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IS ENGINEER CAP WITH A SCIENCE BUILD ANY GOOD?
whistlerdavid
Member Posts: 416 Arc User
Hey guys has anyone tried an engineer captain with a science build? the ground toys of an engineer look like fun. however i love my space magic. so far i got my gravity well to 11.5k pull and 3500dmg lol. can i get anywhere near that on an engineer captain? thank you for any help you can give
Post edited by baddmoonrizin on
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It's more than viable to do Sci on Eng, but if you're still unsure, just grab a Sci ship that you can reclaim instead of something only claimable once until you're sure you're happy.
My Gorn engineer in a Fek'Ihri Gok'tad Carrier would be a personal example.
Science helps group and damage things but energy weapons in combination with an engineer's advantages in power flow, levels, and damage control are doing most of the work. The pets help as well.
So yes an engineer captain with a science build is fine but the other two disciplines would have more synergies with science (things like attack pattern alpha and conservation of energy).
Why? You always need more damage, and damage isn't capped like damage resistance. Tacs can do consistent high damage, and with high damage you can consistently auto-heal, and when low on hull, can rely on GDF for even more damage and all dmg res. The turn rate boots help every single ship, as movement has always been meta in practically any game.
Sci has temporary dmg res and long CD shield resistance but these require aux power to work the best and have long cooldowns, which makes for big gaps, plus hitting caps in all dmg res. They are also AoE, including the damage buffs, so work best in a team, but STO does not have any meaningful coordination as the game is too easy in advanced content, and a DPS measuring stick in elite which does require a pre-made team and from what I've heard usually requires one dedicated tank. Subnuke barely has any use except in dead PVP or against very few bosses.
A Sci is good in a Sci ship, especially if relying on GW or other means to bunch up enemies for the sensor scan AoE debuff, but its other use, finding cloaked ships, is cool in theory but next to worthless in practice except probably in dead PVP. Photonic fleet again suffers from long cool-down so the damage deflected off you and onto them leaves wide gaps, plus NPC AI is very poor so all your Sci nannying for them won't help if they can't alpha strike your CC targets. Another case of cool in theory, worthless in practice. They also don't follow you around as combat moves.
The only reason I see for Sci and Eng is for ground. To me I've finally learned, STO has one real career type, Tac, one viable but niche type, Sci, and one totally dead type, Eng.
Sad but largely true, though I have found that a Sci captain in a dedicated Megawell build can do quite well. Especially now that all the new stuff involves hitting us with huge waves of enemies, the AOE yumminess of a Megawell can be a good solution. Now, that said, I agree that a Tactical captain in the same Science vessel can be even more effective.
Personally, I find that Engineering BOFF seats more closely approach true uselessness than Engineering captains. You just can't squeeze any meaningful and competitive level of DPS out of them.
Think of your ships in this game like a turtle shell with varying base properties. What you load that shell with and how you use said shell will determine how effective said shell is in doing its job. Despite what some may tell you, there is no winner take all best kind of ship or build in game. There are only best builds for what YOU personally as a player want to do.
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Engineer will be a bit tougher, and has a nice emergency heal, but doesn't offer much in the way of damage improvements
I only have one tac, and she is a stealth torp bomber flying the fleet Malem. All my other captains run sci builds of various flavors. All of my characters run full power to Aux, and I can plow through any content in the game without issue.
If you can survive fine and fight fine, go with what you like. I have a Sci cap with Eng spec that's surprisingly fun, and an Eng cap with Sci spec as well. I know ahead of time they won't top DPS charts (most of my builds don't but that's not my goal) but they can complete any content and it's fun to play with.
I mostly did it for the BOFF training manuals, and it absolutely started with my Tac captain with Sci spec for BO3, but I had to try them all. Blame the 10 year old girl inside me who still has her Gen1 Pokémon saves with full Dexes, I guess.
Unlike Tac or Sci, Engineers have 3 unique quirks - Lots of Power Generation(meaning you can overload Aux more easily and maintain it), the Captain Power: Intrusive Energy Redirection(this interacts with the Drain Infection skill to effectively give you an 'exotic damage aura'), and a lot of hull-heal sources(which can be traited to generate exotic damage). So, the idea behind an offensive Science-Engineer is going for quantity over quality(because they don't get the spike damage multipliers that Tac/Sci do) while using a round-about method of adding exotic damage to skills that aren't normally used as such.
It's something that's been on my buildcraft queue list for a while and will probably be the next character I make. Anything that applies drains or hull heals can be converted into an exotic damage source fairly readily, so there is a lot of untapped potential(and further synergies with things that spam drains/heals more often). The main adjustment to this kind of playstyle that I foresee is that you'll generally want a Vacuum-style build where you collect things and blast them down while staying in close(3km~) proximity.