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How to play a cruiser?
fieldpoint74
Member Posts: 116 Arc User
It seems like the best way is to play as a tank. They are big, slow space Cadillacs. Can they be set up to do damage, or a mix, or is it better to tank?
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Energy build. DPS the hell out of it.
You don't need defense for PvE, you need bigger guns. Kill things fast enough, you don't need to worry about defense.
Problem with STO agro, if you're not doing the majority of the damage and hitting the most targets, you ain't tanking anything.
Attacks per second generate aggro.
So lets say you have this great Crusier tank for PvE, and some escort rolls up beam fire at will'ing everything, he will get all the aggro.
Even if you have +Threat consoles.
Beam arrays usually work best on slow turning crusiers.
Broadside attacks with 7-8 beams on target.
Anyway if you're going to want to pull all the aggro, you're going to have to bfaw anyway, and at that point you may as well go full energy build to melt as many targets as possible in the shortest amount of time.
So you'll end up doing both anyway (DPS to Tank) if you want to tank.
Its an oxymoron.
If you're planning on PvP'ing just know a Tank build (at least on PC) is coming to an end of an era.
It's harder and harder to run a good tank these days with all the resistance debuff abilities/traits in game.
You're locked out at +75 damage resistance (cap), yet these new abilities and traits can take you down to -20 resistance.
So yeah...Tanks are going the way of the Dino if these traits keep getting released.
But play how you like, just know what your planning on doing doesn't really work in this game (this is not like WoW at all). Person who is hitting most targets gets all the aggro. ->BFAW -> but why tank at all at that point ?
It makes no sense.
Just go full out energy build and blow everything up in seconds, and not have to worry about tanking. Because it really isn't required in this game. And its not even a thing on the PvE side of things.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1073661/the-hakaishin-dreadnought/p1
The topic is ancient, but the build (single cannon/turret) is very viable and extremely fun.
Yes, it is a PVP build and the modifiers have gotten an overhaul since but from the general idea a solid build can be extracted.
It's probably not for beginners though.
Edit: I use a SC/turret build on a support cruiser retrofit and others have used the APU cruiser with a full turret build to get phenomenal results.
Edit 2:
Turret ideas:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/startrekonline#/discussion/1204175/its-time-for-an-all-turret-build-opinions-welcome/p1
I stacked all the Damage Resistance I could, from traits and consoles. I currently have almost 50% DR. It helped me a ton.
I only use Beam Arrays (plus one torp fore and aft), so they can fire as often as possible. It drinks energy like crazy, but I've got some things to help that.
I stacked all my Tac consoles as +(insert energy type), currently I'm using Disruptors.
I got Threatening Stance. I've been in PUG encounters where ALL the NPCs were shooting at me. My screen was solid bright color. Hull? 90%.
My take on Threatening Stance was based on my solo play, I mean, they're shooting at ME anyway, so may as well get a bonus for it.
I like the shields that only allow 5% bleed, but if you can, find ones that limit damage by type of energy and slot them when you know what's coming.
Be sure to set your Boff powers to auto fire. I have my engineers firing EPtS I and II at 75% and 50%, I think. (It took me waaaay to long to figure out how to do this).
I never do beat my torpedo boat for straight up, kill shot capability. The torp boat FEELS good. But, the cruiser keeps on coming back. It never says 'enough'.
Add +turn speed items, like Impulse engines. I bought mine on the Exchange I was so desperate.
Use evasive maneuvers to get around quickly. You want to put yourself into the middle of combat to soak fire. When you can't full impulse, it'll help move you around.
Broadsides.
If you want to up your DPS so that you get more threat, use Fire At Will. I don't, but I only really lose threat to other cruisers. Once the DPSer's show up to the fight, they just kill the thing, but I can hold it's fire until/when they do.
At the end of the day, it kind of doesn't matter unless you PvP. Most anything will work well as long as the build isn't too sloppy. Play what feels good.
3 purple tech doff and 2x a2b - this will cd all skills to min.
If you r flying T5 cruiser, use beams and faw.
If you r using command cruiser, 3 forward torps (a photon must be included and 2 project purple doff) + concentrated fire will get more than 200kdps.
You can use beams n 360 beams or cannon and turrets. Some cruisers let u use dual cannons.
My breen cruiser has 3 torps (grav torp, terran torp and bio torp) and dual heavy cannon and turrets.
Tac skills: torps spread and scatter cannon.
Eng skills: 2xA2B and direct engergy
Command skill: concentrated fire 3 and the skill that drain target shield (dun remember name)
Tac cons: photon detons.
doffs: 2xpurple project doff and 3xpurple doff. I also use 3xpurple project. doff and 2x purple tech doff when equipping with 2x7% CD consoles (dun remember the console name)
I got 200k dps easily with mk xiv in infectous/kilo STFs.
Fed cruiser dun let u use dual cannon, but single cannons will do just fine with the phase quantum set. Most dps are from torp, so replacing dual cannon with single cannon wont affect much dps. You can also replace cannon with 360 beams and dual beam. I would recommend beam overload instead of faw.
One of the best reason for flying cruiser is relaxing lol. Cruiser is a tough beast. Just get into 10km range, slow to 1/4 impulse. Most cruisers nowadays have ltcom sci. Use grav1 to pull enemies to 1 spot and spam torp spread, faw/cannon volley and A2B.
Veruca Salt's album 8 BEAMS TO PWN YOU!
Absolutely, categorically, positively UNTRUE. try an all-escort STF vs one with a few big cruisers. Cruiser draw heat away from the DPS ships. The AI falls for it more than actual players.
AKA TANKING
Well... threat doesn't really work properly in this game. Or not as effectively as it could/should.
A ship firing on many targets via faw will override a crusier threat/tank that's using single target attacks.
So if you ARE going to tank no matter what anyone tells you, you should be throwing out as many AoE attacks as possible at the very least.
To ensure you pull at least some if not most of the aggro.
Problem is when a quick escort zips in blasting everything with FAW...well there goes your role of tanking, it will be hard to pull aggro off that craft and direct it towards yourself.
So it helps if you can get into battle first before anyone else. And it helps if you are doing AoE damage, and it helps if you are actually doing a fair amount of damage at the same time.
Otherwise, that tank becomes useless to everyone in the mission.
Logically, based on the facts and game we have, tanks don't really work like they do in other games. I mean, yeah you can still run a semi-successful tank in PvE...but problem is nobody needs them.
Enemies die so quickly in ADV/Norm that they really serve no benefit to anyone, except the person playing it, who is "maybe" getting some enjoyment from that style of play.
But how much enjoyment can someone get from a build that isn't working efficiently, and not accomplishing the job it set out to accomplish ? Because people are melting things within mere seconds...or stealing aggro left and right ?
Just food for thought, that's why a few of us have said they (tanks) are more suited to a PvP environment.
Where they can soak up considerable damage from human controlled craft. Which dish out much more intense attack damage/resistance debuffs then anything an enemy NPC can throw at you. In that environment, it is "sometimes" nice to have a tank around.
That is, if the enemy team doesn't just ignore that tank target completely (because usually a good tank will have to sacrifice firepower/offense in order to facilitate high defense/survivability - thus negating any possible threat/offense they can provide, in other words, tanks in PvP can be safely ignored for the most part).
So even in PvP, a tank still has to be capable of dishing out "at least some" damage when needed.
I just don't think they are very logical choices for current PvE.
Also @smokebailey is it really that much more challenging when you're virtually unkillable by enemy NPC mobs ?
Or is it the fact that it takes more "time" to kill an enemy, and therefore "feels" like more of a challenge ?
But when you can't die (and there is almost no penalty for death anyway) where is the challenge ?
Or is it the fact that this type of build simulates a more Star Trek type battle feel ? Longer battles, focusing on shield facings that are down etc, etc ?
Because I'm not convinced it's anymore challenging. Perhaps it's more rewarding/fulfilling, but challenging, I wouldn't think so.
I fly my Fleet Jupiter (on my catian captain) as if it were an escort. I use the 4 pc Kobali set to take care of the tanking aspect. It turns just fine the way I have it set up. Slowing down is important at times, but then I speed right back up; but I prefer to leave it maxed out for pedal to the metal II.
BFAW with max pwr to weapons and circle targets till pewpew is all done. Use a torp if you like... plasma weapons too since rom rep has a beam array that has zero power draw... you can have 8 beam weapons all firing and it'll be like only 7 are drawing power (or 6 if your using a torp). if playing solo... always use threat stance... your the only player anyway. use attack patterns, cheap doffs that are easy to find are ones that buff emergency power to X or torp recharge rates. slot any traits that will increase your dps or add dmg procs to your weapons. use plasma leech if possible, much easier on kfd than fed. also tie redistribute shields and combat bo powers to space bar and spam bar while circling pewpew target...
That's why you time your BFAW for the end of the escorts' alpha strike. You should even slide your cruiser in front of them if need be as they escape. I have no problem keeping all focus on me in a Borg STF.