Cookie Cutter Builds

borgified007 · April 2016

Well since STO has gone the route of WoW and other such MMOs can someone please point me in the right direction to find the standard cookie cutter builds for Tac, Sci, and Eng. I have checked out STO Academy but I don't see any saved builds to copy. DPS league site also does not seem to have any cookie cutters.

nightken · April 2016

wait... your just noticing this now. and give a week everyone will know the next one.

borgified007 · April 2016

Someone has created an excellent template to play with at http://www.aesica.net/sto/. From what I see playing around it seems that most of the power is going to come from the tactical tree. Of course I'm a tac on my main so I guess I will go all tac. That does leave some stuff left over for the other two trees though. Just wondering what people are going with.

nynik · April 2016

borgified007 wrote: »

Just wondering what people are going with.

I went with what I found to be most fun - not necessarily what eluded to the most damage.
Been there, done that etc.

gradii · April 2016

There arent cookie cutter builds, only what the arrogant and ignorant perceive them to be.

bernatk · April 2016

Going full tac makes you very squishy. But the damage increase is quite visible. Especially on engi and sci toons.

Last skill system took me a year to figure out. And another year to steal someone's config lol... I predict this skill system will take a full a year of experimenting to get the hang of it, too.

Anyways, my *current* general opinion is it wasn't worth to change it. It didn't get better.

davefenestrator · April 2016

nynik wrote: »

borgified007 wrote: »

Just wondering what people are going with.

I went with what I found to be most fun - not necessarily what eluded to the most damage.
Been there, done that etc.

Yep. Many of my captains mix in a torp with their beams because torps are fun. Or use cannons instead of beams. Or fly science ships with beams and a torp.

My Tholian Scryer science captain uses the Nukara set including the web mine because (like bow ties) web mines are cool.

No one is forcing you to baaa and be a sheep.

thekodanarmada · April 2016

Ain't no one got time for torps.

kavase · April 2016

It just came out and still relatively new even despite being on tribble as it changed there a couple of times. Still a feeling out and testing process to go through, but 'standard cookie cutter' builds as you describe it will come in time.

snoggymack22 · April 2016

borgified007 wrote: »

Well since STO has gone the route of WoW and other such MMOs can someone please point me in the right direction to find the standard cookie cutter builds for Tac, Sci, and Eng. I have checked out STO Academy but I don't see any saved builds to copy. DPS league site also does not seem to have any cookie cutters.

The builds forum is already hard at work on getting stuff sussed out. And the DPS League has a starter build posted.

tousseau · April 2016

Only if mine comes anatomically correct... until then, I'm perfectly happy with my Heinz 57 style of build...

samt1996 · April 2016

Instead of relying on other people to play the game for you how about giving it a try yourself? It's actually really easy.

grayfoxjames · April 2016

Just put 90%-95% of your points in Tac. Be sure to have FAW, BO, and some debuffing Attack Pattern and go to ISA pug and melt stuff.

If you do it right you'll melt stuff before some even warp into the map...

Welcome to Star Trek: Damage Rising and Star Trek: New Damage... ... ...sadly I feel this game went waaaaay to DPS crazy.

PvP is dead now everyone go do elites...

chiyoumiku · April 2016

There are no such thing as cookie cutter buildsi n MMORPG's only waht the ignorant tell you. My monk overo n FFXIV: ARR for example doesn't ahve the same gear as other monks yet I somehow manage to do the same amount of DPS. STO is no different. I don't play my vesta as DSP, I do DOT. It's what I'm more comfortable with. Lock 'em down while the fleet's DPSers show up to my target next.

iceeaglex · April 2016

samt1996 wrote: »

Instead of relying on other people to play the game for you how about giving it a try yourself? It's actually really easy.

Also very expensive at $5 a try........

lagunad · April 2016

grayfoxjames wrote: »

Just put 90%-95% of your points in Tac.

Since there are a maximum of 30 points possible in the Tac specialization, and you have 46 points total, that would be quite an accomplishment...

peterconnorfirst · April 2016

I can’t help you with a cookie cutter build but when you look for DPS oriented PvE critter cleaner builds I highly recommend the sto league recommendations like the others in this thread gave you.

Why not cookie cut?

Simple, because u are unlikely to play with a full squad of Diamond DPSer all the time and in addition to that it will take you probably a year to acquire those builds. I suggest you try to comprehend the DPS aspects of their build recommendations but carefully outweigh what you like to do in game and integrate it into their used mechanics. In my experience this is:

- Being able to play with pugs -> self survivability (often the integration of a few healing boff powers /traits are enough).
- Using Cannons -> not much difference in gear but a lot of difference in play style
- Sci fun -> Easily integrated one at a time in form of boff powers. If you like some of them augment with skill tree and/or gear but check how much DPS they cost you compared to their benefits.
- Tanking: see if you like having full agro or rather sneak your way around that. Both can be put to the extreme but requires build adjustments.

Most important, have fun! Bring it in on your own, you can't cookie cut that.

bobbydazlers · April 2016

there is one here from the DPS league.

https://www.sto-league.com/skilltree-suggestion/

mmps1 · April 2016

Going all sci is hilariously op. Going all tac is ok too but works better in coordinated groups. Also, the FF ultimate seems to make things lag like mental.

grayfoxjames · April 2016

lagunad wrote: »

grayfoxjames wrote: »

Just put 90%-95% of your points in Tac.

Since there are a maximum of 30 points possible in the Tac specialization, and you have 46 points total, that would be quite an accomplishment...

I was of course exaggerating...for those more math inclined 30/46 or 15/23 or ~65% or ~0.65217391304348...

jamiek81 · April 2016

Well, i am not into all that min-max TRIBBLE that the elitists state as the BEST of the BEST stuff to do, like Anti-Proton weapons are the BEST, i mean maybe they are to a degree, but i have got a character to like 51, taking a rest from it, but i don't believe i have that high a crit to justify using a fugly coloured energy weapon, i think they should just remove those secondary proc thingys and leave it as a 'pick the colour you like' and move on from there, but that is just my opinion.

When it comes to cookie cutter builds and their nerfs that they get tends to be cause of the elitists that post their builds saying that is the best way to play and then that build gets nerfed and the elitists work hard again to find the best spec, only for that to get nerfed.

I think they would have gotten the hint, i would think people would think for themselves and just play the game their way, i mean for me, i play mostly solo, especially when levelling up, so i always make sure to increase my weapon damage and increase my ships capability to heal its shields, not that it helps against the borg's tachyon beams....even with the Drain skills added....but i know that i have never died, not that its really possible, unless you are new to the game.

I have died on the ground and that was only against the borg, i erm....forgot to use the weapon remodulation item to change the weapon frequencies.....my bad. lol

I do like one of the Tactical Kit Modules that makes all attacks count as Flank attacks, even when they are facing you....pretty impressive....totally worth the 250k i paid for it.....pity that its not available for Mk II and above.

bobbydazlers · April 2016

the overall set up for skills now is defiantly geared for you to choose mostly tac, mostly eng or mostly sci.
if you have a overall mix with the same amount of points spent on each category you will miss out on the end bonus ultimate ability's that you will only get if you take mostly tac, mostly eng or mostly sci.
it seems you need to spend at least 27 points in any one category to get all 3 end bonus ultimate ability's leaving you only 19 points to share between the other 2 categories.

it would have been nice to have been possible to spend say 15 in tac + 15 in eng 16 in sci or whatever and still been able to select the 3 ultimate abilities of your choice.

the way its set up you are only going to have 3 main build selections with the only variety coming from a slightly different sub set depending on where you spent the extra 19 points.

hfmudd · April 2016

Part of the issue, at least for me, is that there were some very simple rules of thumb for the old system:
"3 points in almost everything, 6 in what's important, 9 is almost never worth it"

I look at the new system and my eyes cross. Sometimes a single new point is equal to 3 under the old, and sometimes it isn't; some places it seems it really is worth it to put three new points into something; and it's hard to tell where the gotchas are...

I'm not looking for maximum effectiveness - I hardly ever PvP and most of my PvE is at normal or at most advanced settings - but I'm worried that I'm going to TRIBBLE myself so badly that I will need to use at least one respec (on most if not all of my characters) because I have no idea what I'm doing. And until I do rebuild my character(s), I'm effectively locked out of all gameplay except pure conversational RP, and ground stuff, which is relatively simple to build for.

A fleetmate told me that the beauty of the new system is "you can do anything!" Yeah, like make a character with too many points wasted in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones. That's what I'm afraid of. And that's why I'm looking for a simple, basic, non-self-crippling build or builds for all branches, that I can then tweak to personal preference. (Yeah, I like torpedoes. Go fig.)

bobbydazlers · April 2016

hfmudd wrote: »

Part of the issue, at least for me, is that there were some very simple rules of thumb for the old system:
"3 points in almost everything, 6 in what's important, 9 is almost never worth it"

I look at the new system and my eyes cross. Sometimes a single new point is equal to 3 under the old, and sometimes it isn't; some places it seems it really is worth it to put three new points into something; and it's hard to tell where the gotchas are...

I'm not looking for maximum effectiveness - I hardly ever PvP and most of my PvE is at normal or at most advanced settings - but I'm worried that I'm going to TRIBBLE myself so badly that I will need to use at least one respec (on most if not all of my characters) because I have no idea what I'm doing. And until I do rebuild my character(s), I'm effectively locked out of all gameplay except pure conversational RP, and ground stuff, which is relatively simple to build for.

A fleetmate told me that the beauty of the new system is "you can do anything!" Yeah, like make a character with too many points wasted in the wrong places and not enough in the right ones. That's what I'm afraid of. And that's why I'm looking for a simple, basic, non-self-crippling build or builds for all branches, that I can then tweak to personal preference. (Yeah, I like torpedoes. Go fig.)

not sure yet how good this build is as I haven't had much opportunity to try it but I guess it will give you a reasonable first build and you can always use the free respec we all were given if you want to change it once you have had a chance to get to know if there is something better.

https://www.sto-league.com/skilltree-suggestion/

we got to spec each character for free and we got a free respec for each character also so this should not cost you anything.

snoggymack22 · April 2016

hfmudd wrote: »

and it's hard to tell where the gotchas are...

They got rid of a bunch of those. So it is more streamlined and there are less bad choices out there. At this point it really becomes a byproduct of what it is you are building. For instance if you don't use torpedoes and don't plan on using torpedoes on that character, you can skip spending any points in that if you want to.

There's still a debate on the usefulness of shield regeneration. So depending on where you fall in that debate you can skip points in those. Or if you are big on shield regen, you can spend the points there.

There's less of a hard and fast rule right now.

I find I skip defense and accuracy on a lot of my builds because I don't PvP and I don't fly ships that hinge on enemies missing me and in PvE my accuracy is at a point where I don't need extra and as I understand it Fire at Will doesn't benefit from added crit percent on over-accuracy.

But see how far down the rabbit hole I am with that choice? There's no hard or fast rule. Some of my other builds don't follow that strategy at all.

questerius · April 2016

Has anyone tested the science ultimate ability? Increasing the odds for critical hits sounds peachy, but to get to that point a significant investment in shields is required.

quammen · April 2016

snoggymack22 wrote: »

There's still a debate on the usefulness of shield regeneration. So depending on where you fall in that debate you can skip points in those. Or if you are big on shield regen, you can spend the points there.

I have one point in shield regeneration and tripped over something: I switched ships and forgot to choose tac team in one ensign tac. Normally, I would miss automatic shield distribution, but this time i noticed this lapsus not before an engaging round in CSA. Shield hardness in combination with regeneration might be enough for a build change

mustrumridcully0 · April 2016

questerius wrote: »

Has anyone tested the science ultimate ability? Increasing the odds for critical hits sounds peachy, but to get to that point a significant investment in shields is required.

Yes, but I don't run a parser, so I can'T really give you an objective analysis of it. It's fun, but of course you need to mind your timing, which I tend to suck at since I am not playing that focused, and, say, a random sphere/probe group in a Borg Red Alert melts under any science exotic build anyway.

On a Science Vessel, it doesn't really cost you all that much, since your damage comes from science and torpedoes anyway, and you only want Auxiliary power.

To max out any ultimate, there are only 3 skill nodes you don't need to take. I picked shield capacity III and shield regeneration II and III.

I spend the rest so I had some basic utility and extra power from the engineering tree, and some projectile buff, and the first ranks of shield weakening and hull penetration. Oh, and 2 ranks in Targeting Expertise, I don't know if that is really necessary for such a build. Probably more an old PvP habit then a necessity for PvE.

edrogen · April 2016

valoreah wrote: »

Try looking here.

Sage advice

bernatk · April 2016

valoreah wrote: »

Try looking here.

Thank you!

and LLAP.

Cookie Cutter Builds

Comments

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.

When I think about everything we've been through together,

maybe it's not the destination that matters, maybe it's the journey,

and if that journey takes a little longer,

so we can do something we all believe in,

I can't think of any place I'd rather be or any people I'd rather be with.