> @sophlogimo said: > talonxv wrote: » > > [...] > I actually had a duel with a mk 15 gold Vengeance vs my older mk 12 Esquiline. > > I handed the Vengance his tail. Repeatedly. It's always gunny to me when someone thinks they have the biggest and baddest around and then a science ship waltzes in and smacks it around like it's nothing. > > > > > To be fair, though: PvP works by different concepts than PvE, so overwhelming someone who built his ship for PvE is not that hard.
Thing is, my ship wasn't set up for PvP either.
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!
Well, just had the (mis?)fortunte of being in an ISA instance with @tunebreaker
Was over before it started.
Not overly bothered - but does highlight the primary setback of playing a torpedo boat. Get a player like Tunebreaker on the map and everything is dead before the torpedoes even hit anything.
I'm not going to go all negative here, but chasing around after someone who basically solos the map and all but one-shots everything is a bit TRIBBLE.
Fwiw, the parse looked like this...
SCM - Infected [LR] (S) - [02:26] DMG(DPS) - @sf911: 23.98M(167.96K) @tunebreaker: 10.02M(69.19K) @[pug1]: 3.89M(35.41K) @reyan01: 1.75M(12.87K) @[pug2]: 318.03K(3.81K)
I tanked for my friend Florian, and while I am capable of outputting similar numbers myself (especially when Florian tanks for me), I'm not so sure I solely accept the blame in that particular case.
Also, fwiw^2, you can very well do 100k+ in a fast ISA with a torp boat.
@tunebreaker you filthy elitist. How you dare you ruin the 28-minute ISA immersion of these poor top fleet players. Next time think of the forumites.
/s
---@revolution0214 | Certified Clueless | Zone, Forums, and Facebook tri-branded Top Fleet Player™ |
I'm pretty sure that even if you've not equipped AP but are doing x17 elitist hax dps, you're actually using AP. It's another coding quirk.
verified by the forums, zone and top fleet players. -Nirett
So TIL that SA didn't go from being a T H I C C damage bonus to a thicc damage bonus. Rather, what happened is that it went from T H I C C to merely flat. I guess I should be happy it was not turned into a flatter bonus. That would have been even more nerd-rage worthy. -Anonymous
No, I really can't. Your combatlog just proved that my DPS is a JOKE and, contrary to what @peterconnorfirst said, I've actually accomplished nothing.
Nah. You just couldn´t do enough / more because they did all the dps needed. And because they both knew that it can go fast. If you would have known what they were doing, you could go probably on the other side to get more DPS (or wait at the gate)
This is precisely the balance issue I am always talking about. "But naw, soph, it's okay, because it requires skill!"
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not a good game experience for everyone on the team..
How often are you getting something like Reyan had or in that Video? Sure it is a bit overkill, but that overkill is pretty rare if you pug. At least for me. Same goes for Battlezones.
Since the Random TFOs I had only 1 ISA Run which ended like that. And I had a lot of Random ISA. Most of Random TFOs are more like a battle (or sometimes even struggle...) with more or less balanced mates.
I have only read select posts throughout the thread, and i have a couple questions. 1. is it safe to say that the mega DPS builds are built to make crits happen more often than not, 2. how exactly is that done, on the presumption that question 1 is correct, and finally if i were able to tweak my captains to do that, what kind of numbers could i reasonably expect in, say, a recluse with NO fleet gear?
Forced to agree. In fact I've lost motivation to bother running anything else after being reduced to little more than a spectator in that instance.
Hopefully, that feeling will pass, because you shouldn't feel that way after one run.
You're a good player, but you won't parse high or have a 'good round' every single time. I run with Tune and Connor all the time and trust me.. I get it.. there is only so much DPS to go around. Still, I have had some pretty good games with those guys as well as some where I simply didn't get to things in time.. it happens.
It's not his fault, it's not your fault.. you probably shouldn't take parse results so seriously. it's fun to parse and all, but don't let one single run define you as a player.. you just can't think that way. Personally, I am a notoriously low parser in ISA myself, my results vary wildly which is why I prefer HSE.
There is nothing wrong with you or your build, you just had a bad run. It happens to us all, don't give up.
[...]
I'll easily admit that. What I usually try to point out is that such a ceiling is much, much, much too high in the first place.
Ok, but how do you come to that conclusion? The reason I went on at such length to describe A) the level of performance needed to complete HSE comfortably,
There's already the answer in that last word I quote here: "Comfortably". Is HSE supposed to be doable "comfortably"?
I would argue that no, not at all. It is supposed to be tough and hard. When you have DPS that allows you to do it "comfortably", then the DPS is too high. For doing things "comfortably", Normal is probably the difficulty setting best used.
HSE is only done comfortably in really good teams, featuring extremely good players (top 1% good) - and even then there can be hiccups. (Phase 2 features random aggro mechanics, so you can potentially have a perfectly smooth run go pear shaped once the cubes are dead.) You're acting as if I ever argued that "comfortable" HSEs are the standard. No, what I said is that it takes a spectacular amount of performance to do HSE comfortably.
All I can suggest to you is that you run HSE. It's clear that your strongly held convictions on this point are just completely out of line with reality. I'll also say, for the third time now, that you should probably run a couple of ISAs just to make sure that your 30k benchmark is accurate in relation to the other numbers we've been throwing around. You're probably doing more DPS than you think you are, relative to everyone else. Having one guy using a different scale only muddies the waters.
I see in your last post you're even tossing around your patrol DPS metrics to newer players, who are apt to get confused about what those numbers mean when they talk to everyone else.
Well, just had the (mis?)fortunte of being in an ISA instance with @tunebreaker
Was over before it started.
Not overly bothered - but does highlight the primary setback of playing a torpedo boat. Get a player like Tunebreaker on the map and everything is dead before the torpedoes even hit anything.
I'm not going to go all negative here, but chasing around after someone who basically solos the map and all but one-shots everything is a bit rubbish
Well, just had the (mis?)fortunte of being in an ISA instance with @tunebreaker
Was over before it started.
Not overly bothered - but does highlight the primary setback of playing a torpedo boat. Get a player like Tunebreaker on the map and everything is dead before the torpedoes even hit anything.
I'm not going to go all negative here, but chasing around after someone who basically solos the map and all but one-shots everything is a bit TRIBBLE.
Fwiw, the parse looked like this...
SCM - Infected [LR] (S) - [02:26] DMG(DPS) - @sf911: 23.98M(167.96K) @tunebreaker: 10.02M(69.19K) @[pug1]: 3.89M(35.41K) @reyan01: 1.75M(12.87K) @[pug2]: 318.03K(3.81K)
I tanked for my friend Florian, and while I am capable of outputting similar numbers myself (especially when Florian tanks for me), I'm not so sure I solely accept the blame in that particular case.
Also, fwiw^2, you can very well do 100k+ in a fast ISA with a torp boat.
No, I really can't. Your combatlog just proved that my DPS is a JOKE and, contrary to what @peterconnorfirst said, I've actually accomplished nothing.
Well, just had the (mis?)fortunte of being in an ISA instance with @tunebreaker
Was over before it started.
Not overly bothered - but does highlight the primary setback of playing a torpedo boat. Get a player like Tunebreaker on the map and everything is dead before the torpedoes even hit anything.
I'm not going to go all negative here, but chasing around after someone who basically solos the map and all but one-shots everything is a bit rubbish
You think?
This is precisely the balance issue I am always talking about. "But naw, soph, it's okay, because it requires skill!"
Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not a good game experience for everyone on the team.
Disclaimer: I blame the game, not the players. Just saying that so that nobody gets all foamy around the mouth.
Forced to agree. In fact I've lost motivation to bother running anything else after being reduced to little more than a spectator in that instance.
I’m very sorry that one of your first ISA ventures with your recently adjusted build lead to results far below your expectations.
What happened? You were caught by surprise, nothing more. ISA has a creeping low DPS ceiling compared to the dmg potential players/teams can bring quickly reaching a point where you and your build can’t unleash its full dmg potential no matter how good or bad you manage to play.
Experienced players know that and when they have reached a point where they don’t cut it in channels runs often feel compelled to display and test their abilities in public matches where they have a higher chance to get their share of the small DPS cake that ISA is nowadays.
With my exotic build on a sci I average around 100-150k after playing with it for a few days because my league experience has me better prepared for fast matches. This is of course under the consideration that nothing goes terribly wrong (dying, missing out critical target groups with the slow attacks I have) or terribly right (setting up the stage to my advantage over my team) where I can easily loose a 100k or even gain it.
Even this 50k discrepancy on an average is much higher than it is with my beam and especially cannon boats because EPG and torpedos are just slow and the map composition is stacked against me compared to other maps we have. I either run into weaker players still supplying me with valuable buffs without taking targets away from me or I run into stronger ones which use the high DMG spikes cannon builds can pull to melt large amounts of HP I’d could usually reach with my slow working attacks.
All that applies to me in this game applies to you as well. That’s the good part. In short you can look at my build and see what more expensive items and traits I was able to gather to help me up those slow attacks a bit.
Additionally you can look at a video I linked in your thread which discretely shows how epg/torp builds can be set into motion in fast runs. Lots of stuff can be learned there, especially a high hitting epg attack (you can already do too with your build) during the last part of ISA. This alone can add over a third of the DPS you are capable of doing otherwaise. It gives a bit of false impression towards your DPS performance over the entire duration of this map but can make you easily look better if anybody throws a log at you and it is still *your* DPS in the end.
As for logs it would help immensely if you just get one yourself. Not to be able to gloat over others someday but rather to get a better picture as to what is really going on from match to match and what could be done to improve.
Whatever you do now, just do me one favor please. Don’t listen to players that
- make you think that the game is broken hindering to do well in it or play fair, or
- only seem to chime in here once in a while to spit on your progress.
I cannot express in words how glad I am that the leaders of the DPS community I choose to play in the past few years don’t do either and have always limited their input towards my improvement. Playing with them now fills me with more pride than my DPS numbers ever would.
Sorry for the long text but I don’t want you to burry your head in the sand. You managed Bronze DPS in a run where every odds were stacked against you. Under better conditions your build can pull Silver DPS easily and given further improvement both in gear and piloting you can do the same Gold DPS I pull with it. At such a point even Diamond is possible via appropriate team play similar to what Tune did for his friend.
You don’t need to get there for me but never doubt yourself over this please!
Post edited by peterconnorfirst on
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I have only read select posts throughout the thread, and i have a couple questions. 1. is it safe to say that the mega DPS builds are built to make crits happen more often than not, 2. how exactly is that done, on the presumption that question 1 is correct, and finally if i were able to tweak my captains to do that, what kind of numbers could i reasonably expect in, say, a recluse with NO fleet gear?
This is too large a question for this thread. The short answer is that crit stats are important to high end builds, but they're not everything. The most important part of any build is your bridge layout, making sure that your best skills (most notably weapon enhancements like Scatter Volley or Fire at Will) are up as often as possible. From there, you start worrying about stacking crit chance/severity, cat1/cat2 damage buffs, debuffs of the enemy, haste bonuses, etc.
Still, without access to fleet gear, you'll lose out on up to ~14 points of crit chance (on a standard energy-weapon build) - from Fleet Spire Tactical consoles + Fleet Colony Deflector. If you're not Romulan-aligned, then you'll also miss out on Superior Romulan Operative Tac boffs from the Fleet Embassy - but those are pretty pricey, so I wouldn't worry about them for the moment. The Fleet Colony Deflector is really cheap and really strong; it's the first piece of fleet gear I buy on alts because the bang-for-buck is so high.
If you want a more comprehensive view of what goes into good ship builds, please do visit STOBuilds (link in my signature). We also have a discord channel for build help (https://discordapp.com/invite/storeddit). And if you need a fleet, you can get an invite to the Reddit fleets just by asking in the Redditchat channel, in game. Everyone's welcome.
I see in your last post you're even tossing around your patrol DPS metrics to newer players, who are apt to get confused about what those numbers mean when they talk to everyone else.
I want to elaborate further on this Sakari patrol, and why I think it's a bad benchmark.
Right off the bat, when you enter, you'll have at least a minute or two of scanning, dialogue and unskippable (although, sure, they are short) cutscenes, before you can even start shooting. Then you'll face an option which let's you determine how many enemies you face. Yes, seriously, the number of enemies will be determined by dialogue choice. And only then you can actually start the shooting.
So even leaving totally aside all the arguments how STO is supposed to be a team-centric game and it's not bad that your DPS reflects that part, you can't simply have an accurate benchmark for comparison in a content where as simple things as dialogue choices can totally make the playing field different. If you, for some reason, prefer that very map for solely your own testing ground - as in, trying out different things for your own build and always making the same dialogue choices yourself to keep the tests compareable, that's fair, but wanting to basically impose that pretty poorly designed (for DPS benchmarking) map upon everyone else is unreasonable, and ultimately futile.
And about HSEs, indeed, I have said it before and will say it again - you frequent forum members should get a team together yourself and organize a HSE. See how smooth it'll go, see how easily enemies die (spoiler alert: you'll probably fail unless you get someone like Pete to carry you). I don't think there are more than 50 players left in game who I'd take into my HSEs and expect a *comfortable* run. And when talking about players who can excel in any necessary role (meaning can perform exceptionally well being either a DPSer, tank, CC-sphere cleaner or subnuker) to make HSE *comfortable* (as in, run goes fast, hardly anyone struggles to survive, no deaths, except maybe at the hands of Queen subnuke etc), I don't think I can come up with more than 10 names.
Sure, it's easy to look at videos of HSEs that take barely 4 minutes (or even less) and then think that "oh how this game is so easy", but ppl in those runs are the very best in the game, who have spent countless of hours improving their flying patterns, their builds, and also, yes, their gear.
And even then, every HSE I do, I'm always very attentive even with the cream of the crop teams, as every mistake I make can at best mean losing 10k of my own DPS and at worst, the entire team getting wiped. Sure, you don't need the best of the best to just *complete* HSE, but the argument here was "comfortable", and as @pfft2 also eloquently put, comfortable HSEs are standard only to the very top end, playing in teams consisting entirely of top end players.
And by "performance", you mean DPS, first and foremost, correct? That is my whole point - DPS should not allow this to be "comfortably" done.
As I also wrote in my previous post "performance" in HSE means multiple things. DPS is only 1 important factor, but after fix to LRTS scaling bug through the doff mission, I don't think there are any teams in game who can currently simply DPS their way through. Sure, there are like 2-3 teams (consisting of players who have literally played together for years and can anticipate eachother's moves very well) can do without dedicated tank, but even they need more survivability than 5 glass cannons, from what I've gathered. And even then, I'd personally argue, playing *with* a dedicated tank makes the whole process more comfortable, but YMMV, ofc.
Then, you'd want to have at least one player who is doing good scihax, meaning they can crowd-control spheres quickly into a big mass at the beginning of the queue so the team could dispose of them easily. Getting swarmed by spheres is the reason number 1 why teams rapidly die after 30s-1min into phase 1. They also melt the enemies through shields and their fire-and-forget style of exotic abilities with DoTs mean rest of the team can switch targets when the enemy is only at very low HP, but not just dead yet (as that enemy will die after a second or 2 with those DoTs). This helps to save time, which makes for faster run in total, which makes for a more comfortable run.
Then you'd want to have a at least one dedicated science captain with Subnucleonic Beam, who'd hit the Queen *extremely* fast after she pops her FBP. Someone with Subnucleonic Carrier Wave technically can work, but is nearly not as reliable, as Queen is known for buffing herself heavily up and having more than 4 buffs online at the same time.
Then you'd want someone (doesn't matter who, but most often it's the tank) to ideally heal others, (with RSC or PFP for example), and activate that ability immediately after pickles (the unimatrix ships) activate their Feedback Pulse, to prevent squishier energy boats from killing themselves against those. Sure, everyone having their own "oh c--p" abilities is also viable tactic, but lowers the DPS potential, thus makes for a slower run, thus means less comfortable run. Plus, with the current ridiculous level of Queen's FBP, most DPSers save their own emergency abilities for that part.
Is all of this needed for just completing HSE? Again, nope. But I'd argue it's necessary for a "comfortable" run.
Why is it necessary to explain that when you want to know how good one individual is, in a game where people can buff other people and debuff their targets, removing anyone but that individual and his or her targets is a simple necessity to have any kind of meaningful assessment?
I mean, seriously, why is that not obvious?
I get the argument of why single player benchmark is good to have. However, you can't simply say that team interactions don't matter at all if 99% of the gameplay is in teams.
It's up to players themselves which number they want to report to the public and advertise their build with - is it their ISA pugging average or their 3/2 premade ultimate best. Claiming you're a 200k+ player when you've only done 200.01k in an extremely lucky premade once, is, of course pretty weird flex, but I can always choose not to associate myself with people like that.
Comments
> talonxv wrote: »
>
> [...]
> I actually had a duel with a mk 15 gold Vengeance vs my older mk 12 Esquiline.
>
> I handed the Vengance his tail. Repeatedly. It's always gunny to me when someone thinks they have the biggest and baddest around and then a science ship waltzes in and smacks it around like it's nothing.
>
>
>
>
> To be fair, though: PvP works by different concepts than PvE, so overwhelming someone who built his ship for PvE is not that hard.
Thing is, my ship wasn't set up for PvP either.
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
Fwiw, the parse looked like this...
SCM - Infected [LR] (S) - [02:26] DMG(DPS) - @sf911: 23.98M(167.96K) @tunebreaker: 10.02M(69.19K) @[pug1]: 3.89M(35.41K) @reyan01: 1.75M(12.87K) @[pug2]: 318.03K(3.81K)
I tanked for my friend Florian, and while I am capable of outputting similar numbers myself (especially when Florian tanks for me), I'm not so sure I solely accept the blame in that particular case.
Also, fwiw^2, you can very well do 100k+ in a fast ISA with a torp boat.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
/s
I'm pretty sure that even if you've not equipped AP but are doing x17 elitist hax dps, you're actually using AP. It's another coding quirk.
verified by the forums, zone and top fleet players. -Nirett
So TIL that SA didn't go from being a T H I C C damage bonus to a thicc damage bonus. Rather, what happened is that it went from T H I C C to merely flat. I guess I should be happy it was not turned into a flatter bonus. That would have been even more nerd-rage worthy. -Anonymous
Nah. You just couldn´t do enough / more because they did all the dps needed. And because they both knew that it can go fast. If you would have known what they were doing, you could go probably on the other side to get more DPS (or wait at the gate)
How often are you getting something like Reyan had or in that Video? Sure it is a bit overkill, but that overkill is pretty rare if you pug. At least for me. Same goes for Battlezones.
Since the Random TFOs I had only 1 ISA Run which ended like that. And I had a lot of Random ISA. Most of Random TFOs are more like a battle (or sometimes even struggle...) with more or less balanced mates.
Hopefully, that feeling will pass, because you shouldn't feel that way after one run.
You're a good player, but you won't parse high or have a 'good round' every single time. I run with Tune and Connor all the time and trust me.. I get it.. there is only so much DPS to go around. Still, I have had some pretty good games with those guys as well as some where I simply didn't get to things in time.. it happens.
It's not his fault, it's not your fault.. you probably shouldn't take parse results so seriously. it's fun to parse and all, but don't let one single run define you as a player.. you just can't think that way. Personally, I am a notoriously low parser in ISA myself, my results vary wildly which is why I prefer HSE.
There is nothing wrong with you or your build, you just had a bad run. It happens to us all, don't give up.
What can be done to fix this, though? How do you make content where DPS is not the only answer?
You know, and still be about fighting and battles?
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” -- Benjamin Franklin
HSE is only done comfortably in really good teams, featuring extremely good players (top 1% good) - and even then there can be hiccups. (Phase 2 features random aggro mechanics, so you can potentially have a perfectly smooth run go pear shaped once the cubes are dead.) You're acting as if I ever argued that "comfortable" HSEs are the standard. No, what I said is that it takes a spectacular amount of performance to do HSE comfortably.
All I can suggest to you is that you run HSE. It's clear that your strongly held convictions on this point are just completely out of line with reality. I'll also say, for the third time now, that you should probably run a couple of ISAs just to make sure that your 30k benchmark is accurate in relation to the other numbers we've been throwing around. You're probably doing more DPS than you think you are, relative to everyone else. Having one guy using a different scale only muddies the waters.
I see in your last post you're even tossing around your patrol DPS metrics to newer players, who are apt to get confused about what those numbers mean when they talk to everyone else.
STO Builds Wiki
U.S.S. Pale Horse, a Jem'Hadar Warship build
Rough comparison of different damage types on high-end cannon builds
Hello @reyan01
I’m very sorry that one of your first ISA ventures with your recently adjusted build lead to results far below your expectations.
What happened? You were caught by surprise, nothing more. ISA has a creeping low DPS ceiling compared to the dmg potential players/teams can bring quickly reaching a point where you and your build can’t unleash its full dmg potential no matter how good or bad you manage to play.
Experienced players know that and when they have reached a point where they don’t cut it in channels runs often feel compelled to display and test their abilities in public matches where they have a higher chance to get their share of the small DPS cake that ISA is nowadays.
With my exotic build on a sci I average around 100-150k after playing with it for a few days because my league experience has me better prepared for fast matches. This is of course under the consideration that nothing goes terribly wrong (dying, missing out critical target groups with the slow attacks I have) or terribly right (setting up the stage to my advantage over my team) where I can easily loose a 100k or even gain it.
Even this 50k discrepancy on an average is much higher than it is with my beam and especially cannon boats because EPG and torpedos are just slow and the map composition is stacked against me compared to other maps we have. I either run into weaker players still supplying me with valuable buffs without taking targets away from me or I run into stronger ones which use the high DMG spikes cannon builds can pull to melt large amounts of HP I’d could usually reach with my slow working attacks.
All that applies to me in this game applies to you as well. That’s the good part. In short you can look at my build and see what more expensive items and traits I was able to gather to help me up those slow attacks a bit.
Additionally you can look at a video I linked in your thread which discretely shows how epg/torp builds can be set into motion in fast runs. Lots of stuff can be learned there, especially a high hitting epg attack (you can already do too with your build) during the last part of ISA. This alone can add over a third of the DPS you are capable of doing otherwaise. It gives a bit of false impression towards your DPS performance over the entire duration of this map but can make you easily look better if anybody throws a log at you and it is still *your* DPS in the end.
As for logs it would help immensely if you just get one yourself. Not to be able to gloat over others someday but rather to get a better picture as to what is really going on from match to match and what could be done to improve.
Whatever you do now, just do me one favor please. Don’t listen to players that
- make you think that the game is broken hindering to do well in it or play fair, or
- only seem to chime in here once in a while to spit on your progress.
I cannot express in words how glad I am that the leaders of the DPS community I choose to play in the past few years don’t do either and have always limited their input towards my improvement. Playing with them now fills me with more pride than my DPS numbers ever would.
Sorry for the long text but I don’t want you to burry your head in the sand. You managed Bronze DPS in a run where every odds were stacked against you. Under better conditions your build can pull Silver DPS easily and given further improvement both in gear and piloting you can do the same Gold DPS I pull with it. At such a point even Diamond is possible via appropriate team play similar to what Tune did for his friend.
You don’t need to get there for me but never doubt yourself over this please!
Looking for a fun PvE fleet? Join us at Omega Combat Division today.
This is too large a question for this thread. The short answer is that crit stats are important to high end builds, but they're not everything. The most important part of any build is your bridge layout, making sure that your best skills (most notably weapon enhancements like Scatter Volley or Fire at Will) are up as often as possible. From there, you start worrying about stacking crit chance/severity, cat1/cat2 damage buffs, debuffs of the enemy, haste bonuses, etc.
Still, without access to fleet gear, you'll lose out on up to ~14 points of crit chance (on a standard energy-weapon build) - from Fleet Spire Tactical consoles + Fleet Colony Deflector. If you're not Romulan-aligned, then you'll also miss out on Superior Romulan Operative Tac boffs from the Fleet Embassy - but those are pretty pricey, so I wouldn't worry about them for the moment. The Fleet Colony Deflector is really cheap and really strong; it's the first piece of fleet gear I buy on alts because the bang-for-buck is so high.
If you want a more comprehensive view of what goes into good ship builds, please do visit STOBuilds (link in my signature). We also have a discord channel for build help (https://discordapp.com/invite/storeddit). And if you need a fleet, you can get an invite to the Reddit fleets just by asking in the Redditchat channel, in game. Everyone's welcome.
STO Builds Wiki
U.S.S. Pale Horse, a Jem'Hadar Warship build
Rough comparison of different damage types on high-end cannon builds
I want to elaborate further on this Sakari patrol, and why I think it's a bad benchmark.
Right off the bat, when you enter, you'll have at least a minute or two of scanning, dialogue and unskippable (although, sure, they are short) cutscenes, before you can even start shooting. Then you'll face an option which let's you determine how many enemies you face. Yes, seriously, the number of enemies will be determined by dialogue choice. And only then you can actually start the shooting.
So even leaving totally aside all the arguments how STO is supposed to be a team-centric game and it's not bad that your DPS reflects that part, you can't simply have an accurate benchmark for comparison in a content where as simple things as dialogue choices can totally make the playing field different. If you, for some reason, prefer that very map for solely your own testing ground - as in, trying out different things for your own build and always making the same dialogue choices yourself to keep the tests compareable, that's fair, but wanting to basically impose that pretty poorly designed (for DPS benchmarking) map upon everyone else is unreasonable, and ultimately futile.
And about HSEs, indeed, I have said it before and will say it again - you frequent forum members should get a team together yourself and organize a HSE. See how smooth it'll go, see how easily enemies die (spoiler alert: you'll probably fail unless you get someone like Pete to carry you). I don't think there are more than 50 players left in game who I'd take into my HSEs and expect a *comfortable* run. And when talking about players who can excel in any necessary role (meaning can perform exceptionally well being either a DPSer, tank, CC-sphere cleaner or subnuker) to make HSE *comfortable* (as in, run goes fast, hardly anyone struggles to survive, no deaths, except maybe at the hands of Queen subnuke etc), I don't think I can come up with more than 10 names.
Sure, it's easy to look at videos of HSEs that take barely 4 minutes (or even less) and then think that "oh how this game is so easy", but ppl in those runs are the very best in the game, who have spent countless of hours improving their flying patterns, their builds, and also, yes, their gear.
And even then, every HSE I do, I'm always very attentive even with the cream of the crop teams, as every mistake I make can at best mean losing 10k of my own DPS and at worst, the entire team getting wiped. Sure, you don't need the best of the best to just *complete* HSE, but the argument here was "comfortable", and as @pfft2 also eloquently put, comfortable HSEs are standard only to the very top end, playing in teams consisting entirely of top end players.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
As I also wrote in my previous post "performance" in HSE means multiple things. DPS is only 1 important factor, but after fix to LRTS scaling bug through the doff mission, I don't think there are any teams in game who can currently simply DPS their way through. Sure, there are like 2-3 teams (consisting of players who have literally played together for years and can anticipate eachother's moves very well) can do without dedicated tank, but even they need more survivability than 5 glass cannons, from what I've gathered. And even then, I'd personally argue, playing *with* a dedicated tank makes the whole process more comfortable, but YMMV, ofc.
Then, you'd want to have at least one player who is doing good scihax, meaning they can crowd-control spheres quickly into a big mass at the beginning of the queue so the team could dispose of them easily. Getting swarmed by spheres is the reason number 1 why teams rapidly die after 30s-1min into phase 1. They also melt the enemies through shields and their fire-and-forget style of exotic abilities with DoTs mean rest of the team can switch targets when the enemy is only at very low HP, but not just dead yet (as that enemy will die after a second or 2 with those DoTs). This helps to save time, which makes for faster run in total, which makes for a more comfortable run.
Then you'd want to have a at least one dedicated science captain with Subnucleonic Beam, who'd hit the Queen *extremely* fast after she pops her FBP. Someone with Subnucleonic Carrier Wave technically can work, but is nearly not as reliable, as Queen is known for buffing herself heavily up and having more than 4 buffs online at the same time.
Then you'd want someone (doesn't matter who, but most often it's the tank) to ideally heal others, (with RSC or PFP for example), and activate that ability immediately after pickles (the unimatrix ships) activate their Feedback Pulse, to prevent squishier energy boats from killing themselves against those. Sure, everyone having their own "oh c--p" abilities is also viable tactic, but lowers the DPS potential, thus makes for a slower run, thus means less comfortable run. Plus, with the current ridiculous level of Queen's FBP, most DPSers save their own emergency abilities for that part.
Is all of this needed for just completing HSE? Again, nope. But I'd argue it's necessary for a "comfortable" run.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.
The number of enemies, as well as the time of combat, makes the DPS numbers wildly fluctuate.
I get the argument of why single player benchmark is good to have. However, you can't simply say that team interactions don't matter at all if 99% of the gameplay is in teams.
It's up to players themselves which number they want to report to the public and advertise their build with - is it their ISA pugging average or their 3/2 premade ultimate best. Claiming you're a 200k+ player when you've only done 200.01k in an extremely lucky premade once, is, of course pretty weird flex, but I can always choose not to associate myself with people like that.
U.S.S. Buteo Regalis - Brigid Multi-Mission Surveillance Explorer build
R.R.W. Ri Maajon - Khopesh Tactical Dreadnought Warbird build
My Youtube channel containing STO videos.