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Scryer Build Advice
vulcanbaker
Member Posts: 17 Arc User
Greetings,
I'm returning after a bit of an absence, to try out some of the new content. I quite like the look of the new Scryer science vessel, but I've no idea how to kit it out. So I was hoping I might get some advice here.
One possible issue is that I'm not what you'd call a power gamer -- I'm not in a fleet, I don't have everything maxed out, and I don't necessarily build for maximum destructiveness. I'm also relearning the game, so I'm open to suggestions starting from the ground up, with character skills and so forth. I'm building up my R&D skills, more out of a vague hope that they'll be useful than any clear idea what to do with them.
Regarding weapon types, equipment sets, and so forth, I should confess that I'm subject to a most un-Vulcan vanity: I want my ship to look good more than I want it to be the ultimate power in the universe.
So I'm thinking tetryon weapons would go best with all the blue on these new ships. But what about some of they hybrid tetryon weapons? Better? Same? Also, should I concentrate on building my own, as I used to do, or are home-built weapons and items now hopelessly outclassed?
Really, any suggestions at all would be appreciated.
I'm returning after a bit of an absence, to try out some of the new content. I quite like the look of the new Scryer science vessel, but I've no idea how to kit it out. So I was hoping I might get some advice here.
One possible issue is that I'm not what you'd call a power gamer -- I'm not in a fleet, I don't have everything maxed out, and I don't necessarily build for maximum destructiveness. I'm also relearning the game, so I'm open to suggestions starting from the ground up, with character skills and so forth. I'm building up my R&D skills, more out of a vague hope that they'll be useful than any clear idea what to do with them.
Regarding weapon types, equipment sets, and so forth, I should confess that I'm subject to a most un-Vulcan vanity: I want my ship to look good more than I want it to be the ultimate power in the universe.
So I'm thinking tetryon weapons would go best with all the blue on these new ships. But what about some of they hybrid tetryon weapons? Better? Same? Also, should I concentrate on building my own, as I used to do, or are home-built weapons and items now hopelessly outclassed?Really, any suggestions at all would be appreciated.
Post edited by vulcanbaker on
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Aegis is a level 15 R&D craftable set, or can be bought from the Exchange at high prices. The MACO Engine is a Tier 3 Omega Reputation unlock.
Interesting... mix-and-match from the various sets? Are the set bonuses not worth worrying about? For some reason, I had MACO stuff associated with the color yellow in my mind, not blue. I'll have to take another look, thanks. I'm also quite interested in these Xindi phasers, and the Andorian phasers, because while I appreciate the blueness the tetryon beams never really looked properly Starfleet-ish.
I'm also curious about the choice to use beam arrays. That's what I have on my Odyssey, for obvious reasons. But for my smaller science vessels, I've always used dual beam banks in front and turrets in back. Are beam arrays better for this ship type? Also, out of curiosity, how are the firing points, aesthetically speaking? My Odyssey keeps shooting phasers out of the aft tips of its warp nacelles, which looks bloody ridiculous. Does the Scryer at least shoot from places that seem like they might have weapon emplacements?
I have an Aegis set now, crafted it ages ago. I'll have to look into upgrading it, if it's still competitive. Thanks!
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=exoticscryer_7501
Basically, cc/exotic damage build around grav wells and a the Dyson grav torps.
Also type 6 marterial + Adapted MACO hull = sexy.
The mix and match adds particle exotic damage. ROM shields are nice and high cap,, engines have attack pattern bonus and heal shields at full impulse and the two set adds exotic damage, solaae deflector adds a lot more, yeah... But aegis /maco shield does look nice. And BTW most ships have crappy weapon hardpoints cuz cryptic never bothered so only dhcs will look the least stuoid. Or torps.
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=syvoksscryer_0
I don't actually have the MACO gear yet -- Aegis stuff for now, but I'll be working toward the improved stuff. I'm just trying to decide whether the set bonus for Adapted MACO or the kinda nifty wurble-wurble-wurble through space of the MACO impulse engine is the better deal.
I know the refracting tetryon has its detractors, but I thought I'd give it a try -- it was either half my dilithium for that, or all my EC for half as many Mk XII phased tetryon beam arrays as I'd need. I could buy them at Mk XI, but they do less damage, and while adding the phaser proc might be nice, I can't recall seeing it hit very often. I think I've seen shields go offline maybe twice, and then they're back before a torpedo can hit anyway. So what the heck, I'll use lots of gravity wells, maybe the refracting tetryons will work out.
I'll have to work on bridge officer skills, and probably revamp my own skills somewhat.
Any suggestions?
As for energy weapon type I don't personally think it is that big of a deal. The proc is such a low percentage to begin with and they all do the same base damage. If you already did the investment in Tetryons and like the blue beams stick with them till you find something that you like. That said drop the DBB and use 2 beam arrays up front so you maximize the number of arrays on target in a broadside.
As for the core ship bits (deflector, shield, etc) you need to dig into the wiki and look at the rep parts and see how they fit together. For me the Adapted MACO engine is a must b/c of the power bonuses and the shield because it is one of the highest cap ones out there and the 2pc is worth it. Being able to go faster in sector space is nice but not worth the tradeoff with what else the MACO engine gives you.
For the deflector I am not a huge fan of the Adapted MACO -- and the 3pc bonus probably not as worth it. It is a good overall sciency deflector but I think both the Solanae and Counter Command are better choices.
Finally for the core the Solanae is a great choice if you have it. The only other "free" aux boosting core is the one from the Obelisk from "Spheres of Influence".
I have all of the reputations maxed out except for the Delta one, so with a bit of time I could get my hands on whatever is out there.
This information about the engine is exactly why I'm asking here, thanks! I can easily switch out the engine, as I haven't purchased it yet. I was thinking of getting two Adapted MACO pieces for the very reason you suggest. That set bonus looks most helpful. Going with the Solanae deflector is certainly cheaper, so I have no objections there.
Regarding the Obelisk, I didn't get to that set of missions in time, so I don't have one. A shame, it looks like an interesting ship to run around in now and then.
But the core and the omni beam can be aquired from replaying the episode. And as for set boni, well... almost none of the sets is worth to go full. Most 3pc set boni are way too situational to be really useful. Mixing and matching sets from all reps will give you way better overall results.
@ your build:
I see a lot non-sci consoles in your sci slots. Maybe throw out your neutronium and replace it with on of the uni-consoles so you get more particle gens in it and while we're at the topic, trash the biofunction monitor. Crew is almost useless at this point in the game, slap another particle gen in and have fun with gravity wells and tractor beam repulsors+the pull doff. Combine that with the dyson torpedo and spread 2 and you'll have much fun with your enemy.
Also, what is the "pull doff"?
Resitconsoles are not "unimportant" but dramatically less than sci consoles on a sci ship. You simply don't have the raw firepower to make a impact on enemies like escorts and some cruisers have so you have to compensate this with as many as possible sci consoles and as high as possible aux power to buff your sci powers. You could leave the resist console and replace the RCS since the srcyer has a good enough turn rate for torps and DBBs on its own. It's just that with only 2 sci consoles your sci ablities won't do much.
As for the pull doff: that's him
He reverses the effect of the tractor beam repulsors, so they pull your target to you instead of pushing them away and paired with enough particle gens this does some serious damage. He's not cheap though.
That doff would cost about half of what I have right now... not sure I can afford that. But I'll keep the advice in mind.
Support/healer: Where your sci abilities are focused on healer. Stuff like Sci Team, HE, TSS. But outside of pre-made matches I don't think anybody does this. Unless you are a total min-maxer everyone should be bring a few self heals to the fight. Though I do try to toss out a heal every now and then.
Drain: Focuses on reducing enemy power levels so that can't do anything. Dedicated drainers are seen running polaron weps, the Jem Had'r set and using abilities like energy siphon and Tyken's rift.
Crowd control: This comes in a few forms. My build is more or less an exotic damage/cc build. Difference being more focus on using things like grav wells or TBR to do damage than just hold stuff in place. So much more emphasis on particle generators for exotic damage than grav gens. The reverse is the mega well which creates a large powerful grav well that pulls in stuff from a very large area -- I think this is more of a PvP thing. Helps keep the fast movers from running away and also can pull cloaked ships out of cloak.
There are a few other major ones that I can think of, but I feel like they are mostly PvP specific.
I think the Scryer lends itself to the CC/exotic damage route. Given the starship trait, the mastery skills it works, it fits the current dps orientation of the game and is cool and useful.
Before going any further, have you worked on any of the reputation systems before you took a long break?
The reason I am asking is because getting space sets is now pretty difficult except for the New Romulan and Nukara reputation systems. This is a change that came with the Delta Rising Expansion (DR). If you want any of the space sets from Omega Strike Force, then you need to have BNPs (Borg Neural Processors). The only way to get BNPs is by playing the Advanced and new Elite Borg STFs.
Prior to the release of DR just about anyone is capable of playing elite STFs. The release of DR brought about a massive shift in difficulty. My toons were able to play elite STFs with not problems prior to DR. They were flying ships that basically were capable of doing 4k to 6k DPS (damage per second) depending on the toon and the ship. That was fine for old elite.
After DR was released, I tried Crystalline Catastrophe Advanced (elite is only for level 60 toons). In the old Crystalline Catastrophe Elite it generally took 8 to 12 minutes to finish the mission. In the new Advanced version even after playing for 50 minutes the Crystalline Entity's health was at 77%. People were dropping out of the mission like flies and I eventually left too.
The basic point is BNPs are now a lot harder to get if your ship cannot do around 15k DPS worth of damage. I think some people stated for the new Elite requires ships capable of doing 30k+ DPS. Prior to the release of DR I think the general consensus is that most casual players have ships that are only capable of doing 1.5k to 3k DPS.
The basic take away is that if you want a space set (shields, deflectors, impulse engines, etc.) you are going to have to spend time to build up the capabilities of your ship. Getting a T5U (upgraded T5 C-Store or Lobi Ship) or a T6 ship will definite help. For new elite a T6 is more or less mandatory. That is because you are going to need special drops provided only by Advanced and Elite versions of queued PvE missions to get thing like BNPs (Taskforce Omega), Voth Implants (Dyson Joint Command), Isomorphic Injections (Undine / 8472 Counter-Command), and Ancient Power Cells (Delta Alliance). Since you have the Scryer you are covered on the ship; you just need to boost up your DPS to the point where you can play Advanced.
Looping back to what I stated earlier, the New Romulus and Nukara Strikeforce space sets are the easiest to obtain because all reputation gear only requires the appropriate rep marks. There are no special items required like BNPs for Task Force Omega.
I'm glad the Scryer is good for exotic damage, because healing and the rest do not appeal. I lack the concentration to be an effective healer. I just want to blow stuff up in interesting ways.
Thanks especially for the hint about particle generators. Focusing more on the damage output would be smart, I think. I believe I have a respec in my future.
I have my reputation in all of them maxed out (Counter-Command will be maxed out tomorrow morning). I believe I have a number of neural processors and whatnot knocking about in the bank, should be sufficient to my needs as long as I don't do much impulse-buying (as opposed to buying impulse engines, har har har).
Well, that's not exactly heartening. I hope they do something to fix that soon -- especially since it seems the only way to get higher-end crafting materials without paying real money for them is to do the Elite STFs.
I shall work on it, thanks.
Actually, one of the biggest hurdles I may face now is that I've put the Aegis set on my ship, and it's so darned pretty! I mean, I know all the extra running lights are stupid on a sneaky intel ship, but it just looks so sleek and awesome. Can I have the better shields and keep my lights somehow?
Unfortunately no. The devs refuse to make the skins we get through rep shields a tailor option. It has been asked many times and always answered the same.
I still slap my reman shield on from time to time just to look at it's visuals during patrols.:o
I switched to Elite Fleet AP beams with the 360 AP beam and Obilisk warp core, Grav Photon Torp wih GW3, Tyken's 2, Iconic Turbulance, and then my heal skills. BO 1, Torp Spread 2 and TT 1 for my tac skills, plus the standard debuffing from the Gather Intel.
So far this set up seems to be doing much much better at being able to down enemies in a reasonable amount of time while still being effective at throwing heals and debuffing targets for the heavy hitters.
FA Dion - Romulan Engineer Officer
FA Zophie Delwynn - Fed Science Officer
we've broken all our bonds, but life kept going on, what a time, what a time it was..." - Clem Tholet
A: because sci ships utilize exotic damage and control and drains not raw weapon damage.
April fools!
I must be missing something here... not quite sure how I can hijack my own thread, but, what the hey. :cool:
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillplanner/?build=ussasimov_8528
What do you think? Making progress? I'm still puzzling over the bridge officer skills. It'll feel odd to lose one of my torpedo abilities (I'm used to using high impact and spread), but that Kinetic Magnet thing looks too good to pass up. The blank skill is Transport Warhead I, which doesn't have an icon at the moment.
I did get another particle generator to replace the biofunction monitor, as suggested. But I think I'm going to keep the Aegis gear -- I'll upgrade it, but I don't think I'll replace it. I really like the visuals. I know, I'm shallow.
Weapon wise the only thing I would strong recommend is the Dyson Grav torp. Not only is it a genuinely good torpedo it meshes well with the whole exotic damage/crowd control thing. Along with weapons you should have a 2nd tetryon pulse generator.
As for consoles: I would drop both the RCS and the Neutronium. The Scryer has a pretty decent turn rate out of the box and doesn't have much of a problem swinging around to drop torps or a grav well from the forward arc. Hull strength is not an advantage of sci ships either, but the Solanae deflector has a fairly substantial boost to SIF which helps. Plus the Aegis shield has some build in resistances as well.
I don't fully understand what the Fluidic phase decoupler does, but I think you could lose that. I'd keep the isometric charge though, I can see how that can be useful once you have all the bad guys clumped up and all.
If you go with the Dyson grav torp I'd get the console from the Dyson rep -- big bonus there is a boost to photon projectile damage.
As for boff abilities I think that is just something you need to play around with to find something you like. With the empty LtC sci slot you could put GW1 there, but the duplicate ability cooldown of 40 secs really does suck. Alternatively a tyken's could go there as well -- the shared cooldown with GW is much more agreeable.
He he, I make bad jokes... Also idk if you want more damage or cc, but if its damage go tbr3 plus doff not gw, and use warp plasma to burn and hold your targets as you drag them. Then when tbr dies they're still in plasma, then you can grab well them and launch torp spread and... Watch the magic.
You can swap ST1 with Intel Team for evasion, but this is how I would run the Scryer. Obviously a balance of DPS and CC, but makes use of the experimental Polaron weapon for subsystem targeting.
I've been fond of FBP with the Debuff Doff, it seems to be as effective as a shield heal when under extensive fire, science vessels are squishy anyways.