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Shield vs. Hull Tank
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Member Posts: 456 Arc User
I have had a "tank" build for a few months now, and with the new skill tree coming out today, that tank build is just scrapped.
That brings me to my question; I'm testing various builds on STO skill planner by looking at the statistics.
But it is hard to focus on both Hull and Shield without sacrificing some other areas. I believe in a balanced build for the pupose to be Jack of all trades.
However, in your opinion, what is more important to focus on; Hull or Shield if you going for a tank build?
The Borg will drain your shields in a nanosecond, so in that way the shield is pretty useless, if you are not able to get them up fast again.
Other way to look at it is to focus on not letting your shields down at all and keep the hull "weak" and use Science Team and emergency power to shields a priority.
What are your thoughts?
That brings me to my question; I'm testing various builds on STO skill planner by looking at the statistics.
But it is hard to focus on both Hull and Shield without sacrificing some other areas. I believe in a balanced build for the pupose to be Jack of all trades.
However, in your opinion, what is more important to focus on; Hull or Shield if you going for a tank build?
The Borg will drain your shields in a nanosecond, so in that way the shield is pretty useless, if you are not able to get them up fast again.
Other way to look at it is to focus on not letting your shields down at all and keep the hull "weak" and use Science Team and emergency power to shields a priority.
What are your thoughts?
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Glad I could help!
The thing is, unless you're in a highly coordinated run with friends who play well together "a pure tank" won't matter since everybody else will shoot/kill stuff faster and generate more threat because they do exatly that. We'll see how the revamp and strategist spec will change things up but that's how it worked till today. Threatening Stance active + strategist seems promising though.
For pugs and/or casual runs you should build with dps in mind and compromise with an acceptable level of survibability. Which generally means be able to bring the pain without going up in flames the moment you get some attention.
I have been tank-specc with threat consoles and it has worked pretty good. I might not do the highest dps, but I never been trying to get into a dps league. Though I found that my tank specc and threat generation has often helped dps and science a like. By keeping the the enemy fire from them keep them standing there in one spot and rain down dps on the enemy while all focus is on me.
But as above, kill it before it kills you = damage.
Where your build and playstyle sits on the Defense to Offense scale can vary greatly.
As for the new Skill System, well, I'll figure it out like everyone else and I'll be back to trivializing this game's content again.
Obviously, a tank should be able to do that then, shoudn't it?
Have both, would be my advice. You can't survive without hull, that's a given, but shields will keep you alive longer - even against the Borg and anyone else that can drain shields quickly.
Besides the skills, I think the right console, sets, traits and spec can offer a lot of help. (I think they are also part of the reason why damage is "everything" in STO - healing is easy to come by.)
Particular among consoles and set bonuses, a lot of heals are available.
There are a few trait and spec abilities that grant outright damage immunities even.
Intel has some abilities that restore shields when you lose a facing.
For example, the Pilot tree has a higher tier ability that grant you shield hardness opposite to a facing that got hurt, and damage immunity if you've taken damage from all arcs - if you fly in the midst of your enemies or keep turning a lot, that's not that difficult to trigger. (I believe the Pilot options require it as Primary Spec, so that might not be that easily available - but it pints to an unusual way to achieve a tank.)
From the new skill tree, Shield Hardness, Shield Restoration and Hull Restoration seem important. The Drain Expertise could also prove useful against the Borg (but not that much, since their drain is really powerful.)
In terms of real tangible advice (as oppose to a way of thinking) don't underestimate shield power, I've lost count of the number of times 125 shield power has saved my life.
Trying to do "dual tanking" takes too much from offense to be worthwhile. Therefore, it's best to play to your strength rather than bolster a weakness...
Thusly, if you're a cruiser fan, hull tank. If you're a sci-ship user, shield tank. If you're an escort, grab enough survivability to keep you from popping then keep rolling in the DeePS...
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
However because of the Borg I need to make sure my hull can take some punishment when the need arises.
I think in the new system unless you are a full-tac escort pilot you should be able to slot a decent amount of tankiness for both shields and hull without too much of a problem. Just playing of Tribble I've managed to got fully in to torps and science and still have space for hull points & resists
Atem is one of the game's best PVE tanks. He made a draft of the skills he plans to use here:
https://redd.it/4e34a5
Posting via mobile so please forgive the typos.
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Skill points are 20 sci, 16 engineering, 10 tac. The line for control specialist can get you a - 35 to target defence, should make up for lost damage. overall, it can get you a solid shield tank. if you also take the drain line, you get a bonus to resists to shield and power drain abilities. Having energy siphon will help keep your power topped off. Main thing for tactical is the bonus for your fighter pets. if you do not use carriers, you can put the points else where.
with that point allocation, you can modifiy it based on ship. you can get a fairly well balanced fit. don't forget to take damage control at least once. you do not get a passive hull repair if you do not have it. ( at least by the tribble notes).
Thanks for the tip, good advice.
Yeah, you're right. However, Tanking in a Yorktown T6 with the shield modifier has been a solid choice in the past.
Right now I am going in a Assault Cruiser Fleet T5 Fleet verison. Played around with The Guardian, but the ship design didn't get won me over, but I got its trait.
With that said, I would build for hull tanking and DPS first but I would not neglect shield enhancements.
The first point to note is that you don't have to make too many sacrifices under the new skill layout in order to be decent at weathering hits to both your Hull and your Shield.
Purely from a "Defense" point of view:
+ The LT picks (Hull Restoration, Hull Capacity, Shield Restoration and Shield Capacity) affect your Raw Health and the strength of your heals and are basically mandatory. Take 2/3 in each of them.
+ The LtCom picks (Hull Plating, Damage Control, Shield Regen, Shield Hardness and Defensive Maneuvering) allow much more wiggle room. The sharp Diminishing Returns curve means that with Accolades and Abilities (e.g. Hazard Emitters and Aux2SIF) to say nothing of extra buffs from Consoles or Traits, any extra sources of Hull Damage Resistance have a minimal effect... so you can comfortably skip Hull Plating entirely. The same is not true of Shield Resistances, so Shield Hardness deserves a few points. The passive regeneration boosts granted by Damage Control and Shield Regen are minimal compared to the active boosts granted by Abilities and Set bonuses, so once again you can comfortably skip them entirely. Defensive Maneuvering is however worth a point or two - if something misses you, you don't get damaged at all!
+ Of the remaining picks, only "Shield Absorption" really stands out - and even then only in Elite content. It works out at a fairly large amount of Shield Healing over time since the value healed is based on PRE-RESIST damage.
That's what... 12-14 picks out of 46 total? Leaving plenty of room for DPS and Power-boosting picks.
However one other thing that might be worth pointing out is that you can now stay a lot further away from your enemies and still hold aggro. For each point in Long Range Targeting Sensors you reduce the penalty for being far away from whatever you're shooting at. With 3 points, whenever you're sitting at 10KM you'll deal 80% of your normal damage... but your enemies will still be shooting you for 50% of their normal damage. So when you start getting into difficulties you can comfortably fly further away than usual and get hit for far less damage without losing much threat. That's a **MASSIVE** change for tanks.
And don't forget the extra Aggro generation available from Threatening Stance and the New Strategist Specialization. (Torpedo hits get negated several times a minute by the new Strategist Spec too, it's very Tank-friendly!)
Finally... Readiness. If you're running a tank build, chances are that you're running a few copies of EPTX plus 2-3 DOFFs to buff their recharge times, and 2 copies of Tactical Team. Two Points in "Engineering Readiness" plus 2x Krenim Bridge Officers reduces EPTX recharge time down low enough to have just 2 seconds of downtime, without any DOFFs. And Two Points in "Tactical Readiness" plus 1x Krenim Bridge Officer will let you drop to 1 copy of Tac Team with just one Conn Officer DOFF. So you can potentially free up extra Active DOFF or BOFF ability slots by spending Skillpoints.
That's what my build that I worked out on Tribble does. It's DPS, Hull and then shield, mostly because while hull tanking may have some weaknesses, I find shield tanking currently is a lot more investment and a lot less payoff for the effort.
I flew an Assault Cruiser for ages, then switched to a Guardian awhile back. I think in the Assault Cruiser you have enough there to do a very effective DPS ship that tanks well. My priority for me is still Hull over Shields. Maybe someone else's testing will shift my view on that? But nothing I've seen yet has changed my idea for my build.
I'd largely ignore the comments that get super binary in threads like this. There are a log of good solid Tank builds that churn out more than enough DPS to be competitive in the tier of gameplay you find yourself in when it comes to parsing. What this thread is really all about is when utilizing one of those types of approaches, which do we think will work better, focusing the points on shields or on hull?
To speak to that in terms of the DPS > All aspect of the discussion ... all of the DPS parses come from ONE encounter. That ONE encounter is an Omega Rep map with Borg Enemies that can strip shields quickly. So with that in mind, if you want to parse high DPS in that map and be a tank, keep that in mind in your build.
Now the game takes place in a bunch of other maps too, so, I mean at that point it's all metagaming.