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Shield/ energy drain skill?
dnp60
Member Posts: 6 Arc User
Hi,
I am new science officer with a science vessel and I am at vice admiral rank. Is Shield / Energy Drain an effective tactic?
Thanks
I am new science officer with a science vessel and I am at vice admiral rank. Is Shield / Energy Drain an effective tactic?
Thanks
Post edited by dnp60 on
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Shield drain doesn't work as well. There are a few people that can make it work by really really specializing in it, but for most players it doesn't give much return on investment.
Emphasizing the highlighted portions. Drain Builds require super specialization to make effective. If you can cram Flow Capacitors Skill someway, somehow, stuff it in.
Most important is to remember that 1-2 drain abilities fired at a target isn't enough. You have to go in with everything to really make targets shut down. Like:
Tractor Beam target
Drop Aceton Assimilator near target
Use Energy Siphon
Fire Tyken's Rift
Target Subsystem if you have it (which you should as a SCI Vessel and most Carriers)
The same way TAC-heavy guys go in with all their buffs turned on to surge their damage, you must do the same with your drain abilities.
Another catch is you need to have high Aux Power. Otherwise the duration and effectiveness isn't good enough.
As said above shield drain abilities and gear (tachyon beam, charged particle burst and the tetryon proc) are not very strong. A heavy drain build with some shield drain added on the other hand is very effective.
For this use Polaron beams as weapons (the proc drains subsystem energy). For a start normal polaron weapons will be fine. A nice alternative are the dominion polaron beam arrays from "boldly they rode". They have both, the polaron and the tetryon proc. And they are basically free. Another alternative are phased polarons. They add the phaser proc for subsystem shut down.
A useful universal console is plasmonic leech. It adds drain to your energy weapons. It is expensive though, but worth the investment, because it is useful for most builds (not only sci).
Another nice console is aceton assimilators. You can have two of these thingies at the same time. They drain and do radiation damage (and I think they draw aggro).
As already mentioned, you need high flow capacitors. That means put 6-9 ranks in the skill and equip gear with the skill on it. As deflector you can use the free jem hadar deflector. As it synergizes nicely with polarons, you can use 2 pieces of the set for more polaron damage or 3 for the ability antiproton sweep, which is another shield drain, that affects a couple of targets. Alternatively, use the deflector in combination with adapted MACO/KHG engines and shields (for lots of aux and extra torpedo damage). Or the omega engines and shields for the 2-piece set bonus: tetryon glider. This adds shield drain to your energy weapons (and is much more effective than the tetryon proc).
As warpcore use an overcharged core or the obelisk core for highest aux (135), because aux will boost some of the important abilities.
As science consoles you would obviously use ones with flow caps. For a start normal ones. Later embassy consoles (the ones with plasma proc added for example) or the dyson ones (with proton proc and shield heal proc). The R&D consoles (particles exciter and RCS something) can both have "flow" as extra mod. They are very expensive though.
Torpedoes will be your friend. With lots of drain, target's shields will drop quickly. Use a nice torpedo to destroy the target. The neutronic torpedo from the delta set is quite nice. You can also use the whole set. The console is nice (more power, shields and BOFF ability CD reduction), the beam array is polaron (unfortunately without polaron proc) and you get the isokinetic cannon ability (which benefits from particle generators).
Also nice is the gravimetric photon torpedo. Or biomolecular torpedoes. Or chronitons for example to slow done targets to keep them in tykens rift (see below). With max aux, your torpedoes will also benefit from the T4 nukara rep trait.
Now to the crucial part: abilities
Forget tachyon beam. It is just not good. Even with different Doffs that add things it is mostly useless. Instead use tykens rift, energy siphon, subsystem targeting and tractor beam.
Tykens rift is a very strong drain and it does damage. Unfortunately, targets can escape it. Prevent this with chroniton torpedos, target engines, tractor beam and/or gravity well:
Tractor beam with a tractor beam Doff added, that is. This way it gets a shield drain and you can keep your target in place.
Gravity well and tykens share a 15 seconds cooldown. A strategy is: first grav well, then tykens. In the 15 seconds in between you can use all other abilities and stuff to annoy your targets: energy siphon, subsystem targeting, antiproton sweep etc etc. There is a Xindi doff (technician I think), that knocks off engines with grav well. He is very expensive though (not a must have; just in case you swim in ECs).
Energy siphon. This simply drains energy from your target and gives a part of it to you. There is a Doff that adds subsytem shut down.
Energy siphon, grav well and tykens are deflector abilities. Equip deflector officer Doffs to reduce their cool down. They all benefit from high aux.
You will see that you need a combination of different things to be effective. You will also need to experiment a bit with the different abilities and items. To give you some ideas:
tac boff slots (usually 2 on a sci vessel): tactical team and torpedo spread/high yield. If you do not like torpedos use target shields 2 or so. The subsystem targeting on science vessels is lvl 1 as far as I remember, and, thus, weaker.
engineering (usually 2-3 on a sci vessel): I like EPtAux, EPtS and Aux2Sif. That is a useful combo on exotic damage sci vessels, too. Cycle the two EPtX. With max aux, the Aux2SIF will be a very nice hull heal (15 seconds cool down + damage resist). EPtAux also gives particle generators, graviton generators and subspace decompiler.
Science boff slots (quite a couple on a science vessel): at least energy siphon, tykens rift and something to hold the target (grav well and/or tractor beam or tractor beam repulsors with the hirogens doff equipped that converts it into a pull). Also have a hazard emitters and a shield heal (either science team or transfer shield strength or both). Polarize hull is also nice to escape tractor beams and for high damage resists.
For traits:
astrophysicist (+flow caps, particle gens and grav gens, if I remember right)
Particle manipulator (lvl 15 R&D science). You will not have 400 particle generators on a drain build, but at least around 100, which means that the respective abilities that benefit from the trait should have 25 % CrtH.
Psychological warfare (expensive though): For 20 % more control effects (pull etc)
Nukara T4, offense and defense, as you have max aux anyway.
(Inspirational leader, if you are too rich, for up to 30 to all skills)
The other traits are up to you.
I'll check my drain sci later when I am at home to see what I forgot to mention
Which ship do you want to use? What is your budget?
I know that for most builds crit chance consoles and crit damage weapons are normally the norm.
Would you say this is the best option for a sci as well?
I am going for all the other toys, skills, doffs etc but was still undicided on the weapons.
Cheers
May I add a qustion.
How many skill points should we put into Decompilers skill for an effective disable build ?
3-6-9 ?
Was wondering about this.
Whats the difference in shutdown times if one uses 6 skill points vs 9 skill points in Decompilers ? (I intend to run max AUX pwr)
Seems like one would need as much Decompilers skill as possible to make a satisfying Disable build.
(Seeing how there isnt much gear with +Decompiler skill)
Anyone have experience with this ?
EDIT: I ask this here, because Decompilers has an effect on subsystem targeting
Also, is it beter to either specialize as a disabler, or is it ok to mix disable and drain build strategies ?
Or is that spreading yourself too thin, to be really effective ?
Subspace decompiler is an expensive skill. I do not want to remommend on how much to skill there. it seems not to be worth it honestly. And even worse, there are not many items with it (no consoles). To get some of it other than from skills: EPtAux, joined trill as Captain, reman/romulan deflector.
What I can recommend definitely is the KHG/adapt. MACO deflector dish. I forgot that one above. It offers everything you want: particle gens, graviton gens, flow caps and subspace decompiler (and even extra hull). The bonus on flow caps is lower of course, but you get all the other skills.
See also here my thread: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?t=1297581
I would say mixing is best. Heavy drain + x with x=disable and/or shield drain and/or exotic damage
And what I always like to say: You are scientists, do experiments!
Power drains are a little better for hitting more targets but still more useful for shutting down bosses.... which are not the majority of combat. Yes, its nice when the tactical cube just kind of sits there in confusion with no power, but when the 50 spheres are zooming around, the 2 or 3 that are messed up do not really make much difference in the fight.
Bottom line is I am not feeling drains as very amazing in PVE in DR. Particle gen skills that hit hard seem to be more effective, which of course makes sense in a game where damage is more or less the only important thing in any fight --- mobs got lotsa health, players gotta take that to zero, damage accomplishes that requirement.
Pol is a good weapon type whether you go for a drain build or not. The JH set adds a lot of damage and coupled with [amp] it is right on up there as a solid choice. Given that sci ships are mostly not gunships anyway, pol is FINE for you if you like it.
as far as drains go, the most effective shield drain is tet glider (borg set bonus). It can take off a substantial chunk of shields on all faces per shot fired if you have high flow caps. But again, in perspective... In DR, vs tac cube with a "pretty good" drain build, in 9/10 of ICE advanced runs, the cube died with shields up. The 1/10 case with a group full of low dps people that actually GOT that far somehow (its possible, but usually low dps groups fail), the shields are removed on all 4 sides after a while yes. But when the group is doing their job, the shield drains are not even contributing noticeable effects to the effort.
That is basically true, but imagine how STO would be, if there were only rom tac captains in scimitars with antiproton beams. Sci vessel are there to debuff, to weaken, to control, to disable and to annoy. With heavy drain and some other magic you can easily do that and support your team. Fortunately with R&D we got the particle manipulator to boost exotic damage abilities heavily, but still I prefer a mix of this and drain. Just flying to a group of targets, binding them together with grav well, draining them to death with abilities and acetons and deliver a final blow with a shiny torpedo spread is just so much more fun than just buff and shoot.
I love my sci captain, its actually my main. But current game mechanics make exotic/damage dealing builds more useful than drains right now. I did not make the universe, I just live in it and I want to pull my weight in the few qs that actually run, and guess what is needed in the qs? Dps, unfortunately.
Fun is in the eye of the beholder. Fun for me is feeling like my build helps the team to succeed. I get that feeling more with a dps based build than a drainer, and I have tried both -- i have a mean shield drain setup that is just banked since DR. If you like to drain, drain away, enjoy it. I am not finding that it helps my success rate on advanced stfs, so I run a hybrid gunship- exotic-sci-ship build for full bore damage dealing instead. I wish it were otherwise, but the other builds are not as effective, at least in my hands and in my experience.
Looks like I'm showing up late to this party :P
But I've been testing a full on energy vamp build with my KDF Science Captain using the Breen Carrier and its drain is effective on single targets but not very useful when dealing with mobs IMO.
I can pretty much shut down bosses and gates in a few seconds and with about 300 in flow caps I pretty much always at full power in all subsystems so I can take quite the punch.
It seems like I can get anymore than 47 power from each subsystem from my targets with ES2 even when I use OSSS so I'm not sure what's going on with that but I've always thought that more Aux = more drain
It's still early but so far I'm finding that draining is not all the effective in the age of DR IMO.
Drain needs more doff support, something like a doff that lets ES hit more than one target or a doff that increases the draining range of Tyken's Rift would go a long way to help boost the Drain build big time.
Dropping the shared cool down between GW and TR would also greatly help drain builds.
My Particle Generator Build on the Fed side has been much more effective, it handles mobs with ease and does just fine with single targets.
Drain is far from bad but I feel it needs a few more gimmicks to help it along.