC, 1x Thermeonic Torpedo
Weapons: AFT: 2x Breen transphasic torpedos, 1x Chroniton mine
Deflector: Borg
Engine: Borg
Shield: Elite fleet shield

ENG Consoles: As many RCS/ Fleet Neutronium [+turn] as you need, Universal consoles go here.
SCI Consoles: Graviton generators x2, Flow capacitor x2
TAC Consoles: More universal consoles comes here

Stations:
Universal(Tactical): Tac team 1, Torpedo spread 2, torpedo spread 3
EN TAC: Tac Team 1
LTC ENG: EptS 1, EptS2, ES2
EN SCI: HE 1
CMDR SCI: TSS1, TBR1, Tyken rift 2, Gravity well 3
(The TBR is only for emergencies when they're too close to the gate, but I doubt you'd need this)

Duty officers :
3 Projectile Purples
1 Gravemetric for GW
1 TBR drain Engines doff

If you're playing Pvp, it's a totaly different story.
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=427091,
You can also ask me, I'll help you.

Crowd Control Thjolian Orb Weaver

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