Hey all, I'd like to pick your brains about
this build.
Some key points to note are that I swapped the wide-angle quantum for the gravimetric photon Mk XIII to better benefit from the DJC Ordnance 2-pc bonus, and that I intend to do as much damage as possible without suffering a drop in survivability.
Any tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance.
Comments
trying to run beams, cannons AND torps is stretching it a bit thin, you cant really optimize a build using 3 different weapon variants, theres not enough boff stations.
If your dead set on using the torps i would just drop the cannons personally
People have pointed out that you shouldn't mix Beams and Cannons and that's very true. There is however, one Federation Cruiser that can do it and that's the Eclipse. However it can't do it the way you're doing it.
Why?
Surgical Strikes.
The problem with mixing Beam and Cannons is that the skills for each don't buff the other. In other words, your Cannons don't benefit from Fire At Will and your Beams get nothing from things like Scatter Volley. Surgical Strikes however, is an 'Energy Weapon' Skill which means it actually does buff both Cannons and Beams making them mixable if you wish. What it doesn't help with is Torpedos.
Being an Energy Weapon Skill, Surgical Strikes triggers a cooldown on all other energy weapon skills which means it shares a cooldown with your Fire At Will. Now, that being said, I still agree with everyone else, that you should pick Beams or Cannons and stick with it. For the Eclipse, I recommend Beams, it's more efficient and will get you better overall damage. The changes I recommend are as follows.
1. Drop the Torpedos.. All of them. Change them out for Beam Arrays, either Single or Dual.
2. Drop the M.A.C.O. Shield, it's conflicting with your Plasmonic Leech and canceling them both out. The Adapted M.A.C.O. Covariant is a good choice, so are fleet shields or Nukara Deflector/Shield for damage buff.
3. Drop AntiMatter Spread and replace with Assimilated Module. This will trigger the 2pc bonus with your Cutting Beam.
4. Drop the Proton Accelerator and move the Leech console into that spot.
5. Use both Science Slots for Embassy Plasma Consoles to buff the leech and add Plasma Damage Proc to your weapons.
6. Use Locators in all 3 Tactical Console Slots.
And consider an alternate BoFF layout:
Lt. Tactical - Tac Team 1, Attack Pattern Beta 1, Attack Pattern Omega 1.
Gets you Tac Team and 2 Attack Patterns. You'll want to build off Surgical Strikes so don't worry about no Fire At Will.
Lt. Commander Engineering - Engineering Team 1, Emergency Power to Shields II, Emergency Power to Weapons III.
This gives you ET to counter offline from O.S.S. and handles Emergency Power Abilities.
Commander Engineering/Intel - O.S.S. 1, O.S.S. 2, Surgical Strikes 1, Surgical Strikes 3
Go all intel here, these are your damage skills. This will keep you able to push weapon power high as possible and give you insane Critical Chance. Your weapons should all be [CritD] weapons to take advantage of the Crits.
Use Science station how you like, I would use the Ensign Uni to double up Tac Team.
This is a Single Target Build, but it does very high damage. If you like, have a look at my 'Predator' build in my Sig, that thing can melt a Borg Cube in 5-6 seconds, it's just nasty. Any Fed Cruiser can make a good FAW boat, they all do it.. but the Eclipse is the ONLY cruiser that can pull this off. The only other ship that's capable of fully maximizing Intel abilities is the Phantom Escort. My BoFF layout is a little different then what I suggest for you because I have the Reciprocity Trait so I don't double up Intel or Tactical Skills.
To me, it just seems a waste to not play to the ships strength. You have a ship that can do something no other ship can do, consider taking advantage of that.:cool:
actually TSS can be used as self heal your thinking of extend shields probally
previous post from this pretty much nailed it in great detail. i never run oss without engineering team, if you activate it when yourr OSS has 5 seconds or less it will make you immune to the subsystem shutdown, also the above poster make a good point either go aoe with faw or single target with SS they both share the same cooldown timer=not good
This is my updated build, some things to point out:
AMS, the Shield Refrequencer and the CC Tac console are placeholders for what seasofsorrows suggested. I'm working my way towards that last [+Pha] Locator console, then I'll make a start on saving for the Embassy consoles. I may keep the cannons, and the biomatter pair have been swapped for a [CrtD]x2 [Dmg] set from another ship (I'm also working my way up to Mk XII/XIV for the DHCs).
On to that point about the Embassy consoles, what should I be looking for? Hull/Shield Repair, or Plasma Explosion?
Regarding power levels, here they are from the Fleet Starbase map.
W=87
S=71
E=81
A=67
Do these look fine for the build, or do they need tweaking somewhat?
I also have a Bioneural Infusion Circuits if they could help my build in any way.
With the Pahntom's Reciprocity trait you can chain tac & intel stuff like there's no to tomorrow. It gets kind of ludicrous if you build around that trait on an eclipse.:D
Though I can't recommend getting a 3k zen ship just for a trait, that's just too steep if you don't have like a million dil lying around to convert to zen.
But srsly, drop that weapon mix, that above all else will cost you the most DPS wether you care or not. Shoving all firing arcs this game has to offer onto 1 ship won't do you or your team any good. No matter with which side you're facing the enemy you're always horribly inefficient in your layout.
And without any decent shield heal like ST or TSS and almost no hull resists you'll be dead before you know it, dracula console or not.
The Eclipse is a softer ship then other cruisers, for that ship I recommend +Pla -Threat with [FLOW.]
The reduced threat will help survivability and you want the Flow to buff your leech console. It's called 'Plasma Generating Weapon Signature Nullifier Mk XII [FLOW].' The power levels you posted don't really make sense to me. You only have 200 base power and your numbers add up to more then that. I just run the ship with all power to Weapons, the Leech takes care of the rest. I suspect the numbers you posted are modified by equipment. The most important thing is keep your base Weapon Power at 100.
If you want, you can macro a key to put all power to Shields when you're taking a beating and you can make one to shift power to engines if you need speed, but most of the time you'll just keep everything to weapons.
I would definitely use the Bio-Neural Infusion circuits. They add a huge bonus to Critical Damage which is the bread and butter of a Surgical Strikes build. I would replace either the RCS for the Point Defense Console with the Infusion Circuits. It's a seriously awesome console for your build. The revamped build looks much better IMO.
Actually, the opposite is true. You can make it work if not using Reciprocity but with Reciprocity you will only get one or the other. Reciprocity keeps your Intel and Tac Skills pretty much at global for cooldown. Since SS and FAW share a cooldown, having Reciprocity drop your cooldowns to Global means they will both come off cooldown at the same time. You can then use one or the other, but that wastes an ability. If you don't have Reciprocity then one triggers a 15 sec cooldown on the other allowing you to alternate. Still, you'll get better damage from this build by running 2 copies of SS then you would by running 1 SS and 1 FAW.
You could argue that 1 SS and 1 FAW is a more 'versatile' setup and if that's your taste then by all means do it. Personally though, I would rather keep SS up as much as possible. Up to the individual.
As to what else is boosting my power levels, I had no clue until I logged back on - turns out my power levels are being boosted by the Borg set (Module, Engines, and Shield), and 5 points in Starship Engines/Shield Performance, and 6 points in Starship Auxiliary/Weapons Performance. Those might show where the discrepancy is coming from.
In sector space, my power levels are 68, 55, 65, and 50 (W/S/E/A).
I'm sure your power is fine.
Most people, when they list their power levels they list the modified and the base. Everyone has a base 200 Power. When you have your levels at the default 'flat' or 'balanced' setting it's 50 Weapons, 50 Shields, 50 Engines, 50 Aux. When you shift all power to weapons it divides it 100,50,25,25 but the number always adds up to 200. Those are your unmodified power levels.
Your sector space power levels mean you're probably at the 'balanced setting' so you're 68/50, 55/50, 65/50, 50/50. That means for example, your Weapons are set at 50 base and with boost you're at 68 so 68/50. You get boosts for gear, skills and traits.
You shouldn't have any problem with power because of the leech. If you don't have skill points in Flow Capacitors, I very very strongly recommend you change that and max that skill. I also max all my warp core skills. On my build links in my sig my skills are all filled in if you want to look at them. Not saying mine are 'right' or that you should copy them exactly.. just if you want to see how mine is set up to get an idea for your build. Your needs might be different then mine, so you can adjust them as you see fit.
For power, most of the time I just do 'all power to weapons.' In other words, I click the icon at the top of my Weapon Power meter to shift all power to Weapons. This makes the default split 100, 50, 25, 25. With my warp core, skills, traits and the leech with the embassy flow consoles my power levels always stay very high across the board. Weapon power sits right around 125, shields around 100, and Engines and Aux around 75-80. The Plasmonic Leech should make it so you never have to worry about power. You'll do more damage if you shift all power to weapons. Your skills and gear will take care of the rest. I use Damage Control Engineer DoFF's to reduce cooldown on Emergency Power to Weapons and Emergency Power to Shields which keeps both of those maxed out.
You should be just fine on Power, I wouldn't worry too much about it. The Plasmonic Leech makes managing power very easy, that's why it's so desired and so expensive.
For the record, what's the going rate for the Leech these days?
Last I checked (couple days ago) it was right around 50M EC. :eek:
The chance to get a leech from a Tal Shiar box is about 2%, you'll probably spend a fortune to get one out of a box considering those have been retired long ago and only come back during the lockbox events.