[StellarPyro]

Federation Tactical Advanced Escort Build

CLASS: Tactical
SHIP: Advanced Escort
PRIMARY SPECIALISATION: Pilot
SECONDARY SPECIALISATION: Commando

BUILD DESCRIPTION:
N/A

BRIDGE OFFICERS:
Human Female, Tactical, Commander.
Torpedo: High Yield
Beam Array: Overload
Torpedo: Spread
Attack Pattern: Omega

Vulcan Female, Science, Commander.
Tachyon Beam
Tractor Beam
Scramble Sensors
Gravity Well

Human Male, Tactical, Commander.
Tactical Team
Torpedo Spread
Cannon: Rapid Fire
Dispersal Pattern Beta

Bolian Female, Engineering, Commander.
Emergency Power To Shields
Emergency Power To Weapons
Boarding Party
Eject Warp Plasma

Trill Female, Science, Commander.
Mask Energy Signature
Tachyon Beam
Feedback Pulse
Viral Matrix

Andorian Female, Engineering, Commander.
Engineering Team
Boarding Party
Eject Warp Plasma
Auxiliary Power to the Structural Integrity Field

FORE WEAPONS:
Polaron Dual Heavy Cannons MK XII - (Uncommon)
Transphasic Torpedo Launcher MK XII - (Uncommon)
Quantum Torpedo Launcher MK XI - (Uncommon)
Disruptor Dual Cannons MK XII - (Uncommon)DUTY OFFICERS:
54 Duty Officers in total.

AFT WEAPONS:
Polaron Turret MK XII - (Uncommon)
Tractor Beam Mine Launcher - (Rare)
Photon Torpedo Launcher MK VIII - (Common)



DEFLECTOR:
Neutrino Deflector Array MK VII [CtrlX] x2 [Ins] - (Very Rare)
Secondary Deflector:

ENGINE:
Hyper-Impulse Engines MK IX - (Common)

WARP/SINGULARITY CORE:
Overcharged Warp Core MK XI [Trans] - (Common)

SHIEL
Reman Prototype Covariant Shield Array MK VIII - (Rare)DEVICES:
N/A

ENGINEERING:
Electroceramic Hull Plating MK VIII - (Uncommon)
Dibernium Hull Plating MK X - (Uncommon)

SCIENCE:
Countermeasure System MK VI - (Common)
Power Insulator MK VI - (Common)
Shield Emitter Amplifier MK II - (Common)

TACTICAL:
Warhead Yield Chamber MK XI - (Uncommon)
Photon Detonation Assembly MK VII - (Uncommon)
Ambiplasma Envelope MK XI - (Common)
Prefire Chamber MK XI - (Uncommon)

HANGER:
N/A



SKILL TREE SPACE:





SKILL TREE GROUN





TRAITS:
http://i.imgur.com/6UeJM13.jpg

STARSHIP TRAITS:
No starship traits.ACTIVE REPUTATION:
N/A

SPACE REPUTATION:
N/A

GROUND REPUTATION:
N/A



STO ACADEMY LINK:(If Available) N/A

[Dark]

The most obvious problem is your weapon loadout. Mines and torpedoes split your abilities and skills, and are generally avoided unless you're doing some fancy specialized thing. You want to use either all cannons (DHCs, DCs, turrets) and Cannon abilities (which buff both cannons and turrets), or all beams (DBBs, Omni arrays, or all Beam Arrays) and Beam abilities.

Something isn't really taught in-game is that there are three different types of cooldowns for abilities. The ability cooldown itself, a duplicate ability cooldown, and a system cooldown.

So for example Beam Fire At Will has a 30s ability cooldown, a duplicate ability cooldown of 20s, and a system cooldown of 15s.
That means when you use FAW, it will go on a 30s cooldown, it will cause any other copies of FAW to be on a 20s cooldown, and it will cause any other beam abilities (Beam Overload, Surgical Strike, Target X Subsystem) to go on a 15s cooldown.

Cannon Scatter Volley has a 30s ability cooldown, a duplicate ability cooldown of 15s, and a system cooldown of 15s.
That means when you use CSV, it will go on a 30s cooldown, it will cause any other copies of CSV to be on a 15s cooldown, and it will cause any other cannon abilities (Cannon Rapid Fire, Surgical Strike) to go on a 15s cooldown.

Very obviously for CSV, this means having two copies will in fact double your uptime. Minimizing downtime is basically the basis for all builds.

I'm not a fan of the Advanced Escort seating, but a simple basic build that should have you pewpewing things to death while not dying yourself would be to carry 7 beam arrays, and then:

Cdr Tac: Tac Team 1 / Attack Pattern Beta 1 / Fire At Will 3 / Attack Pattern Omega 3
LCdr Tac: Tac Team 1 / Attack Pattern Beta 1 / Fire At Will 3

That is the key. Two copies of TT1 means you activate it every 15s - and when you activate TT for 10s it'll automatically and instantly redistribute shield facings. If only one facing is being shot, that's 4 times as many shields. If two are being shot, that's twice as many shields. If three... it's too late for me to do the math.

Offensively you activate FAW3 and APO3. Make sure you sync them. Then 20s later you activate FAW3 and APB1. Then 20s later you activate FAW3 and APB1. Then you repeat if the fight is still going on, but it really shouldn't and APO3 should be off cooldown by the next fight so you can go back to the beginning. Stay at full speed for maximum Defense bonus, and then just buzz around like a discoball of doom with your power set to 100/50/25/25. (I see in your screenshot you have it at 50/50/50/50 - that's not good, weapon power drain will drop it to the point you're taking penalties to damage when firing.)

If instead you decide to use Dual Cannons and/or Dual Heavy Cannons with Turrets Aft, then simply use Cannon Scatter Volley 2 in place of Fire At Will 3.
Usually you don't want Beam Overload or Cannon Rapid Fire for the majority of PvE content, outside of specialized builds involving specific traits and loadouts.

Then we come to the rest of the stuff, which is why I don't like the layout. Rather than give a specific build, I'd rather just cover the basics and let you test which to carry.

For Science we really have 2 key abilities.
Science Team is an instant shield heal with a short cooldown, and clears debuffs like Placate or Confuse. Very useful, especially the latter when fighting Delta quadrant enemies.
Hazard Emitters is a decent hull heal over time, and clears damage over time effects like Plasma burn (which can be deadly when you have low hull), as well as the Borg Shield Neutralizer in Borg Red Alerts. (Never seen it used in the Borg queues.)
Honorable mention goes to Transfer Shield Strength, an excellent shield heal over time which also hardens your shields. If I had 3 Sci slots I'd carry all 3, if I only have 2 I'd carry the former 2. (Edit: Actually, if I had 3 slots I'd carry Destabilizing Resonance Beam, from the mission Blood of the Ancients, unless I really needed shield healing.)

For Engineering there's a few key abilities which you can't really afford to carry on this seating.
First the recovery abilities.
Engineering Team is an instant hull heal that also has a relatively short cooldown, and will restore disabled subsystems. Handy when facing enemies like the Tholian, because disabled shields rapidly leads to a dead ship.
Auxiliary to Structural is an instant hull heal with a VERY short cooldown of 15s, and will give a damage resistance debuff for 10s when used. Spam this whenever it's off cooldown, and you keep your hull healthy and hardened. Lovely ability, AtSIF3 has virtually no competition for a Commander Engineering slot.
Last is the "emergency button" for shields, Reverse Shield Polarity. It's a long cooldown, but your shields really shouldn't go down if it's active unless you're seriously overwhelmed. There's builds involving specific DOffs to make it even better, but generally this isn't the highest priority since it's not something you can use often.)

Next are probably the staples you see in practically every build - the Emergency Power to X abilities.
The way these work, they have a cooldown of 45s, a duplicate ability cooldown of 30s, a duration of 30s, and a system cooldown of 15s.
The duplicate ability cooldown and duration means that having two copies (or ways to simulate having too copies, via traits or DOffs) gives a 100% uptime on the buff (less the fraction of a second it takes to activate the ability).
The system cooldown means that you can carry two copies of another Emergency Power to X ability, and have that constantly active as well.

Usually that means carrying two copies of Emergency Power to Weapons (for a damage buff as well as a Weapon Power boost, which offsets weapon power drain from firing weapons as well as helping you get the damage bonus from high weapon power) as well as two copies of Emergency Power to Shields (which regenerates shields as well hardens them, in addition to the bonuses from higher Shield Power). EPtX abilities will also restore that subsystem if disabled.

Occasionally people will field Emergency Power to Engines instead, and maybe there will be Science builds that use Emergency Power to Auxiliary, but Emergency Power to Weapons is key. There's builds that will give up Emergency Power to Shields and just have Emergency Power to Weapons cycling.

Obviously you don't have the slots to have both the staple healing and staple buff cycle on Eng... so I dunno. It's why I don't like that layout.

I'd rather go for the Patrol Escort / Mirror Universe Advanced Escort / Escort Retrofit, giving up 1 Sci (Transfer Shield Strength) so I could have either EPtW1/EPtW2 and Eng Team, or EPtS1/EPtW2 and Eng Team (though the latter will require Damage Control Engineer DOffs to keep both up).

I wouldn't buy a Patrol Escort for 50,000 dilithium, but the MU Advanced Escort is available on the Exchange (and should be relatively cheap) and the Escort Retrofit is available for 200,000 Fleet Credits.