Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but 250 CtrlX is enough to get you a GW3 with a ~10km radius. And 250 is doable without crippling anything else. So if 400 CtrlX is "only" getting you a 12km radius (you said 24km diameter), there would appear to be some sharply diminishing returns.
With the right ship and gear you can quite easily get 400 CtrlX and 350 EPG.
Hey @pwstolemyname, so how is the best way to achieve that combo?
I should probably revise my statement about it being easy.
I've been helping a number of my fleet mates to put together these builds, including some who don't usually do science, and it hasn't taken much to get them there, but to be fair, they and I have been in the game for a long time and already had a lot of resources at our disposal so I should admit that this may represent a far grater investment to people less established.
Now to the details. First of all I highly recommend doing this with a temporal multi-mission science vessel, or a fleet temporal science vessel. Both these ships come with the support configuration ability which grants +40 to your CtrlX, +20% exotic damage and +10 Auxiliary power. Flying in this mode is a fantastic boon. Of course you don't actually need it, any ship with a commander science slot and 5 science consoles can achieve the numbers, and slot the skills necessary for an awesome Mega well build.
Now to gear.
I like to use 4 Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]. At mk XIV Ultra rare you can either +23.8 EPG and +35.6 CtrlX or +35.6 CtrlX and + 23.8 EPG per console. Depending upon your other gear choices you might want to use a mix so as not to surpass 400 CtrlX by too much, but on my current build I am only using the ones with grater CtrlX.
For my final science console I use an Exotic Particle Field exciter [CtrlX]. I got lucky upgrading mine to Mk XIV so it gives +37.5 to both CtrlX and EPG but the difference between this and a less rare mk XIV isn't huge.
Between these consoles, two skill points in Control expertise, and 3 in exotic particle generators I get a total of 280 CtrlX and 283 EPG. This isn't enough though so goodbye tactical and engineering consoles, we are going uni FOR SCIENCE.
I have an assimilated module at Mk XIV ultra rare for +27.2 CtrlX and a Tachyokinetic converter at Mk XIV ultra rare for +26.7 CtrlX both of these come with other benefits too, but most important of those are the boosts to Crt which applies ontop of the boosts from Particle Manipulator. With these two consoles I am now up to 334 CtrlX
Now if your not flying a ship with the support configuration ability you may wish to use a Conductive RCS with the [CtrlX] mod for another +37.5 CtrlX. If your flying a temporal ship you probably not going to need any more CtrlX from Consoles though.
For more EPG I recommend adding a Chronometric Capacitor, I use a mk XIV ultra rare which gives me +35.6. This is also part of a set with 3 weapons which I recommend using for the Chronometric Energy Converter ability. The reuse time on this isn't grate but an ability you can click to add 22.8% to your exotic damage for 30 seconds is more usefull to a science build then many other things you could put in your weapons slots.
For your final console slots we now have a few options to increase exotic damage. I highly recommend the Delphic tear generator. The Constriction anchor is also good for its passive bonus. If you happen to be using a temporal multi mission science vessel the Causal Anchor console isn't bad either.
As for shields, deflectors, warp cores and engines you have a lot of good choices. If you really need more CtrlX, maybe because you didn't put spec points into it, you might want to use a set with larger bonuses to it, but I have been using the full temporal defense initiative set along with an inhibiting secondary deflector that has both [CtrlX] and [EPG]
.
Finaly for your remaining weapon slots (After the chronometric set) I recommend the gravimetric photon torpedo and experimental proton weapon (for their two set bonus, +3% critical chance which applies to everything including science) and a particle emission plasma torpedo. If your using a ship with torpedo spread I recommend putting the particle emission torpedo in the front and the Krenim and gravimetric torpedoes in the back so that you can be sure your spread isn't taken by them.
Numbers:
My final CtrlX and EPG stats with all the gear and support configuration are 408 CtrlX and 352 EPG with +55% exotic damage from Delphic Tear Generator, Constriction Anchor and Causal Anchor. By pre-hitting my healing abilities I can add 30% to that, and with the scryer's trait I can add another 22.5% so the total exotic damage bonus is 107.5%. ... before the extra 20% from support configuration.
Thanks to particle manipulator and the other equipment bonuses I am also looking at 62.8% Critical chance for exotic damage and 131 Critical severity for them.
Built the ship, now what?
The general strategy with this build is to hit all your heals to build up damage bonuses from the research lab consoles, hit your chronometric energy converter ability, place a gravity well on something, hit it with subspace vortex, destabilizing resonance beam and a plasma emission particle torpedo spread, then watch the murder ball destroy everything within a few seconds. Throwing in other AoE abilities like ionic turbulence or chronometric inversion field is also good if your flying a specialist ship.
Your going to want to use traits, doffs, boffs or specializations to reduce the cool down on your abilities of course, many of these have quite nasty re-use times and you cant really afford to double up abilities as your going to need some slots to keep you alive. Expect to draw all of the agro from all of the things, your going to need to be able to survive that for about 5 seconds before everything dies, and that can be tricky.
I also recommend running emergency power to engines one. Its good for running away from the agro, and for running to the enemy and getting that gravity well in just the right place before that ship in the middle of two clumps moves. When it comes to running away or getting killed don't worry too much, once you put down the murder ball your DPS wont suffer in the same way that a beam boat suffers from not being in range of the enemy. Your science will happily go on killing without you.
Ok so there you have it. I know I didn't give away the complete build. But that should be everything you need to make the SCIENCE do its thing, without locking you in to having to use a specific ship.
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but 250 CtrlX is enough to get you a GW3 with a ~10km radius. And 250 is doable without crippling anything else. So if 400 CtrlX is "only" getting you a 12km radius (you said 24km diameter), there would appear to be some sharply diminishing returns.
What state do you consider to be crippled? A Mega well build can spike 1,000,000 damage in a second in infected, or put out 100,000 DPS when taken over the average of a 2 to 3 minute run. Though to be fair you wont usually see both extremes in the same parse, unless your flying tac or using romulan operatives. Getting a high spike means unbalancing your ability use a bit, typically a 100k run has spikes of about 400k
Not that I'm disagreeing with you, but 250 CtrlX is enough to get you a GW3 with a ~10km radius. And 250 is doable without crippling anything else. So if 400 CtrlX is "only" getting you a 12km radius (you said 24km diameter), there would appear to be some sharply diminishing returns.
What state do you consider to be crippled? A Mega well build can spike 1,000,000 damage in a second in infected, or put out 100,000 DPS when taken over the average of a 2 to 3 minute run. Though to be fair you wont usually see both extremes in the same parse, unless your flying tac or using romulan operatives. Getting a high spike means unbalancing your ability use a bit, typically a 100k run has spikes of about 400k
My Fed Sci toon runs around in a Krenim Sci ship with 434 EPG and about ~250 CtrlX unbuffed, which is to say before any abilities are activated. She hasn't yet broken 100K DPS, but she has made 85-90K many times. I suspect she could do better if I was a more skillful player with a better connection. My latency runs around 300ms, and I frequently hit a button to have it grey for a second and then clear without activating the power. I blame that on lag, but who knows?
I guess I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Are you offended by my use of the word "crippled" ? I do consider 400 EPG to be a sort of critical mass; I would consider 350 to be less desirable. ISA has a lot of ships. More CtrlX and less EPG lets you suck in a few more ships, while doing a bit less damage to each. More EPG and less CtrlX sucks in a few less ships, but does a bit more damage to each. For CLR purposes, I'd guess it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other.
Honestly, neither of these threads belong here in GD. They should both be in Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics.
I guess I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Are you offended by my use of the word "crippled" ?
Not offended, curious, hence why asked.
After you reach 250 and cap out the bonus to CritH from Particle manipulator the benefit to adding more more EPG is fairly miniscule, and of course anything with a +exotic damage% is a better choice.
The choice between EPG and CtrlX is less clear, because its situationally dependent. If a larger gravity well actually nets you another ship then its a damage multiplier, and its easily worth missing out on 200 or more EPG beyond the 250 point (not the first 250). If the larger well doesn't net you an additional ship it still increases your damage by a very small amount (well damage drops off with distance of target from center to pull strength and pull range do help) but your not really going to notice it and more EPG would certainly be the better option.
I've given numbers from infected in my previus posts because that's the yardstick that our community understands, but your certainly right, in infected you don't need a larger well, a tiny one will do. The thing is, in infected you also don't need more damage. The entire team together only has to do a combined 30k DPS to beat the optional.
So why pump EPG over CtrlX for infected? Simple, you don't need too. 250 in EPG is enough to kill all the spheres in your well before your AoE hazard effects expire. Killing them quicker and leaving your anomalies up for extra ticks harming nothing dosnt increase your DPS any more then if it had taken the full duration of the abilities to kill all the things, your still watching your DPS drop while the abilities recharge, you just climbed higher sooner, and started the drop sooner as well (of course boss killing time is helped a little with more EPG so you do gain some advantage there).
So why pump CtrlX? because some times it dose net you an extra sphere you wouldn't otherwise have caught, and extra enemies are extra multipliers.
Outside of infected space most content from DR onwards spreads enemies out much more then previously. Have you been to the new battlezone? some of the content there was clearly designed with the range of potential gravity wells in mind. so having higher CtrlX is important, remember its not an extra 2km radius, its an extra 4km diameter (alright I know, its the same thing), provided you can get a ship in the right spot to target, that 4km is the difference between annihilating one enemy group, waiting for cool downs and annihilating another, or annihilating both groups in one go)
Sorry you thought I sounded offended chastity, but your perspective that 400 CtrlX has diminishing returns is completely counter to mine, that 400 EPG has diminishing returns. Not trying to put you down, just showing you the other side. I completely get where your coming from, in a situation where the wells size fails to net you any extra targets you will 100% always have killed the enemies more quickly and efficiently with EPG.
I took my science stuff and put it on a fleet temporal escort the other day. It only has 4 science console slots and I could only put two lt.Com science boffs on it, But it still had no trouble ripping huge groups of enemies apart with science and no weapons power. Of course there was no advantage what so ever in using it over a science ship, which would have been a little more efficient, but the point is, it was fun and it did several times what it needed to do to 'pull its weight'. I suppose some might have called it crippled, but I don't think any one in the pug I was in would have, considering it carried them.
Ultimately I am probably biased from being an old school science player. Back in times passed you had to chose between creating a large well (about 7.5km radius or 15km diameter was the best you could expect) and not doing much to what was in it, or a powerful well that still did very little but neted you very few ships. We couldn't do it all like we do now, I used to go with big wells to act as a force multiplier for the rest of the team. Maybe I am just compensating though .
Thats why I love the grav torp so much. With my paradox I sling a monstrous gw3 then a grav torp spread 3, ah the dishwasher effect. Also, how is it my grav well (in very satisfying fashion), throws the iconian dreadnought all over the place yet does not budge a cube?
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
Thats why I love the grav torp so much.
With my paradox I sling a monstrous gw3 then a grav torp spread 3, ah the dishwasher effect.
O.O your still getting the dishwasher effect? I miss the dishwasher effect so much. I thought they patched it out a year or two ago? At least it seems like that long ago I stopped observing the death cycle of deadly gravidic doom.
As it wasn't twirling my enemies around in a stomach churning screen shaking maelstrom of hilarity anymore I made the switch to particle emission torps for slightly better damage output some time ago. Are the hurling whirling fun physics back? should I move the gravidic back into a front slot?
So why pump EPG over CtrlX for infected? Simple, you don't need too.
The same can be said for anything in this game really. You don't "need" to pump CtrlX to huge numbers either. It's all a matter of what playstyle you consider to be fun.
That said, there are benefits to pumping EPG past 250. You still gain some Cat1 damage bonus (useful if you're saturating Cat 2 buff sources) and CrtD. There's a calculator for that if you want to test out various combinations.
Personally, I prefer a bit of precision with my GWs so I find a resting state of 250 or so CtrlX to be ideal for most scenarios and I run in the 450 or so EPG range on my Eternal and slightly less on my Pathfinder (because I am running stuff to buff torps on the Pathfinder).
If your using a ship with torpedo spread I recommend putting the particle emission torpedo in the front and the Krenim and gravimetric torpedoes in the back so that you can be sure your spread isn't taken by them.
@darkknightucf recommend that torpedo users learn how to fire their torpedoes manually. You can therefore run both HY and TS and choose which would be the best torp to fire on any given scenario under those buffs.
That said, if you are using PEPT on a GW'd (especially on a tightly packed GW'd group), I actually recommend firing just one normal shot followed quickly by a torp spread of whatever other torpedo you have (like Neutronic, QPhase or Gravimetric). This is because the plasma cloud it procs is already AOE, and only one torp will proc a cloud with ample coverage in a GW. You're better off with a double-whammy of high kinetic damage with its own AOE (as in the case of Neutronic), huge shield drains (with QPhase) or a relatively high kinetic damage with additional AOE (as in the case with Grav Torps). Case and point, my Eternal has no tactical skills and the PEPT cloud DPS is equivalent (or sometimes even better than) my Pathfinder's PEPT cloud damage even when my Pathfinder fires that under Torp Spread. Again, you can only pull of such a combo reliably when firing manually.
So why pump EPG over CtrlX for infected? Simple, you don't need too.
That said, if you are using PEPT on a GW'd (especially on a tightly packed GW'd group), I actually recommend firing just one normal shot followed quickly by a torp spread of whatever other torpedo you have (like Neutronic, QPhase or Gravimetric). This is because the plasma cloud it procs is already AOE, and only one torp will proc a cloud with ample coverage in a GW. You're better off with a double-whammy of high kinetic damage with its own AOE (as in the case of Neutronic), huge shield drains (with QPhase) or a relatively high kinetic damage with additional AOE (as in the case with Grav Torps). Case and point, my Eternal has no tactical skills and the PEPT cloud DPS is equivalent (or sometimes even better than) my Pathfinder's PEPT cloud damage even when my Pathfinder fires that under Torp Spread. Again, you can only pull of such a combo reliably when firing manually.
I place my torpedos on automatic because I already have too many things to click and with interface lag slowing me down or causing abilities not to fire at all, I already have enough to manage. Running a torp build I would certainly fire my torps as abilities, but that's a whole other jar of monkeys.
I am interested in comparing with your numbers however, running torp spread 3 on my eternal and using it on the PEPT exclusively typically gets me between 10k and 13k DPS from plasma clouds and between 2k and 3k more from the torpedo spread, This would be over a 3 to 5 minute pug infected run without tactical abilities or romulans.
The theory is that maximizing the number of clouds produced by firing at the maximum number of targets whilst they are clumped in the smallest space, layers the largest number of hazards across the largest number of targets and thus multiplies the damage caused by the greatest amount.
I am certainly open to the notion that a single hazard can do more of course. Subspace vortex is just one hazard and can be relied upon for 20k DPS under the same conditions, So if you have some numbers for me I would very much appreciate them.
I should probably mention though that if groomofweird posts again with how to produce the gravimetric torpedo spin cycle, the way we used to a few years ago, under the current build of STO then all of this is meaningless because deeps mean nothing compared to the hilarity of making starship crews hurl.
On a good run I get 10-15k from PEPT clouds plus about 3-4k from the torp itself. However, my normal average is in the 7-8k range (in ISA). SSV is in the 20k range for me too same with my Secondary Deflector. It's worth noting that at this point, there is some scavenging in DPS between my abilities. On runs where my PEPT does good, other abilities suffer lower, but the total DPS remains roughly the same (145-160k).
This is on a Science toon btw, now tactical BOff skills (though I do run a SRO tactical set as a temporal BOff). For this setup, I also have my torps on auto-fire, since I do not have to time them to coincide with a buff.
My Pathfinder on the other hand is more of a sci-torp boat, so I do manually fire my 3 torps (PEPT, Neutronic and Terran). Depending on the run, I may carry either just 1 TS2, or a TS2 and HY2.
On a good run I get 10-15k from PEPT clouds plus about 3-4k from the torp itself. However, my normal average is in the 7-8k range (in ISA). SSV is in the 20k range for me too same with my Secondary Deflector. It's worth noting that at this point, there is some scavenging in DPS between my abilities. On runs where my PEPT does good, other abilities suffer lower, but the total DPS remains roughly the same (145-160k).
This is on a Science toon btw, now tactical BOff skills (though I do run a SRO tactical set as a temporal BOff). For this setup, I also have my torps on auto-fire, since I do not have to time them to coincide with a buff.
My Pathfinder on the other hand is more of a sci-torp boat, so I do manually fire my 3 torps (PEPT, Neutronic and Terran). Depending on the run, I may carry either just 1 TS2, or a TS2 and HY2.
Thank you very much for the numbers e30ernest. Sounds like the difference could be just enough to warrant some experimentation of my own to see how a change would work out for me. My torp spread is typically the smallest component of my DPS so I may find I just steal the DPS from somewhere else with no real change, but it dose sound like its worth investigating.
I was under the impression gravity well range no longer scaled with ControlX/EPG after the skill revamp...
They scale, but the effect of Control was capped at 400, and the EPG scaling was "normalized" which is the devs alternate facts word for nerfed.
Its worth giving credit to Bort though. When the skill revamp first went up on tribble the 'normalization' was a horrible nerf to science, but he really took the time to listen to us and engage, and in many ways science is in a better place now then it was before.
Except for drains, I think they still took a pretty bad hit, principally because most people without drain resistance before, have it now, But that's a PVP issue so it can be difficult finding other people who care.
Its worth giving credit to Bort though. When the skill revamp first went up on tribble the 'normalization' was a horrible nerf to science, but he really took the time to listen to us and engage, and in many ways science is in a better place now then it was before.
Except for drains, I think they still took a pretty bad hit, principally because most people without drain resistance before, have it now, But that's a PVP issue so it can be difficult finding other people who care.
I know, but it would have been easier to not scale it back so badly initially and have us have to complain over and over until they fixed the scaling to something closer to what we used to have.
So why pump EPG over CtrlX for infected? Simple, you don't need too.
The same can be said for anything in this game really. You don't "need" to pump CtrlX to huge numbers either. It's all a matter of what playstyle you consider to be fun.
That said, there are benefits to pumping EPG past 250. You still gain some Cat1 damage bonus (useful if you're saturating Cat 2 buff sources) and CrtD. There's a calculator for that if you want to test out various combinations.
Personally, I prefer a bit of precision with my GWs so I find a resting state of 250 or so CtrlX to be ideal for most scenarios and I run in the 450 or so EPG range on my Eternal and slightly less on my Pathfinder (because I am running stuff to buff torps on the Pathfinder).
Thanks, ernest, I was starting to feel outnumbered here. Nice to hear from another who shares the same approach. To me, the crucial thing is the CrtD. Given that you have a 50%+ crit chance at that point, more CrtD is more damage, though it is worth remembering that Particle Manipulator trait and the Science Ultimate apparently do not stack.
Thanks, ernest, I was starting to feel outnumbered here. Nice to hear from another who shares the same approach. To me, the crucial thing is the CrtD. Given that you have a 50%+ crit chance at that point, more CrtD is more damage, though it is worth remembering that Particle Manipulator trait and the Science Ultimate apparently do not stack.
You feel outnumbered because most science players view these max builds as a fun way to play in an alternate style. I admit it, I have a drain loadout suited for decent DPS (40K) when I want to use it in PvE, but I still prefer my max drain build when in PvP or just when I want to have some fun in PvE. Anyway, the rest of the team can pretty much clean up the static spheres once I hit them with an all encompasing and aftershocking Tyken's or when I suck them into a GW3 of no return. There is really no point in having ridiculous DPS in this game except run things faster.
The normalization was just step one, they just wanted all science powers to recieve the same boost per point which unified things and made the system easier to understand. They were counting on the players to tell them which powers were significantly underperforming, it was tribble testing for christ's sake they were never gonna push it live like that. It was illogical for people to get so upset because it did not help it just stressed everyone out.
It worked exactly like it was suppossed to, we told them what wasn't working right and they fixed it.
Thanks, ernest, I was starting to feel outnumbered here.
Your not outnumbered Chastity, its not you V us, its just us, you must love science too or you wouldn't be posting in this thread. EPGs are good too, but you haven't really done science until you have brow beaten and berated your small fleet of friends into all building 400 CtrlX ships.
When every one on team is pumping our mega wells and no one is wasting their time on shields STO gets super fun. I call it special task force gravimetric omega. Wish I had the time to make a video montage.... I need to make the time to do that... I really do.
The normalization was just step one, they just wanted all science powers to recieve the same boost per point which unified things and made the system easier to understand. They were counting on the players to tell them which powers were significantly underperforming, it was tribble testing for christ's sake they were never gonna push it live like that. It was illogical for people to get so upset because it did not help it just stressed everyone out.
It worked exactly like it was supposed to, we told them what wasn't working right and they fixed it.
Well your exactly right, the tribble testing worked as intended. But I'm guessing you didn't haunt the tribble forums very much previously right? I really don't want to speak bad about cryptic now because they don't deserve it any more, but if you look at cryptic's own description of themselves on their website:
'Cryptic Studios is a leading developer of massively multiplayer online role playing games, with a reputation for delivering profitable, on-time and on-budget titles'
You might form the impression that they place importance upon meeting their work schedules. This may explain why successive issues identified by the community on tribble previous to the skill update went unaddressed before going live, and in some cases for years after going live.
The skill update may indeed of been handled in exactly the way that it should, but this was counter to the expectations of many. I found it very welcome.
thought they patched it out a year or two ago? At least it seems like that long ago I stopped observing the death cycle of deadly gravidic doom.
The "Dishwasher effect" from Gravimetric Torpedo Spread 3 was to the best of my knowledge caused by the torpedo triggering Gravimetric Rifts excessively, and was sadly a casualty of the fixes made to torpedo spread that had to be done for client/server performance reasons.
thought they patched it out a year or two ago? At least it seems like that long ago I stopped observing the death cycle of deadly gravidic doom.
The "Dishwasher effect" from Gravimetric Torpedo Spread 3 was to the best of my knowledge caused by the torpedo triggering Gravimetric Rifts excessively, and was sadly a casualty of the fixes made to torpedo spread that had to be done for client/server performance reasons.
So we wont see its like again? So sad.... it still haunts my dreams... it was so very beautiful. Still I suppose sacrifices must be made for every one to be able to play effectively. The needs of the many and all that.
Was it the dishwasher itself that actually caused the lag? Any chances of getting something else that's similarly fantastic in the future but without the issues?
Low DPS to get to this drain skill, but it doesn't blow up either. FYI, the new max is 813.
Not sure how you are getting you are getting that high. I have maxed out with a little over 600. Curious about your build. I can see that you are using the Temporal Rep shields for Drain.
thought they patched it out a year or two ago? At least it seems like that long ago I stopped observing the death cycle of deadly gravidic doom.
The "Dishwasher effect" from Gravimetric Torpedo Spread 3 was to the best of my knowledge caused by the torpedo triggering Gravimetric Rifts excessively, and was sadly a casualty of the fixes made to torpedo spread that had to be done for client/server performance reasons.
I was under the impression gravity well range no longer scaled with ControlX/EPG after the skill revamp...
They scale, but the effect of Control was capped at 400, and the EPG scaling was "normalized" which is the devs alternate facts word for nerfed.
Not strictly. The range bonus of Control Expertise on Gravity Well is capped at 400; the pull strength continues to scale indefinitely past that.
crypticspartan-
Very interesting. So, when we say that 250 CtrlX yields a GW3 with a radius of about 10km and 400 CtrlX only boosts that to circa 12km, do those numbers sound about right to you?
I can only crudely estimate. I've never really had a chance to actually try to measure, though I suppose maybe it could be done, with two helpful friends - Alpha to throw the GW, Bravo to be target of the GW, and Charlie to sit at a pre-measured distance from Bravo and see if she gets pulled.
Low DPS to get to this drain skill, but it doesn't blow up either. FYI, the new max is 813.
Not sure how you are getting you are getting that high. I have maxed out with a little over 600. Curious about your build. I can see that you are using the Temporal Rep shields for Drain.
Even 600 is just brutal. Drop an Aceton Assimilator next to enemy, sic your elite Siphon Drones on him, and go make a sandwich. He'll still be there when you get back
Not to mention Plasmonic Leech becomes the stuff of nightmares.
crypticspartan-
Very interesting. So, when we say that 250 CtrlX yields a GW3 with a radius of about 10km and 400 CtrlX only boosts that to circa 12km, do those numbers sound about right to you?
I can only crudely estimate. I've never really had a chance to actually try to measure, though I suppose maybe it could be done, with two helpful friends - Alpha to throw the GW, Bravo to be target of the GW, and Charlie to sit at a pre-measured distance from Bravo and see if she gets pulled.
I was doing some bridge officer power tooltip cleanup recently, and added the range of Gravity Well to its tooltip - when that goes live, you will be able to find out for yourself.
crypticspartan-
Very interesting. So, when we say that 250 CtrlX yields a GW3 with a radius of about 10km and 400 CtrlX only boosts that to circa 12km, do those numbers sound about right to you?
I can only crudely estimate. I've never really had a chance to actually try to measure, though I suppose maybe it could be done, with two helpful friends - Alpha to throw the GW, Bravo to be target of the GW, and Charlie to sit at a pre-measured distance from Bravo and see if she gets pulled.
I was doing some bridge officer power tooltip cleanup recently, and added the range of Gravity Well to its tooltip - when that goes live, you will be able to find out for yourself.
crypticspartan-
Very interesting. So, when we say that 250 CtrlX yields a GW3 with a radius of about 10km and 400 CtrlX only boosts that to circa 12km, do those numbers sound about right to you?
I can only crudely estimate. I've never really had a chance to actually try to measure, though I suppose maybe it could be done, with two helpful friends - Alpha to throw the GW, Bravo to be target of the GW, and Charlie to sit at a pre-measured distance from Bravo and see if she gets pulled.
I was doing some bridge officer power tooltip cleanup recently, and added the range of Gravity Well to its tooltip - when that goes live, you will be able to find out for yourself.
Oh, sweet! That is truly excellent. Muchisimas Gracias
Comments
I should probably revise my statement about it being easy.
I've been helping a number of my fleet mates to put together these builds, including some who don't usually do science, and it hasn't taken much to get them there, but to be fair, they and I have been in the game for a long time and already had a lot of resources at our disposal so I should admit that this may represent a far grater investment to people less established.
Now to the details. First of all I highly recommend doing this with a temporal multi-mission science vessel, or a fleet temporal science vessel. Both these ships come with the support configuration ability which grants +40 to your CtrlX, +20% exotic damage and +10 Auxiliary power. Flying in this mode is a fantastic boon. Of course you don't actually need it, any ship with a commander science slot and 5 science consoles can achieve the numbers, and slot the skills necessary for an awesome Mega well build.
Now to gear.
I like to use 4 Restorative Particle Focuser [CtrlX] [EPG]. At mk XIV Ultra rare you can either +23.8 EPG and +35.6 CtrlX or +35.6 CtrlX and + 23.8 EPG per console. Depending upon your other gear choices you might want to use a mix so as not to surpass 400 CtrlX by too much, but on my current build I am only using the ones with grater CtrlX.
For my final science console I use an Exotic Particle Field exciter [CtrlX]. I got lucky upgrading mine to Mk XIV so it gives +37.5 to both CtrlX and EPG but the difference between this and a less rare mk XIV isn't huge.
Between these consoles, two skill points in Control expertise, and 3 in exotic particle generators I get a total of 280 CtrlX and 283 EPG. This isn't enough though so goodbye tactical and engineering consoles, we are going uni FOR SCIENCE.
I have an assimilated module at Mk XIV ultra rare for +27.2 CtrlX and a Tachyokinetic converter at Mk XIV ultra rare for +26.7 CtrlX both of these come with other benefits too, but most important of those are the boosts to Crt which applies ontop of the boosts from Particle Manipulator. With these two consoles I am now up to 334 CtrlX
Now if your not flying a ship with the support configuration ability you may wish to use a Conductive RCS with the [CtrlX] mod for another +37.5 CtrlX. If your flying a temporal ship you probably not going to need any more CtrlX from Consoles though.
For more EPG I recommend adding a Chronometric Capacitor, I use a mk XIV ultra rare which gives me +35.6. This is also part of a set with 3 weapons which I recommend using for the Chronometric Energy Converter ability. The reuse time on this isn't grate but an ability you can click to add 22.8% to your exotic damage for 30 seconds is more usefull to a science build then many other things you could put in your weapons slots.
For your final console slots we now have a few options to increase exotic damage. I highly recommend the Delphic tear generator. The Constriction anchor is also good for its passive bonus. If you happen to be using a temporal multi mission science vessel the Causal Anchor console isn't bad either.
As for shields, deflectors, warp cores and engines you have a lot of good choices. If you really need more CtrlX, maybe because you didn't put spec points into it, you might want to use a set with larger bonuses to it, but I have been using the full temporal defense initiative set along with an inhibiting secondary deflector that has both [CtrlX] and [EPG]
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Finaly for your remaining weapon slots (After the chronometric set) I recommend the gravimetric photon torpedo and experimental proton weapon (for their two set bonus, +3% critical chance which applies to everything including science) and a particle emission plasma torpedo. If your using a ship with torpedo spread I recommend putting the particle emission torpedo in the front and the Krenim and gravimetric torpedoes in the back so that you can be sure your spread isn't taken by them.
Numbers:
My final CtrlX and EPG stats with all the gear and support configuration are 408 CtrlX and 352 EPG with +55% exotic damage from Delphic Tear Generator, Constriction Anchor and Causal Anchor. By pre-hitting my healing abilities I can add 30% to that, and with the scryer's trait I can add another 22.5% so the total exotic damage bonus is 107.5%. ... before the extra 20% from support configuration.
Thanks to particle manipulator and the other equipment bonuses I am also looking at 62.8% Critical chance for exotic damage and 131 Critical severity for them.
Built the ship, now what?
The general strategy with this build is to hit all your heals to build up damage bonuses from the research lab consoles, hit your chronometric energy converter ability, place a gravity well on something, hit it with subspace vortex, destabilizing resonance beam and a plasma emission particle torpedo spread, then watch the murder ball destroy everything within a few seconds. Throwing in other AoE abilities like ionic turbulence or chronometric inversion field is also good if your flying a specialist ship.
Your going to want to use traits, doffs, boffs or specializations to reduce the cool down on your abilities of course, many of these have quite nasty re-use times and you cant really afford to double up abilities as your going to need some slots to keep you alive. Expect to draw all of the agro from all of the things, your going to need to be able to survive that for about 5 seconds before everything dies, and that can be tricky.
I also recommend running emergency power to engines one. Its good for running away from the agro, and for running to the enemy and getting that gravity well in just the right place before that ship in the middle of two clumps moves. When it comes to running away or getting killed don't worry too much, once you put down the murder ball your DPS wont suffer in the same way that a beam boat suffers from not being in range of the enemy. Your science will happily go on killing without you.
Ok so there you have it. I know I didn't give away the complete build. But that should be everything you need to make the SCIENCE do its thing, without locking you in to having to use a specific ship.
Happy sciencing every one.
What state do you consider to be crippled? A Mega well build can spike 1,000,000 damage in a second in infected, or put out 100,000 DPS when taken over the average of a 2 to 3 minute run. Though to be fair you wont usually see both extremes in the same parse, unless your flying tac or using romulan operatives. Getting a high spike means unbalancing your ability use a bit, typically a 100k run has spikes of about 400k
My Fed Sci toon runs around in a Krenim Sci ship with 434 EPG and about ~250 CtrlX unbuffed, which is to say before any abilities are activated. She hasn't yet broken 100K DPS, but she has made 85-90K many times. I suspect she could do better if I was a more skillful player with a better connection. My latency runs around 300ms, and I frequently hit a button to have it grey for a second and then clear without activating the power. I blame that on lag, but who knows?
I guess I'm not really sure what you're trying to say. Are you offended by my use of the word "crippled" ? I do consider 400 EPG to be a sort of critical mass; I would consider 350 to be less desirable. ISA has a lot of ships. More CtrlX and less EPG lets you suck in a few more ships, while doing a bit less damage to each. More EPG and less CtrlX sucks in a few less ships, but does a bit more damage to each. For CLR purposes, I'd guess it's six of one and a half-dozen of the other.
Honestly, neither of these threads belong here in GD. They should both be in Builds, Powers, and Game Mechanics.
Not offended, curious, hence why asked.
After you reach 250 and cap out the bonus to CritH from Particle manipulator the benefit to adding more more EPG is fairly miniscule, and of course anything with a +exotic damage% is a better choice.
The choice between EPG and CtrlX is less clear, because its situationally dependent. If a larger gravity well actually nets you another ship then its a damage multiplier, and its easily worth missing out on 200 or more EPG beyond the 250 point (not the first 250). If the larger well doesn't net you an additional ship it still increases your damage by a very small amount (well damage drops off with distance of target from center to pull strength and pull range do help) but your not really going to notice it and more EPG would certainly be the better option.
I've given numbers from infected in my previus posts because that's the yardstick that our community understands, but your certainly right, in infected you don't need a larger well, a tiny one will do. The thing is, in infected you also don't need more damage. The entire team together only has to do a combined 30k DPS to beat the optional.
So why pump EPG over CtrlX for infected? Simple, you don't need too. 250 in EPG is enough to kill all the spheres in your well before your AoE hazard effects expire. Killing them quicker and leaving your anomalies up for extra ticks harming nothing dosnt increase your DPS any more then if it had taken the full duration of the abilities to kill all the things, your still watching your DPS drop while the abilities recharge, you just climbed higher sooner, and started the drop sooner as well (of course boss killing time is helped a little with more EPG so you do gain some advantage there).
So why pump CtrlX? because some times it dose net you an extra sphere you wouldn't otherwise have caught, and extra enemies are extra multipliers.
Outside of infected space most content from DR onwards spreads enemies out much more then previously. Have you been to the new battlezone? some of the content there was clearly designed with the range of potential gravity wells in mind. so having higher CtrlX is important, remember its not an extra 2km radius, its an extra 4km diameter (alright I know, its the same thing), provided you can get a ship in the right spot to target, that 4km is the difference between annihilating one enemy group, waiting for cool downs and annihilating another, or annihilating both groups in one go)
Sorry you thought I sounded offended chastity, but your perspective that 400 CtrlX has diminishing returns is completely counter to mine, that 400 EPG has diminishing returns. Not trying to put you down, just showing you the other side. I completely get where your coming from, in a situation where the wells size fails to net you any extra targets you will 100% always have killed the enemies more quickly and efficiently with EPG.
I took my science stuff and put it on a fleet temporal escort the other day. It only has 4 science console slots and I could only put two lt.Com science boffs on it, But it still had no trouble ripping huge groups of enemies apart with science and no weapons power. Of course there was no advantage what so ever in using it over a science ship, which would have been a little more efficient, but the point is, it was fun and it did several times what it needed to do to 'pull its weight'. I suppose some might have called it crippled, but I don't think any one in the pug I was in would have, considering it carried them.
Ultimately I am probably biased from being an old school science player. Back in times passed you had to chose between creating a large well (about 7.5km radius or 15km diameter was the best you could expect) and not doing much to what was in it, or a powerful well that still did very little but neted you very few ships. We couldn't do it all like we do now, I used to go with big wells to act as a force multiplier for the rest of the team. Maybe I am just compensating though .
With my paradox I sling a monstrous gw3 then a grav torp spread 3, ah the dishwasher effect.
Also, how is it my grav well (in very satisfying fashion), throws the iconian dreadnought all over the place yet does not budge a cube?
"If this will be our end, then I will have them make SUCH an end as to be worthy of rememberance! Out of torpedos you say?! Find me the ferengi!".
O.O your still getting the dishwasher effect? I miss the dishwasher effect so much. I thought they patched it out a year or two ago? At least it seems like that long ago I stopped observing the death cycle of deadly gravidic doom.
As it wasn't twirling my enemies around in a stomach churning screen shaking maelstrom of hilarity anymore I made the switch to particle emission torps for slightly better damage output some time ago. Are the hurling whirling fun physics back? should I move the gravidic back into a front slot?
The same can be said for anything in this game really. You don't "need" to pump CtrlX to huge numbers either. It's all a matter of what playstyle you consider to be fun.
That said, there are benefits to pumping EPG past 250. You still gain some Cat1 damage bonus (useful if you're saturating Cat 2 buff sources) and CrtD. There's a calculator for that if you want to test out various combinations.
Personally, I prefer a bit of precision with my GWs so I find a resting state of 250 or so CtrlX to be ideal for most scenarios and I run in the 450 or so EPG range on my Eternal and slightly less on my Pathfinder (because I am running stuff to buff torps on the Pathfinder).
@darkknightucf recommend that torpedo users learn how to fire their torpedoes manually. You can therefore run both HY and TS and choose which would be the best torp to fire on any given scenario under those buffs.
That said, if you are using PEPT on a GW'd (especially on a tightly packed GW'd group), I actually recommend firing just one normal shot followed quickly by a torp spread of whatever other torpedo you have (like Neutronic, QPhase or Gravimetric). This is because the plasma cloud it procs is already AOE, and only one torp will proc a cloud with ample coverage in a GW. You're better off with a double-whammy of high kinetic damage with its own AOE (as in the case of Neutronic), huge shield drains (with QPhase) or a relatively high kinetic damage with additional AOE (as in the case with Grav Torps). Case and point, my Eternal has no tactical skills and the PEPT cloud DPS is equivalent (or sometimes even better than) my Pathfinder's PEPT cloud damage even when my Pathfinder fires that under Torp Spread. Again, you can only pull of such a combo reliably when firing manually.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
I place my torpedos on automatic because I already have too many things to click and with interface lag slowing me down or causing abilities not to fire at all, I already have enough to manage. Running a torp build I would certainly fire my torps as abilities, but that's a whole other jar of monkeys.
I am interested in comparing with your numbers however, running torp spread 3 on my eternal and using it on the PEPT exclusively typically gets me between 10k and 13k DPS from plasma clouds and between 2k and 3k more from the torpedo spread, This would be over a 3 to 5 minute pug infected run without tactical abilities or romulans.
The theory is that maximizing the number of clouds produced by firing at the maximum number of targets whilst they are clumped in the smallest space, layers the largest number of hazards across the largest number of targets and thus multiplies the damage caused by the greatest amount.
I am certainly open to the notion that a single hazard can do more of course. Subspace vortex is just one hazard and can be relied upon for 20k DPS under the same conditions, So if you have some numbers for me I would very much appreciate them.
I should probably mention though that if groomofweird posts again with how to produce the gravimetric torpedo spin cycle, the way we used to a few years ago, under the current build of STO then all of this is meaningless because deeps mean nothing compared to the hilarity of making starship crews hurl.
This is on a Science toon btw, now tactical BOff skills (though I do run a SRO tactical set as a temporal BOff). For this setup, I also have my torps on auto-fire, since I do not have to time them to coincide with a buff.
My Pathfinder on the other hand is more of a sci-torp boat, so I do manually fire my 3 torps (PEPT, Neutronic and Terran). Depending on the run, I may carry either just 1 TS2, or a TS2 and HY2.
| USS Curiosity - Pathfinder | USS Rift - Eternal |
The Science Ship Build Thread - Share your Sci Ship builds here!
They scale, but the effect of Control was capped at 400, and the EPG scaling was "normalized" which is the devs alternate facts word for nerfed.
Thank you very much for the numbers e30ernest. Sounds like the difference could be just enough to warrant some experimentation of my own to see how a change would work out for me. My torp spread is typically the smallest component of my DPS so I may find I just steal the DPS from somewhere else with no real change, but it dose sound like its worth investigating.
Its worth giving credit to Bort though. When the skill revamp first went up on tribble the 'normalization' was a horrible nerf to science, but he really took the time to listen to us and engage, and in many ways science is in a better place now then it was before.
Except for drains, I think they still took a pretty bad hit, principally because most people without drain resistance before, have it now, But that's a PVP issue so it can be difficult finding other people who care.
I know, but it would have been easier to not scale it back so badly initially and have us have to complain over and over until they fixed the scaling to something closer to what we used to have.
Thanks, ernest, I was starting to feel outnumbered here. Nice to hear from another who shares the same approach. To me, the crucial thing is the CrtD. Given that you have a 50%+ crit chance at that point, more CrtD is more damage, though it is worth remembering that Particle Manipulator trait and the Science Ultimate apparently do not stack.
You feel outnumbered because most science players view these max builds as a fun way to play in an alternate style. I admit it, I have a drain loadout suited for decent DPS (40K) when I want to use it in PvE, but I still prefer my max drain build when in PvP or just when I want to have some fun in PvE. Anyway, the rest of the team can pretty much clean up the static spheres once I hit them with an all encompasing and aftershocking Tyken's or when I suck them into a GW3 of no return. There is really no point in having ridiculous DPS in this game except run things faster.
It worked exactly like it was suppossed to, we told them what wasn't working right and they fixed it.
Your not outnumbered Chastity, its not you V us, its just us, you must love science too or you wouldn't be posting in this thread. EPGs are good too, but you haven't really done science until you have brow beaten and berated your small fleet of friends into all building 400 CtrlX ships.
When every one on team is pumping our mega wells and no one is wasting their time on shields STO gets super fun. I call it special task force gravimetric omega. Wish I had the time to make a video montage.... I need to make the time to do that... I really do.
Well your exactly right, the tribble testing worked as intended. But I'm guessing you didn't haunt the tribble forums very much previously right? I really don't want to speak bad about cryptic now because they don't deserve it any more, but if you look at cryptic's own description of themselves on their website:
'Cryptic Studios is a leading developer of massively multiplayer online role playing games, with a reputation for delivering profitable, on-time and on-budget titles'
You might form the impression that they place importance upon meeting their work schedules. This may explain why successive issues identified by the community on tribble previous to the skill update went unaddressed before going live, and in some cases for years after going live.
The skill update may indeed of been handled in exactly the way that it should, but this was counter to the expectations of many. I found it very welcome.
The "Dishwasher effect" from Gravimetric Torpedo Spread 3 was to the best of my knowledge caused by the torpedo triggering Gravimetric Rifts excessively, and was sadly a casualty of the fixes made to torpedo spread that had to be done for client/server performance reasons.
Not strictly. The range bonus of Control Expertise on Gravity Well is capped at 400; the pull strength continues to scale indefinitely past that.
So we wont see its like again? So sad.... it still haunts my dreams... it was so very beautiful. Still I suppose sacrifices must be made for every one to be able to play effectively. The needs of the many and all that.
Was it the dishwasher itself that actually caused the lag? Any chances of getting something else that's similarly fantastic in the future but without the issues?
Not sure how you are getting you are getting that high. I have maxed out with a little over 600. Curious about your build. I can see that you are using the Temporal Rep shields for Drain.
crypticspartan-
Very interesting. So, when we say that 250 CtrlX yields a GW3 with a radius of about 10km and 400 CtrlX only boosts that to circa 12km, do those numbers sound about right to you?
I can only crudely estimate. I've never really had a chance to actually try to measure, though I suppose maybe it could be done, with two helpful friends - Alpha to throw the GW, Bravo to be target of the GW, and Charlie to sit at a pre-measured distance from Bravo and see if she gets pulled.
Even 600 is just brutal. Drop an Aceton Assimilator next to enemy, sic your elite Siphon Drones on him, and go make a sandwich. He'll still be there when you get back
Not to mention Plasmonic Leech becomes the stuff of nightmares.
I was doing some bridge officer power tooltip cleanup recently, and added the range of Gravity Well to its tooltip - when that goes live, you will be able to find out for yourself.
THANK YOU!
Oh, sweet! That is truly excellent. Muchisimas Gracias