[Wallis]

Greetings all,

Ok so, I posted a build guide on my T6 Fleet advanced heavy cruiser a while ago that I've been working on for a while now. (https://ufplanets.com/showthread.php...r-build-advice) Im a big fan of this ship, and even though its not -by far- the best ship in the game, I just cant seem to want to move to another starship.

Now, some people in the STO community will frown upon cannons on cruisers. Personally, I love the TWOK Pulse phaser cannons on my build, and its super fun when I use Cannon rapid fire on targets and for a cruiser, she's one of the best I've had in regards to turn rate.

I've recently invested in a couple of traits -and got myself pretty poor in the process- and managed to really boost my fire power. One of them is "going for the kill" which is from the T6 Jem'Hadar Strike Cruiser (900ml on the exchange when I purchased it). I've been told this is only worth using if you want to use cannon rapid fire so I've worked hard over the last week and managed to unlock it. It seems to be working really well atm.

As for consoles, Im now using the two piece "synergistic retrofitting" consoles (One from the Atlas and the other from the NX Refit) and aiming to go for the new colony tact consoles once we've finished collecting our batteries (which shouldn't be too far off now as of the time of this post). Im currently using the Spire Phaser locator consoles which seem to be the "meta" these days.

Im also using the two pice trilithium phaser weapons too, to boost my overall phaser power/fire rate. For my skill tree, Im using Bridgers Engineering/Tactical skills as a base, and not re touched it as of yet. The consoles are technically the same as my build diary other than the trilithium phasers (With the Armaments console, Omni/turret in the aft). I plan to finish the Nukara,Cooperative Wargames reputations pretty soon (yep, I still have a few reps to actually finish) along with finishing "intelligence" specialization as I've been advised this is good for weapon accuracy (im using Temporal and Strategist atm and I've completed the skill sets for these) I've also found out recently that Personal Doff assignment grants powers that show up at the top of you ship/shield GUI on the hud, and offer a few bonuses which I was never aware of.

Sorry for not including a proper build diary. I will do in more detail when I get to grips with learning more how the game actually works when building ships. Im basically looking to get a tough, pretty powerfull and fun to fly starship out of this awesome looking ship. Any advice on best space sets, cannon consoles etc would be great.

Im really sorry as well if I've not explained in detail very well. I see so many posts, build videos etc on STO about CritChance, CritDMG and I've always been, what does this do etc and maths has never been my strong point, so when It comes to numbers, I loose concentration etc. Also, I really want to stick with cannons at the front and beams at the rear which seems to be doing ok at the moment and I've manged to epic them out to MK XV. In terms of what type of play I want to achieve...Im not sure other than I want to surprise players. There's a lot of DPS'ers and Tanks/healers and I really wanted to be something different. Not many people will expect to see an Excelsior class heavy cruiser open fire with a rapid cannon fire, and Its mega fun (also using emergency weapon cycle to boot)

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

[Raz Beraht]

It sounds like you've already found a style and build that you like so I'm not sure what you're really asking here. Based on the build you posted, I'm still jealous of all that gold! Your build makes sense for what you seem to want to achieve, your consoles are good, ect. So what is it you want advice on?

[Wallis]

Thanks for the reply. Well I'm still learning more new things everyday about building ships in STO as it's the first MMO I've really played and still there's areas like DPS and tanking etc I'm still unsure if I'm doing correctly.

I guess everyone has there own style of play, but I also read too much into things. For instance, I've seen that the majority of players love to do DPS runs etc and mainly play as tactical. From Day one, I've played as an engineer and never really invested in another toon as much as I have with my main, but the more I read about damage output, crit D, accuracy etc the more I think that going for an engineer was a bad idea as I do love blowing things up.

I've watched videos online of ISA runs and tacs seem to take out enemy's so much quicker than myself.

I decided to go with an eng career purely as I love cruisers and the Excelsior was one of my all time faves. It's been advised not to use cannons on cruisers, hence why I've decided to go down a different route and spec as best I could to actually make a cruiser run and play like an escort. So far, It's working, but she could be better. I guess I'm seeking advise on more options to play around with. Like space sets, consoles for cannons etc, anything really to improve on.

[Raz Beraht]

Well some players just get the most enjoyment out of trying to squeeze the most DPS they can out of the game. They have a lot of knowledge on the subject. But yes they will advise you to get rid of the cannons in a cruiser if maxing your DPS is your goal. You don't seem willing to either get rid of the cannons OR change ships, and since your gear and consoles already look top tier I'm not sure what else you can do other than buy ships to get traits.

If you felt like spending some money on Cstore ships, the T6 Defiant ship can give you the Withering Barrage trait that will extend the duration of Cannon Scatter Volley, making it a beast BOFF ability for damage from what I hear. But that would involve you spending zen and playing a non-excelsior for a while, but it would boost your cannon abilities. Bridge officer cooldowns via traits may be the only other thing you can change up, unless it's bad piloting.

[Wallis]

Yes I've seen the withering barrage trait and heard its preaty awesome for cannon scatter volley. Im totally willing to buy ships to earn special traits, and thats something I may do over the course of next week, so thank you for that.

Im also debating the coop intervened engines, as apparently there good for combat and cruisers.

[Dark]

I'm an Eng and pulled over 100k DPS just fine, I'm not willing to give up the Eng ground game just to squeeze out more DPS.

If you want cannons that's fine, it's actually meta right now - but requires you to be able to be on target, so there's a larger player skill prerequisite than beamboats. The bigger rule of thumb you're breaking is mixing beams and cannons, since only one will be affected by beam or cannon abilities, respectively. Generally you want turrets aft if you're using cannons fore.