Ground Bridge Officer Skills

rosvik · October 2013

Returning to STO after about six months off. As part of re-learning aspects of the game, I've been looking closer at BOFF skills, particularly the ground ones.

Generally, I use the same four BOFF's in space and for my away-team. Sometimes I change BOFF's for ship stations, but I always use the same away-team of two Tacticals, a Science and an Engineer. I've always been pretty good about making sure their shields, armor and weapons are up to date. After all, if your opponents are equipped with gear 'X' and your BOFFs are wearing gear 'IV', they tend to die pretty fast.

As far as their ground skills, I just used to make sure the two Tacticals didn't have the same stuff. Other than that, I didn't pay too much attention. Generally, whatever ground skills they came with, that's what they had.

Right now, most of the time I'm playing my Female Human Liberated Borg Engineer, Vice Admiral. Currently she is wearing the 'Equipment Technician Mk IX' kit.

I read about the ground skills on the STOWiki page. Here is what I have came up with (I have tons of points for retraining BOFF's) , and I just wanted to get some opinions, and also thought it might be a good topic to discuss. FYI, I don't do PvP, in case that matters for certain skill sets.

Engineering Borg Captain: Fuse Armor II / Equipment Diag III / Weapons Malfunction III / Shield Recharge III

Tact Officer 1: Battle Strat. I / Suppress Fire I / Target Optics II / Plasma Grenade II

Tact Officer 2: Photon Grenade I / Sweep. Strike II / Suppress Fire II / Fire on my Mark II

Sci Officer: Med Tricorder I / Vascular Regen I / Neural Neutralizer I / Nanite Healing Monitor I

Eng Officer: Weapon Malfunction I / Reroute Power Shields I / Cover Shield I / Fuse Armor I

Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems my away-teams don't die as frequently as they used to. And when I'm in ground combat, I actually pay more attention to my ground skills instead of just shooting and taking hypo's and shield recharges, especially those that can give a group buff.

Just thought I'd throw this out.

majortiraomega · November 2013

Personally I prefer this setup:

Tactical Officer 1 (Damage):
Battle Strategies I, Photon Grenade II, Target Optics II, Fire On My Mark II

Tactical Officer 2 (Support):
Battle Strategies I, Photon Grenade II, Suppression Fire II, Overwatch II

Science Officer 1 (Healer): Adapted MACO Shield/Armor with Phased Tetryon Compression Pistol
Hypospray Dylovene I, Medical Tricorder II, Vascular Regenerator II, Nanite Health Monitor I

Science Officer 2 (Debuffer):
Electro-gravitic Field I, Tachyon Harmonics II, Dampening Field I, Tricorder Scan III

Engineering Officer 1 (Tank):
Weapon Malfunction I, Shield Recharge II, Reroute Power to Shields II, Equipment Diagnostics II

Engineering Officer 2 (Damage/Tank):
Mine Barrier I, Weapon Malfunction II, Shield Recharge III, Reroute Power to Shields III

Depending on the mission, I will use various combinations of these bridge officers. For weapons I typically slot 1 compression pistol, 1 split beam rifle, 1 full auto rifle, and 1 pulsewave assault weapon on my bridge officers. For my own character, I will usually use the full Omega Force set with a Romulan Plasma Split Beam Rifle or Compression Pistol. You've got a nice layout there as well.

nymysys1 · November 2013

On my Human Eng VA, my ground boff set up has stayed the same pretty much forever. Two Eng, a Tac and a Sci. I cannot recall the exact skills the Tac and Sci have (I let them do their own thing), but the two eng are Weapons Malfunction, Mines, Med Gen and Shield Gen. Everyone is armed with a sniper rifle of a different energy type. I move them into position as a unit, have the engineers setup up their mines and generators, then draw aggro. Most of the time all I do is shoot, do not need to or bother with using any of the captain skills or kit abilities.

I am leveling a Sci and for the sake of trying to apply some consistency to a char/have some challenge have decided to make her medical based (eventually will have the fleet research sci vessel). All her ground boffs are scis, all with Med tricorder, both Hydrosprays and Nanite Health Monitor, everyone armed with phaser stun pistols, may move these up to high intensity beam rifles (do not want anything with exploit damage, want the appearance that they are simply stunning their foes). She uses her kit (xenobiologist) and captain powers more, but all the heals keep everyone alive with shields stripped.

I leveled a tac and just used whatever boffs were thrown at me during the leveling process (i have the liberated borg eng boff from the collectors edition), only changing the eng boff powers to be more mobile (so weapons malfunctions, shield recharge and reroute power to shields. Two eng, a sci and a tac, all armed with phaser full auto rifles. Almost no strategy, just charge in, pop off powers and kill everything pretty quick. I usually charge through the enemy to get on their back side, thus setting up more flank shots for the boffs.

futurepastnow · November 2013

I usually take along a tac, two scis, and an engineer.

On the tac- debuffs: battle strategies, suppressing fire, target optics, FOMM (or Lunge).

Scis- one healer and one control. Both get tricorder scan, healer gets medical tricorder, vascular regenerator, something else while controller gets electrogravitic field, stasis field, tachyon harmonic.

Engineer- I'm trying to get away from fabrication spam, both on my eng characters and boffs. Quick fix, weapons malfunction, shield recharge, support drone.

Exact abilities vary a bit but I use this general away team on all of my captains.

orondis · November 2013

Personally my pick is this

1. Science officer
Weapon: Pulsewave (short fire animation, giving my sci officer a lot of gaps to use heals)
Powers: Medical tricorder 1, medical tricorder 2, vascular regen 2, nanite health monitor 1
Notes: -
Basically the medic of the team, whose duty it is to keep everyone alive. I usually pick traits such as peak health and energy resists, anything that keeps them alive that bit longer.

2. Tactical officer
Weapon: Minigun (boffs aren't smart enough to get up close with a pulsewave, which loses damage with distance though the knockback could be handy)
Powers: Battle strategies 1, target optics 1, fire on my mark 2, target optics 3
Notes:-
I used to use photon grenade 1, but after repeatedly seeing npcs running out of the aoe zone I switched to battle strat. Target optics is pretty much attack pattern alpha for boffs. Traits I normally pick are superior lucky (better crits) and superior resilient. Also atleast one of these tactical officers will be a pakled or klingon given their racial traits.

3. Same as above

4. Engineering Officer
Weapon: Minigun
Powers: Shield regen 1, shield regen 2, weapon malfunction 3, phaser turret 3
Notes:-
Basically a shield healer. I used to use quantum mortar fabrication instead of weapon malfunction, however I had the same problem I had with photon grenade so I switched. Weapon malfunction is crazy useful, as I discovered with my engineer when doing ground ESTFs. The phaser turrets have the benefit of constantly firing and tracking, plus the armory doff is much easier to come by than the equivalent for the quantum mortar.

If all my away team is equipped with 2-piece MACO (the shield heal ability bonus), I replace my engineer with another tactical officer.

mcduffie369 · November 2013

Do not give them things like lundge or grenades. Give them buffs, debuffs, fabrications, and heals. They do not know how to use their attack abilities well so just give them things to spam.

rosvik · November 2013

First of all, thanks VERY much for the great insights! I never paid any attention to BOFF traits before, but I've seen where they can have some effect. I really appreciate it, and I've made a number of notes.

Mcduffie369 made an interesting recommendation about not giving BOFF's (I assume he means Tactical) skills like Lunge and Grenade since they do not know how to use the attack skills wisely. Another person mentioned a problem with grenades as well, where the opponent NPC's do not stay in the AoE.

On the STOWiki, I saw the following about Sweeping Strikes: 'This ability deals about three times more damage then a melee weapon, and is THE best melee damage dealer, making melee weapons a pointless concept.' It may be a good skill if used properly, but as B/O's are computer controlled, is it (and other melee skills) usually used to good effect? There are times I have watched B/O's go running up to engage opponents in melee when I think it would be better if they stayed back (let them come to us).

I know you can use the Rally Point tool to make them stationary, but when opponents start beaming in unexpectedly, and you are in the middle of a fight, managing that kind of stuff effectively can be rather difficult.

What do you all think of the idea of not using melee skills, and just leaving the Tac Offs to do things like buff, debuff?

Another question:

Are there certain skills that should only be used by the player when possible?

I was doing an 'Easy' Borg Power Plant mission, and I had my away-team with me. My engineer set up a Cover Shield. It 'caught' me, and I couldn't move. I think this has happened twice in all the time I've played. But another player advised me not to give the B/O a skill like that because they are not always 'smart' when they use them. He said if you can use Cover Shield, give your B/O a different skill that they can spam without causing interference.

I imagine combat conditions trigger a B/O to use a certain skill. From our point of view, it might not make sense to put up a Cover Shield when you've got opponents behind you, but if the B/O can't heal their personal shield and it's low, perhaps that triggers the B/O to deploy a Cover Shield.

I also understand that for the Hard / Elite ground missions, you group with other players vice using BOFF's, so the players determine when to use their skills, so in those situations you don't have the problems with BOFF's using a skill improperly or at the wrong time.

Again, just looking for opinions. Thanks again for your comments!

rmxiii · November 2013

I tend to bean down with 1 Sci, 2 Eng, and 1 Tac

Sci is basically a heal bot with
Dlyovene 1 / Medical Tricorder 2 / Melorazone 1, Vascular Regenerator 3
(if no VR3, then the Lt Cmdr usually is VR2 and Cmdr is Nanite Health Monitor 1)

Eng have
Shield Recharge / Weapon Malfunction / Phaser Turret Fab 2 / Quantum Mortar Fab 2
Quck Fix / Mine Barrier / Shield Generator 2 / Medical Generator Fab 2
(Eng I tend to make sure both my Engs cover those 4 i have listed for Lt Cmdr and Cmdr)

Tac usually has 3 Buff/Defuff abilites and a Grenade

Thanks for the notes on how lunge and grenades don't go over so well with you BOFFs.

dobbyswag · April 2015

you probably have it figured it out by now but for interested people who searched boff abilities on google: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=allboffabilities_0

This has all that I am going to use and what my boff abilities will be

For equipment I'm using:
-melee tac with Undine armor, Nukara sword and shield
-Engies with full dyson set except one will have the undine gun
-Sci will have delta shields and honor guard pulsewave

I am not sure if you can repeat sets so these may change and if so I will post my other one

Ground Bridge Officer Skills

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