test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
The Fleet Excelsior: As good as it gets
weelerd
Member Posts: 22 Arc User
This thread was created for the specific purpose of discussing the Fleet Excelsior and in particular the build that I have developed. The Fleet Excelsior is the favorite ship of many captains, and H ave spent many long hours developing a build that I find works both to my play style and to the strengths of the ship.
Here is the link to my build: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tacticalcaptaonsfleetexcelsior_0
In the build is a detailed write up of the key bind system that I use, the skills that I use, the bridge officers skills, the placement of various powers on the trays, and finally the exact specifications for each piece of gear that has gone into my fleet excelsior.
Please comment with suggestions, observations, and with any questions that come to mind as you, the reader, read my build plan.
Thanks.
Edit: I have changed some aspects of the proposed skill planner. The link to the revised and better skill planner is provided below.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tacticalcaptainsfleetexcelsiorv2_0
Here is the link to my build: http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tacticalcaptaonsfleetexcelsior_0
In the build is a detailed write up of the key bind system that I use, the skills that I use, the bridge officers skills, the placement of various powers on the trays, and finally the exact specifications for each piece of gear that has gone into my fleet excelsior.
Please comment with suggestions, observations, and with any questions that come to mind as you, the reader, read my build plan.
Thanks.
Edit: I have changed some aspects of the proposed skill planner. The link to the revised and better skill planner is provided below.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tacticalcaptainsfleetexcelsiorv2_0
Post edited by weelerd on
0
Comments
Why no assimilated Borg set for the heals?
- Judge Aaron Satie
You might want to try out nukara 2 piece. Weapon stabilizers is a handy little buff.
The deflector that I use has a hull heal and benefits to structural integrity, shield emitters, the shield system, EPS, graviton emitters, and finally power insulators.
The Borg 2-piece set is a favorite among star ship captains specifically for its ability to hull repair. Outside of the hull repair stat, the Borg 2-piece set has little real value and fleet space pieces are preferable when the advanced fleet positron deflector that I use offers hull repair plus many other desirable stats that the Borg 2-piece set does not have.
but yes the excelsior is a fine ship, and it still blasts the galaxyfail out the water everytime, testament to older engineering, always providing one key example of the finest engineering ever seen.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
Please define "far more aggressive build", because perhaps you are going to use Emergency Power to Aux?
Basic Setup is similar to my current one in the tac Vesta Class.
You must be playing against standard Galaxy's then, because the excelsior is far inferior. This just coming from personal experience, but what the excelsior may gain in tactical ability, it severely lacks in survivability. Not saying it isn't a decent ship, but its outclassed in this instance. It just takes someone who has a lot of dedication to bring out the Galaxy's full potential. I wouldn't expect most players to have tried, though. Most are simply not willing or afraid to.
a2b and non a2b builds, anything that provide more dps, even if it means no ability to heal. a squishy cruiser
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
the fact is that the galaxy class never did get the upgrades everyone wanted from it, its subpar compared to a lot of other cruisers, excelsior included. some players still got their galaxy class support sigs.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
@OP
Nice build and interesting impulse engines. I have never seen some like that.
Aux2Bat does neuter healing abilities. However, I believe ad I have found that there is a way to work around the impairments that A2B induces.
There are three primary powers that a fleet excelsior may use to heal itself with out the need to rely on aux power. Those healing powers are: Engineering Team, Science Team, and Reverse Shield Polarity. Engineering Team repairs the hull, Science Team repairs the shields, and RSP protects the ship entire. The healing powers that I have mentioned are the most direct way of healing the ship with out relying on aux power. The aux power is of course sapped by the use of A2B, which goes with out saying.
There is another way of looking at this situation of healing. Use of Emergency Power to Aux improves the situation for the A2B by two ways. First, the DPS is improved when using Emergency Power to Aux before triggering the A2B cycle. One of the benefits of A2B is that it drains aux shunting that energy to systems that are effected by A2B. The more aux power available at the time A2B is used, the more energy effected powers will benefit. Thus, outgoing DPS improves. Conversely, this approach requires the pilot to be more much involved with their ship, essentially micromanaging timings of various powers including healing powers that relying in aux power e.g. Hazard Emitters.
Additionally, using Emergency Power to Aux negates the use of Emergency Power to Weapons because of timing issues involved in using so many Emergency skills. Therefore, based on my experience, I recommend a player to use Emergency Power to Aux and Emergency Power to Shields only.
Run 4 fleet neutroniums and your set. The main diff is the LTC tac, it gives far more dmg dealing power then a LTC eng gives tanking power in the trade off. In the hard pve if you can call it that, aka Undine/Voth STFs, my excel and G-R fair equally as well dispite having diff setups and both tanking about 95% of all the dmg dealt in the STF to our group.
While the Excel loses some, very minor amount of dmg absorption the LTC tac with either FAW2-3/APB1-2 set ups, +4 tac consoles, allows it to kill its targets much faster, mitigating the need to absorb greater dmg amounts.
A side by side comparison the G-R flat loses to the Excel in dmg, and at best ties the Excel in tankability, and in sci aspect they are equal. Both ships are able to shrug off donatras thelaron pulse, and the CE shockwave, with just their stock hull values.
G-R needs a large overhaul. I'm fine with where the excel sits ability wise, but the G-R isnt close to representing the Galaxy class. Excel is a great ship, its a good buy. The G-R currently isnt unless your a TNG fan and dont mind being restrained a bit. BTW if you time your HE at full aux, your heal will stay full power even if you use A2B after, its how i do A2B without nerfing my heals to much.
The galaxy-class refit with a hanger bay is working as intended and does not need changes to improve the ease of life.
I have observed that more often than not the number of players capable of using the Galaxy Refit to its maximum capacity in dps and survivability is greatly overshadowed by the number of players who use a sit-and-fire approach equipping the Galaxy Refit with a Romulan Plasma Torpedo.
Likewise, I have observed a relative number of players who fly the KDF Bartasqu and the Scimitar Dreadnought use a the same sit-and-fire approach, equipping their respective ships with the Romulan Plasma Torpedo.
The point I am making here is that the vanilla-esque approach to game play is not a condemnation of a certain piece of offense gear, but the manner in which ships, capable of astoundingly high damage output, are relegated to a position of goalie in the Khitomer Elite Special Task Force public que.
Now, an answer to this situation has to be found. Someone has to be held accountable. The people accountable for the sad failure of the Galaxy Refit are not the developers at Cryptic. Before anyone jumps exciting at the screen denouncing Cryptic game developers as p3n1s monsters or meanie heads (or something), maybe the fault lies somewhere else?
Maybe, just maybe, the fault lies somewhere closer to home... not with skill planners or specific pieces of space gear like the afore mentioned Romulan Plasma Torpedo...
Antiproton weapons do not suit my purposes. Romulan weapons offer the same crits with hybrid plasma/disruptor proc.
Torpedos are useful only because these weapons do not draw any power from the weapon subsystems. A ship with out a plasmonic leech console would be well advised to use a torpedo because a ship with out a leech console and firing 8 beams draws a considerable amount of power. The power drain of 8 beams with out a plasmonic leech console can not be recovered (+gain) at an adequate rate for a pitched battle.
Torpedo come in two flavors; torpedoes are either slow and gimmicky thereby useless (Romulan Plasma Torpedo) or fast and dangerous. The best torpedo in the game is the quantum as this weapon proffers the highest rate of fire with the greatest amount of potential damage dealt to a selected target. Given that most players use shields, and that most pve targets use shields, the potential damage of any torpedo is heavily mitigated by the shields of any selected target.
Problem: How to lower the shields of a selected target to improve the potential damage of a torpedo? Since most PVP'ers are trying to win the battle and the AI of PVE targets will try to fight back, I have to assume that dropping the shields of a selected target is going to be difficult. One possible solution to this problem is to use DEM with weapons that effect the hull of a selected target. Why use DEM? Penetrating the shields of a selected target is a good one way to attack the interpret of a starship's hull. After all, if the integrity of the hull is compromised, the shield is not going to be as effective at protecting the hull if the hull itself is depleted.
Make sense so far? Good.
Besides, I am not particularly worried about most players. I mean, how many players do you know who have good ships but use a sit-and-fire approach with torpedo e.g. Romulan Plasma Torpedo or fly escorts who sit at the maximum range of their weapons?
The Galaxy X is not the Galaxy Refit for clarification, the G-R is the one without the hanger. And check your defensive attitude at the door man.
I am pointing out the fact that no matter how many people complain about the Galaxy, no matter how many people insist on changes in bridge officer seating arrangement or adding or remove weapon emplacements, the core problem is not the developers at Cryptic. The core problem undermining the performance Galaxy and other similar ships is between the chair and keyboard.
Let's look at this from another angle. The Romulan Scimitar (tactical) Dreadnought is the best dps machine in the game. Regardless of its defense and mobility issues, the Romulan Scimitar has the highest potential dps in the game. Yet, for all its dps potential, a majority of players can not make the Romulan Scimitar successful in damage output. I will go step further by assuming that 9 out of 10 players can not handle this particular ship.
When a large score of players can not make the Romulan Scimitar do well in damage out put, a ship that is readily available in tactical console slots and 8 weapon slots (5 fore), is it any wonder, than, that a ship like the Galaxy can not be played well?
The question of effective ships is not whether the ship can do well because some group of players attribute the failure of their ships (the Galaxy, for example) to Cryptic, but rather that the players themselves are flat out not trained in video game ship building and not able to think clearly on how best to use their ships?
Maybe there is a reason why Romulan Scimitar players can not often get above 4,000 parsed dps? Maybe its because these particular set of players use the wrong weapons? Maybe these particular players fly their ship without much thought or consideration. Admittedly, its far easier to be out of harms way at 9.9km firing streams of Romulan Plasma Torpedoes, but then, as I have said, damage output suffers.
And my opinion is flat out the G-R isn't up to par with the rest of the Fleets. I have tons of time playing in this game from before launch till now, I have owned almost all the ships at one time or another. My opinion isn't based off just personal love of TNG Ent-D, its based off all those things.
DPS isn't the only measure of a ship, its not hard to get the G-R over 10-15k sometimes 20k with right group debuffs. It is just to Eng heavy, the excel is a better ship at current even with 3 ens eng simply because its more tac slanted.
I'm not one of those pubbies people have to carry, im the guy breaking his back because i'm usually carrying so much of the team its sad. Even in my G-R, which tanks everything so no body else on my team even gets shot cept for AOE.
As much as I might love that ship, its current layout in the current game hinders it more then it helps, any other Fed cruiser can tank the same dmg the G-R does and excel in other areas like dmg and healing. The Excel is a wonderful ship, just wish the G-R was on the same footing as it. The Fleet D'D layout would be perfect for the G-R. It would give the excel a run for its money with it for sure.
BTW, those of us in the Galaxy threadnaught almost all have lots of time in a G-R, yet we almost all agree she is lacking not nessarily it just dmg but mainly in flexability. There is a reason you don't see people recommend the operations oddy which is actually better then the G-R. That 5 eng. 3 sci, 2 tac layout is about only good for a carrier. Its why people either say Tac or Sci oddy.
And most pubbies do pathetic DPS, so I can't blame you for thinking its the players, but those of us who have been trying for a fix for 4 years arent those kinda players.
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=rcktacfachra2dreva_0
Things I would change on your build:
1. Go with Borg 2-Piece + your Elite shield.
Experience has shown that it's still the tankiest setup, despite your Elite deflector's supposed hull heal proc. You don't mention the specs on your Fleet Neut, so unless it's +Turn I'd put the HullRep proc on it instead.
2. Drop one aux2batt and replace with aux2damp + doff.
Your ship will be more maneuverable and you'll tank better with the added resists from A2D. And you'll still get the CD reduction as long as you use 3 Purple Techs.
3. Add Nukara Console
That Emitter Array isn't as useful as a console that will give you +10% accuracy, which in PvE means you're well into an Acc overflow situation vs. most targets. In other words, you'll kill stuff quicker with more crits, and dead stuff doesn't shoot back.
4. Go for some variety with the Batts.
All wep batts is just dumb since they're on a shared CD. Total waste of space.
5. Unclear on your Doff config
Assuming 3 techs, but what else? I'd go with an AMS (for A2D resists), Fab Engineer (for RSP uptime) and a WCE (Keel'el or even an EPtX doff for the power boost). Also, you mention ST in your Description of keybinds, but I don't see ST anywhere in your Boff layout - just PH1/HE2.
Overall, seems like a very defensive build. I think you'll get more DPS and generally be a more effective teammate with the above changes.
RCK