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Some questions about abilities and builds.
valtorius
Member Posts: 23 Arc User
I have been playing a while now...but it has only been recently that I have played in a few PVP matches and have began reading up on abilities more in more depth. I have always been consistent in that if I am in a ship and I am going to use heavy cannons....then I use all heavy cannons. If I am going to use dual beams....then I will use all beams.
But then I started wondering....if I use Overcharge beam III....does all my beams overcharge or are abilities like that a one time thing that only works on the next beam to fire?
The Nukara set started me thinking about this. Yes, I know, the Nukara set is not everyones favorite...and I really wished I wouldn't have just blindly picked that reputation tree as my main characters first rep....but hey did you know that when you max out your Nukara rep they give you 45,000 dilitium!
But when I equipped the Hyper beam that is the 3rd and final piece of Appropriated munitions set, I began wondering if now that I have that equipped, is that the only beam that can fire the refracting assault beam (a let down) or can any of the beams do it now that the set is all on?
I don't know....so kept that one single beam on my Avenger and loaded 3 dual cannons and a quantum torpedo launcher in the front. I then put rapid fire 1 tactical officer that I put on my universal BO slot.
Same question...does rapid fire make all cannons rapid fire or just one? My HY only fires from one torp cannon...so you can see the confusion.
But then I started wondering....if I use Overcharge beam III....does all my beams overcharge or are abilities like that a one time thing that only works on the next beam to fire?
The Nukara set started me thinking about this. Yes, I know, the Nukara set is not everyones favorite...and I really wished I wouldn't have just blindly picked that reputation tree as my main characters first rep....but hey did you know that when you max out your Nukara rep they give you 45,000 dilitium!
But when I equipped the Hyper beam that is the 3rd and final piece of Appropriated munitions set, I began wondering if now that I have that equipped, is that the only beam that can fire the refracting assault beam (a let down) or can any of the beams do it now that the set is all on?
I don't know....so kept that one single beam on my Avenger and loaded 3 dual cannons and a quantum torpedo launcher in the front. I then put rapid fire 1 tactical officer that I put on my universal BO slot.
Same question...does rapid fire make all cannons rapid fire or just one? My HY only fires from one torp cannon...so you can see the confusion.
Post edited by valtorius on
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Only the next beam overcharges. There's a nice visual effect for it too to indicate.
Here's the great thing, that happens with all the reputation tiers. You have to jump through a few hoops to get the Dyson and New Romulus payout (just do what the mission prompt tells you to do) but it's certainly well worth the few minutes spent paying off story threads.
Hmmm, I can't quite say. I haven't used that set enough to know off the top of my head but I have the impression that it's only the special dual beam bank.
Cannon abilities affect all cannons. They're basically the other extreme from torpedos, where only your next volley is upgraded with each ability. Beams are in the middle (both in terms of damage and the fact that their BOFF abilities are split between "all" and "one" for Fire at Will and Overchage respectively.)
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Thank you...so Overload beam activates with the next beam....rapid fire is for all cannons for a short length of time. Am I correct on this? And do you think mixing things up like this is a good idea because I have seen some limited success in PVP with this.
I had The Hyper dual beam, 3 dual cannons, and a quantum in the front..two turrets and the Nukara Mine in the back. All my other gear is so-so. My offensive abilities on this Avenger are currently all that normally come with being a lvl 50 tac officer plus Directed Energy Mod III, Overload Beam III, Rapid Fire I, High Yield II, Tact Team I, High Yield I, and target engines sub systems I.
Is this a waste mixing beam and cannons in this way? Twice ( which is 1/10th of it being done to me) I have vaped someone in PVP when the stars aligned and I used every tac buff and above mentioned ability on someone. Then again...I have been in matches where a Romulan Science Ship could outrun me, tank 3-4 peoples damage and then teleport behind me and vape me.
I realize this isn't the PVP section...but the reason I put it here is because I want to make sure I am understanding the basics.
not sure about pvp. Beam overload 3 hits for a TON of damage one time. Its a one roll, double or nothing type skill... if you miss, etc, all you do is waste power. If you crit, you put the hurt onto your opponent. You also have to micromanage your power around it, as it drains your power way down so you have to hit emergency power to weapons (or similar boost of some sort) or all your weapons will be weak for the next several shots (unless you have awesome weapon power, which is possible). Is it worth it to have a chance at a huge crit? It really depends on your crit rating whether it works for you, at some point, when your crit chance is reaching values like 1 in 4 or 1 in 3 chance, it probably becomes very worthwhile. At 1 in 10 or 1 in 8 or so chances, it probably is not.
Mixing up weapons can be problematic but in some cases its necessary. For example, if I want to run a FED cruiser using dual beam banks up front then in order to get the most out of my forward facing attack runs I want to have turrets, not beam arrays, in the back. But the bridge officers I use only focus on one energy weapon type (in this case beam but I could also get away with a higher level beam overload and a lower level scatter volley strictly point-defense applications) because I don't have the space to specialize in absolutely everything.
The single dual beam on a cannon-equipped ship is a viable build. The overload gets you a quick splash of damage which you can fill in with rapid fire and torpedo strikes. BUT what it also does is drain a lot of weapon power so that subsequent cannon fire becomes less effective (and you're also loosing a bit of DPS in using the beam bank versus a more powerful DCannon or DHCannon.) What I've found is that on anything with dual cannons, you want to stay with cannons because while you loose that big hit from overload you can do more damage over time with higher levels of rapid fire and volley. The key then is simply to make sure you can stay alive for that period which involves how well you've put your defensive setup together (but one thing at a time.
Also, subsystem targeting is not advisable because while, in your case, it can slow your opponent you're going to get a lot more out something like fire at will or cannon scatter volley (which is a lot more advisable in your case) which can have very significant defensive applications.
I don't PVP often but I can say that as a beginner you wouldn't worry about those uber-ships that can incinerate you without any apparent effort. They're running equipment and ability setups that require quite a bit more knowledge about STO gameplay mechanics as they relate to the PVP format. Get the fundamentals down as they apply to STO (ex. don't invest boff abilities in subsystem targeting) then worry about the specific PVP application.
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But only so long as you have anti-proton consoles. You certainly don't want to resort to a rainbow build, stick with one energy weapon type (plus a quantum, photon, or reputation-reward torpedo, remember cannons do more damage against shields but NOT against hull points, you need the explosives to compensate for that.) Tetryon isn't a bad choice at that. Even though the proc isn't as nice as Disruptor or Antiproton's flat crit boost they are very reasonably priced. You should be able to get a full set of purple Dmgx3 DHC's with blue XII tetryon tac consoles from the exchange on a "casual" players budget.
Notable missions: Apex [AEI], Gemini [SSF], Trident [AEI], Evolution's Smile [SSF], Transcendence
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I have rare (blue) Mk X anti proton consoles...but I am still torn. And that was sort of always my plan with the Tetryon...smash shields like no other system can and then launch a volley of HY quantums. I might still decide this is the way to go...I am messing with my BOs and trying to figure it out.
AP is a strong damage type but fleet shields really reduce it a ton. It may be weak in pvp because it IS a strong type so people are likely to defend against it.