Oh, and this might sound weird, but if you fly your B'rel like an escort, aux2bat actually works nicely. Especially now that Science Team is no longer tied to Tactical Team. Science Team 3 on Global Cooldown via Aux2Bat is a nice little shield heal.
Was using my B'rel - normally kitted out to be a PvP vaper - as an aux2bat boat in the Mirror Event and constantly had agro and was never in any danger.
Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Devotion Paladin
Oh, and this might sound weird, but if you fly your B'rel like an escort, aux2bat actually works nicely. Especially now that Science Team is no longer tied to Tactical Team. Science Team 3 on Global Cooldown via Aux2Bat is a nice little shield heal.
Was using my B'rel - normally kitted out to be a PvP vaper - as an aux2bat boat in the Mirror Event and constantly had agro and was never in any danger.
I know.. tried it before, and perhaps I didn't tweak it enough, but I died slightly more often with it than I did previously.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
Brel is certainly not for PvE and specially not against Borgs. You see, your cloaking may not work against NPC most of the time (someone correct me as I am not using it for a very very long time).
The Brel was basically designed for PvP times when there were no Romulans and/or reputation system(s). You could stalk, decloak, dump your arsenal on a unsuspecting victim and off you go.
However, someone whispered $$$ and Romulans in the ears of Cryptic showrunners and now you see something you shouldn't. Anyway, there is no time to beat the dead horse once again.
You can still use Brel in PvP environment as long as it is open PvP (Kerat) and you don't go out all alone.
Grinding for MkIV epic gear?
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
I do ICE all the time in my b'rel. I dont have time to put up with Khitomer dummies, but i will do that one on elite as well. The one with the kang, i try to do that in my hegh'ta, actually... but i have done it ok in my b'rel.
Got a bunch of old mk xi and xii torpedos with the (borg) attribute to show how much time i spent popping borg with my b'rel Most of my antiproton loadout on my hegh'ta is (borg) stuff.
Now and then in my b'rel, i will steal aggro on the tac cube, and it might one-shot me... but that is part of the glory of it! Horrible, flaming glory!
In Dyson, i have enjoyed my transphasic setup. I might tinker with plasmas at some point when i am bored of transphasics.
I clear tons of patrols & whatnot (the daily dil/rep farming) with my b'rel. It is too easy to clear the solo pve stuff in the b'rel, and will be even easier with flanking.
There is no way to avoid getting One-Shotted in the B'rel or almost any raider for that matter. Fancy equipment is great (Last summer PWE gave away a sci ship with a console for a cover shield, useful but not worth the ZEN) but the solution is tactical, think less like a jet fighter a more like a submariner.
Get into the habit of disabling your target lock when cloaked, or disable the auto-fire on your torpedoes so that the Enhanced Battle Cloak does not give you away. Shoot, Cloak, Evade.
Most Space-Whales can be handled thus:
Begin your attack run in the Aft Port or Starboard Quarter. Out of reach of the aft firing arc. The AI, and most AI like players in PVP will turn towards you giving you plenty of time to complete your run safe from the forward firing arc and whatever fancy weapons are located there. The easy finish is to cross from the port to the starboard side or vice-versa.
Cloak and Evade. Use that cover shield I mentioned if you feel your hull is weak, it'll buy you some peace while you cloak. then reposition, and commence the attach run again.
Focus on the process not the results. Refine with practice.
Fancy Equipment.
Bio-Neural warhead makes a great Decoy otherwise leave it for your cruiser. Launch anything that does AOE Damage from your aft tube and run away from it. DO NOT do their work for them.
Shields and armor are not the B'rel's strength let them take care of themselves. weapon consoles, injectors, stealth modules, and ECM.
My two cents.
the issue with the B'Rel is that the Enhanced Battle Cloak (EBC) begs you to run torpedos and mines. Mines do not decloak you, so use them. Unfortunately, it's an instant aggro collector too. If you use torpedos that reload quickly, you won't cloak often. That means good DPS, but you'll take a lot of incoming fire and die. So, if you want to stay cloaked as often as possible, keep moving alot, and use torpedos that take time to reload so EBC will automatically recloak your ship. You don't need weapon power, so put power into engines and aux. With that, I reccomend APO and EPTE to get really high speed since EPTS and EPTW are wasted.
It's not the best way to get high DPS in a B'Rel, but I have used it with high speed passes firing from less than 5k away to get a quick decloak bonus, a mine and 1-2 torpedoes out before I fly past and recloak. (Tricobalt and plasma torps are not a good idea with that tactic) Then I turn back toward the target and start it all again, and again, and again. High speed keeps you ahead of the torpedoes most of the time and you can outrun them too if you have enough speed. It also makes beam attacks against you almost always miss too. Unfortunately, this tactic survives well, but doesn't deal massive DPS because you are flying away alot.
You have to watch your cool downs to get timings right for dropping mines at the beginning of an attack run or as you escape, depending on your preference, so it's not a ship for beginners or those that can't adapt easily.
The spike hits are wonderful, though. I would still have high DPS in pugged Infected, khitomer or Cure most of the time with the B'rel running it that way.
Comments
Was using my B'rel - normally kitted out to be a PvP vaper - as an aux2bat boat in the Mirror Event and constantly had agro and was never in any danger.
I know.. tried it before, and perhaps I didn't tweak it enough, but I died slightly more often with it than I did previously.
I AM NOT A FAN OF PWE!!!!
MEMBER SINCE JANUARY 2010
The Brel was basically designed for PvP times when there were no Romulans and/or reputation system(s). You could stalk, decloak, dump your arsenal on a unsuspecting victim and off you go.
However, someone whispered $$$ and Romulans in the ears of Cryptic showrunners and now you see something you shouldn't. Anyway, there is no time to beat the dead horse once again.
You can still use Brel in PvP environment as long as it is open PvP (Kerat) and you don't go out all alone.
Ain't Nobody Got Time for That
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Got a bunch of old mk xi and xii torpedos with the (borg) attribute to show how much time i spent popping borg with my b'rel
Now and then in my b'rel, i will steal aggro on the tac cube, and it might one-shot me... but that is part of the glory of it! Horrible, flaming glory!
In Dyson, i have enjoyed my transphasic setup. I might tinker with plasmas at some point when i am bored of transphasics.
I clear tons of patrols & whatnot (the daily dil/rep farming) with my b'rel. It is too easy to clear the solo pve stuff in the b'rel, and will be even easier with flanking.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
Get into the habit of disabling your target lock when cloaked, or disable the auto-fire on your torpedoes so that the Enhanced Battle Cloak does not give you away. Shoot, Cloak, Evade.
Most Space-Whales can be handled thus:
Begin your attack run in the Aft Port or Starboard Quarter. Out of reach of the aft firing arc. The AI, and most AI like players in PVP will turn towards you giving you plenty of time to complete your run safe from the forward firing arc and whatever fancy weapons are located there. The easy finish is to cross from the port to the starboard side or vice-versa.
Cloak and Evade. Use that cover shield I mentioned if you feel your hull is weak, it'll buy you some peace while you cloak. then reposition, and commence the attach run again.
Focus on the process not the results. Refine with practice.
Fancy Equipment.
Bio-Neural warhead makes a great Decoy otherwise leave it for your cruiser. Launch anything that does AOE Damage from your aft tube and run away from it. DO NOT do their work for them.
Shields and armor are not the B'rel's strength let them take care of themselves. weapon consoles, injectors, stealth modules, and ECM.
My two cents.
It's not the best way to get high DPS in a B'Rel, but I have used it with high speed passes firing from less than 5k away to get a quick decloak bonus, a mine and 1-2 torpedoes out before I fly past and recloak. (Tricobalt and plasma torps are not a good idea with that tactic) Then I turn back toward the target and start it all again, and again, and again. High speed keeps you ahead of the torpedoes most of the time and you can outrun them too if you have enough speed. It also makes beam attacks against you almost always miss too. Unfortunately, this tactic survives well, but doesn't deal massive DPS because you are flying away alot.
You have to watch your cool downs to get timings right for dropping mines at the beginning of an attack run or as you escape, depending on your preference, so it's not a ship for beginners or those that can't adapt easily.
The spike hits are wonderful, though. I would still have high DPS in pugged Infected, khitomer or Cure most of the time with the B'rel running it that way.