What skills and ship builds are people using to slaughter the borg?

littlesarbonn · August 2022

I've been playing forever and have pretty much maxed out all my captains in what they do and have built some pretty powerful ships over the times but one thing that has always eluded me is how do people seem to fair so well against large borg missions. I mean, I can hold my own with one or two cubes, but it takes a great deal of time before I take them down. Others, swing right in and practically one shot two or three borgs without even batting an eye. How are they doing this? Every time I try to create a more powerful build, I still come up way short. What exactly are they doing?

protoneous · August 2022

Could they be using an all cannons front with turrets rear type builds? Being able to focus fire on single targets or groups of targets certainly makes dual heavy cannon builds a relatively straightforward way to do a fair bit of damage. A lot of enemies, including borg cubes, can be measured in how many firing cycles it takes to get rid of them.

A cannon build on a miracle worker ship like a Gagarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser (Fleet Shepard) or Qugh is another option that brings a lot to the table with the bonus damage from Mixed Armament Synergies and Narrow Sensor Bands. Combine with cooldown reduction like Aux2Batt or Photonic Officer to get boff skills up more often and a simple basic keybind to avoid having to focus on clicking so many keys and things can work very well.

Here is a suggestion for a skill tree tactical template. It works very well for me on energy builds so have been using it for several years now.

A cannon build I use link.

A beam build I use link.

Beams work great but cannons seem to be a bit quicker.

Both of those builds are phaser but also have disruptor and polaron versions that work great. The cannon build has a few hard to get consoles that have been replaced by easier to get consoles on the beam build.

Instead of a Gagarin other fun ships like an Arbiter Battlecruiser or Temer Alliance Raider work great too.

Here's a photo of one of my cannon raiders.

Happy to chat more about how those other players may be doing things.

phoenixc · August 2022

They probably also slot the anti-borg doff from the phoenix store when they know they are hunting Borg.

protoneous · August 2022

Slotting Neal Falconer is a great idea. After all it's all the little things that add up. He's a great deal being a ground roster doff that also increases space damage. That being said +dmg to x boffs would likely have a smaller effect on the outcome as compared to some of the other things touched upon many of which can multiply the amount of damage done to any target.

What skills and ship builds are people using to slaughter the Borg?

Cannon builds do a high amount of focused damage well.
Anything that gives bonus damage is great including the two Miracle worker abilities mentioned above.
Critical Hits are king. Check the list of Critical Hit consoles in the link and use as many of them as possible. Fleet items also help.
A focused skill tree can offer a bit of an edge.
Cooldown reduction is super important to help keep boff abilities up more often.
A simple keybind allows for far more focus while piloting by tying multiple boff abilities to a single key so they can be fired sequentially without having to click on something every couple of seconds.
Practice.

littlesarbonn · August 2022

Some great advice so far. Thank you. First off, I chose the Gagarin Miracle Worker Battlecruiser because I had already bought it. And then I chose the borg set from the task force omega. And then I built my weapons to XV with a mix of dual cannons and heavy dual cannons. It does a nice job of tearing through the borg and today against the kobayashi maru attackers. This is an engineer, even though I know it would be even better for tactical. But the engineer needed a new ship and decided to test it out on him. Any further advice would be greatly appeciated.

protoneous · August 2022

The Gagarin (Fleet Shepard, Qugh) all seem to be very nicely balanced ships. When it comes to slaughtering the Borg I think they'd be top Zen store choices.

Here are some screenshots of phaser, disruptor, and polaron cannon versions. If you'd like to choose an energy type perhaps then it'd be possible to go through how they have been built in a bit more detail or answer specific questions.

There are lots of options available ranging from storyline and reputation gear to some more fancy items, depending on how you'd like to do things and what you have available.

It's been a lot of fun gradually adding things to and upgrading things on these ships over the past few years.

timelords1701 · August 2022

Also if i may add, some of those people you saw blow the borg away quickly were most likely long time players as well who have the bonus of 2 extra things i noticed that no one had mentioned so far..
Endeavour perks which which give the abilities far stronger hits

And passive ability bonuses by achieving accolades against certain races..

combine them with the boffs/doff/weapons/abilities and skill tree builds as mentioned above by previous posters and you can really kick butt quickly..

protoneous · August 2022

Endeavor progress probably helps but am not entirely convinced that it plays much of a role without some of the other things mentioned such as cooldown reduction, using a keybind, and practice.

Having recently reached endeavor level 150 the bonuses are less than half of what's depicted above.

Beginner Guide Cool Down Bridge Officer Abilities Video

STO Keybind App Download

Simple Keybind How To Video

BOFF Ability Rotation How To Beginners Guide Video

questerius · August 2022

littlesarbonn wrote: »

I've been playing forever and have pretty much maxed out all my captains in what they do and have built some pretty powerful ships over the times but one thing that has always eluded me is how do people seem to fair so well against large borg missions. I mean, I can hold my own with one or two cubes, but it takes a great deal of time before I take them down. Others, swing right in and practically one shot two or three borgs without even batting an eye. How are they doing this? Every time I try to create a more powerful build, I still come up way short. What exactly are they doing?

Without making the story too long it is all about practice, timing of buffs and synergy of the gear (not necessarily the quality/rank of said gear. It can often be achieved with as little as Mk XII rare gear).

bjorjlen · August 2022

Personally (and to keep this short), on my main I tend to use a the Jem'Hadar Vanguard Carrier that is a mixture of a EMP build and a Torpedo build. Just a few shots with that, backed by it's pets, and even one or two Borg Cubes go bye bye real quick. However, I have found that using the same ship (I do love that ship lol) with some Gravity Well, Plasma Storm, and Assimilated Plasma Beam Arrays' tend to wipe them out very quickly. And actually, just using my Assimilated Plasma Beam Arrays', I can usually 2-3 shot a Borg Cube with little trouble. Of course I am using my beams with Beam Overload, so that helps. And truth be told, there is just something sweet about killing Borg ships with their own weapons too... 😁

Peace...

telbasta7386 · September 2022

A good science build absolutely wrecks borg (and also everything else).

What skills and ship builds are people using to slaughter the borg?

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