How do I get Beams to do worthwhile damage??

arclite02 · January 2014

I keep hearing comments about people getting great performance out of beam ships, but I have no idea how that's possible - as far as I know, I'm doing everything I can to boost damage, and my Sovereign is basically just a giant floating tank. It does well at soaking up damage, true... But I'm getting tired of being a liability in STF's and such because I bring absolutely no damage capabilities to the fight. Not to mention trying to slowly and painfully chip my way through tougher NPC's like the Voth, solo.

I know that Escorts are expected to do more damage, but all the escorts I fly manage to outclass the Cruiser's damage tenfold, and often more. Is this seriously the fate of a Cruiser captain, to just sit there and get shot?!?

I'm flying an Assault Cruiser, with Mk XII Protonic Polaron beam arrays. Polaron boosting consoles in all the Tactical slots, and weapons power set to Max. Typical power levels are 125/80/30/30, or similar. Point being, all my power is in Weapons, then shields.

sevmrage · January 2014

I recently adjusted my boff skills and Doffing to support Aux2Batt, and damn if my Galaxy Dreadnought didn't take a huge leap in damage. It nearly doubled my DPS.

Slot Auxillary to Battery 1 on two Boffs, get at least three green Technicians for active Doffs, and work the A2B skills to reduce cooldown and watch your numbers climb.

angrytarg · January 2014

What sevmrage said. The A2B build is THE way to make cruisers do damage. By THE way I mean there is virtually no other way. You need 3 very rare technician doffs that, on the use of A2B, reduce cooldowns for boff abilities. This way you can cycle Fire at will again and again with hits multiple targets and as such increses your damage counter. Keep in mind, however, that's primarily cosmetic. To do significant damage to targets and actually kill them you'll need plasma weapons as well and magic fleet embassy consoles that increase plasma damage (for no appearant reason

). And of course a good critical hit ratio to push the damage.

Basically, an A2B Romulan Tac with an Scimitatar and Romulan Plasma weapons and romulan BOFFs will get you the highest damage output possible in this game. Because the game is just tailored to have one superior build/set-up over all others.

To get the really crazy numbers you also have to parse specific events, a huge chunk of damage isn't generated by you but the circumstances under which damage is parsed. See, dps racing is in part trickery and manipulation

kimmym · January 2014

First, no, you don't *NEED* A2B and technicians. They certainly help, but they are not required.

The trick to beams is to keep weapon power as high as humanly possible. Over 125. Push it as high as it will go. That is much of the reason A2B is so powerful, really, and its never the reason people actually use it lol.

Slotting 2 copies of BFaW is nearly as effective as an A2B setup for damage. It also allows you to keep your aux power full time, which is a modest damage boost if you have the rep power for it, as well as letting you do aux things (more damage from sci skill, and of course stronger heals) This works better in say a tac cruiser, where you have enough tactical boff slots that you can fit a couple copies of BFaW easily. The joy of A2B is that it lets you fit more skills in the mix, so you can maybe get away with an attack pattern or something on a ship with very little tactical ability.

Honestly, if you are trying to make a beam boat from something like a FACR (Edit, maybe I'm thinking exclelsior... hell its early... lots of tac), its typically better to *NOT* use A2B, because if you do you are just about forced into slotting a torp or something to eat up some tac skills, not to mention locking you out of EP2W3.

And on the topic of embassy science consoles, I did some extensive testing with beams of all types and those consoles a while back, and my findings were interesting. At least in a beam cruiser, those science consoles had just about even effect accross the board, no matter what energy type I was using. Plasma did more damage off the top, and my other energy types did a ton of extra damage from the proc. I did all my testing in a tac ody, so your mileage may vary, but in very careful testing my 3 tac slot beam cruiser never had more then ~500 DPS variance between the boost the consoles offered.

Here, check this parse of my Atrox out, check that line for plasma damage from energy weapons. I'm using refracting tetryon. That is a *TON* of damage from plasma procs. -> http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g362/DarielaScc/Catbox186_zpsc561f3eb.png Hell, it out damaged my cutting beam, gravity well, and TBR...

In closing, A2B is a nice skill in the right places, but it is not ubiquitously good. It does add damage, but it usually does so by giving access to more tac skills in a tac starved ship, not because of its own damage potential. As well, plasma most certainly is not the only way to go, even in a sci heavy ship. Other energy weapons gain quite a bit from those romulan energy consoles.

Edit: There is a reason most escorts don't A2B, it's not the damage A2B is for, it's to get more skills.

Also, in a 2xA2B setup, even with 0 points in batteries, the second A2B goes off before the power from the first one is back in your aux, so the second one barely gives you any extra weapon power at all. The upside is during the second A2B you have most of your aux, the downside is if you are trying to chain 2 copies for power, the timing gets all wonky. Just another reason why A2B is not the end all be all of DPS abilities. It's direct DPS power is quite low on its own. It's really there for skill slots.

Edit2: Oh yeah, for those following, AP was the clear "loser" when it came to the romulan embassy consoles. They were the ones that consistanly fell behind in the damage boost. That is not to say they were the lowest damage, they were not, but they consistantly got less of a boost from the plasma proc, by about 500 DPS. The increased crit damage easily put them up over plasma tho, in the same builds. I even tested my plasma builds with both the 2pc and 3pc romulan weapon sets. Not suprizingly, going to the romulan torp was a DPS loss over all, but a strong gain for my burst, being able to use that 3pc to take a target out NAO!

Edit3: I realize I got preachy without actually giving you any answers... Sorry. You say Assault Cruiser. Do you mean the free one you get at level 40, The C-Store one, or the Fleet one? If you do not know the difference, what does the bridge officer layout look like? I don't have any of the assault cruisers, but if you tell me which one you mean I have enough ships that I can dress one up like any of the assault cruisers and see what I can put together that isn't difficult or expensive.

valrobertson93 · January 2014

My Fleet Assault Cruiser is doing right at 10k dps. More than enough to carry a pug group and certainly not a liability to the pros.

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=challenger_5525

dahminus · January 2014

Beams do the most dps, even in their non creating bfaw form they do. The reason is the arc they have, not the damage they produce.

If you had cannons at 270 degrees/able to be put on aft. They would dominate beams.

Parsers measure the dps of an entire run. The half seconds of switching targets and reposition so there's multiple targets in arc kills dps I'd cannons.

Only the best of the best pilots can break 30k with cannons. There is way way way more 30k+ beams users and I don't think anyone has broken 40k with cannons yet.

kimmym · January 2014

That is something that never gets mentioned enough, as well.

I used to do heroic raiding in that other game that people do not like mentioned. My traditional role in EQ was that of CC (In those days, the Trinity meant Heals, Tank, and CC. DPS was an afterthought) and when that leg was chopped off I naturally migrated to heals.

Well, I was one of the best druid healers you ever saw, but my damage... yeah... lets just say it was a good thing dedicated healers are useful there, because I was *BAD* at it. Absolutely horrible DPS.

Not one to be bested, I poured my energies into figuring out what was wrong. Much of it was technique, for sure, and rotation and stats that I didn't fully understand, but by the end of my career there I was the best geared Demonology Warlock on the Alliance on my server. Not all of you will understand, but I was among the best of the best, on the hands down hardest to play DPS class, during it's hardest period of play http://cynwise.wordpress.com/warlockery/decline-and-fall/ Yeah, TRIBBLE it, I'm tooting my own horn... I deserve to, it was a lot of work. Healing is an art that comes naturally to me, I had to work and fight and parse and test and work some more to learn how to DPS.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that 90% of improving DPS is improving uptime on targets. It is the single most important part of DPS.

In most cases, a fast nub with TRIBBLE gear will do damage on par, if not better, then a skilled, geared player that isn't fast enough to maintain uptime. I realize that statement is somewhat contradictory, but there are times when a skilled player is being lazy or just not on top of their game.

If you want to increase your DPS, increase your uptime. Most of the time it doesn't matter what you hit, so long as you hit it fast enough.

Edit: blast it that was the wrong link. I will leave that one there for those who are interested, but this is the relevant portion: http://cynwise.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/warlock-complexity-and-the-magic-number/

arclite02 · January 2014

kimmym wrote: »

Edit3: I realize I got preachy without actually giving you any answers... Sorry. You say Assault Cruiser. Do you mean the free one you get at level 40, The C-Store one, or the Fleet one? If you do not know the difference, what does the bridge officer layout look like? I don't have any of the assault cruisers, but if you tell me which one you mean I have enough ships that I can dress one up like any of the assault cruisers and see what I can put together that isn't difficult or expensive.

Well, assuming I got this planner thing to work right, this is my build as of right now.

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=harkonnenii_0

kimmym · January 2014

Ok.

I have no idea what you have available for duty officers, so I will work first assuming you have none, just to get your foot in the door.

Just at first glance, you have way to many team abilities. They share global cooldowns, and step all over each other. The defacto standard is Tactical Team, as it redistributes your shields for you, and clears boarding parties. Most people consider it mandatory. I only consider it mandatory in PvP. PvE you can easily get away with even a cheap blue or green Transporter Officer doff that gives you a chance every tick of Transfer Shield Strength to clear boarding parties, and manually redistributing your shields.

Still, you can fit a tac team and still fit 2xBeam Fire at Will... so you may as well take one. It should serve you well.

With NO doffs, I would say something like:

Tac Team1
BFaW1, BFaW2
Emergency power to shields 1, emergency power to weapons 2, Directed Energy Modulation 2, directed energy modulation 3
Ep2s1, ep2w2, Eject Warp Plasma
Hazzard Emitters 1, Transfer Shield Strength 2.

At risk of being repetitive, the "aux2bat" build that everybody talks about is best on that ship. The doffs can be had for free if you do the colonial chain in borg space. It takes some time but is free. Also, blue A2B doffs are cheap enough, and 3 of them can get you into the game without being perfect like purples are.

In that case, the game changes significantly, and I would say:

TT1
BFaw1, Attack Pattern: Beta1
EP2S1, Auxilary to Battery 1, Eject Warp plasma 1, Directed energy modulation 3
Ep2w1, A2B1, Reverse Shield polarity2
HE1, TSS2

You can also use damage control engineers, but its probly cheaper in the long run to just buy blue starter doffs and farm up purple replacements from the colonial doff chain. Or, you can work your engineering CXP and use the blue and purple emergency engineering hologram rewards... I found the colonial chain to be much, much faster.

So far as gear, I'd tell you to work your rep, replace the quantum with the Kinetic Cutting Beam (put it on the back and move a beam up front) Replace the science consoles with +plasma proc embassy consoles (shield emitters are a good bet, particle generators for those trying to min/max that warp plasma damage) and replace the engineering consoles with the assimilated module, a plasmodic leech, the zero point energy conduit, and maybe the dyson console. If you go with the dyson console, go ahead and slot the torp and experimental beam that go with it, both on the front I'd say. Else... go with a cool universal of your choice (isometric charges are fun) or maybe even save for a lobi console (tachyokinetics are very popular, but I'm starting to favor my bio neural infusion circuitry)

Edit: I just got surprize company, but if I get some time away I will try to cook up a mirror star cruiser (almost the exact same stat wise) and see what the numbers are like

varthelm · January 2014

for those on a budget you could also go dragon fit until you have the A2B doffs required....meaning chaining 2 copies of EPtS and EPtW rolling every 15 seconds. Since the bonuses for both last 30 seconds...you always have bonus damage from EPtW going and always have shield resists up...(not to mention having your power levels in both of these systems way jacked up). You will want at least a couple green Doffs that attack Beam weapon cooldown if you do that.

On a Polaron beam boat, I might lean to a higher level of FAW and APBeta for resist reduction since Polarons provide none of that....so perhaps FAW3 and APB1 as your top two tac options.

Cutting beam for the Omega weapon proc (2 piece bonus with the borg console) good also for maintaining peak power on the remaining beams.

Also, no one should use Polarons without 2 pieces of the JemHardar set on. Bonus polaron damage with 2 pieces.

Now for the more optional stuff...

You get even more if you upgrade the JemHarad set MkXI to MkXII for 200 lobi. Shield is only slightly less durable than the MACO MkXI at that point. Or some variation there of.

Dont remember if you said you have the assault cruisier or the refit...refit has the 180 quantum on it and is nice. A torp you can broadside with is greatly underestimated imo.

I ran this fit for a while on my engineer. I was not top dps...but my damage was certainly not lacking and I had the virtue of much durability

I have since gone A2B but...if done right..the previous fit will never leave you as a liability and is MUCH cheaper.

the1tigglet · January 2014

arclite02 wrote: »

I keep hearing comments about people getting great performance out of beam ships, but I have no idea how that's possible - as far as I know, I'm doing everything I can to boost damage, and my Sovereign is basically just a giant floating tank. It does well at soaking up damage, true... But I'm getting tired of being a liability in STF's and such because I bring absolutely no damage capabilities to the fight. Not to mention trying to slowly and painfully chip my way through tougher NPC's like the Voth, solo.

I know that Escorts are expected to do more damage, but all the escorts I fly manage to outclass the Cruiser's damage tenfold, and often more. Is this seriously the fate of a Cruiser captain, to just sit there and get shot?!?

I'm flying an Assault Cruiser, with Mk XII Protonic Polaron beam arrays. Polaron boosting consoles in all the Tactical slots, and weapons power set to Max. Typical power levels are 125/80/30/30, or similar. Point being, all my power is in Weapons, then shields.

Basically it goes like this, skills that improve energy levels, weapons that include some type of reduction of the other ships defense (polaron/tetryon/disruptors) or that do damage under the shields (plasma), Doffs that support these skills make them work better (not all of them are expensive either I've used 1 step below purple and they work great), turrets in the back slots.

Canon skills tend to take down shields faster than beams and continually cause a drain on enemy shields at any angle.

age03 · January 2014

Use beam over load two copies might be nice.

lucho80 · January 2014

varthelm wrote: »

On a Polaron beam boat, I might lean to a higher level of FAW and APBeta for resist reduction since Polarons provide none of that....so perhaps FAW3 and APB1 as your top two tac options.

Cutting beam for the Omega weapon proc (2 piece bonus with the borg console) good also for maintaining peak power on the remaining beams.

Also, no one should use Polarons without 2 pieces of the JemHardar set on.

FYI, polaron weapons can drain a lot of power. In my ship's case about 67 per proc if the target has no PI.

grendelthewise · January 2014

kimmym wrote: »

First, no, you don't *NEED* A2B and technicians. They certainly help, but they are not required.

The trick to beams is to keep weapon power as high as humanly possible. Over 125. Push it as high as it will go. That is much of the reason A2B is so powerful, really, and its never the reason people actually use it lol.

Slotting 2 copies of BFaW is nearly as effective as an A2B setup for damage. It also allows you to keep your aux power full time, which is a modest damage boost if you have the rep power for it, as well as letting you do aux things (more damage from sci skill, and of course stronger heals) This works better in say a tac cruiser, where you have enough tactical boff slots that you can fit a couple copies of BFaW easily. The joy of A2B is that it lets you fit more skills in the mix, so you can maybe get away with an attack pattern or something on a ship with very little tactical ability.

Honestly, if you are trying to make a beam boat from something like a FACR (Edit, maybe I'm thinking exclelsior... hell its early... lots of tac), its typically better to *NOT* use A2B, because if you do you are just about forced into slotting a torp or something to eat up some tac skills, not to mention locking you out of EP2W3.

And on the topic of embassy science consoles, I did some extensive testing with beams of all types and those consoles a while back, and my findings were interesting. At least in a beam cruiser, those science consoles had just about even effect accross the board, no matter what energy type I was using. Plasma did more damage off the top, and my other energy types did a ton of extra damage from the proc. I did all my testing in a tac ody, so your mileage may vary, but in very careful testing my 3 tac slot beam cruiser never had more then ~500 DPS variance between the boost the consoles offered.

Here, check this parse of my Atrox out, check that line for plasma damage from energy weapons. I'm using refracting tetryon. That is a *TON* of damage from plasma procs. -> http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g362/DarielaScc/Catbox186_zpsc561f3eb.png Hell, it out damaged my cutting beam, gravity well, and TBR...

In closing, A2B is a nice skill in the right places, but it is not ubiquitously good. It does add damage, but it usually does so by giving access to more tac skills in a tac starved ship, not because of its own damage potential. As well, plasma most certainly is not the only way to go, even in a sci heavy ship. Other energy weapons gain quite a bit from those romulan energy consoles.

Edit: There is a reason most escorts don't A2B, it's not the damage A2B is for, it's to get more skills.

Also, in a 2xA2B setup, even with 0 points in batteries, the second A2B goes off before the power from the first one is back in your aux, so the second one barely gives you any extra weapon power at all. The upside is during the second A2B you have most of your aux, the downside is if you are trying to chain 2 copies for power, the timing gets all wonky. Just another reason why A2B is not the end all be all of DPS abilities. It's direct DPS power is quite low on its own. It's really there for skill slots.

Edit2: Oh yeah, for those following, AP was the clear "loser" when it came to the romulan embassy consoles. They were the ones that consistanly fell behind in the damage boost. That is not to say they were the lowest damage, they were not, but they consistantly got less of a boost from the plasma proc, by about 500 DPS. The increased crit damage easily put them up over plasma tho, in the same builds. I even tested my plasma builds with both the 2pc and 3pc romulan weapon sets. Not suprizingly, going to the romulan torp was a DPS loss over all, but a strong gain for my burst, being able to use that 3pc to take a target out NAO!

Edit3: I realize I got preachy without actually giving you any answers... Sorry. You say Assault Cruiser. Do you mean the free one you get at level 40, The C-Store one, or the Fleet one? If you do not know the difference, what does the bridge officer layout look like? I don't have any of the assault cruisers, but if you tell me which one you mean I have enough ships that I can dress one up like any of the assault cruisers and see what I can put together that isn't difficult or expensive.

Darn you are good looking.

kimmym · January 2014

Flattery will get you everywhere!

talonxv · January 2014

kimmym wrote: »

Flattery will get you everywhere!

where is everywhere?

arclite02 · January 2014

edalgo wrote: »

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=harkonnennew_0

This is only basic changes but will greatly improve your output.

Interesting, though I'm not terribly thrilled at having almost no hull healing abilities...

grendelthewise · January 2014

kimmym wrote: »

Flattery will get you everywhere!

Sweet. I have plenty of flattery for you.

arclite02 · January 2014

edalgo wrote: »

Majority of escorts tank cubes with only 1 HE.

2 piece borg set deflector and engines give a strong hull heal also.

A dead NPC does no damage to tank.

Don't see how that's possible against a Cube that hits you for 40,000 damage through full shields with every second shot...

dahminus · January 2014

arclite02 wrote: »

Don't see how that's possible against a Cube that hits you for 40,000 damage through full shields with every second shot...

Don't let torpedos of doom hit you?

kimmym · January 2014

I usually only have my borg 2pc and HE, unless I'm in a dedicated heals or tank.

sirokk · January 2014

arclite02 wrote: »

I keep hearing comments about people getting great performance out of beam ships, but I have no idea how that's possible - as far as I know, I'm doing everything I can to boost damage, and my Sovereign is basically just a giant floating tank. It does well at soaking up damage, true... But I'm getting tired of being a liability in STF's and such because I bring absolutely no damage capabilities to the fight. Not to mention trying to slowly and painfully chip my way through tougher NPC's like the Voth, solo.

I know that Escorts are expected to do more damage, but all the escorts I fly manage to outclass the Cruiser's damage tenfold, and often more. Is this seriously the fate of a Cruiser captain, to just sit there and get shot?!?

I'm flying an Assault Cruiser, with Mk XII Protonic Polaron beam arrays. Polaron boosting consoles in all the Tactical slots, and weapons power set to Max. Typical power levels are 125/80/30/30, or similar. Point being, all my power is in Weapons, then shields.

Please post your build on http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/ then give us the link.

Don't forget your character's skills. This greatly affects your ships output as well, especially for Engineers.

arclite02 · January 2014

dahminus wrote: »

Don't let torpedos of doom hit you?

I wouldn't mind if it WAS the torpedo of doom. but no - those things hit for a quarter million. This is just the regular attacks. first shot deletes all shields, second shot tears 95% of the hull away.

As it is, runing away is often my only option, if I can do it in the few seconds before I get obliterated.

How do I get Beams to do worthwhile damage??

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