[Solace]

Oh gosh, how embarrassing to see my horribly low DPS!

Great guide, though, Solace.

Don't worry about it Zoriah, my DPS used to be awful (less than 1K sometimes!) Like ross and brit said you need any advice you let me know

[Solace]

I'm science, what about Tac captains makes it good for them and not necessarily others?

Tactical captains have abilities that buff damage such as Attack Pattern Alpha and Go Down Fighting. Go Down Fighting or GDF is really good for Romulan tac captains because the lower your health gets the you get a stacking damage buff all the way up to 90% extra damage with really low health.

A popular setup is the starship trait from the Zahl Heavy Cruiser "Invincible" which makes your ship invincible for 8 secs when your hull drops to or below 5% if you use the GDF captain ability when your health is this low you get a 90% damage bonus allowing you to spike your DPS.

Romulan Tactical Captains also have increased Critical Chance and Critical Severity by default. To top it all off the Romulans can also get Romulan BOFFs with the trait:

"Superior Romulan Operative" which gives a bonus to cloaking cooldown time and gives a small crit chance and moderate crit severity buff. This stacks with other BOFFs with the same trait so thats why you see scimitars being able to put out over 100K DPS given the right setup.

Romulan tactical captains also get the ability "Romulan Operative" as a personal trait which also helps.

Superior Romulan Operative - Some additional reading on the trait for you.

Also check this Reddit thread for some great tips on ship builds

[Dark]

I'm science, what about Tac captains makes it good for them and not necessarily others?

It boils down to Categories. Bonuses in the same category are added to each other, then each category is multiplied to get at the final modifier. The Tactical Captain buffs that were mentioned all go into the same category as critical hits, so it depreciates those bonuses (since it's additive, not multiplicative). At the same time, each [Dam] mod is its own category, so in comparison it becomes better.

Non-Tac captains don't have those buffs, so [CrtD]x3[Pen] or [CrtD]x4, (and maybe [CrtD]x3[Dam]?) are what we want since we're not overloaded in that category.

[Halfeclipse]

Note that for non tac captains, those fleet guns are basically the third or fourth best choice and that anything better will also cost hundreds of times as much while providing 1%-2% upgrade at best. In terms of cost effectiveness getting a set of those guns and making them mark XIV is basically the best thing you can do to for build in the game.

[Zoriah]

Thanks for the reassurance! I'm not too worried about min/maxing and focusing on DPS, just want to make sure I'm pulling my weight in teams. I've only just started PVE queuing though, so I know I have a lot to learn about what's most effective as a sci captain with control/Gravity well leanings.

I'll definitely try to get along to one of those build discussions eventually - once I figure out how to use the skill/build planner thingymabob.

[Muzual]

It boils down to Categories. Bonuses in the same category are added to each other, then each category is multiplied to get at the final modifier. The Tactical Captain buffs that were mentioned all go into the same category as critical hits, so it depreciates those bonuses (since it's additive, not multiplicative). At the same time, each [Dam] mod is its own category, so in comparison it becomes better.

Non-Tac captains don't have those buffs, so [CrtD]x3[Pen] or [CrtD]x4, (and maybe [CrtD]x3[Dam]?) are what we want since we're not overloaded in that category.

Right, ok. So that's why those ones are so expensive :emoticon_ShiftyEyes I'll possibly look at getting Adv Fleet weapons in the meantime since the ~perfect~ weapons are probably a while away for me

[T'Hor]

One positive thing with getting non-fleet weapons is that they are account bound instead of character bound, so you can move them over to a different character.

[KickKat]

I outfitted my ship with [CrtD] [Dmg]x2 [Pen] DBBs. I don't know what they sell for now, but when I got them they were waaaaay cheaper than the [Dmg]x3 [Pen]. At least on my build, they do better than the fleet weapons too. They are still about 2% behind the [Dmg]x3 [Pen]s, but considering my "down payment" on them was only a couple hundred thousand for each while everyone else was paying crazygonuts prices for that extra 2%, I regret nothing. In fact, I am quite pleased. I actually ended up saving enough that I was able to get a matching set of regular arrays for my cruiser loving toons. I think the total bill was less than 8 mil.

If you learn what is best for you and you ship instead of just going along with people who think one thing and one thing only is best for everyone, you can not only get closer to where you want to be, but you can be pretty satisfied with how you do it.

Hmm. That is an awkward sentence, but I am not going to edit it. So there. :emoticon_ShiftyEyes

[KickKat]

Oh. I almost forgot. I meant to reply to the original topic as well.


That's a nice, succinct guide to SCM.

I think it might be worth expanding to include the other main parsers, CombatLog Reader, ACT and maybe that online one, STO-DPS, though STO-DPS is mostly just novel more than useful. I personally prefer ACT over them all. The information is gives can be pretty detailed and I superduper appreciate how it lets you export your data to different formats, like HTML, XML and CSV lists/Excel files. The most powerful export function by far though is it has ODBC connectivity built into it so it can dump the raw data directly into a relational database.

I'm really surprised the theory-crafter math geeks don't take advantage of that instead of doing things by trial and error / hand. *shrug*

[Dark]

We no longer use ACT because it does not function well. Before I switched over to CLR, it would fail to properly parse about half the time, requiring me to manually calculate DPS. It wasn't designed for STO, and Hilbert's plug-ins haven't been updated in a long while.

We no longer use CLR because of the asinine attempted coup of the group behind it. Most of us normal members couldn't give two whits about the actual issue they argued about since we're not at the top ten waving our epeens, but clearing us out of the channels, deleting our records, and abusing CLR's update feature in an attempt to strong-arm us into their new channels is unacceptable. That sort of underhanded, unethical behavior purely for the sake of their ego is not a positive indicator of their administration, which is also why a large amount of us refuse to defect.

[KickKat]

I don't use the Hilbert plugin. I never liked it that much. The one I use always produces numbers right in line with CLR and SCM. I don't remember which one it is off the top of my head. I'll look when I am in a position to start ACT up.

As far as that whole coup thing, I ignored it while it was happening and I never spare a thought on it now. I just use CLR for the tool that it is and and stay away from all of the other nonsense.


Update: Here is the ACT plugin I use.

http://ifes.us/index.php/act-plugin

[Solace]

I don't use the Hilbert plugin. I never liked it that much. The one I use always produces numbers right in line with CLR and SCM. I don't remember which one it is off the top of my head. I'll look when I am in a position to start ACT up.

As far as that whole coup thing, I ignored it while it was happening and I never spare a thought on it now. I just use CLR for the tool that it is and and stay away from all of the other nonsense.


Update: Here is the ACT plugin I use.

http://ifes.us/index.php/act-plugin

SCM is the official parser of the DPS league. I believe plans are in motion to only accept results from SCM in the future. Personal choice on what you prefer but SCM is really user friendly.

[bhorty]

Since I am on US Central time I never am able to make the build discussions. Are there any plans to set up more US friendly times for these meets? I know there is one on Saturday too but I usually miss it too. If not it's not a big deal I was more just curious. I'm trying to begin to understand the whys behind certain gear choices so I can get the most out of my build.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[Ross]

Bridger now hosts this event on Saturday afternoon US time. You can also PM any member at any time with questions.

[Bar'ol]

I'm afraid to look at mine haha.