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Avenger vs Arbiter Question
shard7777
Member Posts: 21 Arc User
Console player here and I'm thinking of purchasing the Avenger (T5) this weekend while the 20% sale is going on. However, I've been reading great things online from PC players regarding the Arbiter (T6). Unfortunately, the Arbiter is not available on Consoles just yet so should I buy the Avenger or save the money and wait until the Arbiter is released on Xbox? If I do buy the Avenger, is it worth dropping the extra 500 Zen to buy the ship upgrade as well?
Thanks, in advance, for the input.
Thanks, in advance, for the input.
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Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that they released the game to console players without all the T6 ships available. T5U was put in originally as a 'stop gap' between T5 and T6 when T6 was a new thing. They're releasing the best and most desired ships to console players last in hopes that people will pay for less desirable ships now and then upgrade to the ships they actually want later down the road allowing them to make money twice.
The Avenger is a great ship, you can do anything you want in it.. but he Arbiter is simply a better buy. T6 ships are a better buy then T5 hands down and it's silly that they're not making them all available to console players. Now if Cryptic had done the sensible thing and lowered the cost of T5 ships to say 1500 Zen, then it would be a different story, but at 2500 Zen a T5 ship is a poor value for the money. After you buy a T5 and 500 Zen upgrade, you're at the base cost of a T6 ship.
If you have the patience, I would definitely wait. The Arbiter is a great ship.
Compared to the Avenger, the Arbiter gets an extra engineering console (the upgrade token allows the Avenger to match this), extra hull strength, a Lt. Commander universal seat over the (Avenger's Lt., access to Intel boff powers (probably the easiest specialization to splash in one or two powers from, and it's a Lt. Commander seat), starts with starship mastery, and gets one of the best ship traits available. The Avenger trait grants lower weapon energy cost and firing haste whenever you activate Emergency Power to Weapons. If you're willing to wait for the Arbiter to become available AND for the next sale after that, I'd recommend waiting.
Based on my experience with the Heavy Escort Carriers, there's very little reason to go back to a T5U once you own the T6 version. I owned the T5 Armitage for several months before the T6 Alita came out and haven't gone back to it since. It's still a good ship, but that extra boff power (in this case, a Lt. universal replacing Ensign Tac, so there's also more flexibility) really makes a difference when they fly very similarly otherwise.
Edit: Do you have any plans to create Romulan or KDF toons at some point? If you do, I highly recommend the T6 Battlecruiser bundle that has the Arbiter, Morrigu (rather more escort-like than the other two) and Kurak at 3 for the price of 2. All three have the same starship trait and console.
currently I'd say go for it. then put money aside till the arbiter comes out. as we have no idea when it's coming.
The Arbiter is definitely the better starship especially since it has the Emergency Weapon Cycle ship trait (one of the more desirable starship traits). However, it is unknown when it will be released for the consoles. It could be this year or late next year. There are a lot of T5 C-Store ships on the PC which I suspect have not been released on the console yet as well as a lot of T6 ships.
If you can wait for Black Friday, then wait. If you have a burning itch to get a better T5 ship now and purhcase the Upgrade Token, then buy 'em now. If you can wait until Christmas, then wait. If the Arbiter does not come out at that time, then you need to decide if you should wait longer or simply buy the Avenger during the Christmas holiday.
Be aware, there are two upcoming events that will reward a specific T6 event ship. No details will be announced until a few day before the events. They are the Winter Wonderland Event (beginning of December) and the Anniversary Event for Star Trek Online (end of January). The "Event Ships" are ships designed specifically for the events and can only be obtained by doing the daily activities to get enough vouchers before the event ends in order to claim the ship. You cannot chose the what ship you can claim. Event ships can be a carrier, cruiser, escort, or science ship which may or may not the the type of ship you want... but hey, they are free T6 starships. Maybe one of those ships will be good enough for you so that you can wait longer for the Arbiter to be released.
There is a 3rd event that offers a chance to get another free T6 starship; the Risa Summer Event which starts at the beginning of June.
Jaguar, are the free T6 events pretty easy to complete or are they a total grind? I just completed the Crystaline Event and that was easy (5 minutes a day for two weeks). I suspect the ship giveaways will require a lot more effort...
The Arbiter can use the Avenger skin or pieces of it even if you don't own the Avenger. So all you get is instant gratification and the console. My Arbiter uses the Avenger saucer and nacelles (no fin version) but with the sleeker Arbiter body.
The Events are easy. The standard model is to complete a race 25 times over a period of 40+ days. You get awarded with 40 vouchers, but you can only do this once every 20 hours. The race takes about 3 minutes to complete. In Winter Wonderland, which has numerous other activities, you race around an ice-covered race track. If you have ever played a rally game, you'll do this easily as you can drift around corners.
The daily activities to grind out the 1,000 vouchers for the free ship are pretty quick once you get the hang of them.
Winter Wonderland Event - You need to do the "Fastest Game On Ice" race against an NPC. You race along an icy track with lots of turns so there will be some slipping and sliding involved. Once you get the hang of it, it should only take about 3 minutes to complete. If you loose the race, can do it again. When you win you will get 40 vouchers (bound to character) out of the 1,000 you need to claim the ship. Therefore, you need to do the daily race 25 times (20 hour cool down) on a single character. You will have about 6 weeks to do this. Once a character has claimed an Event Ship (for all 3 events) it will be an account unlocked ship so all your other characters on your account can claim it. Even characters to create in the future.
Risa Summer Event - You need to do the "Flying High" activity where you either rent or buy a floater (jet pack) to fly through 3 different courses on the island. You have 10 minutes to do so. Otherwise, you fail and you need to try again. The rental only lasts 15 minutes. Once you get used to flying around with a floater, it can take around 5 to 7 minutes to complete the courses depending on how are away they are when using the rental. If you purchase a superior floater (the fastest one available), then it can generally be done in about 3 minutes. You need to earn Lohlunat Favors on Risa during the event to purchase your own personal floater. You have about 6 weeks to earn 1,000 vouchers.
Anniversary Event - This celebrates the launch of STO. This is a 4 week event to earn 1,000 vouchers. There is a Featured Mission that when completed for the 1st time will give you 400 vouchers. To get the remaining 600 vouchers you will need to do the "Omega Stabilization" event mission. This can take up to 15 minutes to do everyday because you need to travel to 3 different locations in order to play the "Omega Stabilization" mini-game at each location. The mini-game takes 1 minute to do. Do this for 15 days to get the remaining 600 vouchers to claim the Event Ship.
A lot of veteran plays are eagerly waiting to play the "Omega Stabilization" mini-game because it offers them the opportunity to grind resources to craft Omega Upgrade Kits. Trust me, it is a grind and it involves crafting. If the crafting system is not implemented for the consoles when the Anniversary Event starts, then I do not believe these kits will be make available for console players. Basically, Omega Upgrade Kits can be used on any piece of gear. It will give the item 51,200 tech points and it offers the best chances for an item's rarity / quality to increase. On top of that they require no dilithium. That's enough of an incentive for some players to spend countless hours gather Omega Traces that are eventually used to craft the Omega Upgrade Kits.
1) There are three colours of traces, and only one type spawns in each location. Locations include ESD, DS9, Vulcan, and the Dilithium Mine in Alpha Quadrant. This can take a lot of traveling, even with one of the special engines.
2) The minigame itself takes about a minute each time and I remember really good run getting me three or four traces, maybe a...sliver instead of traces? The lowest crafted item, which is made using one trace of each colour.
3) Each upgrade requires 27 slivers. Each item above the slivers requires three lower items to craft: 3 slivers to a shard, 3 shards to a fragment, and 3 fragments to an upgrade for a total of 27 slivers. I forget whether the upgrades are account- or character-bound, but fragments can be freely traded.
I spent maybe an hour a day doing the grind the last time the event came around and that was more than enough for me. I wound up with somewhere around 15 upgrades before I got tired of it. Funny thing is, I feel like they're too rare to use and they're just taking up space in my inventory now.
The T6 and Fleet T5U will have the same number of Console Slots, Weapon, and Device Slots. And that is about the only thing they are equal in.
The T6 ship will have 13 BOFF abilities to the T5's 12. This is very significant, IMO, because it greatly changes the possibilities of certain ships at T6 compared to what they had in T5. The T6 Galaxy, Avenger / Mogh, Mogai for example, have far greater build flexibility than what they were limited to in the previous time at T5.
The T6 ship will have access to Hybrid BOFF seating. I.e. an Engineering Seat that can slot Intel / Command / Pilot / Temporal BOFF abilities to replace the standard BOFF ability. This further adds flexibility to a T6 ship that was not possible with a T5.
An example is the T6 Fed Eclipse / T6 KDF Qib Intel Cruiser. The Cmdr ENG station is Hybrid Intel. One complaint I have had is that Cruisers have too much space dedicated to ENG abilities, which is not needed in this game. But offense oriented abilities? You can't have enough. These 2 Cruisers for example can sacrifice ENG abilities to gain stuff like Override Subsystem Safeties, Surgical Strikes, Ionic Turbulence for attack / debuffing. On top of that, this doesn't even touch the LtCmdr TAC BOFF abilities it can slot. No T5/T5U ship has that flexibility, except for flimsy Raiders with their 6 weapon slots.
Lastly, some of those T6 versions have more HP possible than their T5U versions. Great example are the Flagships: The T6 Odyssey / Bortasqu' / Scimitar have more HP than their T5U versions.
Thanks for all the input guys!
The Avenger is a good ship I was about to weigh in my opinion as I own both. but as you now have prurchased it, you will see for yourself. Also don't forget that it can equip the cloaking device from the T5 Defiant as well.
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