The Tankiest Tank?

commanderneco · December 2013

Contribute what you consider to be the most survivable ship, equipment selections or build for maximum time to live under intense damage, sustained or burst.

I intend to play a permadeath engineer, and have a big love for hulking cruisers. I want a ship that can take a beating that would make Battlestar Galactica proud. And still live to get her crew home. :rolleyes:

Let me acknowledge I have some flawed principles.

There is nothing wrong with having redundant layers of defense, even if that sacrifices DPS.
I will not be efficient in STFs/Fleet events.
I will consign myself to only healing or tanking others.

Now I know disregarding DPS can seem distasteful, if not outright offensive to some, especially when end game doesn't really reward anything but dps.
But people tell me: "play the way you enjoy most." So please no: "Offense is the defense" or "Why?":P

My previous build with a star cruiser, way before legacy of rom was:

2 tactical teams
2 EPS3s
2EPAux
1 Aux to Structural
Reverse Shield Polarity
Hazard Emitters
Polarise Hull
Extend Shields

Equipment
Shield + Engine batteries - followed by Evasive Manoeuvres
Stack upon stack of hull plating. (To hell with diminishing returns!)
Shield amplifiers
Regenerative shield (borg). There may be a more tankier equivalent now?

However, it's been almost two years since I last played. So much has changed, including the selection of survivable ships.

I'm considering the Operations Odyssey for its high hull, engineering consoles for great hull resistance, and stations. But then I look at other ships with high shield modifiers, and imagine what they could achieve.

virusdancer · December 2013

This is not a recommendation in the least...this is purely speculative, theoretical, and all that jazz... (besides, the cost of the following ship that would serve no purpose is ridiculous...heh)

Bastion /w Alien Eng

Traits - EPS Manifold Efficiency, Fleet Technician, Grace Under Fire, Inspirational Leader, Wing Commander, Efficient Captain, Elusive, Techie, Warp Theorist

Reputation
Dyson - Advanced Hull Reinforcement, Active Hull Hardening
New Rom - Enhanced Shield Systems, Emergency Secondary Shielding, Quantum Singularity Manipulation
Nukara - Fortified Hull, Auxiliary Power Configuration - Defense, Refracting Tetryon Cascade
Omega - Hull-Repairing Nanites, Superior Shield Repair

TT1, APD1
ET1, RSP1, EPtS3, AtS3
EPtE1
HE1, HE2, TSS3
PH1, ST2

(5x Leadership)

DOFFs - 3x DCE(EPtX), WCE(Cleanse), 2x SDO(BFI)

Deflector - Dyson Mk XII
Engines - Dyson Mk XII
Shield - Dyson Mk XII
Core - Dyson Mk XII

Weapons
Fore - Omega Torp, 2x Phased Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2, Chron DBA
Aft - Cutting Beam, 2x Phased Polaron Turret Mk XII [Acc]x2, Temporal Device

Consoles
Tac - Borg, Subspace Integration, Resonance Cascade
Eng - 2x E-Neut Mk XII [+HullRep], Leech, Tachyo
Sci - Rom Shield Emitter Mk XII [-Th][ShH], Rom Shield Emitter Mk XII [-Th][HuH], Shield Refrequencer Mk XII [+ShHP]

Devices - RMC, SFM, 2x Batt of Choice

Hangar - Armored SRU

Other - Nimbus Pirate Distress Call

amincielbleu · December 2013

You're right, fun is the most important criterion when you choose a ship. However, remember than the fun will depend on your contribution to the team. The difficulty for a tank in this game is not to resist damage, but rather to keep agro. The "tankiest" tank in STO is still the kind of bullwark you want to play, though, but don't forget that being solid means nothing if ennemies wipe out your team instead of hitting you.

From this perspective, a classical and inexpensive T5 cruiser is probably what you will enjoy : the Star Cruiser (Sentinel class) or the Assault Cruiser (Sovereign class). Seven engineering slots, all available cruiser modes, eight beams to fire a nice broadside, tactical team and fire at will in your tactical slots...
If you played the "Temporal Ambassador" mission early this year, you got the Support Cruiser Retrofit (Ambassador class) for free. This ship is considered as particurlarly resilient in PvP (and therefore more than 100% resilient to whatever the game will throw at you in PvE), with the added bonus that you can heal your team (again it's overkill in PvE: Extend Shield 3 in your eng Cmd slot, Hazard Emitter on a shortened cooldown thanks to a dual Aux2Batt, tactical and science teams,...).
You won't get anything "tankier" by spending zen, lobi cristals or energy credits. That's an added bonus.

When you choose your equipment, remember to keep my first caveat in mind : in order to be a tank, you must keep agro, and that means doing enough damage. That's another argument in favor of the Ambassador : three tactical consoles are useful in this respect. For StoVoKor's sake

don't equip four engineering neutronium consoles, that's way too much ! Two will suffice (some say even one suffices, and I agree). The Fleet Mine's engineering consoles are the most powerful, with a dual bonus.
Eight beams of any type of energy (one of them will probably be the Borg Kinetic Cunning beam) will grab a lot of attention from the ennemy when you hit Fire at Will (something you should use almost all the time thanks to the dual Aux2Batt build). Some people just like torpedoes, but if tanking is your only focus, beams are more effective in keeping agro. There are many ways to choose the universal consoles for a credible tank. The Borg engine and deflector, a fleet shield, the Borg and Nukara consoles were my choice, but there are alternatives (eg. the MACO set). The Plasmonic Leech console is useful on every ship, including yours (excluding ships using the MACO set). If you opt for plasma damage as I did, one of your beam should be the Romulan Experimental Beam and one of your console should be the Romulan Zero-point console ; any room left should be filled by Romulan Embassy science consoles raising Flow Capacitator and plasma damage.
It's fortunate that your ship isn't very costly because your equipment is. You will need dilithium and Fleet credits (and a fleet with well-developped embassy and mine).

Which B-Off skills are suitable for you ? The most important one is Tactical team, and I mean two copies of it unless you run an Aux2Batt build. There are several ways of organizing a tank bridge (Aux2Batt or "Dragon", with or without engineering team,...), so I'm not going to advertise one over the others. Experiment all of them, that will part of your fun.

Don't be disappointed if you see other ships tanking as well as you do, including ships that are not purely dedicated tanks. The Romulan Mogai is quite sufficient as a tank, although it's a destroyer. Some carriers tank really well. Of course, most expensive cruisers are also designed as tanks, but their cost is justified by other arguments. Some escort ships can withstand a Borg assault for some time, but remember that they will do more damage if you are there to grab agro at the right time. Your contribution to the team consists in freeing your teammate's mind and time for damage. Your own damage will be a substantial contribution too (otherwise you will loose agro), but it comes naturally if you focus on your tanking job.

Enjoy !

baudl · December 2013

reyan01 wrote: »

The Fleet Galaxy class is probably the best tank in the game, but it offsets any decent DPS capability as a result.

don't even think that is any longer the case. the boff seating is so engi focused, that it simply lacks everywhere else.
the star cruiser was a better tank years ago already.
ambassador class or the oddy too have higher potential for tanking, due to better boff layout.

if you make a list of all the tank abilities available in the game, you'll see that the galaxy can't even use all in one build. Other cruisers and even carriers actually can.

commanderneco · December 2013

Some great suggestions. I've written all down on paper while I'm at work. :cool:

And I agree in regards to the Galaxy. The problem lies with the single engineer station - there are not many abilities in rank 1 engineering to choose from, especially if you pick the emergency power's at later tiers. While science tier 1 abilities can permit little bonuses such as polarize hull/haz emitters.

But then that just turna it into another star cruiser. :rolleyes:

hanover · December 2013

I've seen that big Tholian behemoth eat a TON of damage in the right hands.

A ton of MY damage. :mad:

darkjeff · December 2013

amincielbleu wrote: »

in order to be a tank, you must keep agro, and that means doing enough damage.

That is the thing that jumped out at me from the OP.

Survivability is not tanking.

A tank needs to:
1. Hold Threat
2. Survive the Threat

If you can't hold aggro, then you are not a tank.

doffingcomrade · December 2013

Best Tank: Scimitar. No problems holding aggro, can tank indefinitely by attracting aggro through its massive DPS and debuffing all enemies with "Death", which permanently prevents them from using any attacks except "Warp Core Breach".

You cannot ask for better tanking than this.

momaw · December 2013

hanover2 wrote: »

I've seen that big Tholian behemoth eat a TON of damage in the right hands.

A ton of MY damage. :mad:

Recluse... It has the hull strength of a heavy cruiser (43500) combined with the shield strength of a science ship (x1.375). It has LTC engineer, and LTC science and a universal commander, meaning you can run whatever damage resistance system you prefer on it and then some. And you have 4 engineering consoles for neutronium armor plus 4 science consoles for field generators or shield emitters. And two hangar bays for shield repair shuttles.

If you want an immortal space brick, Recluse is certainly a contender.

hanover · December 2013

momaw wrote: »

.....immortal space brick....

This made me laugh. Thank you for that.

amincielbleu · December 2013

doffingcomrade wrote: »

debuffing all enemies with "Death", which permanently prevents them from using any attacks except "Warp Core Breach".

I like your writing and playing style. It also echoes the original post ("I intend to play a permadeath engineer")...

This being said, the original post was referring to the Odyssey, implying we were in front of a Starfleet Engineer, and that's why I didn't suggest the Scimitar. Another reason is its cost, when you can obtain an equally solid tank for free. 2500 zen for debuffing with Death is affordable (around 325k dilithium at the current rate), but it's not everybody's cup of tea

.

momaw wrote: »

And you have 4 engineering consoles for neutronium armor plus 4 science consoles for field generators or shield emitters. And two hangar bays for shield repair shuttles.
If you want an immortal space brick, Recluse is certainly a contender.

Thank you on my behalf too for the "immortal space brick" .

But please don't advocate 4 neutronium consoles and defensive science consoles. Too much defence is not a problem unless it conflicts with other necessities such as keeping agro. You will need the engineering console slots for some universal consoles (Borg, plasmonic leech, Romulan zero-point if you opt for plasma damage,...) so that you can keep your tactical console slots for much needed, pure damage boosts. One neutronium console for PvE, not more (maybe two on a tanking destroyer, but on a Recluse it looks like overkill).
For science consoles, a lot of testing has been going around this summer in order to assess the relative usefulness of particle generator, flow capacitator, and the like. The unanimous result is that flow capacitator is the only science console that makes a big difference (combined with plasmonic leech).

momaw · December 2013

amincielbleu wrote: »

:
But please don't advocate 4 neutronium consoles and defensive science consoles. Too much defence is not a problem unless it conflicts with other necessities such as keeping agro.

I read the original post and I don't see anything about "keeping aggro". The stated priority is to stay alive at any cost even the cost of damage output, and large quantities of armor and shield strength is better for this purpose. *shrug*

commanderneco · December 2013

Oh shmoo.

And I hoped that the command attract fire, the skill in threat gen, and an ugly paint job would be enough.

Obviously I'm asking people to theory craft maximum survivability, and using the term tank instead of "immortal spacebrick" was a mistake. I think I may change the title...;)

I'm considering the Scimitar purely for the shield-while-cloaking cop out...But I'm not a big fan of all the romulan ships before it. :rolleyes:

And of course, healing is always a viable option as well.

westx211 · December 2013

I think the bulwark might top the list now.

ataloss · December 2013

I'd have to say the Oddyssey is theTank king for the Feds (even though it's considered "obsolete" now).
The Vo'Quv Carrier for the Klingon's.
The D'deridex for the Romulans.

reginamala78 · December 2013

Sans lockbox ships, I'd probably say the Fleet Support Cruiser Retrofit. With Damage-Control Engineers you can keep EPTS3 up all the time despite with just one copy, plus stack TSS3 on top of it, plus 3 tac consoles and enough maneuverability and tac slots to generate a decent amount of threat (particularly with +threat consoles). If don't have fleet access though, or don't like single-character unlocks, then probably the Odyssey.

kimmym · December 2013

With some +threat in your science slots, you can rainbow faw at your balanced power setting and still hold agro against most things.

matchstick606 · December 2013

the bulwark most likely is the best tank now. has a good shield mod and after buffs im sitting on 65k hull. adding the 3p voth set and you have a lot of ways to stay alive and get out of rough situations. imo outside of lockbox ships i think the oddy is still one of the best tanks.

The Tankiest Tank?

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