I'm looking at running a TorpVaro on my Fed Rom Tac just to differentiate her from my more standard CannonScort/BeamCruiser flying Fed and KDF Tacs. This will be my first attempt at a pure torpedo boat, and I'm trying to parse all the info in this thread as best I can. Here's my current WIP concept build (including skill tree and rep traits):
Mostly a pure Transphasic aside from the Nukara Mines and the Hargh'peng in the back. AMACO 2-piece for torpedo benefits, Solanae 2-piece for bonuses to Aux. My questions are as follows:
Do the Spire Tac consoles make as much sense in a torp build, or are standard Tac consoles better? I'll probably be starting with standard ones either way, as my Rom is FC poor and will take her a while to grind those out.
What should the ratio of Transphasic to general torpedo Tac consoles be?
Is TB3 what I should be using in that Lt.Cdr Sci spot, or does Grav Well make more sense? I likely will not be flying this into PvP, at least not until I'm more used to the Torp Boat concept.
Destabilized Plasma with the Transphasics or nay? I'll probably make a plasma loadout when I can afford to do so, but Transphasic is cheaper to start. Not sure if I should keep that Destabilized Plasma with the TP, or if I'd benefit more from some other consoles there.
I'm looking at running a TorpVaro on my Fed Rom Tac just to differentiate her from my more standard CannonScort/BeamCruiser flying Fed and KDF Tacs. This will be my first attempt at a pure torpedo boat, and I'm trying to parse all the info in this thread as best I can. Here's my current WIP concept build (including skill tree and rep traits):
Mostly a pure Transphasic aside from the Nukara Mines and the Hargh'peng in the back. AMACO 2-piece for torpedo benefits, Solanae 2-piece for bonuses to Aux. My questions are as follows:
Do the Spire Tac consoles make as much sense in a torp build, or are standard Tac consoles better? I'll probably be starting with standard ones either way, as my Rom is FC poor and will take her a while to grind those out.
What should the ratio of Transphasic to general torpedo Tac consoles be?
Is TB3 what I should be using in that Lt.Cdr Sci spot, or does Grav Well make more sense? I likely will not be flying this into PvP, at least not until I'm more used to the Torp Boat concept.
Destabilized Plasma with the Transphasics or nay? I'll probably make a plasma loadout when I can afford to do so, but Transphasic is cheaper to start. Not sure if I should keep that Destabilized Plasma with the TP, or if I'd benefit more from some other consoles there.
Any other suggestions are appreciated.
If you have the fleet creds, then yes having the Spire console for the extra umph in torpedo damage will definitely work (having that additional CrtD or CrtH never hurts). I run a Fleet Intrepid and went with 2 fleet consoles for transphasics since a bulk of my DPS is from the cluster mine and 1 fleet console that boosts all projectiles. Non-fleet can certainly work as well.
Consider GW in the Lt Cmdr slot only because the Breen Cluster will likely blow up the ship you're targeting and you can get a nice chain effect going on. TB3 becomes less of a need if goign out plasma or transphasics (if you ran pure photon for example than TB3 becomes more ideal).
Yeah, the more I think about it the more I'm leaning toward GW1 there. So, Doffs I'd thing something along these lines:
3x PWO
2x Deflector Officer (deflector ability CD reduction)
If I get the 6th active slot from the spire, maybe a Gravimetric Scientist for aftershocks. Most of my normal go-to Doffs are irrelevant here. BFI Doffs, DCEs are useless. Even the cleanse WCE isn't much use if you're not constantly cycling an EPtX power. This build is way out of my comfort zone, kinda freaks me out.
Glad to see you are back. I tried a torp boat build with my previous main and first character, an engineer, after reading your post some time ago and cobbled together a transphasic build on my science Ody. It wasn't spectacular, but it urged me to give it a try on a science character, and to that point I now have a science vice admiral running a tactical Vesta and it has been my favorite build on STO ( http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=transtorpboatmkii_0 ). It is utterly devastating in the Voth contested zone and the Undine space battleground.
Vesta is such a flexible ship with that universal lt. cmdr slot you could easily just turn that over to Tac and load TS3 for more pretty torpedoes.
I also wish there was a MKXII upgrade for the Breen set like how the Jem'Hadar has it. The adapted MACO is great for all the non-cluster torpedoes on a build and it gives side benefits that are hard to ignore (big boost to AUX for one).
Yeah, I enjoy the Breen set, it really needs a MK XII. I've been working on my reputations, but task force omega is the slowest going (need to see if its been improved much with S9), my goal is to get the Adapted MACO Deflector and Engine, and the Assimilated Regenerative Shield. I'm weighing the use of Nukara Web Mines as well, but it is a hard choice to give up my lt.cmd science for a lt. cmd tactical for TS3 and Mine Disperal.
I am currently using a Aves Dyson destroyer with 2 transphasics and a beam array up front, with a transphasic torp and mine in the back with another beam array. Solenae Set with Reman shield for looks (looks awesome on the dyson ship) and all transphasic tac consoles.
For my build I cloak, prefire torp spread 3, then break cloak with Sen Analysis, then grav well, tacyeon beam1 on my target, fire ts3, then high yield 1, and then fly over and hit em with photonic shockwave and drop a dispersal beta on em with the mines. Blows up groups quite nicely. So far no rep gear but just hit T2 on everything so I was gonna grind out some marks and dil and start crafting.
I'm torn between sticking with transphasics on this build and just getting some rapid fires, cluster launchers, and the breen set OR going with this photon torpedo build...
If I stick with trans, my boosted damage can be 41.9%(breen set and rule 32 console) + 3 trans tac consoles.
If I switch to photon, and get the Adapted Maco set, my photons would be boosted by 36.4%(Adapted Maco set and rule 32 console) + 2 photon tac consoles, 26.2% from Counter command console, and 22.9% +3% critH +20% critD from Protonic Arsenal Set.
That works out to...
Trans- 41.9+(3*28.1)=126.2% trans damage
Photon- 36.4+(2*28.1)+26.2+22.9+3% critH +20% critD=141.7% photon damage +3% critH +20% critD
The question is, is the extra shield pen from transphasic better than the extra photon damage and critX than I can get, plus the extra effects of the grav torp and bio torp?
Also, any refinements you can see on the build for either option?
I haven't seen this thread in quite a while. Lots of good information here.
In response to the updates with photons, I've actually recently gotten back into torp boats for that reason. Right now, both my Fed Tac toon and Romulan Tac toon are running the same basic build, photons.
Let's run a little bit of math (don't worry, it's just arithmetic) for damage increase only.
Protonic Arsenal 2-piece bonus: +22.9% Photon Projectile Weapons
Rule 62: +11.4% to Mine and torpedo damage
Vulnerability Locator: +31.9% x 5 = 159.5% to Photon Projectile Damage
AMACO 2-piece bonus: +25% Torpedo damage
[AMP] in Elite Core +3.3 To all damage
Counter-Command Deflector: +17.5 to Projectile weapons damage
In summary, there is a 218.8% increase in damage output to photon torpedos and 193.8% to photon mines (as the AMACO bonus only applies to torps). On top of all this there is the gravimetric and bio-molecular bonuses not to mention the CritH and CritD bonuses that weren't even factored in here.
I think it's safe to say that a photon build just became very powerful....
The tread is quite interesting and good for new torpboaters. Being a sience captain since the time i started i tried many different torpedobuilds, and maybe ill share some, for example a way to make quantums/photons effective pvp torpedoboats, if someone wants to get it.
However now im here do do a bit of comparison between the good old transphasic torpedoboats and the new photon torpedoboats. To do this we will first do the math on a pure sience ship: The fleet intrepid, still a very good underrated ship, however it lacks a bit of tac bos.
So here is what your transphasic build will do: 2rapid reloads+1 breen cluster in the front. Imagine you go a all dmg buff to torps you could get:
3*Transphasic consoles Mk XII Purple Fleet: +95,7%dmg
Adapted Maco 2 piece: +25% dmg
Undine Deflektor +17.5 Torpedo Weapon Dmg
Rule 62: +11,6%dmg
So you get a total of 132,6% bonus Damage to your rapid reload torpedo
You Rapid Reload does 2104 of base Damage and can (according you have 2 of them combined with 3 purple projektile doff) fire at a rate of averange 2.0sek (1.5 if your doffs proc permanently, however they fail sometime.
the damage per shot goes up to 2104+2104*1,326 = 4893,9 damage per shot
According you shoot once every 2 sec you get a dps of 2336,952 (3262,6 if you shoot every 1.5sek)
However this would be if you shoot to rare hull.
A normal shild does have those 10% bleedthrough and the transphasic add another 20% of this, so you deal 30% of your dmg to the hull: 0.3*4893,9 = 1468,1712 hulldamage per shot.
if the shield of the enemy is a resilent one ( Mostly pvp sience vessels) it would only be 25% total bleedthrough : 1223,4 dmg per shot.
The rest 70% damage are sent to the shilds that have an inertia 75% resistance rating:
3425,8*0,25=856,46 damage per shot to shilds, not counting additional shild resistences (however they are hardcapped anyways).
So you have an average dps of 711,7 to hull and 428,23 to shilds, so you will shred their hull without being able to burn the shilds down.
However now compare it to the photon torpedo build:
You will be able to get the following boosts:
2*Photon consoles Mk XII Purple Fleet: +63,8%dmg
Adapted Maco 2 piece: +25% dmg
Undine Deflektor +17.5 Torpedo Weapon Dmg
Rule 62: +11,6%dmg
Counter-Command Multi-Energy Relay +26.6 % photon and radiation damage.
Dyson 2 set: +22,9% photon torp dmg
adding up to a whoppy 149,9 % bonus damage to the photons
Were ignoring crit and critdmg here, however the dyson 3 is a huge impact, for sure.
You will mostly using the gravimetric photon torpedo and the undine torpedo or 2 undine torpedos.
Your gravimetric deals 3081 of base damage and gets to a 7699,419 damage per shot.
Your undine torpedo does also 3081 base damage and goes to the same 7699,4 damage, however it also adds (after 8 seconds if the enemys dont hazzard emitter, this why you should have you subnuc rdy) another woppy 611,9 dmg directly to the hull, buffed by 26,6% to 774,66 dmg per stack
Those photons also fire on a rate of 1.6 average.
However you miss the 20% additional bleedthrough of the transphasic, so here is how it plays out:
Normal shild: 0.1*7699,419dmg = 769,9419 dmg to hull adding another
Resilent: 0.05*7699419dmg = 384,97095 dmg to hull
Damage to shilds: (7699,419-769,9419)*0,25 = 1732,369 dmg to shilds.
As you see here you will normally shred eneyms shilds better than hull and might need to destroy their shilds and then hull, however adding the radiation damage you suddenly outdamage the transphasics in damage to hull per shot, damage to shilds per shot and also lower their turnrate, and firerate, however you cluster torp looses quite a punch and in pvp you need to be extra cautionous to hazzard emitters removing your debuffs.
I hope i remembered everything that needs to be taken into account, if i missed something tell me and i will correct it.
Well now thwt this thread is back I thought I'd share my t'varo build again. Although there have been a few changes since LoR the basic concept has stayed the same. This build is aimed at PvP, especially Capture and Hold, but works very well in PVE as well.
Getting used to flying it is the hardest part, as well as knowing when to fire torps etc. http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=qbertsohouseoffun_0
Quite interesting build!
Though im not sure why you use that lonely transphasic and the two photons, as i cant see what tac consoles you use. Also i think DPB3 is still a must, so maybe use a polarize hull ( also gives as much resistance as 3 Mk XII purple armors) against tractors. also you do not need TT on the t`varo, another HY or TS will add more than the small damage buff.
Also i feel you could go with just 1 aux to dampers, adding another defenisve option in Technic, maybe another heal.
In skilling, cut off that shieldsystems, you dont need shilds, when you get decloacked youll die anyways if your enemys are decent, also you dont need warpcore effeciency, your aux and engines are very high anyways and you need 0weapon and shild power. Instead go for more Projektile damage. Also i dont see that investing total 12 points into Graviton and Particle Generators makes much sense, if i get it right only the rifts from gravimetric profit from it. On the other hand when you use a aceton you should have flowcaps outskilled for some nice drains. You could instead look for full hull repair and invest the points starship sensors, it is always fun to fine a cloaked bird of prey and just hit them with a high yield torpedo while they have no shilds.
Also while i can understand why you used your engine, you could get a bit more damage out of a
2 Adapted Maco+ Undine Deflektor.
Also you being a sience you should consider a plasma build, more dots and your beachball get truly crazy then, only downside are the many targetable torps.
Those points in shield systems are a mistake, don't know why they are there. The other skills are about right, and allow me to be very module with my builds, and actually the grav and part gens boost my torps as well as making my warp plasma burn just a bit more. I can switch between sci heavy for PVE to engi heavy for pvp. The efficiency thing is only to provide some shield power when I get decloaked, also to negate a bit of the minus power from sing cores.
Omega III has always been a staple of my build, unless I have my snooper loadout, where it is DPB III. The problem with mines is that they get faw'd to death, so unless I know the targets don't use to much AOE I actually run a delta I for defense. Omega III also boost my torps veryyy nicely, allowing me to kill targets in one pass and make a quick escape.
Now unless I have my sci heavy layout I always run dual aux2damp. First off its great resistance, speed boost and makes me harder to hold down. Definitely makes life much easier and has more than 100% uptime.
The torp choice is very specifically designed to kill pvp targets. The photons are always used when I find a target with weak or failing shields, often killing them if they have week hulls. The transphasic torp is used to burn through shields on tackier targets, causing them to waste hull heals that. They will need when the Cluster torp hit and does around 50-100k damage depending on crit.
My tac consoles are all transphasic to boost my main spike damage, the cluster torp.
Also my ship gear is the way it is because I need to speed tank, so using adapted maco combats are not an option, and really for most targets I really don't need extra damage.
Ps. That toon is due for a skill respect again, so I can do a bit of min maxing because I rarely PVE with him anymore.
Ah ok, can understand a few of your arguments.
However i would be interested in what torps are boostet by grav/part gens exept the dyson one.
And still i would like you to take a look on those photons, as by you are barley boosting them it may be that you could come to a better output using more transphasics that are getting a heavy boost, allowing you to do more constant dps/ dps to unshielded, i will calculate it right now:
Transphasic Torp (lets use the rapids, they would be optimal for constant fire:
base dmg: 2104
Buffs: 4 Time console (you could take away the undine 1): +126% dmg
2 Makro: +25% dmg
complete: 5158 damage per shot
Undine Torpedo:
base damage:3181, 611 radiation damage after 8 seks
Buffs: +26,6% PhotonDamage(console)
2 Protonic Arsenal : +22,9% PhotonDamage
+26,6% RadiationDamage
complete:4756,5 Damage,743,526 radiation damage after 8 sek coming to a total 5500,026 damage per shot, however only after 8 sek of an enemy without hazard on him, and if he looses his shilds i dont think he will live 8 more seconds without a healer who will certainly hazard him, making the transphasics win in damage, even if you would use the rapids who deal less dmg than a normal one + you could spare 2 consolslots to use a rule 62 and a transphasic console + your cluster will do more dmg cause of that additional transphasic console
Also i would like to see how omega boosts your torps so much, 16,6% of dmg dont seem so much for me compared to an additional 12 mines. If they try to use an aoe cleaner, subnuke them for that you have it^^.
And as i already stated, you do not need 2 cluster torpedos, the torpdoffs will reduce 1 to its global cd, maybe think about an bioneural warhead or an tricobalt for additional spike dmg.
And yes the engine choice i can understand.
Though i cant understand for what you need warpcorepotential.
When you are decloaked you are certainly dead, you will get tracktored, focussed, no healer in the world will safe you then cause of the lack of shildtanking powers, and both engines and aux should be over 60 at wich warp core potential uses nothing, same goes for the efficient captain trait you use. And btw why you use conservation of energie? You dont have energie Weapons
Aux to Damp i need to test, will come up with that soon.
I have wondered about this - with the photons having the shortest cooldown of all torps. If I have 3 photons in my forward arc, what kind of benefit would I have from using 3 PWOs for the torpedo cooldown reduction?
I ask because the torpedo cooldown/order of fire is something that I struggle to understand. If someone could explain to me how good I could really get my rate of fire with them compared to without them, it would really help.
I get your arguments about the skills, really just because I like having a bit of wiggle room. The toon is in need of a respect anyway so I will min max him.
The weapons will stay the same as well as the boff layout, just because from how long I've flown this ship I have found that they are actually more efficient than going full photon or full transphasic. Like I said, all the torps are really only there to keep some sustained damage and to cause hull heals to be triggered, and then the real damage dealer hits in the form of the cluster.
Also FYI the t'varo and it's two piece makes normal me XII transphasic torpedoes with high CrtD much more efficient, as they are spit out faster than on other ships and provide high base damage.
You are totally right, normal transphasics would be better, i just had no Mk XII ready for my damage calculation. Still i dont really see what the benefit of the photonics shall be that cost 2 consoles and bring less dps than additional transphasics.
You are right there is totally no sense using 3 photons in Front at all.
Here is how it plays out:
Each torp needs 05. seconds to fire.
After it fired it sets all other torpedos onto a global cd of 1 second.
This means that you can not shoot out more than 1 Torpedo every 1.5 seconds.
Longer CD Torps may also have shared global cd between each of them.
So the Cluster Torp will set all clusters (including itself) on a 15seconds global cd (global cd cant be reduced) and itself on a 45 second normal cd. This means you cant fire more than 1 Cluster every 15 sec, however with 3 torp doffs and constant torp spam you can fire 1 every 15 sek with just 1 launcher.
If you would be so kind to post your build and ship, i think there will be a lot to improve
@darinjaneczko
Sorry, but your build wont work out well, exept on infected, cause shooting 80% unshielded targets.
Especially in pvp you wont reach anything because of your quantum torpedos, i think im one of the few making a working quantum build, that unluckily dont works with the t`varo.
You say you deal 8766.3 Damage per shot, however you will get serious problems with shields.
A resilent shield array has a 5% bleedthrough, making your direct damage to hull 8766,3*0,05=438,315 Damage per shot. As you can clearly see you will never kill someone still having his shields like you could with plasma/Transphasic/Undine Photon.
However getting down shilds plays out as follow, because oft he 75% innertia resistent every shield has to kinetic damage: (8766,3-876,63)*0,25=1972,4175 damage to shields per shot.
As you will be fireing 1 Torp every 1.5 sek your Total dps falls down to: (1972,4175+438.315)/1,5=1607,155 total dps, a amount you that will never allow you to do anything decent.
I recommend highly to switch to transphasic as it is very cheap to start with.
I have wondered about this - with the photons having the shortest cooldown of all torps. If I have 3 photons in my forward arc, what kind of benefit would I have from using 3 PWOs for the torpedo cooldown reduction?
I ask because the torpedo cooldown/order of fire is something that I struggle to understand. If someone could explain to me how good I could really get my rate of fire with them compared to without them, it would really help.
I'll go on a tangent for a moment, then try to answer your question.
When I first started the photon build, I was going to use three photons and a rom hyper plasma for spiking/shield bypass. The idea was to use the photons to increase the proc rate of the PWOs and thus decrease the time-to-fire for my plasma. The theory is that the faster the torpedoes fire, the more often the doffs will proc. Therefore, since photons are the fastest firing torp, it made sense to slot a large number of them to keep the proc up and attempt to do reasonable damage in the process. The order in which you slot torpedoes from left to right seems to be the order in which they fire. Which is why you generally slot the torp with the longest cd at the far right. The other three will fire quite often, for torps, reducing the fourth torpedo's time-to-fire significantly. I don't have any scientific proof of this, it's just a gut feeling based on what I've seen.
You are right there is totally no sense using 3 photons in Front at all.
Here is how it plays out:
Each torp needs 05. seconds to fire.
After it fired it sets all other torpedos onto a global cd of 1 second.
This means that you can not shoot out more than 1 Torpedo every 1.5 seconds.
Longer CD Torps may also have shared global cd between each of them.
So the Cluster Torp will set all clusters (including itself) on a 15seconds global cd (global cd cant be reduced) and itself on a 45 second normal cd. This means you cant fire more than 1 Cluster every 15 sec, however with 3 torp doffs and constant torp spam you can fire 1 every 15 sek with just 1 launcher.
If you would be so kind to post your build and ship, i think there will be a lot to improve
That is my build currently - I am trying to create a Kinetic damage dealer, but keep that FBP since I do PVP in Kerrat once in a while.
My doffs are listed in the notes, and I think those PWO ones might be a waste. I generally launch my Grav Well, hit a spread, fly past and hit them with a target_shields on the proton beam. As I am doing that, the cluster and Hargh'peng launch, then I turn around (and park) and hit with my other torp spread and Tykens if it is ready. If I end up taking on too much threat or the player fights back too much, the FBP becomes deadly. If they try to come at me, the TBR pushes them right back into the aftershock GW/Tykens and sometimes I am ready for another round of GW. All the while the other torps are on autofire.
I have skill points in energy because I often find myself switching back into energy weapons at times and hate spending the Zen to re-spec. That is why my skill tree is optimized for nothing, but has a lot of partial specializations. I can't commit to any build for too long.
It does indeed, and is probably helping my cluster in back stay on a lower cooldown. From my tactics, you can see that I often don't end up using those rear torps, and might even do better with swapping out the Hargh'peng, but it has such a nice radiation DOT. I had the Bioneural warhead in back for awhile, but it just kept flying around and rarely actually detonated.
But can the photon cooldown really get all the way to 1s for photons?
Are you really able to slot the experimental proton weapon in the rear? On my vesta it says it can only be slottet into forward slots, will try again tomorrow. Also your Frontarc is a bit of an overkill.
You have a averange chance of 50% per torp to reduce cd by enough to make your photons ready, so with 2 Torps you will have your torps shooting out at 84,9% of the time, then you can equib your Cluster in the front and add a minelauncher to the rear. And as i say again, you should be super careful using the photons without a shildstripping option, for that look my comparison between photons and transphasics on the side before this, only the undine torp may be viable, however still not so effective because of the lost punch on the cluster.
I dont think your photons will be a good effective in kerrat against an any decent player, he will have a ability to escape your graviwell and gravitorp, also he will have hazzard to clean your undine debuff, and your build has not the defense options to hold vs a good klingon alphastriking bop, you will need to use all your cds and then your build has not the dps to hold on.
Your only option is a VERY good use on Subnuke, however for kerrat it has a too long cd as you normally dont have a team to backup you and it is generally too chaotic.
For kerath i would defenitly recommend transphasic for a ship without cloak, a cloaker could go for a spike build of course.
Also i dont like the i can do all but am master off nothing builds, for the start it is just fine but you loose A LOT of potential power.
Also, for the calculation of recharge time also look on my post on top of this page, you can`t reduce the glob cd just the normal cd down to glob cd so mostly your 3rd torp on the front will only fire in 15% of all firecircles wich is a huge punch of lost power - make something better out of it.
Edit to madviola
Hell no, it dont make sense to use the romulan hyperplasma with its relativly low cd and 3x the chance to prock the doffs ( 1time for every torp) backed up by 3 photons that if used alone only 2 could fire because of glob cd.
As i say again: YOU CANT FIRE MORE THAN 1 TORP EVERY 1.5 SEK!! There is no way to do it, exept torp spread and high yield, and of course the romulan hyper fireing 3 torps per cycle.
You are right there is totally no sense using 3 photons in Front at all.
Here is how it plays out:
Each torp needs 05. seconds to fire.
After it fired it sets all other torpedos onto a global cd of 1 second.
This means that you can not shoot out more than 1 Torpedo every 1.5 seconds.
Longer CD Torps may also have shared global cd between each of them.
So the Cluster Torp will set all clusters (including itself) on a 15seconds global cd (global cd cant be reduced) and itself on a 45 second normal cd. This means you cant fire more than 1 Cluster every 15 sec, however with 3 torp doffs and constant torp spam you can fire 1 every 15 sek with just 1 launcher.
If you would be so kind to post your build and ship, i think there will be a lot to improve
2) I said in my previous post that I thought about slotting that configuration. However, I don't own a Romulan Hyper Plasma torp, so I wouldn't know. The answer I gave hipachilles about the procs was from my experience with running rapid reload transphasics and a Breen cluster torp and from my current build using photons. I ended up going full photons, and that build was intended for pve, and it's quite good at it if you have a little patience. I fly it in strafing runs, that way I can hit them coming and going.
Hey, for sure i know this is just a game, however when you ask something about your build then it may happen someone critisizes it. Also i dont like if someone answers to questions without knowing anything about the game mechanics, because another one might follow your wrong advice, leading to more stupid builds.
And for sure it works in current pve, sou can do estfs with the tier 3 intrepid cause its so ridiciously easy. But if you just think about going to pvp then you should be careful that your build isnt totally TRIBBLE.
And btw, 3 hyper recharges are a bit wasted as well
To rad, I can see why you are slightly confused with my build, but there are a few reasons why I run it the way I do.
the photons do much more damage against the unshielded targets that I often find. Also the gravimetric and it's rifts are great for decloaking, the enhanced bio has one of the best high yields in the game for hitting unaware targets with a damaged shield facing, and they also get set bonuses thwt greatly buff all my weapons with crtH and CrtD. Those two buffs alone add a very nice boost to all my weapons, and make the clusters just hit even harder.
I never said i would totally disagree with a photon build, look on the last page, i even recommended it for advanced players.
And i do not see your configuration, neither what ship you are flying.
However i wrote something about your answer to hipachilles, where you said that putting 3 photons in front would make sense, which is not so as 1 of them usually cant fire.
Also i said that a photon build needs to be calculated very well in order to be more effective than a transphasic build for ferderations, for romulans this is kind of different, espeaccialy with the t`varo.
However, i just tested, you CAN place the experimental proton weapon into the rear, making the build quite a bit more viable for a ferderations vessel.
In case you dont run a t`varo, how do you find unshielded targets in pvp?
Comments
"I have become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=ornithtvaroconcept_2647
Mostly a pure Transphasic aside from the Nukara Mines and the Hargh'peng in the back. AMACO 2-piece for torpedo benefits, Solanae 2-piece for bonuses to Aux. My questions are as follows:
Do the Spire Tac consoles make as much sense in a torp build, or are standard Tac consoles better? I'll probably be starting with standard ones either way, as my Rom is FC poor and will take her a while to grind those out.
What should the ratio of Transphasic to general torpedo Tac consoles be?
Is TB3 what I should be using in that Lt.Cdr Sci spot, or does Grav Well make more sense? I likely will not be flying this into PvP, at least not until I'm more used to the Torp Boat concept.
Destabilized Plasma with the Transphasics or nay? I'll probably make a plasma loadout when I can afford to do so, but Transphasic is cheaper to start. Not sure if I should keep that Destabilized Plasma with the TP, or if I'd benefit more from some other consoles there.
Any other suggestions are appreciated.
If you have the fleet creds, then yes having the Spire console for the extra umph in torpedo damage will definitely work (having that additional CrtD or CrtH never hurts). I run a Fleet Intrepid and went with 2 fleet consoles for transphasics since a bulk of my DPS is from the cluster mine and 1 fleet console that boosts all projectiles. Non-fleet can certainly work as well.
Consider GW in the Lt Cmdr slot only because the Breen Cluster will likely blow up the ship you're targeting and you can get a nice chain effect going on. TB3 becomes less of a need if goign out plasma or transphasics (if you ran pure photon for example than TB3 becomes more ideal).
My 2 cents.
3x PWO
2x Deflector Officer (deflector ability CD reduction)
If I get the 6th active slot from the spire, maybe a Gravimetric Scientist for aftershocks. Most of my normal go-to Doffs are irrelevant here. BFI Doffs, DCEs are useless. Even the cleanse WCE isn't much use if you're not constantly cycling an EPtX power. This build is way out of my comfort zone, kinda freaks me out.
I also wish there was a MKXII upgrade for the Breen set like how the Jem'Hadar has it. The adapted MACO is great for all the non-cluster torpedoes on a build and it gives side benefits that are hard to ignore (big boost to AUX for one).
I am currently using a Aves Dyson destroyer with 2 transphasics and a beam array up front, with a transphasic torp and mine in the back with another beam array. Solenae Set with Reman shield for looks (looks awesome on the dyson ship) and all transphasic tac consoles.
For my build I cloak, prefire torp spread 3, then break cloak with Sen Analysis, then grav well, tacyeon beam1 on my target, fire ts3, then high yield 1, and then fly over and hit em with photonic shockwave and drop a dispersal beta on em with the mines. Blows up groups quite nicely. So far no rep gear but just hit T2 on everything so I was gonna grind out some marks and dil and start crafting.
I'm torn between sticking with transphasics on this build and just getting some rapid fires, cluster launchers, and the breen set OR going with this photon torpedo build...
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=dysontorps_0
I only included the specific traits for the build, and what I thought the other traits would be.
If I stick with trans, my boosted damage can be 41.9%(breen set and rule 32 console) + 3 trans tac consoles.
If I switch to photon, and get the Adapted Maco set, my photons would be boosted by 36.4%(Adapted Maco set and rule 32 console) + 2 photon tac consoles, 26.2% from Counter command console, and 22.9% +3% critH +20% critD from Protonic Arsenal Set.
That works out to...
Trans- 41.9+(3*28.1)=126.2% trans damage
Photon- 36.4+(2*28.1)+26.2+22.9+3% critH +20% critD=141.7% photon damage +3% critH +20% critD
The question is, is the extra shield pen from transphasic better than the extra photon damage and critX than I can get, plus the extra effects of the grav torp and bio torp?
Also, any refinements you can see on the build for either option?
Also, have a great monday eh?
For a Brel fleet ship
Thank you
In response to the updates with photons, I've actually recently gotten back into torp boats for that reason. Right now, both my Fed Tac toon and Romulan Tac toon are running the same basic build, photons.
Here is the end-game for my Fed toon. I've also got the traits and a likeness of the skill points. NOTE: I don't have all of the pieces yet.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=photonfleettacescort_5311
Let's run a little bit of math (don't worry, it's just arithmetic) for damage increase only.
Protonic Arsenal 2-piece bonus: +22.9% Photon Projectile Weapons
Rule 62: +11.4% to Mine and torpedo damage
Vulnerability Locator: +31.9% x 5 = 159.5% to Photon Projectile Damage
AMACO 2-piece bonus: +25% Torpedo damage
[AMP] in Elite Core +3.3 To all damage
Counter-Command Deflector: +17.5 to Projectile weapons damage
In summary, there is a 218.8% increase in damage output to photon torpedos and 193.8% to photon mines (as the AMACO bonus only applies to torps). On top of all this there is the gravimetric and bio-molecular bonuses not to mention the CritH and CritD bonuses that weren't even factored in here.
I think it's safe to say that a photon build just became very powerful....
Thoughts?
Try this... Three purple PWOs, A fabrication engineer, and a Hazard officer. There are traits important to torp boats in there too.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=fleetbrelphoton_5311
However now im here do do a bit of comparison between the good old transphasic torpedoboats and the new photon torpedoboats. To do this we will first do the math on a pure sience ship: The fleet intrepid, still a very good underrated ship, however it lacks a bit of tac bos.
So here is what your transphasic build will do: 2rapid reloads+1 breen cluster in the front. Imagine you go a all dmg buff to torps you could get:
3*Transphasic consoles Mk XII Purple Fleet: +95,7%dmg
Adapted Maco 2 piece: +25% dmg
Undine Deflektor +17.5 Torpedo Weapon Dmg
Rule 62: +11,6%dmg
So you get a total of 132,6% bonus Damage to your rapid reload torpedo
You Rapid Reload does 2104 of base Damage and can (according you have 2 of them combined with 3 purple projektile doff) fire at a rate of averange 2.0sek (1.5 if your doffs proc permanently, however they fail sometime.
the damage per shot goes up to 2104+2104*1,326 = 4893,9 damage per shot
According you shoot once every 2 sec you get a dps of 2336,952 (3262,6 if you shoot every 1.5sek)
However this would be if you shoot to rare hull.
A normal shild does have those 10% bleedthrough and the transphasic add another 20% of this, so you deal 30% of your dmg to the hull: 0.3*4893,9 = 1468,1712 hulldamage per shot.
if the shield of the enemy is a resilent one ( Mostly pvp sience vessels) it would only be 25% total bleedthrough : 1223,4 dmg per shot.
The rest 70% damage are sent to the shilds that have an inertia 75% resistance rating:
3425,8*0,25=856,46 damage per shot to shilds, not counting additional shild resistences (however they are hardcapped anyways).
So you have an average dps of 711,7 to hull and 428,23 to shilds, so you will shred their hull without being able to burn the shilds down.
However now compare it to the photon torpedo build:
You will be able to get the following boosts:
2*Photon consoles Mk XII Purple Fleet: +63,8%dmg
Adapted Maco 2 piece: +25% dmg
Undine Deflektor +17.5 Torpedo Weapon Dmg
Rule 62: +11,6%dmg
Counter-Command Multi-Energy Relay +26.6 % photon and radiation damage.
Dyson 2 set: +22,9% photon torp dmg
adding up to a whoppy 149,9 % bonus damage to the photons
Were ignoring crit and critdmg here, however the dyson 3 is a huge impact, for sure.
You will mostly using the gravimetric photon torpedo and the undine torpedo or 2 undine torpedos.
Your gravimetric deals 3081 of base damage and gets to a 7699,419 damage per shot.
Your undine torpedo does also 3081 base damage and goes to the same 7699,4 damage, however it also adds (after 8 seconds if the enemys dont hazzard emitter, this why you should have you subnuc rdy) another woppy 611,9 dmg directly to the hull, buffed by 26,6% to 774,66 dmg per stack
Those photons also fire on a rate of 1.6 average.
However you miss the 20% additional bleedthrough of the transphasic, so here is how it plays out:
Normal shild: 0.1*7699,419dmg = 769,9419 dmg to hull adding another
Resilent: 0.05*7699419dmg = 384,97095 dmg to hull
Damage to shilds: (7699,419-769,9419)*0,25 = 1732,369 dmg to shilds.
As you see here you will normally shred eneyms shilds better than hull and might need to destroy their shilds and then hull, however adding the radiation damage you suddenly outdamage the transphasics in damage to hull per shot, damage to shilds per shot and also lower their turnrate, and firerate, however you cluster torp looses quite a punch and in pvp you need to be extra cautionous to hazzard emitters removing your debuffs.
I hope i remembered everything that needs to be taken into account, if i missed something tell me and i will correct it.
Getting used to flying it is the hardest part, as well as knowing when to fire torps etc.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=qbertsohouseoffun_0
Though im not sure why you use that lonely transphasic and the two photons, as i cant see what tac consoles you use. Also i think DPB3 is still a must, so maybe use a polarize hull ( also gives as much resistance as 3 Mk XII purple armors) against tractors. also you do not need TT on the t`varo, another HY or TS will add more than the small damage buff.
Also i feel you could go with just 1 aux to dampers, adding another defenisve option in Technic, maybe another heal.
In skilling, cut off that shieldsystems, you dont need shilds, when you get decloacked youll die anyways if your enemys are decent, also you dont need warpcore effeciency, your aux and engines are very high anyways and you need 0weapon and shild power. Instead go for more Projektile damage. Also i dont see that investing total 12 points into Graviton and Particle Generators makes much sense, if i get it right only the rifts from gravimetric profit from it. On the other hand when you use a aceton you should have flowcaps outskilled for some nice drains. You could instead look for full hull repair and invest the points starship sensors, it is always fun to fine a cloaked bird of prey and just hit them with a high yield torpedo while they have no shilds.
Also while i can understand why you used your engine, you could get a bit more damage out of a
2 Adapted Maco+ Undine Deflektor.
Also you being a sience you should consider a plasma build, more dots and your beachball get truly crazy then, only downside are the many targetable torps.
Omega III has always been a staple of my build, unless I have my snooper loadout, where it is DPB III. The problem with mines is that they get faw'd to death, so unless I know the targets don't use to much AOE I actually run a delta I for defense. Omega III also boost my torps veryyy nicely, allowing me to kill targets in one pass and make a quick escape.
Now unless I have my sci heavy layout I always run dual aux2damp. First off its great resistance, speed boost and makes me harder to hold down. Definitely makes life much easier and has more than 100% uptime.
The torp choice is very specifically designed to kill pvp targets. The photons are always used when I find a target with weak or failing shields, often killing them if they have week hulls. The transphasic torp is used to burn through shields on tackier targets, causing them to waste hull heals that. They will need when the Cluster torp hit and does around 50-100k damage depending on crit.
My tac consoles are all transphasic to boost my main spike damage, the cluster torp.
Also my ship gear is the way it is because I need to speed tank, so using adapted maco combats are not an option, and really for most targets I really don't need extra damage.
Ps. That toon is due for a skill respect again, so I can do a bit of min maxing because I rarely PVE with him anymore.
However i would be interested in what torps are boostet by grav/part gens exept the dyson one.
And still i would like you to take a look on those photons, as by you are barley boosting them it may be that you could come to a better output using more transphasics that are getting a heavy boost, allowing you to do more constant dps/ dps to unshielded, i will calculate it right now:
Transphasic Torp (lets use the rapids, they would be optimal for constant fire:
base dmg: 2104
Buffs: 4 Time console (you could take away the undine 1): +126% dmg
2 Makro: +25% dmg
complete: 5158 damage per shot
Undine Torpedo:
base damage:3181, 611 radiation damage after 8 seks
Buffs: +26,6% PhotonDamage(console)
2 Protonic Arsenal : +22,9% PhotonDamage
+26,6% RadiationDamage
complete:4756,5 Damage,743,526 radiation damage after 8 sek coming to a total 5500,026 damage per shot, however only after 8 sek of an enemy without hazard on him, and if he looses his shilds i dont think he will live 8 more seconds without a healer who will certainly hazard him, making the transphasics win in damage, even if you would use the rapids who deal less dmg than a normal one + you could spare 2 consolslots to use a rule 62 and a transphasic console + your cluster will do more dmg cause of that additional transphasic console
Also i would like to see how omega boosts your torps so much, 16,6% of dmg dont seem so much for me compared to an additional 12 mines. If they try to use an aoe cleaner, subnuke them for that you have it^^.
And as i already stated, you do not need 2 cluster torpedos, the torpdoffs will reduce 1 to its global cd, maybe think about an bioneural warhead or an tricobalt for additional spike dmg.
And yes the engine choice i can understand.
Though i cant understand for what you need warpcorepotential.
When you are decloaked you are certainly dead, you will get tracktored, focussed, no healer in the world will safe you then cause of the lack of shildtanking powers, and both engines and aux should be over 60 at wich warp core potential uses nothing, same goes for the efficient captain trait you use. And btw why you use conservation of energie? You dont have energie Weapons
Aux to Damp i need to test, will come up with that soon.
EDIT:I tried to configurate it how i would so you can see^^
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=transtvarobomber_0
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1187631
I have wondered about this - with the photons having the shortest cooldown of all torps. If I have 3 photons in my forward arc, what kind of benefit would I have from using 3 PWOs for the torpedo cooldown reduction?
I ask because the torpedo cooldown/order of fire is something that I struggle to understand. If someone could explain to me how good I could really get my rate of fire with them compared to without them, it would really help.
The weapons will stay the same as well as the boff layout, just because from how long I've flown this ship I have found that they are actually more efficient than going full photon or full transphasic. Like I said, all the torps are really only there to keep some sustained damage and to cause hull heals to be triggered, and then the real damage dealer hits in the form of the cluster.
Also FYI the t'varo and it's two piece makes normal me XII transphasic torpedoes with high CrtD much more efficient, as they are spit out faster than on other ships and provide high base damage.
You are totally right, normal transphasics would be better, i just had no Mk XII ready for my damage calculation. Still i dont really see what the benefit of the photonics shall be that cost 2 consoles and bring less dps than additional transphasics.
@hipachilles
You are right there is totally no sense using 3 photons in Front at all.
Here is how it plays out:
Each torp needs 05. seconds to fire.
After it fired it sets all other torpedos onto a global cd of 1 second.
This means that you can not shoot out more than 1 Torpedo every 1.5 seconds.
Longer CD Torps may also have shared global cd between each of them.
So the Cluster Torp will set all clusters (including itself) on a 15seconds global cd (global cd cant be reduced) and itself on a 45 second normal cd. This means you cant fire more than 1 Cluster every 15 sec, however with 3 torp doffs and constant torp spam you can fire 1 every 15 sek with just 1 launcher.
If you would be so kind to post your build and ship, i think there will be a lot to improve
@darinjaneczko
Sorry, but your build wont work out well, exept on infected, cause shooting 80% unshielded targets.
Especially in pvp you wont reach anything because of your quantum torpedos, i think im one of the few making a working quantum build, that unluckily dont works with the t`varo.
You say you deal 8766.3 Damage per shot, however you will get serious problems with shields.
A resilent shield array has a 5% bleedthrough, making your direct damage to hull 8766,3*0,05=438,315 Damage per shot. As you can clearly see you will never kill someone still having his shields like you could with plasma/Transphasic/Undine Photon.
However getting down shilds plays out as follow, because oft he 75% innertia resistent every shield has to kinetic damage: (8766,3-876,63)*0,25=1972,4175 damage to shields per shot.
As you will be fireing 1 Torp every 1.5 sek your Total dps falls down to: (1972,4175+438.315)/1,5=1607,155 total dps, a amount you that will never allow you to do anything decent.
I recommend highly to switch to transphasic as it is very cheap to start with.
I'll go on a tangent for a moment, then try to answer your question.
When I first started the photon build, I was going to use three photons and a rom hyper plasma for spiking/shield bypass. The idea was to use the photons to increase the proc rate of the PWOs and thus decrease the time-to-fire for my plasma. The theory is that the faster the torpedoes fire, the more often the doffs will proc. Therefore, since photons are the fastest firing torp, it made sense to slot a large number of them to keep the proc up and attempt to do reasonable damage in the process. The order in which you slot torpedoes from left to right seems to be the order in which they fire. Which is why you generally slot the torp with the longest cd at the far right. The other three will fire quite often, for torps, reducing the fourth torpedo's time-to-fire significantly. I don't have any scientific proof of this, it's just a gut feeling based on what I've seen.
Does that make sense?
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=wellskinetic_7749
That is my build currently - I am trying to create a Kinetic damage dealer, but keep that FBP since I do PVP in Kerrat once in a while.
My doffs are listed in the notes, and I think those PWO ones might be a waste. I generally launch my Grav Well, hit a spread, fly past and hit them with a target_shields on the proton beam. As I am doing that, the cluster and Hargh'peng launch, then I turn around (and park) and hit with my other torp spread and Tykens if it is ready. If I end up taking on too much threat or the player fights back too much, the FBP becomes deadly. If they try to come at me, the TBR pushes them right back into the aftershock GW/Tykens and sometimes I am ready for another round of GW. All the while the other torps are on autofire.
I have skill points in energy because I often find myself switching back into energy weapons at times and hate spending the Zen to re-spec. That is why my skill tree is optimized for nothing, but has a lot of partial specializations. I can't commit to any build for too long.
It does indeed, and is probably helping my cluster in back stay on a lower cooldown. From my tactics, you can see that I often don't end up using those rear torps, and might even do better with swapping out the Hargh'peng, but it has such a nice radiation DOT. I had the Bioneural warhead in back for awhile, but it just kept flying around and rarely actually detonated.
But can the photon cooldown really get all the way to 1s for photons?
You have a averange chance of 50% per torp to reduce cd by enough to make your photons ready, so with 2 Torps you will have your torps shooting out at 84,9% of the time, then you can equib your Cluster in the front and add a minelauncher to the rear. And as i say again, you should be super careful using the photons without a shildstripping option, for that look my comparison between photons and transphasics on the side before this, only the undine torp may be viable, however still not so effective because of the lost punch on the cluster.
I dont think your photons will be a good effective in kerrat against an any decent player, he will have a ability to escape your graviwell and gravitorp, also he will have hazzard to clean your undine debuff, and your build has not the defense options to hold vs a good klingon alphastriking bop, you will need to use all your cds and then your build has not the dps to hold on.
Your only option is a VERY good use on Subnuke, however for kerrat it has a too long cd as you normally dont have a team to backup you and it is generally too chaotic.
For kerath i would defenitly recommend transphasic for a ship without cloak, a cloaker could go for a spike build of course.
Also i dont like the i can do all but am master off nothing builds, for the start it is just fine but you loose A LOT of potential power.
Also, for the calculation of recharge time also look on my post on top of this page, you can`t reduce the glob cd just the normal cd down to glob cd so mostly your 3rd torp on the front will only fire in 15% of all firecircles wich is a huge punch of lost power - make something better out of it.
Edit to madviola
Hell no, it dont make sense to use the romulan hyperplasma with its relativly low cd and 3x the chance to prock the doffs ( 1time for every torp) backed up by 3 photons that if used alone only 2 could fire because of glob cd.
As i say again: YOU CANT FIRE MORE THAN 1 TORP EVERY 1.5 SEK!! There is no way to do it, exept torp spread and high yield, and of course the romulan hyper fireing 3 torps per cycle.
To copy what i wrote on top of this page:
@hipachilles
You are right there is totally no sense using 3 photons in Front at all.
Here is how it plays out:
Each torp needs 05. seconds to fire.
After it fired it sets all other torpedos onto a global cd of 1 second.
This means that you can not shoot out more than 1 Torpedo every 1.5 seconds.
Longer CD Torps may also have shared global cd between each of them.
So the Cluster Torp will set all clusters (including itself) on a 15seconds global cd (global cd cant be reduced) and itself on a 45 second normal cd. This means you cant fire more than 1 Cluster every 15 sec, however with 3 torp doffs and constant torp spam you can fire 1 every 15 sek with just 1 launcher.
If you would be so kind to post your build and ship, i think there will be a lot to improve
1) Settle down, it's just a game.
2) I said in my previous post that I thought about slotting that configuration. However, I don't own a Romulan Hyper Plasma torp, so I wouldn't know. The answer I gave hipachilles about the procs was from my experience with running rapid reload transphasics and a Breen cluster torp and from my current build using photons. I ended up going full photons, and that build was intended for pve, and it's quite good at it if you have a little patience. I fly it in strafing runs, that way I can hit them coming and going.
Your build is very similar to mine. Have you considered using fleet photon torpedoes?
I have, and in time I may. I mainly wanted to see how the bio-molecular photons would perform.
And for sure it works in current pve, sou can do estfs with the tier 3 intrepid cause its so ridiciously easy. But if you just think about going to pvp then you should be careful that your build isnt totally TRIBBLE.
And btw, 3 hyper recharges are a bit wasted as well
the photons do much more damage against the unshielded targets that I often find. Also the gravimetric and it's rifts are great for decloaking, the enhanced bio has one of the best high yields in the game for hitting unaware targets with a damaged shield facing, and they also get set bonuses thwt greatly buff all my weapons with crtH and CrtD. Those two buffs alone add a very nice boost to all my weapons, and make the clusters just hit even harder.
And i do not see your configuration, neither what ship you are flying.
However i wrote something about your answer to hipachilles, where you said that putting 3 photons in front would make sense, which is not so as 1 of them usually cant fire.
Also i said that a photon build needs to be calculated very well in order to be more effective than a transphasic build for ferderations, for romulans this is kind of different, espeaccialy with the t`varo.
However, i just tested, you CAN place the experimental proton weapon into the rear, making the build quite a bit more viable for a ferderations vessel.
In case you dont run a t`varo, how do you find unshielded targets in pvp?