[Soral]

With the help I'm getting for my science vessel, I decided to test out a few changes on my Engineer's skill tree. Could use some helpful eyes on this give me some suggestions on where I could use some tweaking still. As always much appreciated.

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?...soraltest_5111

Keep in mind that I use this vessel for PVE and STFs. I like the ship setup I have at present and have pretty good turnrate with the power setting adjustments I've made to it. The original skill tree I have equipped is only slightly different than the one posted above.

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skil...ld=soral9913_0

As you can see, I reduced Starship Projectile Weapons from 6 to 5, lowered Starship Hull Plating from 9 to 6, and then boosted Starship Shield Performance from 3 to 6. I also took Starship Power Insulators from 9 down to 6 and boosted Starship Shield Systems from 3 to 6.

For my friends who don't like Combat, I reduced Demolitions from 4 to 3 and moved the points in Combat Armor over to Modification Specialist.

Oh, I am also considering taking the points out of Inertial Dampeners and moving them over to one of the abilities that affects Gravity Well. I alternate between the Defiant and a Fleet Advanced Escort, which I equipped with Gravity Well. Some thoughts on that would be helpful, too.

[Daedalus]

To be truly useful, post up your desired ship and BO skills as well. This way we can help you better align your captain points with your abilities.

[Soral]

Click on the link and hit the "Ship" tab. It should show the ship layout and Boffs abilities. If it doesn't, let me know. It shows for me, but I may need to resave the build again.

[Dark]

A few comments:

For Grav Well, unless they've changed it Graviton Generators barely does anything, you're better off with Particle Generators for increasing damage.

9 ranks in Armor Reinforcements is excessive and unnecessary. Your shields will negate a giant chunk of kinetic damage, and with a Neutronium console you're hitting significant diminishing returns on your damage resistance %. Putting 3 ranks of those into Weapon Performance (for a total of Rank 6) gives you another 3 weapon power, which is +6% damage.

Any particular reason you're carrying CRF and APD/APO instead of CSV/APB? For STFs/PvE you'll get more use out of CSV, and I think it would sync up better with TS. (The ETF folks here ran tests that showed that if we use CSV/APB, we get better results from a lower tier CSV and a higher tier APB.)

[Soral]

I don't know why it's not showing, but I changed the Armor points and moved stuff around. I'll have to look at that tonight when I get off work and can use the PC instead of my phone.

The use of CRF and APD/APO versus CSV/APB is purely on preference. Well, the use of CRF is preference. I hate the look of CSV. I probably should equip a Boff with that ability for those times it would be useful though. I just never cared for it. As for APD vs. APB, I found with the Engineer that I got better results with APD versus APB. I know APB is the popular AP for STFs and each teammember stacks to the other's so similarly to SCV, I should probably have a Boff to switch to when that's desired.

[Daedalus]

Soral,

I was able to finally see your BOFF skills, I think the problem may have been on my end. Personally, I'm a fan of the 6 point rule - which means no more than 6 pts in most skills so that you have more to spread around make your overall effectiveness higher.

Tactical Systems:
I'd add points to Projectile Weapons and Projectile Specialization since you've already gone to the trouble to equip torpedos, the CB, and TS1 skills.

Engineering Systems:
See if you can find a way to add some points to Aux performance. This will boost SCI power effectiveness.

Science Systems:
I would normally put some points into flow cap, but it doesn't look like your build uses any drain skills so no harm leaving as-is. If you have points leftover from some of your 9 skill settings, put them into Sensors to help with Confuse and Placate resists.

Ground:
Points in Will Power will help keep you out of holds, which is useful. :-)

[Soral]

Okay, I finally figured out what the problem was. Apparently I have two saved copies of this build and the one I was updating wasn't the one I had originally posted. I'm not (as) crazy like I thought I was.

Here is the updated build:

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skil...etdefiant_5111

On the flip side, to boost my Gravity Well ability, I put a Nukara Particle Converter in place of the Science console I had for Shield Emitters. The build for the Fleet Advanced Escort is here:

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?...cedescort_5111

I'm still toying with taking the points out of Inertial Dampeners to put towards more of the sciences and maybe engineering points. I originally put those in when I thought I would use Soral for PVP, but I rarely use him for that anymore. I'm not a big fan of PVP to begin with, so those points seem somewhat useless to me.

Thoughts on that and the tweaks I've made thus far to the build?

[Dark]

I agree with Daedalus that Willpower is handy on the ground.

I personally didn't put much of anything in Modification Specialist. While I carry an Enemy Neutralization kit with me, I'm always in the Romulan Fabrication kit so it doesn't affect anything of mine. I love me my turret army.

[ForTheGamer]

My suggestion to you concerning just your skill building is as people say, is drop most of your skills from 9 to 6. This will free up more points for you to spend elsewhere.

The ones I'd say are worth putting above 6 are Batteries (Engineer only), Shield Emitters, Hull Repairs, either Warp Cores or any of the Performances. After that, only put skills above 9 if you want to specialize in those skills. Something you know your current set up will benefit entirely from.

Another thing I choose to do and I know a lot of people wouldn't agree with me is to toss out Specialization of Weapons entirely. While increased critical damages are great and all, I can put those points into other things that will either provide my sturdiness or keep my ship alive longer such as subsystem repairs. Though, I'm speaking of a Cruiser Captain, whereas you being in a Defiant class ship might be better off with it. Again, all about specialization.

As far as ground goes, I think you could drop anything above 9 to 6 and build up Combat Armor and bring up the resistance. For myself, I actually just toss 3 into each ground skill, thereby giving me a little of everything.

Actually back to space for a minute, if you bring everything but Weapon Training, Energy Weapons, Hull Repairs, Shield Emitters from 9 to 6, you could use the rest of the points to build up Subsystems to 6 and also bring Torpedoes from 3 to 6 and have 1.5k left in skill points to spend on whatever you want.

Only some suggestions on my part. Not the be all, end all. Of course.

[Dark]

The ones I'd say are worth putting above 6 are Batteries (Engineer only), Shield Emitters, Hull Repairs, either Warp Cores or any of the Performances. After that, only put skills above 9 if you want to specialize in those skills. Something you know your current set up will benefit entirely from.

I wouldn't put any of the power skills (Warp Core X or X Performance) above 6, I'm lead to believe you get barely anything out of it, and they're not that cheap.

Another thing I choose to do and I know a lot of people wouldn't agree with me is to toss out Specialization of Weapons entirely. While increased critical damages are great and all, I can put those points into other things that will either provide my sturdiness or keep my ship alive longer such as subsystem repairs. Though, I'm speaking of a Cruiser Captain, whereas you being in a Defiant class ship might be better off with it. Again, all about specialization.

You're correct that the usefulness of Weapon Specialization really does kind of depend on your build. I'm carrying all sorts of Crit stuff (Assimilated Console, Tachyokinetic Converter, Romulan BOffs, etc.) and DHCs already have CrtD built in, so I get more out of Specialization (since the higher your Chance the more you get from additional Severity, and the more Severity you already have the more you get out of Chance). It's really expensive if you're not already trying to boost your crits.

A lot of people have been recommending Subsystem Repairs - has the paradigm shifted? Is there new data that shows it actually has a noticeable effect? Back when I wrote my guides around a year ago, my research showed nobody had any evidence it did anything appreciable.

As far as ground goes, I think you could drop anything above 9 to 6 and build up Combat Armor and bring up the resistance. For myself, I actually just toss 3 into each ground skill, thereby giving me a little of everything.

Do you have any numbers for Combat Armor? Back when I was looking into skills the resounding opinion was to stay away from Combat Armor because the relatively minor boost wasn't worth the price.

In my opinion though, an Engineering captain doesn't really need that many skill points into Ground because we're frigging awesome with our little armies.

I use a Tac BOff, two Eng BOffs, and a Sci BOff. The Tac BOff has a flamethrower, the two Eng BOffs have Pulsewave rifles (Cryo and Fleet), and the Sci BOff has the MACO sniper Rifle. The Engineers have Turret 2 and Support Drone 1, both have Shield Recharge and one has Weapon Malfunction while the other has Quick Fix. The Tac is about buffing and tanking, the Sci is about healing. When combat starts the Tac BOff runs forward with his pulsewave, the Sci BOff uses her secondary fire, and the Engineers throw down their turrets before charging after the Tac. This means the Tac always gets close first, and always engages first. If anything runs past the Tac towards me/the Sci/the turrets, they get pulsewave fire to their backs.

A purple Armory Officer, Fabrication Officer, and Explosives expert gives a chance of having 3 Turrets, Drones, and Mortars summoned when their abilities are used. This means 1 seeker drone, 1-3 Mortars, 3-9 turrets, and 3-9 support drones are on the field in every engagement. (I have the Photonic Tac, so he summons a drone as well.) My Ground skills hardly matter when that happens.

Never had much trouble in ground eSTFs either, just have to be careful about when and where to fabricate stuff. In my opinion good teammates and tactics make a much bigger difference than skills.

[Soral]

I'm not only going to put points in Willpower, but I hadn't thought of the BOFF setup that you're using Dark. I like it.

Also, here is the updated build. I took the points on ground and reshuffled them to include Willpower. I also moved the points out of Inertial Dampeners and put them in Particle Generators and Auxiliary Performance. Thoughts on these changes?

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?...etdefiant_5111

[Dark]

I see no obvious issues, looks fine to me. See what other people have to say.