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Maxed out gravity well.
hunteralpha84
Member Posts: 524 Arc User
Just curious if any ones tried maxing out stats for gravity well. I'm wondering more about the damage these days. With all the traits and particle generator boosts I'm wondering if you can create a truely damaging well.
Or is it just for crowd control and nothing more?
Or is it just for crowd control and nothing more?
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Doubly so if you throw Sensor Scan + AP:Beta onto your targets and can use an OSS to boost both the SS and GW. And don't forget the Aftershock DOff.
It does trade off damage for it's CC, though. If you're looking for raw damage, look at Destabilizing Resonance Beam (which actually works a lot better if you have a group clustered together with GW) or TBR.
On the flip side, if you ramp up your Graviton Generators quite high, you can do some really interesting things with a GW. People have been known to get 20KM wide GWs.
That allows you to jump in with a resonance beam, or torp spreads (gravimetric or particle emission torps excel here), or even Tyken's Rift and do damage to the whole lot in one go.
In fact having such a massive grav well, whilst not necessarily giving you a massive DPS will boost the rest of the team's DPS as everyone's targets will be sitting ducks with almost zero defense value. Everyone can appreciate a well placed grav well, it can really help win a fight as you don't need to chase down enemies.
Basically full points into grav gens + a science ship with 5 sci slots full of grav gen consoles + everything else that boosts grav gens = pretty much creates a black hole in the middle of the enemy fleet (nothing gets out....ever).
The Particle Emission Torpedo (Crafting/Exchange), the Gravimetric Torpedo, the Neutronic Torpedo and the Bio-whatever Torpedo from the Undine reputation all deliver here to some extent. Torpedo Spread is the better buff in general for these - if all those enemies clump together in the center of the grav well, all those torpedoes and all their AOEs and later all those warp core explosion affect most of your targets.
Sometimes, when you catch one of those SPhere/Probe only groups in a Borg Red Alert, it really seems they melt under your Grav Well + torpedo salvo. (THat said - anyone with a good DPS/BFAW build will have the same experience...)
The crowd control potential is awesome for many STFs, as you can ensure that your enemies don't get anywhere you want them to go (like the Nanite Spheres in Infected, or all those Crystal Shards and Tholian ships that are suddenly trapped around the Entity.)
Unfortunately, it's really hard to find any alternatives to Gravity Well. I know there are some people focusing on drain builds, but I don't think anyone is still using Charged Particle Burst, Photonic Shockwave or Scramble Sensors...
And they say Science doesn't have a place in this game anymore. You just gave me an idea to work towards with my science characters!
It is incredibly effective in CCA, because for some reason the crystal shards (both large & small) seem to have no resistance to the pull of even a tiny grav well so you suck in everything in range. Tholian ships have some evasive ability but they aren't the main target so getting them caught is a bonus.
I'm using gravity well on my guardian combined with ionic turbulence. I was thinking of using eject warp plasma as well to up the exotic particle damage.
Might have to crack out a science ship.
Keep in mind that he said 20 KM as in twice the distance you have to be to even target enemies.
One of my favorite tricks is using Grav Well, then tossing a Tricobalt Torp spread. Each torp is a small AoE, and the combined blast can be devastating.
My character Tsin'xing
if oyu want primary gravgens go for it i love watching space bend ;-D
That's just scary! That's what? 5k? 7 when you add OSS... Maybe 10k with EPtA... And that's just from my current numbers...
Oh yeah. I was thinking km in my head as I was typing it. Stupid fingers didn't want to type m!
My current non-lab sci build (fdssv) has near 50/50 on part gen/grav gen and does about 14km in terms of pull range with decent damage...(more is the rom rep is active, usually picking up the tholian swarm behind the ce)
As to my opening combo, it typically is:
Hit sensor analysis at 10km, then at 5/4km hit the rom rep t5 power, sensor scan, gw(aftershock), iso, resonance, and gravimetric torp in a spread 2 - then dropping a couple of mines before hitting reverse to backpedal to a safe range (with delicious crittage, the combo knocks a decent chunk off the ces health by itself)
if and when I get the dil (too busy buying zen while its dirt cheap) to upgrade, the poor mobs will never know what hit them...let along the crystalline lug
I'm an Arc user? Yeah, right..I'd rather eat a chainsaw, blade first
Grav wells have become very effective. If you combine the aftershock doff with the engines offline doff, you pretty much clump all the NPCs in one spot and make it easy to blow all of them up.
You can get either part gens or grav gens way over 400 easily with all the gear around. With the R&D holding's gear, you can crank one up to over 400 and the other to a decent state, and going max grav gens and high part gens might be the best route for CC effectiveness.
Also, there are two exotic damage ship traits, although one is unfortunately tied to the annorax ship. The other is in the Scryer. The Vesta has an exotic damage boosting console so using it, traits, and gear would probably yield the most exotic damage.
Science is fun. Let me see if I have time later to list all the gear and values needed to max each of the two skills.
for the ship trait? Not the Dauntless, the Scryer. The Dauntless has that healing trait.
I love maxed out grav gen vesta in the Mirror event. Cant wait to get part gen and grav gen consoles for it this year. The torpedo bubble console is amazing when you grab agro from everything because of your mega well. All those typhoons torpedo spreading you just to reflect it back. I've 1 shot a whole group of them in that event with that console and having more part gens will help a lot
There is one other exotic boosting console too - the vaaduar anchor drone has a decent +exotic damage boost tied to it too
I'm an Arc user? Yeah, right..I'd rather eat a chainsaw, blade first
Only stupid, incompetent and singleminded people would say something like this.
Not only that but that anchor is a nice alternative to TB fof holding ships in the GravWell if your TB is on cool down.
OSS+GW+Ionic Turbulence+Whatever AOE offensive options afterwards. Throw in TAC's stuff like APA, GDF, FOMM into it, or SCI's Conservation of Energy, Sensor Scan.
Depending on the state and position of the enemies, you can do Ionic Turbulence first for the big debuff then hit OSS, then GW, then your other AOE attacks.
I think I'm gonna keep omni beams for Subsystem targeting and grab some +Torpedo consoles with [Crtd] to complement the particle manipulator trait.
The Scryer is far too limited in tactical slots I'm afraid, I think the Dauntless is a better option. It can run KLW, APB, TSIII and a few other goodies.
I'm enjoying that Structural Integrity Collapse as well because of the kinetic debuff. Since I can't take APB.
I'm pretty new to science so any recommendations would be appreciated! I also have ISO cannon BTW. There are so many good consoles but not nearly enough space for them.
Scryer vs Dauntless is a good set of polarizing options.
The Scryer is much more tough and has the luxury of going hardcore Intel as well as Gather Intel. The ship has that ability as well as Sensor Analysis. If you wanted, you can target the same or 2 different targets with both abilities, but I prefer both on 1. Very neat trick on the important targets for landing massive debuffs. Also, a good Particle Gens build should be getting attacked a lot. The tougher BOFF layout of the Scryer makes managing that much more easily.
Dauntless? I considered the ship trash when Delta Rising came out. Gave up far too much SCI, ENG for the TAC it has. With several new traits, 4 TAC Fleet Dauntless, it's a bit of a different story. These days it's a solid ship but it's the most fragile Science Vessel I've ever played.
It does sacrifice almost all of its survivability now that I look more closely. Still, that much science and tactical sprinkled with some Intel would make one lethal Particle Gen build. It's not versatile like the Scryer but if you just want this one type of build It looks like it will outperform in the hybrid torpedo boat role. I wish we had a science guy making YouTube videos...
P.s. Thanks for the info, I'll keep you posted on my progress!
Something tells me KLW has made extra Tac slots on a particle gen/torpedo boat much more useful...
My character Tsin'xing
Used strategically, a well placed grav well will turn the tide of a battle and they are lot of fun.
I have a pathfinder set up for crowd control duties and it works very well indeed
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
The worst part is how confusing it is to people who may want to try it out, there are several types of science builds with varying degrees of usefulness and no one simple cookie cutter build to suit every need. Particle generators alone lend itself to half a dozen or so viable powers including a threat drawing FBP build. It's just a lot of information to take in and it's hard to sort through it all easily. For science to become more popular we need YouTube channels, chat channels and sub-forums where people can get quick help. It just takes time, but I've found it extremely rewarding so far!
Difficulty in building from easiest:
1) Part gens - So much of it going around, it's very easy. Some lobi gear buffs it.
2) Grav gens - Pile everything up that you can. I don't think there is a lobi gear problem here.
3) Sensors - Just pile it up. The two Nebula consoles help, but they require $$$.
4) Flow caps (drain build) - More nuanced, and a lot of lobi involved here to max the skill.
I don't go into SubD and Countermeasures because personally, I haven't tried it. Of those two, I think Countermeasure Systems is the more effective one in PvP, I just don't see it used as much anymore.