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Help me build an unsinkable boat!
arilouskiff
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Okay, I love my Vesta. It turns on a dime, spews cannonfire like... Something and has loads of utility.
That said, it's not exactly the sturdiest thing alive, and I'm getting really tired of being one-shotted.
So... I'd figure I'd try something different: Build a tank. (Yes, I am aware tanks are sub-optimal) The risian cruisers seems decent enough for the job. (since I can't get a Bulwark...)
Problem is, I have no idea how to actually build something tanky in this game, as in, what sets are good? Consoles? Etc. Etc. I'm more interested in survivability here than DPS.
Any tips?
That said, it's not exactly the sturdiest thing alive, and I'm getting really tired of being one-shotted.
So... I'd figure I'd try something different: Build a tank. (Yes, I am aware tanks are sub-optimal) The risian cruisers seems decent enough for the job. (since I can't get a Bulwark...)
Problem is, I have no idea how to actually build something tanky in this game, as in, what sets are good? Consoles? Etc. Etc. I'm more interested in survivability here than DPS.
Any tips?
Post edited by arilouskiff on
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Had to be done LOL.
We will require aux2sif3, engineering team 3, rsp, tactical team, 3 brace for impact doffs, an rsp doff, 2 damage control doffs, epts, biotech patch, attack pattern delta, be an engineer with miracle worker and grace under fire, transfer shield strength, sci team...ya...
Would already be pretty damn near super tanky...
What ship did you have in mind? Just so I know what I have to work with...
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Aegis (Crafted/Exchange) - entry level tanking set, decent equipment values and set bonuses, but if you have access to better then skip this one. Don't bother crafting it yourself for now, save your items for Season 9.5. Maybe Aegis will get a balance pass with the crafting revamp?
Dyson (Dyson Reputation) - good defensive values on the deflector, engine gives you a bit of an energy boost. The shield is regenerative, so low hitpoint capacity, but has a built-in emergency heal when it's low. 4-piece set bonus also gives you an emergency shield harden that works well with the emergency heal, but they're both on long cooldowns so you'll need to keep yourself alive while they recharge. Personally I felt like this one didn't really live up to my expectations, mostly because of the low shield capacity. The 2- and 3-piece set bonuses alone aren't very defensive, either go the full 4-piece or get a different set.
Adapted MACO/KHG - decent bonuses, but more designed to give you additional survivability rather than make you function as a true tank. Shield has a chance to placate attackers, making them shoot at someone else for a short time, 3-piece set bonus can hide you from enemy fire for a short time while you recover/run away
Adapted Borg (Omega Reputation) - most commonly tanks will just use the 2-piece set using the Engine and Deflector for the hull repair set bonus. The shield can be hit or miss depending on your personal preference, adding it gives you a shield heal similar to the hull heal but the shield itself is a Regenerative and therefore has low capacity. Some swear by it, others prefer higher capacity shields. Common choices are the MACO/Adapted KHG (don't use this one if you intend to use the Plasmonic Leach console, they don't work together), Adapted MACO/KHG, or a Fleet Elite shield with ResA/ResB depending on enemy.
Solanae (Step Between Stars) - 3-piece offers a hull leach bonus where dealing damage with energy weapons will heal you, 4-piece gives you an extra Reverse Shield Polarity on a longer cooldown if you have the warp core. The set as a whole is a bit more offensively oriented than the Adapted Borg set, but works well if you're really trying to tank as the Engines have a chance to boost your speed and turn rate when you get hit, and the Shield has a chance to reflect enemy energy weapon damage. My personal choice right now is the Solanae 3-piece plus Fleet Warp Core, but that's partially because I was bored of the Borg 2-piece and wanted to do something different.
The universe has a wonderful sense of humor. The trick is learning how to take a joke.
Any one of the three Odyssey variants are good sturdy tanks if you are Federation.
You need to pay heed to which defensive, healing abilities are based off Aux Power. Auxiliary Power to X, HE, TSS, PH gain a lot of potency with good Aux Power.
If you have the TAC Stations, APD & APO offer significant defensive boosts in different ways. APB will be useless for any sort of defense.
Also realize, that if you are in a huge crunch in slapping massive resists, be aware that there is a massive scale of diminishing returns for Resists. It's very easy to get Resists into the 30's. But once you're in the 40's, your gains drop like a rock thrown in a lake. Take note of the items and abilities that grant Damage Reduction Magnitude or Damage Resistance. They're 2 totally different things. DRM is what you try to stack up to gain the final product, Damage Resistance.
Anyways, we can go into great lengths on Resists, but take a look here.
If you're talking making a tough ship for PVP... man, that's a whole other thing altogether, and I suggest bringing it up in the PVP Subforum. The guys will be very helpful in that regard. But do realize that if you build for an unbreakable ship, be mindful that if you overdo it and the opponents understand that you can't do anything else other than saving yourself, they'll massacre your team and save you for later. There's a point where your ship requires considerable teamwork to take down, and there's a point where your ship can't do anything else but stay alive.
That's the thing with unkillable ships. You can make one, but what else are you going to do? All those healing and defensive abilities you listed, outside Tactical Team, cannot be used on another player. Your damage output is negligible, hard to kill, so you'll get ignored when it's figured out that you can't heal others, can't CC, can't hurt anyone. The rest of the team would be really fighting, say a 4vs5 instead of a 5vs5. You will be dealt with at the other team's leisure as they kill the rest of your teammates.
It's a delicate balance between going overboard on defense to being able to do something else for the team yet still be robust and not easy to pop by the first vape.
(largely becase I figure I'd got touse it for *somthing* after grinding for it all summer
EDIT: Though I'd use the Bulwark if I could have, or the Oddy for that matter, but I don't own either of them...
There is no such thing as unkillable ship. When a Unimatrix lance hits you or a unitmatrix plasma bolt hits you for 400k-600k, there is nothing much you can do. On Pvp, a group can always kill a buffer tank ship no matter how much heal or buffer you got. disable chains + multiple vapes will always kill a tanking ship no matter how powerful it is.
For survivability without thinking about your group, buffer tanker/self healer Eng Toon, based on the availability on your federation toon in order of maximum tank potential.
1.) Voth Bulwark/ Tholian Recluse Carrier / Advanced Obelisk
2.) Fleet Exploration Cruiser Retrofit/Odyssey Sci/Eng cstore version
Risa Luxury Cruiser should not even be in the mix of max tanking potential as that lt com tac and 3 tac consoles lessens your tank both Boff and buffer. Those above have more tanking potential than Risa Luxury Liner.
For maximum tanking potential, you need to have at least 8 sci and eng console slots, the boffs should be Eng Com and Lt Com Eng/Sci.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tankycluse_0
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=youaintfonnadie_0
3 damage control doffs for aux2sif heal over time. 2 conn tactical doffs, keel'el.
Epte should be epts. Sorry.
You'd be a damn good healer in pvp but everywhere else...your being carried...pretty damn awesome tank
My PvE/PvP hybrid skill tree
Actually, the Risian Cruiser is equally suitable for the job for defense.
It has 5 ENG Consoles. A lot of people seem to forget this, maybe because "Luxury Cruiser" is part of the ship name? While you will not stack 5 Dil Mine Neutroniums in there because of diminishing returns, you still have ample ENG Console space for other things. Remember... the Risian Cruiser by default moves fast and turns very well. You do not have to sacrifice console space or BOFF abilities to make it turn, handle better. You CAN but it's not as big a drive compared to other slower ships. Maybe Dil Mine Neutroniums with +HullPoints or +HullRep? Yet the ship will still move vastly superior to a lot of other defensive Cruisers.
It has LtCdr TAC station, which means a lot of potential for defense. For example some sort of mix to include: Tactical Team or two, BFAW to draw attention to yourself, and of course, Attack Patterns, namely Delta & Omega. Omega will be an outstanding "card" for offense or defense.
It moves *A LOT* faster and turns much, much better. Good mobility brings its own reward, and the Risian Cruiser moves faster... more defense. Put good ENG Power and Hyper Impulse, it's great. It will evade more attacks than most other Cruisers (faster KDF Battlecruisers have the same benefit) due to the faster speed & defense. Hey, what if you stuff in those Dyson Rep ENG Consoles? You know... the ones that give extra Bonus Defense? On top of the inherently faster speed the Risian Cruiser can already do? Hmm...
It's robust enough in the default Cmdr & Ens ENG stations.
The Universal Lt Station can find equal potency wherever you decide to use it: TAC, ENG, or SCI. One of the most obvious BOFF layouts is setting the Risian Cruiser up like an Excelsior. And nobody complains about the performance of the Excelsior in offense and defense. You also CAN set it up with Dual or Single A2B, but you don't need to.
In short: Being able to move quickly enough while under heavy fire yet still come out the better for it is still achieving the same result as a bulky, slow moving ship that takes 100% of the shots coming at it.
Lastly: Coordinated teams with ample tactical, engineering, and esp. science, will take anyone down.
Anyway, there are 3 ways to tank:
1. Shield heals and resistances
2. Hull heals and resistances
3. Speed
Shields seem to provide the best protection overall in PvE for slow ships and slow turning ships, but there are times where hull heals are critical. I'll assume beam arrays are your weapons. Since you mentioned a risian cruiser, I'll give you something to start with.
TT1, APD1, APD2
EPTA1, EPTS2, EPTS3, RSP3
EPTA1
HE1, TSS2
HE1, TSS2
2 conn officers to reduce tactical team (1 purple and 1 blue or 2 purple)
1 warp core engineer to enhance power upon use of EPTx abilities
2 energy weapon officers to add chance for shield buff on use of beam weapons
The 4 EPTx abilities are there to keep EPTSx running every 30 seconds, the time the effects of the damage resistance operates. If only running 2 EPTx abilities, the time between activation would be 45 seconds, leaving a 15 second "gap" without the shield resistance enhancement.
Tactical team is to reorient the shields. Tac team works for 10 seconds and has a 6 second gap (5 with 2 purple conn officers) without re-orienting and your shield heals and resistance buffs will need to take the damage until tac team can be reactivated.
Transfer Shield Strength has a slow heal, but also adds extra resistances to shields to further reduce incoming damage that EPTS is already helping with. Running these 3 things, tac team, EPTSx and TSSx together and often should provide an excellent level of taking damage.
What does get through the shields can be repaired using hazard emitters.
Attack pattern delta should provide a defensive buff to your ship as well.
Reverse shield polarity is there when you can't wait for tac team to re-activate, shields are almost gone, and the hull is taking a lot of damage.
You won't win any contests with DPS, but it will tank well, most likely too well.
Key skills to have are shield emitters and shield systems, hull repair, structural integrity, hull plating, armor reinforcements.....
2 piece assimilated deflector and engines, fleet warp core and resilient shields (res b) are very good. (Obelisk warp core and omnidirectional AP beam if going with antiproton weapons)
Plasmonic leach with 6-9 points in flow capacitor skill will help get power levels up and add to the shield heals.
Honestly, the build is possibly too focused on tanking. Now that you have a base tanky build, how to trade some of that tanking to get more DPS and get a better balance?
1. While lots of Aux power will help with hazard emitters heals and transfer shield strength too, change APTA1 to EPTW1 for your first move to more damage and a little less tanking.
2. Still way tanky? Try replacing APD1 with BFAW and change the energy weapon officers to ones that add a chance to reduce cooldown on beam special attacks
3. Too tanky still? Change APD2 for APB2 for more damage
4. Not using RSP? Change it to DEM3 for more DPS
You could try an aux to battery build too for more DPS, but it requires expensive DOFFs to run well. If you have at least 1 purple and 2 blue technicians that reduce cooldowns on bridge officer abilities with ise of EPTx, it might go something like.....
TT1, BFAW2, APB2
EPTW1, A2B1, RSP2, DEM3
ET1
HE1, ST2
EPTS1, A2B1
The lack of consistent aux power means certain abilities have little effect, though hazard emitters does stop the burn, so a few things were changed.
3 technicians
1 warp core engineer that boosts power on EPTx actiivation
1 Systems engineer to reduce DEM power use or energy weapon officer to add shield power on use of beams
Most definitely, Risian Cruiser has capable defense. But it aint optimal in tanking compared to the ones I gave. 7 sci and eng consoles is still better than less than 7. But 8 is better than 7 for tanking.
The problem with you justifying speed is good for speed tanking which then again you are barking at the wrong tree. If I were to speed tank, there are better ships than Risian Luxury Liner to do that. But for the tank he is asking, a buffer tank is better than that relies on speed. He already said he doesnt care about dps.
An Excelsior/Risian Luxury Liner aint at par with optimal potential tanking with Bulwark on any ship I mentioned. It only has 3 tac consoles which it makes favorable for dps minded players in a tanking ship. But he wanted an optimal maximum tank not a balanced ship.
Aux to SIF can also be used on other players.
Part of the first team to beat the No Win Scenario (both KDF and Fed)
It's been a long road, getting from there to here~
SCE BOF Condoles 3 min (4)
Hull/ Structural Frame Healing (ENG-BOF)
Shield Healing (ENG, TAC, SCE BOF's)
So go back and re-train your officers
Use some of the kits mention here already.
When your in a battle make sure you pay close attention to the shields 100% and the onboard computer will tell you shields below 75%.. Have a BREAK THIS GLASS AXE if shields get too low before you go POOF!!!
I keep the shields at 100% and there are times where the Undine (aka 8742) will fire that high beam array payload directly at my ship. 100% shields can drop to 90%, 80% what I am seeing but I can quickly regain the shields back to 100%.
SCE-Ship is better to use if you want to hang around longer although ATTACK Escort or set higher could last without getting blown-up. Skill also plays a part. You'll have to use what you have in Photonic Fleet / holographic ships from Nimbus III will help heal your ship only use them for healing though. SCE CAP/ADM get call on the extra set of Photonic Fleet / holographic ships to help you out of JAM!!
Also Space Traits BOF one of the 5 you have make sure you have one for Shields, Energy, and most of all for 8742 Hazard one to use with the Hazard Emitters.
In all your playing skills will improve and your ship or next ship will. Can you say you can hold out longer yes, but one slip-up your gone. Again focus on what your doing and have your BOF console skills in your face besides the trays that are there.
Good Luck!
Time will only tell!
You need to do some research on that. You have it confused with another ability.
Previously, I covered a tanky bridge officer setup. Other players covered the space gear like engines and shields.
I shield tank in PvE for the most part. So, Tac Team, EPTS, TSS, RSP, ST are things I watch.
Tactical team usually operates for 10 seconds. During that time it will pull power from other shield facings to boost the side under fire. I run skills like EPTS and TSS not just for the healing, but for the damage resistances to the shields they provide.
With your bridge officers running 2 copies of tactical team, the second copy always goes on a 15 second recharge if your BOFFs are fully trained in tactical team. You can use 2 purple/ very rare conn officers that reduce tactical team recharge for the same result and use only 1 tactical team ability. When tactical team is in it's last 5 seconds of operation before it's available, if shields are almost gone and am already or about to take hull damage, that's where the instant healing of science team fills in until tactical team activates again or reverse shield polarity fills that facing and maybe more.
If ST or RSP are still on cooldown, that's where skills like engineering team, hazard emitters and auxiliary to structural are handy. Especially in Borg STFs, you are going to have plasma burn, and hazard emitters stop the burn, even when there is virtually no auxiliary power. Depending on how much auxiliary power you have, will depend on how much healing you get with it, as well. It heals over several seconds, so use ET or A2SIF for the quick heals.
What's nice is that many of those skills can be used to help heal your teammates too.
Nope, self heal only
With that setup it doesn't really matter if you use the Oddy, the Sovi or anything else that supports that setup, personally I'd get used to it on the Sovi and then perhaps port it to the Excel giving me the firepower needed to kill things at the same time.