I just got a fleet avenger battlecruiser and I kind of just threw all my decent equipment and weapons on it so I could use it. It has great DPS and just look at that hull! When I bought it I was expecting something more escort like than tank like. I know the M.A.C.O. set is more for soaking up massive damage but is it giving me any turn rate and speed disadvantages compared with the omega set? Any other tips on achieving higher DPS or more agility would be appreciated.
First trick is to go to http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/ and put your ship together there, since that way we can see your gear, your officer layout, and your skill setup, since gear is only part of the equation. Also, say roughly what kind of budget you have to work with (couple million, half a billion, whatever), or else half the responses you get will assume money-is-no-object and get kinda excessive. The more we know, the more we can help.
So you're suggesting that I ditch sci team completely and just use EPtS as my shield boffs? If I were to replace AB1 with EPtW, wouldn't that cooldown conflict with the EPtS?
Take a look at THIS - it's a typical A2B build opting for DBBs. You can vary the level of the items based on the amount you're willing to spend - perhaps a shield refrequencer instead of the field generator, and a mk X or XI version of the fleet neutronium would be fine (you can slot a fleet RCS with [resall] instead of Tachyo console too if you don't have it).
I fly a similar version with a polaron loadout, using Jem'Hadar deflector & engine instead of borg and an elite fleet [AMP] core, and don't have problems soloing one side of KASE with it. An AP version with the benefit of the Obelisk & Borg 2-pieces would likely be slightly better actually.
So you're suggesting that I ditch sci team completely and just use EPtS as my shield boffs? If I were to replace AB1 with EPtW, wouldn't that cooldown conflict with the EPtS?
The one advantage of carrying sci team is that right now the Voth love their sci debuffs, so its useful to have one handy for countering that (particularly when they subnuc you). More than one is wasteful though, since you also need to carry a tac team for shield balancing and getting rid of boarding parties and tac debuffs.
The nice thing about the EPTx skills is that they have a 30 second duration but only a 15 second global cooldown, so you can alternate to keep two types up at a time. 0 seconds activate EPTW, 15 seconds activate EPTS, 30 seconds renew EPTW again, and so on. Then you use Aux2Bat or Damage Control Engineer doffs to reduce the cooldowns, and get both active all the time. Technicians for Aux2Bat can be farmed for free from the B'tran Cluster colony chain, or the Damage Control doffs you can get an Emergency Hologram from your replicator and blues pretty cheaply from the Exchange.
On your gear, replacing your warp core with the Subspace Rift core from running Sphere Of Influence again will give you a flat bonus to your antiproton damage. Dropping that ablative armor for an RCS module will help you in staying on target. And replacing the beam array with a turret will give you more forward firepower.
Lastly on skills, a lot of people use the universal as engineering and treat it like a standard cruiser (especially if they're running dual Aux2Bat). If you're set on science though, you may get more use out of dropping the Tachyon Beam and Sci Team 2, and replacing them with Hazard Emitters 2 (for the hull heal and clearing some debuffs) and Polarize Hull 1 (for extra durability and escaping tractor beams). Then you set your eng skills to EPTS, EPTW, RSP, and DEM, and your tac skills to dual tac team 1s, CSV1, and Attack Pattern Beta 2. The fun combination of CSV, APB, and DEM together can put a lot of hurt on a lot of targets in short order.
This is all stuff you can adjust on your ship right now for your next mission before bed. Longer term you'll eventually want some fleet RCS consoles to boost your turning, a plasmonic leech for extra energy (yeah its really expensive but really good), and things like Aux2Bat and an Elite Fleet shield, doing Talaj's build with DHCs for example. Get a sound design working for you first, then worry about the fine-tuning extras.
On the whole I don't see a large amount of difference between my DBB builds and my DHC ones. Yes, if you're good at maintaining arc and keep within 5km of your target, DHCs will put out higher numbers, but frankly when I point my DBBs at something, by the time I hit optimum firing range for DHCs it's nearly dead - unless it's a major opponent, which is generally where DHCs shine a little more. It helps a lot having access to plenty of drain mitigation on cruisers now, which is really what tended to drag beams down.
Here is what I am currently using against the Voth until I get Tier IV rep. So far it is working really well. I personally like using beams, but this setup I am sure would be even better with Dual Heavy Cannons. This setup right now will usually take down all but the battleship at the towers in the contested zone in one pass.
Note: It is a normal photon torp launcher in the build, but I am using the Gravimetric Photon from Dyson Rep.
I'd suggest running elite crystal and the daily once a day for the fleet marks and after a few days you should have enough fleet creds for a fleet mk 11 rcs accelerator. One of them gives 40% turn + 10 kinetic resist + 10 resist all in a single console for 25k fleet credits, half the cost of the mk 12 variant that is little better while also freeing up console space why rolling your armor and turn consoles together. I run two on my scimitar because it turns like the titanic without them and it gives me all my hull armor I need baked in.
both have technician doffs from either the starfleet academy commendation system or the b'tran cluster doff mission series, very cheap if you are a little patient
If you cannot afford a plasmonic leech then I would move the borg console to replace the flow capacitor, and put 2 weapon power boosters in the eng consoles. Weapons power is rather important especially with 5 DHCs and the weapons power boosting consoles are dirt cheap.
Comments
http://i853.photobucket.com/albums/ab92/ghilleinthemist/BattlecruiserAvenger_zpsaa98ec7c.png
3ap doffs, a warp core and marion.
Be sure to be within 5 km
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Im probably willing to spend up to a million EC and 100,000 dilithium.
i wouldn't have 4 teams in your boff layout. It will conflict with each other since they share cooldowns.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=boffchanged_0
thats if you still want to run AB1, if not you can go EPtS3,EPtS2,EPtW1
MY FLEET:http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=498091
I fly a similar version with a polaron loadout, using Jem'Hadar deflector & engine instead of borg and an elite fleet [AMP] core, and don't have problems soloing one side of KASE with it. An AP version with the benefit of the Obelisk & Borg 2-pieces would likely be slightly better actually.
The one advantage of carrying sci team is that right now the Voth love their sci debuffs, so its useful to have one handy for countering that (particularly when they subnuc you). More than one is wasteful though, since you also need to carry a tac team for shield balancing and getting rid of boarding parties and tac debuffs.
The nice thing about the EPTx skills is that they have a 30 second duration but only a 15 second global cooldown, so you can alternate to keep two types up at a time. 0 seconds activate EPTW, 15 seconds activate EPTS, 30 seconds renew EPTW again, and so on. Then you use Aux2Bat or Damage Control Engineer doffs to reduce the cooldowns, and get both active all the time. Technicians for Aux2Bat can be farmed for free from the B'tran Cluster colony chain, or the Damage Control doffs you can get an Emergency Hologram from your replicator and blues pretty cheaply from the Exchange.
On your gear, replacing your warp core with the Subspace Rift core from running Sphere Of Influence again will give you a flat bonus to your antiproton damage. Dropping that ablative armor for an RCS module will help you in staying on target. And replacing the beam array with a turret will give you more forward firepower.
Lastly on skills, a lot of people use the universal as engineering and treat it like a standard cruiser (especially if they're running dual Aux2Bat). If you're set on science though, you may get more use out of dropping the Tachyon Beam and Sci Team 2, and replacing them with Hazard Emitters 2 (for the hull heal and clearing some debuffs) and Polarize Hull 1 (for extra durability and escaping tractor beams). Then you set your eng skills to EPTS, EPTW, RSP, and DEM, and your tac skills to dual tac team 1s, CSV1, and Attack Pattern Beta 2. The fun combination of CSV, APB, and DEM together can put a lot of hurt on a lot of targets in short order.
This is all stuff you can adjust on your ship right now for your next mission before bed. Longer term you'll eventually want some fleet RCS consoles to boost your turning, a plasmonic leech for extra energy (yeah its really expensive but really good), and things like Aux2Bat and an Elite Fleet shield, doing Talaj's build with DHCs for example. Get a sound design working for you first, then worry about the fine-tuning extras.
http://sto.gamepedia.com/Ancient_Obelisk_Technology_Set#Obelisk_Subspace_Rift_Warp_Core
Note: It is a normal photon torp launcher in the build, but I am using the Gravimetric Photon from Dyson Rep.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=vothkillerfleetavengerpretierivrep_0
FA Dion - Romulan Engineer Officer
FA Zophie Delwynn - Fed Science Officer
Yes, you're right, my bad.
It's the rep console I was thinking of which doesn't increase anti-proton damage.
beam version
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=vsfleetavenger_0
canon version
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=tsfleetavenger_0
both have technician doffs from either the starfleet academy commendation system or the b'tran cluster doff mission series, very cheap if you are a little patient
If you cannot afford a plasmonic leech then I would move the borg console to replace the flow capacitor, and put 2 weapon power boosters in the eng consoles. Weapons power is rather important especially with 5 DHCs and the weapons power boosting consoles are dirt cheap.