Recommend me some away team weapons...

ravenmorpheus2k · November 2014

Hello

I just hit Vice Admiral and I'm looking into setting up my Federation away team a bit better regarding weapons now that I have access to pretty much anything (although I'd like to avoid stuff that requires me to grind to obtain) and I'm a little lost.

Currently I have 2 tactical guys including myself, 1 science officer, another science officer (but I class him as medical) and an engineering officer on my away team.

I'm armed with the Federation Type 3 Phaser rifle that is given via one of the Devidian storyline missions. I understand it's a nod to a TOS episode...

The rest of my team has between them 2x Phaser Full Auto Rifles and 2x Phaser Stun Pistols.

I plan on equipping one of them with an assault minigun, however I'm a bit lost as to what to equip the other 3 with?

Also my personal weapon seems a bit pants, I've never been a huge fan of TOS in terms of how things looked (more of a TOS era films fan), and I'm not happy with it's rate of fire, so I'd like to get something else, preferably one that looks more 24th century Star Trek and less cheesy 60's toy. (I love the Voyager era MkIIIa Phaser Rifle look btw).

So I need some weapon recommendations?

Thanks in advance for any tips.

noucantcme · November 2014

If you're looking at aesthetics I'm just as lost, but if you're looking at functionality. . .pulse-wave assault(I've heard them referred to as shotguns) almost always has best dps, and if you want an exploit I believe sniper rifle is best. Right now the Mirror Universe event will nab you a shotgun, not sure how that'll stack up but I'm sure will be aesthetically pleasing.

darkjeff · November 2014

The team I ran with for a very long time:

1x Tactical with Draw Fire, Buffs, Debuffs, using a Pulsewave.
2x Engineers with Shield Recharge, Shield Recharge, Turrets, Supply Drone, using Pulsewaves.
1x Science with Heal, Heal, HoT, Nanite thing, using a sniper rifle.

When combat starts, the Science BOff inevitably uses the secondary fire, delaying when they'd start shooting. The Engies delay engagement because they're busy setting up that turret and summoning drones. This leaves the Tac to buff and start fighting.

Pulsewaves hit groups, anyone that ignore the charging BOffs end up getting shot in the back. The AI also (used to) make the enemy charge at you, maximizing the damage of the Pulsewaves. It was easy-mode for pretty much all content where you have a full Away Team.

That's 4 shield heals between 2 Eng, and 4 heals on the Sci. Keeps the Tac guy (and the rest of the team) upright. I'm usually an Engineer though, so I have the DOffs that summon extra turrets and drones, resulting in a mass field of turrets.

The above was all designed (at least 2 years ago) to account for AI quirks and weapon use. Don't know if anything has changed, and nowadays all my BOffs are using set gear so the weapon choices are all different.

That said, I'm currently playing/leveling a Romulan alt, and everybody is using the Plasma Piercing Beam Rifle. They basically spray a steady stream of bolts at something, and everything dies. I think it's even more effective than my previous tactic, though everybody has the same ability loadout.

necaradan666 · November 2014

After a while the need for storage space becomes critical, so I use my fed boffs to carry all my spare rep sets, my pair of Tac carry Omega and Counter Command sets, my two Sci wear MACO and Adapted MACO sets, my two Eng use Voth and Nukara sets, I guess when I finish off Delta rep I'll equip my Intel boff with that.

All the rep gear seems better than the common stuff you can get and my boffs put the set abilities to use on away team missions.

My romulan team all use various MkXII plasma weapons I got from boxes while doing rom rep projects. Tac with minigun/blast assault, Sci with split/high density beam and Eng with pulsewave/full auto. I use a plasma compression pistol with the captain

stonewbie · November 2014

My standard team is usually:

Tac boff - Photon Grenade - Target Optics - Battle Strategies - Fire On My Mark
Tac boff - Photon Grenade - Target Optics - Battle Strategies - Overwatch
Sci boff - Medical Tricorder - Tricorder Scan - Vascular Regenerator - Nanite Health Monitor
Eng boff - Shield Recharge - Chroniton Mines - Phaser Turrets - Medical Generator

For weapons the tac with FOMM gets a full auto rifle or pulsewave rifle, the one with overwatch gets a minigun. Science boff gets a compression pistol or split beam rifle. Eng boff gets a full auto rifle, pulsewave or a blast assault rifle. For myself i run a split beam and a sniper rifle...sometimes a pulsewave. Basically the boffs get the expose weapons and i use the exploit weapons. Weapon types are AP with CritD for me and Disruptors for everyone else with at least 1 boff using a Polaron weapon. Depending on my character, how much i have into ground skill points i may just use my pulsewave full time and not even worry about exploits. I'll order my boffs to attack and i'll run in get right behind a pack of bad guys, hit X to aim and hit them point blank to the back of the head with a pulsewave secondary blast.

There is a mission called Facility 4028 which when you do for the first time you are rewarded a doff pack. In this doff pack is a very rare Biochemist doff named Dathan which i put on my ground doff roster. This doff gives your science debuffs a -damage resistance modifier. Meaning any enemies hit with you or your sci boffs debuffs like tricorder scan, tachyon harmonics or electrograv takes increased damage. Some people say that photon grenades are mostly useless in ground, but i manually fire all 2 (or 3 if my toon is a tac) at the opening of a fight so they dont dodge them all.

EDIT: ohh and for the later borg episodes where they adapt i use all pulsewaves on everybody and a sniper rifle as my secondary. Each weapon is also a different energy weapon type. Reason i use pulsewaves is because each individual shot and the secondary shot only shoot once and for a lot of damage. When you have weapons that say shoots x5 for 15 damage each i think each of those 5 shots increases the chance that the borg will adapt. So you dont want to fight a bunch of borg with 5 phaser miniguns because it just increases their chance to adapt.

lordmalak1 · November 2014

How is the sniper rifle an exploit ? I always carry one.
My tacs have assault miniguns, engies have pulsewaves and my sci's splitbeams. I keep 3 sets- 1 borg, 1 sonic, 1 generic. Mostly Disruptor and Polaron.

Thanks stonewbie for the explanation.

stonewbie · November 2014

lordmalak1 wrote: »

How is the sniper rifle an exploit ? I always carry one.
My tacs have assault miniguns, engies have pulsewaves and my sci's splitbeams. I keep 3 sets- 1 borg, 1 sonic, 1 generic. Mostly Disruptor and Polaron.

context...I wasnt talking about exploit as in doing something illegal or against the games ToS.

Take a look at your sniper rifle hover over it and look at its secondary firing mode. That is what is called an EXPLOIT type attack. You also have other weapons such as pulsewaves and full auto rifles that have EXPOSE type attacks. Certain boff abilities also are able to EXPLOIT and EXPOSE enemies. When an enemy gets exposed they have a red and white swirly circle show up on them. When you hit them with an exploit type attack or boff ability they take a ton more damage.

Its basically a vulnerability type mechanic. When you hit a mob with your sniper rifles secondary attack which is an exploit type attack they will take lets say 100 damage. But if you or anyone else hits them with an expose attack and makes them vulnerable (that red and white swirly looking target on their chest) then instead of taking 100 damage from your sniper rifles exploit attack they take 300 damage instead. The figures arent exact but i think you get the idea. When you kill a mob that is in an exposed state with an exploit attack they also disintegrate.

tigeraries · November 2014

Main use an split beam exploit weapon, all boffs use expose weapons. full assault rifles seem to be the best, thou I hear there are specific mini guns that has an instant ae expose attacks.

darkjeff · November 2014

Split Beam Rifles are excellent Exploit weapons, I find the charge-up so slow on the Sniper Rifles that the targets tend to either be dead, or no longer Exposed by the time it fires. Split Beam Rifles also allows me to hit nearby Exposed enemies without having to switch my target, too. I've vaporized 2-3 targets at once before, feelsgoodman.jpg

tinead51 · November 2014

"Look around you, can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe ?"

deaftravis05 · November 2014

I generally toss my Boffs my mark XII stuff leftovers from reputations when I find a better toy. (To be honest I do it for the accolades)

as a result, they're actually more deadlier than I am

nicha0 · November 2014

The reality is, your boffs suck badly, they are stupid and only able to use random abilities with no intelligence. Don't worry, besides some lazy scripted combos, enemies are the same, cryptic is completely incompetent when it comes to AI.

So most of your boffs functions will come from activating stuff. Weapons wise they really have no dps, so go with function, pulsewaves for knockdown or something else for AoE fire or that causes exposes for yourself to use. Similarily you want their skills to be similar, don't give them a self buff to damage, they'll stand there looking like an idiot wasting it nearly the entire time. Boffs are for heals, and buffs. Engineers are pretty useless most of the time, you don't need a randomly placed turret or generator.

captainoblivous · November 2014

I agree with most of what's been said already. Use boffs for exposes, buffs and heals.

That means Full auto rifles for them, things like triage, overwatch etc for powers (aoe, buffs and heals)
Then you rock a split beam rifle for the quick reaction exploits over multiple targets. Not quite as big a hit as a sniper exploit, but it's much quicker to react and therefore much more likely to be a good hit within the expose window.

generator88 · November 2014

Early on, I settled into the approach of "boffs expose, I exploit". At some point I became a fan of the High Density Beam Rifle for exploit, and pulsewaves or auto-rifles for expose. If whatever ground set I'm currently using has an expose weapon, my other one will be an exploit and vice-versa.

Be aware that one of the preset keys of the ground control set is "target the nearest exposed dude". I think it's G, but don't hold me to that.

Later on,
Generator

ravenmorpheus2k · November 2014

OK thanks guys. I guess pulsewaves are the way to go. I did a couple of campaign missions which had away team action yesterday after investing in a phaser pulsewave assault MK XI for myself (at least it doesn't look like a 60's sci-fi toy) and an assault minigun for my other tactical officer and my away team didn't have much of a problem, although my tactical officer with the minigun is a little over-enthusiastic with it. Lol.

deaftravis05 · November 2014

ravenmorpheus2k wrote: »

OK thanks guys. I guess pulsewaves are the way to go. I did a couple of campaign missions which had away team action yesterday after investing in a phaser pulsewave assault MK XI for myself (at least it doesn't look like a 60's sci-fi toy) and an assault minigun for my other tactical officer and my away team didn't have much of a problem, although my tactical officer with the minigun is a little over-enthusiastic with it. Lol.

tacs should be pulsewave, sci should be snipers and eng should be splitbeam...

I just gave mine my leftover reps and they're quite deadly. but if you're not going reps, try that strategy.

generator88 · November 2014

ravenmorpheus2k wrote: »

OK thanks guys. I guess pulsewaves are the way to go. I did a couple of campaign missions which had away team action yesterday after investing in a phaser pulsewave assault MK XI for myself (at least it doesn't look like a 60's sci-fi toy) and an assault minigun for my other tactical officer and my away team didn't have much of a problem, although my tactical officer with the minigun is a little over-enthusiastic with it. Lol.

I don't know that is go all-pulsewaves, mind you, but they're definitely a nice part of the mix.

Generator

burstorion · November 2014

If you are up for coding or click-dragging their abilities to your power bar, you can set up effective bridge officers who buff at your command (the beauty of having two to four engies who all drop mines/turrets/mortars or all tacs who lunge simultaneously at a target is undeniable and can get a few 'how did you do that?' posts on zone)

If you tell them when to use an ability, they are infinitely better - also creative use of the 'attack my selected target' can create some intresting tactical situations...

As to guns, I tend to put long range on scis, pulsewaves on engies and tacs (or set your tac to use sweeping strikes and give them no gun)

ralphgraphite · November 2014

Alot of good advice in this thread. I'm going to put some of this to use to improve my non-solo ground game!

crabbycabby · November 2014

I want to point out that Pulsewaves are very range limited in their damage, so keep that in mind.

I would also suggest mixing damage types (Disrupters for tacs, Plasma for others, or something...) just in case of high resistance.

As for you (the Captain) I go for a Split Beam (to start) and Pulsewave (if things get up close).

And don't forget that very useful trait "Situational Awareness" that exposes all enemies effected by your grenades...

lindaleff · November 2014

The weapons all depend on your environment. In wide-open spaces, go with Full Auto all the way. In cramped conditions, like ship corridors, everyone needs to use Pulsewaves.

For an example, look at Assimilation. 90% of that mission is up close, and personal. And then you have that Undine, where the best strategy is to line everyone against the wall outside the door, and lure the Undine to you. Pulsewave crit flanking from all directions was tailor-made for this.

And then you have the Breen missions, where you are in open country. Tell an officer to stand here, another to stand here, and the others over there, and I'll stay where I am. This is where Full Auto is king.

As for energy type, that depends on your targets. When you attack Borg (again, Assimilation), you need to make sure every member of your team has a different energy type. But for everything else (Breen, Dividians, EVERYTHING), a full team of Antiproton is the best, by far.

Recommend me some away team weapons...

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