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Help me improve my DPS

sophlogimosophlogimo Member Posts: 6,507 Arc User
Okay, so I keep reading how gear is not everything and 50k dps should be easily doable post-ViL, and apparently, there is now content where this is actually needed.

I have two captains that can do 30k in Sakari System Patrol Elite, one using a Fleet Kara class (T6 Fleet Haakona with an added lance, basically) for a tactical captain and one using a Fleet Alita (Heavy Escort Carrier) for an engineer captain. They are geared to the point of me willing to spend on them.

But supposedly, gear isn't everything, so... how do you do more than 30k dps with those two ships in Sakari System Patrol Elite? What tactics, maneuvering and boff power combinations, etc. do you use for them?

I would be keen on seeing combat log files that prove your point.


Remember, STO is nothing but a cosmetics game, where only the rule of cool matters. The game mechanics are intentionally out of balance, don't try to "optimize" anything, as it would just frustrate you.
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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  • wideningxgyrewideningxgyre Member Posts: 710 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    Okay, so I keep reading how gear is not everything and 50k dps should be easily doable post-ViL, and apparently, there is now content where this is actually needed.

    I have two captains that can do 30k in Sakari System Patrol Elite, one using a Fleet Kara class (T6 Fleet Haakona with an added lance, basically) for a tactical captain and one using a Fleet Alita (Heavy Escort Carrier) for an engineer captain. They are geared to the point of me willing to spend on them.

    But supposedly, gear isn't everything, so... how do you do more than 30k dps with those two ships in Sakari System Patrol Elite? What tactics, maneuvering and boff power combinations, etc. do you use for them?

    I would be keen on seeing combat log files that prove your point.


    True, gear isn't everything. How you pilot and manage your activation of clickies make a huge difference. Even something small like interrupting your firing cycle by redistributing shields at the wrong time can have an impact on dps if you do it often enough in a run. But, seems like a lot more information would be needed before anyone could provide a meaningful answer.

    - What does "They are geared to the point of me willing to spend on them" actually mean - that they are using purple MK XII mission rewards and drops or Epic MK XV gear? Also what specific gear are you using?

    - What are you using for Boffs? What skills do they have slotted?

    - What do the spec trees look like? Tac ultimate plus a bit of survival? or heavy SCI? balanced?

    - Which specializations are you using? Tanking with Miracle Worker is going to have different results than say Intel/Strat.

    - Which Space traits and Starship traits are you using?

    - How well does your active roster supplement your build?

    Given how many variables there are, you may be better off comparing your build to one of the ones in the various sample builds. All that said, it's probably not a magic bullet answer, but a bunch of smaller things whose cumulative impact would result in the type of improvement you're seeking.

    There are some very helpful build videos on youtube that not only show the builds, but also provide the underlying rationale as to WHY and how the various items work together that may be much more valuable.
  • ucgsquawk#5883 ucgsquawk Member Posts: 279 Arc User
    Don't forget that some of the tactics/boff powers you asked about will be affected by your build. Dbb, cannons, arrays, science etc. could all give different tactics.
    Asking for build info is a first step to the rest.
  • bossheisenbergbossheisenberg Member Posts: 603 Arc User
    "Really, no you don't. Especially as what you are asking are all things that are build questions. I was specifically asking NOT for build advice, but flying and tactics advice.[/quote]


    What exactly do you want to know? How to pilot your ship? He's right, you give almost no information to go by to give any real advice. Try posting your build in the academy/shipyard and you might get some help there.

  • tom61stotom61sto Member Posts: 3,635 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    Parse results are usually given either by parsing ISA or HSE. True, they are influenced by the other players, but if you take the average of multiple runs in either, you'll get pretty close to what your exact contribution is. Picking a random Patrol is going to give you different numbers depending on how it's setup, the gap between enemies, what those enemies can do that could placate or drain you, versus the fairly straight-forward ISA and HSE. 30k in Sakari could be awesome, or 30k could be horrible, but I don't even know off-hand where it is located.

    Edit:
    For flying, it's hard to get across in text. Timber Wolf's videos would be a decent starting place. He's been adding parses for some of the Tau Dewa area Patrols,which have been included for XB1/PS4 players that can't parse to compare times against, so that can give a comparison point if you still don't want to play with others by running the same Patrol in the video.
  • wideningxgyrewideningxgyre Member Posts: 710 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    [...]

    True, gear isn't everything. How you pilot and manage your activation of clickies make a huge difference. Even something small like interrupting your firing cycle by redistributing shields at the wrong time can have an impact on dps if you do it often enough in a run.

    Obviously it can influence DPS, but by signifcant amounts? This is interesting, and the type of stuff I am asking for.

    In my experience, I would set that to maybe 10% (not a measured number, just a guesstimate) of the DPS over a run like Sakari System Patrol Elite. (Note that I am using a single player mission, because that eliminates other team members' influences). So assuming I did all of that wrong, it would be another 3k, roughly, which seems like not much in the grand scheme of things.

    Now, maybe that assessment is wrong, or outdated. But activating a fire mode power two seconds later because I was redistributing my shields at the wrong time, to use that example, can really only cost me two seconds of what that firing mode would have granted in additional damage, right?

    Or am I overlooking things here?

    But, seems like a lot more information would be needed before anyone could provide a meaningful answer.
    [...]

    Really, no you don't. Especially as what you are asking are all things that are build questions. I was specifically asking NOT for build advice, but flying and tactics advice.

    Well, since you seem to know what you're doing sufficiently to tell me I'm wrong and you don't need to share that information, I'll drop out and let others respond.
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    buff activation patterns?
    from long => short with csv/crf/faw at the end.
    so for a tac you have normaly 2 major cycle.
    spike:
    eptw=>apa=>dynamic power=>gdf=>domino=>apb=>kemo=>csv/faw/crf
    normal:
    eptw=>apb=>kemo=>csv/faw/crf

    its important to say that you should not waste all your fire cycle speed buffs at the same time,since there is a diminishing return there, so normaly you dont want more than 80-100% cycle haste and its better to split those buffs a bit.
    in addition, you want the maximum uptime for your major damage buffs. so if there is only a few % left and you need to fly after that for a few seconds you waste a lot of potential => do NOT do that.

    but you might wanna check out www.sto-league.com
    we have a lot of informations there, and yes, buff activation pattern is important but only a part of it too. skilltree, traits (ship/rep/personal), boff abilities, gear are all important too ;)
  • bossheisenbergbossheisenberg Member Posts: 603 Arc User
    As far as I know the order you should activate your powers goes from longest buff to shortest. You want to activate things like EPW first as it lasts for 30 seconds, whereas buffs like kemo and CRF or attack patterns tend to last only 10-15 seconds.

    If you're using things like Aux2Battery with technician doff, you want to activate it last as it only works to cool down abilities already activated.
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    oh and in case you're using energy weapons, stay close to the targets, because you loose damage due to distance.
    the points into long range targeting sensors are pretty important, someone might call them the noob trap if you dont skill them.
    and that is because you get a final modifier from it. without the lrts skill points its a 0.5 modifier (multiplication of the value with 0.5), 0.8 with all 3 points.
    so highly important to skill those 3 points.

    oh and sophlogimo feel free to join our community if you want to learn something about dps, we dont bite ;)
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    i saw people doing maybe half the dps i'm doing with quite equal setups and stuff like that. all i could tell you is that its all together. i mean piloting would be buff use (aka buff activation pattern) and piloting. both are maybe 40% of the dps or so.

    its just that you want to buff your major abilities to a maximum when they are up. so you want to buff your scatter volley to a maximum (and want 3 targets in your firing arc) because you could potentially do more than 3 times the damage in that case than you would without scatter volley running. so you want to buff those cases because it has the highest impact.

    for cannons as example, its not that easy to keep 3 targets in your arc all the time too, and thats another difficulty at the end. quite often i see people having a great ship, they are using cannons and their major damage source in a parse are the 3 turrets and not the 5 front weapons.
  • bossheisenbergbossheisenberg Member Posts: 603 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    As far as I know the order you should activate your powers goes from longest buff to shortest. You want to activate things like EPW first as it lasts for 30 seconds, whereas buffs like kemo and CRF or attack patterns tend to last only 10-15 seconds.

    But don't you usually run 2 copies of EPtW, so the point where you start that particular cycle wouldn't matter all that much?


    No - cool downs are so much now you don't need two copies of anything. I use the peak efficiency trait and only one copy of all boff abilities.
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    As far as I know the order you should activate your powers goes from longest buff to shortest. You want to activate things like EPW first as it lasts for 30 seconds, whereas buffs like kemo and CRF or attack patterns tend to last only 10-15 seconds.

    But don't you usually run 2 copies of EPtW, so the point where you start that particular cycle wouldn't matter all that much?


    close to no one runs 2 eptw these days. you have always some kind of cd reduction. the normal ways are a2b or damage control engs. with each version you could run 2 different eptx abilities. the common combinations are eptw(with emergency weapon cycle trait (get that one, its super awesome)) and epts (survivability due to shield resistance) or epte (great flightspeed buff).
    personally i run eptw3+epte1 in most cases, but for hse as example, epts is better because you dont move much around there
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    felisean wrote: »
    i saw people doing maybe half the dps i'm doing with quite equal setups and stuff like that. all i could tell you is that its all together. i mean piloting would be buff use (aka buff activation pattern) and piloting. both are maybe 40% of the dps or so.[...]

    So, you guesstimate about 20% gear, 40% piloting, 40% activation cycles, all assumed to be close to ideal?



    its not that easy, but 40% piloting/buffuse, 20% team, 40% gear
    something like that but thats not it has to be 40%.
    dont hang on those numbers ;)
  • feliseanfelisean Member Posts: 688 Arc User
    dont know. normaly people dont have the exact same build with all the gear, its nothing do x to do y amount of dps.

    i mean i did 100k+ dps with a complete new toon without traits, rep gear and stuff like that, just some older (but highest mk) weapons to use.
    and we saw pets doing 60k+ dps on its on (isa parse), support toons doing 90k dps with minimized weapon power just with pets, grav well and stuff like that.
    at the end, its a combination of issues, all sum up. if i record runs from myself as example, i always see several piloting issues myself, so its not always that easy to pilot correctly ;)
  • brian334brian334 Member Posts: 2,214 Arc User
    One thing I didn't see mentioned here is to pick targets your teammtes have debuffed.

    Sci-guy just stuck a hand full of NPCs in a Tykken's Rift? Time to slam some damage down their throats! That guy with the high accuracy phasers keeps kicking enemy systems offline? Follow him and shoot what he's shooting. Engineer just vaped a squadron of bad guys? Yeah.

    It may seem like common sense, but it's seldom done. Killstealing is not a thing in STO! Don't give that enemy a chnce to recover! Your buddy just stripped a shield on a tough ship? Time for your Alpha cycle! Don't let it get that shield face back up.

    And I'll mention another thing: you can fly around all day and rack up DPS but never kill anything. Don't do that. The game is about destroying enemy ships, not earning accolades for energy weapons damage. Go for the kill, and if you can't do that, go for the disable and then kill it. But the best way to kill something is by doing it with a teammate.
  • talonxvtalonxv Member Posts: 4,257 Arc User
    I honestly don't even know on my main toon with my top ship what my DPS is to begin with.
    afMSv4g.jpg
    Star Trek Battles member. Want to roll with a good group of people regardless of fleets and not have to worry about DPS while doing STFs? Come join the channel and join in the fun!

    http://forum.arcgames.com/startrekonline/discussion/1145998/star-trek-battles-channel-got-canon/p1
  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    Okay, so I keep reading how gear is not everything and 50k dps should be easily doable post-ViL, and apparently, there is now content where this is actually needed.

    I have two captains that can do 30k in Sakari System Patrol Elite, one using a Fleet Kara class (T6 Fleet Haakona with an added lance, basically) for a tactical captain and one using a Fleet Alita (Heavy Escort Carrier) for an engineer captain. They are geared to the point of me willing to spend on them.

    But supposedly, gear isn't everything, so... how do you do more than 30k dps with those two ships in Sakari System Patrol Elite? What tactics, maneuvering and boff power combinations, etc. do you use for them?

    I would be keen on seeing combat log files that prove your point.


    True, gear isn't everything. How you pilot and manage your activation of clickies make a huge difference. Even something small like interrupting your firing cycle by redistributing shields at the wrong time can have an impact on dps if you do it often enough in a run.


    Absolutely true! Whilst 'Redistribute Shields' is a horrible thing to throw into the mix (seriously, don't ever do that), as outlined in earlier threads, basically every ability activation interrupts/disrupts your DPS, because every activation is followed by a brief lock-out moment; this is, in fact, what 'global' is (as opposed to a commonly used definition of 'the shortest possible cd', aka 15 secs). This global lockout, on every activation, is invisible to the eye (as in: you don't visually see your weapons stop firing), but the interruption is nonetheless very real. Which is why just blindly spacebarring is so bad, and while, ideally, one would activate abilities only during the brief time your weapons are recycling.

    Then there's activation sequence. Like, what to activate first, Tactical Team, or an Attack Pattern? Obviously, this can get very complex too. I heard a top player once say, about CCA, 'I can deliver 1 200k shot; after that, it all goes to hell.' Yep, buffing in the right manner matters too.

    This is the theory. I am, myself, way too uncoordinated to get the activation timings just right, as I'm usually too distracted, watching the battle field. Nonetheless, good DPS-ers will invariably tell you that proper activation management is the road to success.
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  • meimeitoomeimeitoo Member Posts: 12,587 Arc User
    edited November 2018
    sophlogimo wrote: »
    As a sidenote: The fact that you can call watching the battlefield a "distraction" points me to a general design issue with the game. Watching the battlefield and making decisions based on THAT information should, in my opinion, be much more relevant than the clicking order of some quasi-magical powers.


    It is tough, yes. Like I said, I am simply too uncoordinated. I can do it for a bit; but when things get hairy, I just start pressing every button indiscriminately, and the magic is lost. :) But yeah, it's really hard to focus on the enemies AND on your weapon cycles, at the same time. At least for me.

    Thing is, I never really understood the need for this global lockout. Feels like ancient game-design to me. I mean, why does each activation have to be 'atomic'? Why can't your weapons just keep firing? (And pick up on the activation at the next milisecond). Maybe it's even network related; who knows.

    RyanSTO made some very instructive videos on the subject, back when; and I'm probably not far off saying this knowledge is pretty common amongst ppl in the DPS channels (it kinda has to be, or they wouldn't be doing monster DPS). There's a lot more to DPS than that, of course, but proper timing is good start. And that includes silly things, like not starting your Singularity Overcharge when your weps just started firing (as it will only kick in on the next cycle). Every little bit helps.
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