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Suggestions for a T5 ship...
jaguarskx
Member Posts: 5,945 Arc User
My Tactical KDF toon has been level 50 for at least 20 days, yet I am still flying around in my T4 Ki'Tang BoP because I find it fun to fly. I have considered the T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP as my free upgrade, but I am considering choosing another ship because BoPs are more or less cannon fodder against the Borg. Therefore, I am considering either the Vor'cha Battle Cruiser Retrofit or the Qin Heavy Raptor.
Vor'cha Battle Cruiser Retrofit
- More sturdy of the two
- Pretty good turn rate for a heavy cruiser especially compared to my Fed toon's Sovereign
- 4 aft weapon slots
Qin Heavy Raptor
- Better turn rate which make it feel more like a BoP than the Vor'Cha.
- 3 tactical stations; after all my KDF is a tactical toon.
- There's a +15 to weapon power instead of +10, but I consider that to be somewhat minor.
I am not abandoning the BoP though since I am considering purchasing the B'rel Bird-of-Prey Retrofit later on.
Any other suggestions or any opinions about one of these two ships?
Perhaps I should consider just getting the free T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP, and then perhaps buy the Bortasqu or Mogh cruiser?
Vor'cha Battle Cruiser Retrofit
- More sturdy of the two
- Pretty good turn rate for a heavy cruiser especially compared to my Fed toon's Sovereign
- 4 aft weapon slots
Qin Heavy Raptor
- Better turn rate which make it feel more like a BoP than the Vor'Cha.
- 3 tactical stations; after all my KDF is a tactical toon.
- There's a +15 to weapon power instead of +10, but I consider that to be somewhat minor.
I am not abandoning the BoP though since I am considering purchasing the B'rel Bird-of-Prey Retrofit later on.
Any other suggestions or any opinions about one of these two ships?
Perhaps I should consider just getting the free T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP, and then perhaps buy the Bortasqu or Mogh cruiser?
Post edited by jaguarskx on
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Don't sell the Hegh'ta short, though. I take it out in Elite STFs myself. Utility-wise, the Hegh'ta far exceeds the Defiant/Qin. And have you seen the Starfleet cruisers who evaporate in seconds under Borg fire? The Hegh'ta's survivability doesn't bother me when I see Starfleet wilt under sustained Borg attacks.
I'd rather buy a Mirror Negh'var if I wanted a non-Zen cruiser. There's also the other Mirror cruisers.
Heck, buy the Mirror Qin, use the free token on the Hegh'ta, and you're set. Save real money to buy yourself a Mogh
As for the B'rel... I love it, but I think it's better as a more Sci-biased ship. The T'varo is the better Tactical weapon.
Okay, now I'm seriously considering the Ch'tang for my Romulan when we get Flanking on Raiders...
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
My advice is to only pay for (zen, fleet modules, dil etc) ships with 10 consoles.
That said I love my BOPs, I fly both norgh and b'rel (b'rel was my 'free' ship at 50 for paying cryptic and norgh was a fleet module ship). But I can't recommend them in general, a 9 console 6 weapon 2 device ship with no shields or hull is underpowered, period. I make it work, for the fun of it, and if its for the fun-factor, THEN I can recommend it.
Vorcha is a lower tier ship, and as stated, just get the mirror for energy credits if you want one of those.
The fleet quinn is an excellent ship but like most pure ships suffers a lack of non tactical officer seats. I personally dislike ships with the same type of officer in cmdr and ltcmdr slot.
IMHO the ultimate raptor/bop/escort type offering is the veteran ship (fleet upgrade) due to the universal officer, solid turn rate and durability, acceptable weapons and console layout, etc. It has an issue that to get higher damage you have to slot their gimmick console to enable the mode. It is not game breaking to toss the console and fly it in defensive mode, though; you lose weapon power but that is not too hard to correct for.
Bort & mogh: yes, these are good choices. Mogh is the obvious scimitar/avenger counterpart and bort has several flavors of layouts & a universal officer. The bort is a fine ship, more flexible for builds and tinkering, but the mogh probably puts out more firepower if you are into top dps.
So, my final answer is the veteran fleet ship or the bort/mogh choices, with a side of mirror vorcha if you like.
For PvP, it depends on the role you play. With uni BOFF seating, the Norgh can be a GW, VM, EWP harasser. The Mogh can be a tough DHC damage dealing ship. Go to the PvP bootcamp thread and see DDIS's comments on the Avenger, which is the fed ship that the Mogh is a near copy of.
The B'Rel is a totally different playstyle. With EBC and a tin foil hull, you have to play it very differently.
It is basically split into two groups:
Group #1
- Choose a free T5 Non BoP ship because of better hull / more weapon slots
- Buy the B'rel BoP retrofit
There are two versions of the Vor'Cha. The "original" version is a T4 ship, the "Retrofit" version is a T5 ship.
Group #2
- Choose the T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP
- Buy a starship with better survivability
Either way I end up with a BoP for fun and a cruiser / battle cruiser for missions where I want a heavy hitter. One being a Brigadier General starship and the other being a Lieutenant General starship. I'll probably drop the Bortasqu' as an option though due to the low turn rate.
No fleet ships though since I currently am not really interested in joining a fleet. If I ever do decide to join a fleet, then I might do so with my Fed toon, since that is my primary game. However, I have yet to start a Romulan character so my primary game focus might change.
This is strictly for PVE. Overall, the purpose for both T5 starships is to have fun. High DPS is not much of a concern. Like my Vice Admiral Fed toon, I have barely progressed in the main story line so all of my equipment are more or less pretty basic. And I have not even bothered with the rep system yet.
So my answer for cheap is to get the b'rel and mirror vorcha, and supplement THOSE with the mogh.
Total cost: ?00K EC + token + 2500 zen. I am not sure of the current EC prices.. it was under 1/2 million last time I looked at mirrors but things vary over time.
And, again, if you happen to have the veteran ship, try it. It is pretty good, even the non-fleet one is solid all fleet version gets you is 1 more tac console and insignificant hull.
and unrelated: if you make a rom later, make it kdf aligned. The feds have nothing to offer a rom; kdf offers leech console, contraband, dil farming, and generally a superior experience.
Okay, so I guess I will choose the free T5 Hegh'ta Heavy Bird-of-Prey and one of the following from the Exchange if available / not excessively expensive:
1. Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor
2. Mirror Negh'Var Heavy Battle Cruiser
3. Mirror Vor'cha Battle Cruiser
And eventually pick up a Mogh.
As for my Romulan toon... since I plan on eventually having 2 Romulan toon (6 toons total, 2 per faction, one male, one female) one will end up being aligned with the Fed while the other will be aligned with the KDF.
My Fed toon is actually pulling a decent amount contraband recently since I have been seeing a decent number of investigate illegal gambling missions as well as search for contraband missions. The KDF certainly have more contraband missions though. I actually have a very easy time farming dilithium with my Fed toon.
Plasmonic Leech.... I suppose if I am desperate enough I can buy it off the exchange...
Mirror Negh'var will be the most expensive, period, out of all the mirror choices.
And don't look at the B'rel like any other BoP because it's not. EBC is a totally different play style, and if you don't choose to utilise the EBC, then don't waste the money. Just get a Hegh'ta, and forget about the B'rel. B'rel can be frustrating because it's instant death if you don't treat it properly. Shields make death not-so-instant in the Hegh'ta
Save the money for a Mogh unless you're truly dedicated to the B'rel style of game. I almost exclusively use the B'rel or the T'varo (when I am Romulan). If I am Starfleet, it's Defiant all the way, but it's definitely not the same. I have an Antiproton loadout for my Hegh'ta that does okay for me, especially since it's a (free) gunboat that can throw Science abilities (unlike the Qin).
BoPs are my heaviest hitters, but I don't fly a Mogh or Scimitar. I will never be the top of the DPS ladder in the Scimitar era, but I will never be at the bottom either.
BoPs are THE reason to play KDF, I think. However, now that Romulans have all the toys & fast ships & strong BOFF layouts, PLUS battle cloak & singularity powers... that's where the all the cool kids are!
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
The only T5 ships that will interest me as a klingon user will be the guramba, bortasqu or the mogh (fleet or zen versions.. ) . Other ships , nah. I dont think they will perform better than my T4 bop. I dont need em , anyways.
Are you talking about the Hegh'ta?? Because as far as free ships and BoPs go, the Hegh'ta really is a great, not to mention awesome looking ship.
Yup, im talking about the Hegh'ta
The Hegh'ta IS the T5 raider, the Ki'tang is the t4 (although, ironically, the Ki'tang is available as fleet version and outperforms the Hegh'ta as such)
I use the Hegh'ta myself, too, with absolute stubbornness. That was my second t5 ship I ever got (the first being my feds sovereign, which only recently got replaced by her c-store counterpart)
Since when I leveled that char there simply was no PVE for KDF it is the ship I worked the hardest for in the game.
And I love it, I love it looks (although, the original pre season 2 version looked better, still hate the changes) and it is "my" ship.
So until there is a fleet version my main stays with that one.
Fleet Hoh'sus is the only 4 TAC Console BOP. But for many, it looks ugly as sin.
Fleet Norgh pretty much is an upgraded Hegh'ta but with 1 very crucial difference. It has a 2nd LtCdr Universal BOFF station. It's the only BOP that has 12 Universal BOFF seats, all other endgame BOPs have 11. The Console layout though is exactly, and questionably, the same as the Hegh'ta.
However, both of these ships will need 4 FSMs. Not exactly cheap considering these are character purchases and not C-Store account unlocks.
Done that. Still recovering from that experience.
I fly ships for their looks first and function second. I will never fly a fleet Hoh'sus, which stat wise, should BE the fleet Hegh'ta....
The Mirror Vor'cha was selling for 500k ECS, but I passed on it since it only had 1 tactical Boff station.
The Mirror Negh'var is by far the most expensive at 2 million ECs... I like it except for the fact that the two tactical stations are just ensign and lieutenant. The Lt. Cmdr science station does add some flexibility though, but my KDF toon is more geared towards tactical and some engineering skills. I think I will just monitor prices for this week, if someone sells it for less than 2 mil ECs, then I might buy the Negh'var and put the Qin back on the Exchange.
Okay, so real stupid question....
How do i go about getting the "Report to Gamma Orionis" on the KDF side? I would like to start working on the Omega Rep before season 9 begins when all the rep systems becomes more of a grind. At least with the Qin or the Negh'var I should be able to do the elite STF to get the BNP drops.
To get there, use xwarp gate near qonos, far left side of map.
Then, if you want a pure tactical ship, why not just get the BoP?? i mean, that is the most tactical thing you will find in the kdf side. And trust me, flying a heavy bop with the right build is a really funny thing to do xD.
You can do elite stfs almost with ANY ship you want dude... and with almost any equipment you want... i did elite stfs time go with MK X equipment and a T4 ship. Getting the best equipment of the best is going to give you more easy and fast ways to kill your enemies, but in the end, you will sufice with lower equipment.
The conduit to gamma orionis is in the Gamma leonis sector block (the Klingon home sector) in the left-down side of the map.
Well... not really... maybe I need to change my combat strategy because currently I do not last very long against the Borg and I had a particularly bad time yesterday against the Crystalline Entity.
I typically de-cloak and fire a barrage, evade and re-cloak as soon as possible, then attack again. However, I generally get destroyed during that waiting period. Last night against the Crystalline Entity as soon as I decloaked at around 9km I was insta-killed. That happened 6 straight times, 4 times I did not even have an opportunity to fire a single shot. I lost track of how many times I was killed after 12. I usually only die 3 times against the CE so I am guessing yesterday the CE was particularly powerful cause I even had a hard time with my Fed toon against the CE flying a Sovereign class heavy cruiser.
I like BoPs, but they are very fragile and I have never seen a BoP doing any of the elite STF. In terms of equipment, I just use standard stuff since I have not progress very far in the main story missions (just finished the Fek'Ihri mini story arc). So for now it seems that I will select the T5 Hegh'ta Heavy BoP to go along with the Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor that I bought off the exchange for those instances where I want a more durable ship.
My Romulan scientist in her Advance Aves has been hit in cloak, by the gate in Infected Conduit (The easiest one) Knocked into the red if you cloak with the gates firing range.
And Warp shadow doesn't help, I have seen the almighty Scimitar die after employing warp-shadows between a Tac cube and the gate, while my "Fail-axy-X" does just fine and doesnt die at all.
In Borg sector incursions i have been Plasma full spread-ed out of existence on my romulan tac in this low 20's. After employing warp shadow and cloaking under cloak.
And I have had close calls on by Romulan Science and Tac using Quantum absorption/Cloak which cloaks you with shields up.
battlecloak is not the end all be all a lot of people on these boards have made it out to be, especially against npc's, who react very fast and don't panic like players.
I have both the Galaxy-X and a Fleet Defiant, I love both ships setting up a run unmolested sometimes in close quarters and the attack bonus coming out of cloak is good. It is and advantage and edge, not a broad sword.
I am planning on getting a BOP myself, But I plane on making use of its speed more than any cloak. the 10k dangers zone can be made a brief window of vulnerability if the BOP is played right, I have seen it done, I am just told it is hard to do.
Granted that I am flying around in a T4 BoP instead of a T5 BoP, the difference in hull strength is not at great and I bet I will still instantly die going up against the Crystalline Entity even with a T5 BoP.
Getting back to the Borg... so far the only space combat I have attempted against them is in the sector red alerts. I feel that going up against the Borg in the queued PvE missions with a BoP is a bit futile. People will probably look at my BoP and say "WTF?!?!?"...
Yes, I know the battle cloak is not the be all, end all of BoP tactics, but it seems to be the only real advantage it has. I find it useful to disengage from combat so that I can repair my hull and fly far away enough to de-cloak and recharge shields in single player missions. However, that is not a particularly good for STF since there are only 5 players for most of those missions.
Thus, my purchase of the Mirror Qin Heavy Raptor... on paper it seems to be a good balance of firepower, durability and maneuverability. The lack of the battle cloak means I need to adjust my KDF combat tactics.
Not sure how far I am going to play my KDF toon. It's fun and there are difference between playing the Fed faction, but I am simply not sure yet how much time I want to commit to it. Not sure if I want to do the rep system for this toon and I am definitely not going to use real money to buy the Zen necessary to purchase the Mogh so I guess I'll be doing a lot of dilithium grinding.
Due to my current lack of commitment ('cause I would also like to start up a Romulan toon) I am not looking to join a fleet which means the Tor'Khat is not even a consideration...
My Hegh'ta can do decent DPS with 3x AP DHCs, Omega torpedo, the Borg cutting beam, and the AP 360 beam... plus a Commander Tac. I have a Lt.Com Sci to drop a Grav Well on the Nanites.
The Hegh'ta melts under sustained fire, but i have seen tanky Starfleet cruisers (who didnt seem to get the beam FAW/A2B memo) melt as well.
My B'rel can steal aggro from almost anyone due to the high spike damage, even with Science in the Commander slot.
Of course, my Rom Tac can make the D'deridex act like a decent gunboat with a battle cloak. The T'varo is fun, but merely a gimmick ship compared to the Ar'kif, Scimitar, Mogai, even the D'deridex. The free lvl 40 Tac Warbirds are far better than the KDF Qin. You'd need 4 fleet modules to fly anything like those on the KDF side.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)
Crystal can be nasty, an I have not quite figured it out --- sometimes I can sit there and take marginal damage, and other times, it goes pompeii on me. It may target 1 person for extra abuse, not sure? It may be distributed dps (more players being hit, the less each takes type mechanic) or something else odd like that. On a typical run I can sit at 2km, just park and shoot, and at most die once (its a BOP, and part of driving one means you will die sometimes). I walk out with first place dps 7/10 times roughly -- and I don't have fleet tac consoles yet nor some of the other toys.
The others are pretty easy -- I would not want to try to solo a tac cube but I can almost tank it --- if the other players have solid dps (not overwhelming, just decent) I can stay up and tank it. If its a 5 min fight, eventually it wears me down.
Basically, its fragile, and that matters in 2 places. One, you will be, on occasion, suckerpunched by an NPC crit. There is not much you can do about a torp spread that crits for 40k X 5 shots -- only the capital ships survive things like that. And two, you can't easily solo some of the toughest stuff (or if you can, it takes a better than average setup).
An odd "advantage" to a weak hull and small crew is that your crew/passive hull healing is all you really need for MOST content. Against a lot of hull bleedthru, you need more, so plasma spam or voth might need a hull heal while I ran totally without in the MU event.
As for the mirror Qin, it's not as fast or maneuverable as a BOP, but it is a sturdy ship when setup well. The 3 engineering BOFF abilities means you can run 2 copies of EPTS and still have room for one engineering team, aux to dampeners, or aux to SIF. It's got plenty of tactical BOFF abilities, though you might need to find 1 skill you can use DOFFs to reduce cooldowns to only have to slot one of them. I personally like using 2 conn officers that reduce the cool down on tactical team. They aren't too expensive, compared to many other purple/ very rare DOFFs, so it might be worth a look at.
I have been flying BoPs since I started my KDF toon so I am very well aware that dying is part of the experience. I do lots of disengagements to repair hull / regenerate shields before going back into combat. Overall, flying BoPs are fun, but can get tiresome with all the dying and disengagements. That's why I bought the Mirror Qin...
I haven't unboxed it yet though. Trying to decide on the load out. I will likely do a similar setup as the Hegh'ta which is 3 forward plasma-disruptor heavy cannons and a torpedo with 2 aft plasma-disruptor beam array and a torpedo. My BoP has fore and aft Hargh'peng torpedo launchers, but since Boff abilities do not work on them I will probably choose something different like good 'ol Photon and Quantum torpedoes which have pretty fast reload times.
I haven't progressed very far yet into the main story line so I don't have access yet to the more exotic equipment the game has to offer. I only recently finished the Fek'Ihri mini story arc.
The other thing that I've been using is a DBB with a Beam Overload 1 (since there isn't an Ensign cannon skill) instead of a torpedo. The DBB might not give as much top-end damage, but you get more consistent damage out of it, plus the occasional nice crit with a Beam Overload.
Aft torpedo is trickier in the Qin since the turn rate is a bit funky. Of course, there's not a lot of awesome options for you until you build that character's rep up.
Once you decloak, the Qin doesn't operate much differently than a Defiant.
If you're not sure about the KDF, keep tweaking the Hegh'ta build. That's half the fun of the BoPs, IMO. Even in the Mirror grind, I had more fun with the Hegh'ta than the Qin. BoPs are the only thing that is different than any other faction, including the Romulans. Warbirds are great, but BoPs provide a level of flexibility that Warbirds don't.
If you don't love the BoP, then KDF might not be worth your while, IMO.
IKS Korrasami (Fleet B'rel Bird of Prey Retrofit T5-U)