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PartGen ship is a threat magnet!
platewearingbird
Member Posts: 455 Arc User
Whenever or wherever I pop up a Gravity Well, I'm enemy #1 for every NPC in it.
Is there a way to reduce the threat or should I just never use GW in Pugs anymore?
Is there a way to reduce the threat or should I just never use GW in Pugs anymore?
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(1) You can deal with the added attention;
(2) Have enough DPS to blast what your GW is slowly sucking the life out of;
(3) Have enough "smart" players in the PUG to realize the GW has a captive audience and are able to ..."Let Loose the Dogs of War".. on said audience.
You need to be ready for that angry mob of npcs to come looking for you!
If you're a TAC Captain doing these same attacks you don't necessarily need the extra attention, then take up -Threat dumping techniques. For example, Rom Embassy SCI Consoles have them. There's also a standard space trait with -Threat but I can't recall the name.
Hold up, I'm running high Aux and I'm getting chewed through. Since when does it boost survival?
Because you should be slotting abilities that make your ship tougher. There are a slew of abilities that increase ship resists.
Nukara Rep Trait (defense; Shield and Hull Resist improvement)
SCI - Polarize Hull (very high resist bonus; tractor immunity)
SCI - Hazard Emitters (resists with the hull repair over time component)
ENG - Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field (resists with moderate, instant hull repair component)
SCI - Transfer Shield Strength (shield repair over time and resists for it)
Etc., on top of your other hull/shield repairs. The thing to remember is the stuff I listed is heavily tied to Aux Power and their performance improves. PH is excellent when you know you're about to get slammed with lots of attacks. It also makes you laugh away Tractor Beams and TBRs when you are in range of those certain NPCs that do them, i.e. Terran Command Cruisers.
Now, I'm not saying you need to slot all I listed above. But throwing some of them in will help protect your Science Vessel and you'll be surprised how well they stand up. How much you can slot depends of course on the ship. The Dauntless will barely be able to squeeze anything in because it sacrifices so much ENG & SCI to have that high TAC capability. But the Intrepid, Scryer, Nebula for example, are pretty heavy in the SCI or SCI+ENG department and should be damn tough.
Yeah I have a dauntless, but I avoided most of these skills because they were laughed at and penned as being "terrible". I think I can muscle in a couple.
My Fed SCI was in a Dauntless until recently. I got her switching around ships for masteries as well as a change of pace.
The Dauntless like I said is a tricky ship to make tough. You want the ship to hit hard but finding space for survivability skills is a big question of Give & Take. I've said before in a different thread that it's one of the flimsiest Science Vessels in the game but play it right, and she'll be a monster.
Anyways, go into ESD space or whatever and look at those resists on those abilities, traits I mentioned. PH in particular is very high in resists if you are running a high Aux Power build. Even PH1 at Ensign is quite nice in that regard. The key is mitigating the damage. You're still going to be busy in repairs, but mitigating it with these abilities will slow the bleeding. Not to mention stuff like HE will be granting you extra resists on top of the repairs.
If you regularly run with a high end DPS crowd, you won't need the extra defenses if everything dies in a handful of seconds. But if you regularly PUG, play with random players, a Science Vessel that's good in its build is going to take a lot of fire and the instance will take longer. Performing CC + AOE attacks is a sure way to get aggro in a PUG, unless someone is actually running a high +Threat build in that group. If such is your case, you need to make the ship a bit tougher.
By the way, if you think gw get a lot of agro, try tractor beam repulsor with the reversing doff, that'll get the attention of everything it touches
Hope that helps
E'Mc2 : Science Reman torp T'Varo, deadly annoyance :P
Kunmal: Tactical fed Klingon, ground specialist, USS Kanewaga
Ka -tet Tier 5 fleet fully completed Starbase and fleet property
Although I get shot to pieces in my Scryer I have to admit it's a super tanky ship and nothing feels better than taking on a tac cube single handed and holding it's attention the whole time whilst the rest of the team is busy respawning after being swatted like flies! What many people see as puny science ships can play as serious tanks with the right boff powers and items.
There's a DOff that gives a chance to reduce threat when you cast an exotic damaging ability. IIRC it's one of the few UR DOffs (I'm away from the game right now so I can't recall his name or profession. I do use him once in a while to help with high threat runs.
You might also want Ablative Shell and Failsafe Scrambler traits. Those help a lot when in a pinch. Both are available at the exchange.
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As to the threat generated by a grav well, you also have the benefit of taking the firepower from a single, predictable vector. Tac Team 1 with a 1.3x shield mod should mitigate a lot of damage.
This is a very good point for Grav Well. It does cause a lot of aggro but that is held in one location allowing you freedom to escape or turn your ship to restore shield facings. So surviving mobs or angry enemies is much easier than if they were scattered to the wind and all around you.
A lot of the traits and abilities players have mentioned here will get you laughed at, but only by players who aren't running a full-out sci build. Most of these abilities, yeah they can be terrible for the BFAW meta. But sci almost demands more min-maxing than a pure-tac DPS build does, although the min-maxing is in completely different categories.
I fly a Vesta with my sci toon, and as far as I'm concerned my actual beam weapons are totally my secondary - if not tertiary - source of damage dealing. A few things I do:
- pump up the part gen and aux power and trap enemies in a grav well, while dealing massive damage from it
- fire tachyon beams with high flow caps and the Nandi / Breen TB trait
- spam sci team to keep my shields up while having the photonic fleet CD be reduced
- benefit from the Nukara aux power traits, boosting offensive and defensive capacity
- use the Quantum Phase set's part gen beam (and in the case of the Vesta/Aventine, I also use the part gen phaser console)
- have consoles that boost exotic damage, which increase the output of almost all of my sci-based damage sources
- spam high yield or spread torps at everything ones they're stuck in the Grav Well (ideally torps that have AoE damage or debuff procs, but since I'm using the Quantum Phase set I already have a solid great torp for that)
- stack grav well boosting doffs (such as the ones that generate a post-well explosion or an entirely new well)
With all that, I'm likely to survive the aggro, and the enemies are either dead or dying by the time the grav well expires.
Having nearly 30K per facing is meaningless when facing a horde of upset spheres you just grav well'd.
Anything else should be easy to handle if you keep an eye on your shield heals and healing cooldowns.
Something I don't think anyone has mentioned yet either, there are two traits I find really useful.
Edit: The new trait Invasive Control Programming seems usefull but I'm not sure if its just you main target or more.
1. Use confuse and disable, scramble sensors for example is boosted by aux and the control skill that you've probably already boosted, then the dopes will shoot each other, do that after the phase torp and they'll have less shields to get through.
2. Get a steath clicky like Intel Team, or some threat reduction doodad. Be great if a single ensign power can solve the issue. There are traits and starship traits that reset threat to 0.
3. Swap DRB for a fire and forget power like Ionic Turbulence or subspace vortex, then run away
4. Stack everything you possibly can into the grav well and simply out dps the fiends, accepting that this may not always work and triggers lots of cooldowns making your ship very spikey in its damage output. Rememeber that rep ability with the cloak boost you're sci abilities by 100, and the exotic particle 20% battery
5. Have a cycle of damage resistance boosting powers: for example HE to brace for impact(with doff) to A2S to A2D( with boff), to PH back to HE, its like have an extra neutronium console or two or three, remembering that damage resistance scales with each step doing less for you, perhaps even making an armour console a wasted slot.
I agree with most of this...Some simply depends on how you fly.
Personally I dont use GW...I use a doffed Tykens on top of someone elses GW (Im helpful like that).. Or I Use a Doffed TBR to pull ships into a GW..Once in, I swing around I DRB2 the Mob (I have very high Turn)..Thats how I survive without access to Intel abilities (..waits patiently for T6 Wells)...
But Yea..I run 4 -TH consoles, Energy Refrequencer space trait (iconian Rep) HE and PH (sometimes A2D doffed) and I can safely take 30-40% of the map DPS in ISA, higher than that (usually in a Team with a cumulative DPS of 10k or less..) and I pop.
Rouge Sto Wiki Editor.
Get GW3 then use Ep2A, the T5 rommie rep clicks, a particle flood battery, combined with a max EPG skill (i.e. Over 400) that will make a grav well do serious damage. Throw in ionic turbulence and hit em with a torp spread of particle emission torps to finish. That cause a real s@£t storm but does a lot of damage!
Getting out of dodge? I fly into the fire with my science vessels to get as much aggro as possible.
High PG, aggro and FBP+ EPS corruption eat though enemies like there's no tomorrow.
The 3 piece bonus for the Honour Guard space set is an area effect stealth clicky, that set is good for torping and space magic.
The intel ability EMP Probe can work really well for bunched enemies and bosses, it can be targetted but mobs don't seem to do that very often.