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Choosing a career path.
gogeta995
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Alright, i have really really hard time with choosing career(having hard time in sleep as well :P ), in other MMOs i play mage/caster type classes(if that will help), i know this game isn't like other MMOs with typical melee/ranged dps, tanks, supports, etc. type classes, but i would like some similarity with ''mage/caster''. I do not like babysitting others(supporting/tanking), although i wouldn't like to belong to company of Tactical Captain Online or Escort Online(some people on forum called this game that way). Anyway long story short, i am mainly interested in Engineer and Science and their DPS capabilities, i wouldn't mind people putting in Tactical here as well(i am interested in information), i plan to play Romulan character. Sorry for this long wall of text and bad grammar, i am not native English speaker, thanks in forward for all information!
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and fire blast thingy
---- FIRE EVERYTHING ! ----
Oh, and also if you're going Romulan and don't feel you must use a "pure" science ship - grab the T'Varo retrofit. It has Lt.Cmdr Universal Boff slot that can be slotted for science and can use sci. abilities while cloaked. It can also fire torpedoes while cloaked. (decloaks just for a period of 3 secs. and automaticaly cloaks back)
So basically - all torps = 0 weapon power = always under cloak = low or 0 shield power = max aux (for powerfull sci. abilities). max aux + using sci.abilities while cloaked = lolz
Have fun!
Hmmm.....I guess it is a thing of perception/preference.
I'm not going to deny that the science skills were hit with the nerf bat pretty bad before STO went F2P. They used to be far more powerfull and dominating than they are now.
However, science ships and science skills are still very very usefull in PvP, some people even like to say that in PvP - sci is king.
In PvE it's a bit different because most of the end game encounters and STFs are DPS oriented and the sci. ships are not the best damage dealers. But, in my opinion, they are still far from useless - in fact a well preforming sci. ship can sometimes be the difference between getting the optional in a STF or not. But to get a good preformance out of the ship, it's usually preferred if you specialize in a certain area, like crowd control for ex. and you really have to make a solid build with good distribution of the points in the skills set.
Still, there are ways to get a fair number of Boff science abilities even if you don't use a dedicated sci. ship. I already mentioned the T'Varo, but now the Dhelan Retrofit also comes to mind. A frined of mine runs a sci.captain in a MVAE and he really gets amazing preformance.
The thing is - the science abilities as well as your sci.captain abilities are based off your aux power, that is harder to keep on high levels in an escort type ship because the need of high weapon power on those. And for the sci. abilities to be usefull in today's STO, they really need to have as much aux as possible.
However, with the fleet warp cores, the plasmonic leech or a number of other in game consoles and certain skills, this can be mitigated for sciency escorts so they can keep the aux in high numbers as well, but it comes with a somewhat salty price of the items you need to obtain.
Pick your poison, I guess. Like you mentioned in your OP, the "Escorts Online" theme is at large in STO because for PvE DPS is king and the escorts are not paper armored at all, but it all boils down to what is fun for you. The PvE content is easy enough to do with lesser ships than Tier 5, so you might not feel that disadvantaged in a sci.ship. In PvP science is really good. It's basically a choice of what seems more fun at the end, personally I find science ships and cruisers more interesting and challenging than escorts because of the wider array of things they do - the escorts basically pew-pew.
I mainly pve in space and I'd trade all my science to probably mostly tactical, sad but true.
It's funny because ground tanking is done by sci but in space engineers tank...
It used to be sci's had 1 specific ground map where they'd really shine but no one plays that anymore.
For space both tactical and engineer have a good last ditch healing ability for emergencies which I'd say beats anything sci have talking pve.
That being said you can play elite with any career in any ship with a terrible skilltree. The thing about eSTF is it's so easy it allows you to play around with hybrid builds and use what you like.
Back in the day I made a character for each career so I could get to know everything and that's what I recommend people doing if they haven't yet.
It's really hard to say what you personally will like.
How's that? I mean I really want to know in a non mocking, non whining way... because everything I read and everything I have experienced in the PvP Matches I have been so far is that most if not all science abilities besides heals can and will be countered within a second or two or are useless from the beginning (Tachyon Beam for example).
since healing in sto's ground combat will 100% give you aggro from everything, you will wind up being the tank, and the class is capable of doing so...be prepared that healer=tank. i prefer healkit anyway, since most ground combat is over so fast, that the physicist kit produces a lot of overkill when in grp.
for space combat, do not feel obligated to use science vessels with a sci character...instead skill it like a tactical captain (focus on tactical skills)
and if the content demands high dps, take an escort...
for PVP a science captain is really good and needed, because of the debuffs (sensor scan and subnucleonic beam)
also the resistance buffs are great for pvp.
for pve, the only real things usefull are photonic fleet and sensor scan.
science skills in the skilltree are mostly depending on the boff powers you use (no science skill actually buffs the abilities your science captain has, no joke
if you use gravity well for instance you would need graviton generators and particle generators (one buffs the strength of the pull and the other the dmg it deals) but once you change ship, that does no longer support a gravity well, those skillpoints are basically lost.
ontop of that the dmg potential you skill with particle generator is not even 3% of your overall dmg output...so TRIBBLE that.
some defensive science skills are however universaly good: starship insolator, shield emitter, inertial dampeners...but 3-6 points is already more than sufficent to negate most debuffs on yourself in both PVE and PVP (really broken imo)
subnucleonic beam, and a well timed alpha...basically that's it. science captain can remove all buffs once every 3 minutes or so...that makes the class "needed"
forget the boff abilities, any class can have them, and any class can make better use of them to some degree.
When you want to change ships and Boff skill loadouts, you can respec for it. The skills you want to use will influence which ships you fly.
The biggest difference is in the approach to ground abilities since Kits are profession specific, unlike Boff's. In that case it greatly depends on the kit you use, there tend to be 1 or 2 that are downright better than the rest imo, but again you can spec to exactly what you're using to maximum effect.
So I don't think STO uses a conventional trinity at all, you're completely free to use any captain for any role, but those who are better prepared will perform better.
again, the class choice has nothing to do with the ship your fly...a tac will generally increase dmg output of the ship, an engineer will drastically increase survivability and the sci does kind of both.
example, a tac in a support cruiser with low weapon power setting is basically fail, an engi in an escort works perfectly because you are suddenly no longer easy to kill.
there are many more combinations that work well or don't work at all, but mostly mixing cpatain class with ship classes is better than going straight engi in cruiser, science in sci vessel and tac in escort...
as an advice for an offensive science captain i can only say,either get a vesta pack, or an escort ship...everything else is not offensive science build.
you could skill flow capacitator and use an energy syphon, combined with polaron weapons and plasmonic leech console...that is a really nasty energy drain build. Or tetryon weapons and a tachyon beam to drain shields (utterly useless on unshielded targets though)
i personally fly a breen cruiser with grav well 1 and TBR1...really rocks on unshielded and stationary targets, like gates, cubes, crystaline entity. TBR1 is especially good to destroy tholian webs, mines, heavy torpedos and keep the shards of the crystalin entity at a distance...
I can't really speak to Ground (it's not my thing in the least), but when it comes to Space...Career is part of the itemization of your overall character...rather than the defining aspect of the character.
5 Innate Abilities and 2 Potential Traits.
That's all that separates Eng from Sci from Tac. Yes, the value of those abilities/traits are going to be subject to continued discussion...but that's all that differs.
Geko's called the Ship the Class...and it's pretty easy to see that's the case. Picking a Career is like picking a Kit, you're bringing X abilities and possibly Y traits to whatever you're doing otherwise.
There are two pseudo restrictions that arise from selecting a Career: Career Accolades and BOFF Training. For the Accolades from Missions specific to a Career, you can team up with somebody of that Career to get it if you want it. BOFF Training, just find somebody of that Career to do the training. It's not an end of the world restriction in the least...it's a very loose restriction.
Skill selection (Space) is not restricted by Career at all. Career doesn't restrict BOFFs, Gear, Ships, etc, etc, etc...but the Ship can restrict Gear and does restrict BOFFs. DOFFs are going to be based (usually) on your BOFFs...which are restricted by the Ship.
I'm sure people that prefer Ground or play a mix of Ground/Space will see more of a difference there - that's Ground. My guys sport 300k SP in Space and 66k Ground (it's the min I have to allot...meh).
So in the end, with the way things are designed...shouldn't be surprising that folks might feel a certain way.