[Paran]

Morning!

Im looking for general build advice for my current build. Note that im not chasing the DPS dragon so its not an optimal build and not meant to be. Its more of a hybrid atm of things i enjoy to do, pew pew, pets and control/hazard abilities. Though im trying to polish the turd as much as possible. Currently it feels like im doing well in advanced TFOs compared to other Pugs but that can be deceptive. Some things arent included in the planner. Such as the Gamma reputation space set, Lukari reputation regular Dual cannons, Priors world defence satelite console, Phased waveform beacon, combat pets, pahwan healing crystal and many more.

So for Deflector and Impulse i use the epic variants of the Gamma reputation set no matter what the plan says. Same with most of the items i just listed.

Also my Duty officers are a complete mess because i havent prioritised my EC towards those yet. I also lack the Ground trait slot and active trait slot upgrades still.








https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/...9a9958f13b57d2

[Dark]

I'm no Space Wizard so my critique is limited in scope, but the non-Sciency part of the ship build is kind of a mess.

You're carrying a Fire At Will in addition to Torp and Cannon abilities, but all your weapons function with Cannon abilities anyway. Drop that for Torp Spread 1, then drop Torp Spread 2 for Attack Pattern Beta 1. Tap APB before you fires off your CSV into a cluster of enemies you've gathered up with Grav Well so you debuff the group's Damage Resistance, then nuke their weakened hull with Torp Spread.

You have no shield or hull heals, how are you able to survive any aggro? (I assume you do enough damage that if there isn't a dedicated tank, you'll end up with aggro at some point. If you don't, then you're not contributing as much as you think, since even Grav Well can be a PitA in terms of getting aggro.) You should at least have Science Team and Hazard Emitters, both of which are Science abilities. EPtS is not a heal and I don't really see the point since it'll barely mitigate any incoming damage. Go with EPtW to make your weapons hit harder, or EPtE for bursts of speed to get things in position for your cannons. EPtA shouldn't be necessary since Aux power shouldn't drain, last I checked.

[Paran]

I'm no Space Wizard so my critique is limited in scope, but the non-Sciency part of the ship build is kind of a mess.

You're carrying a Fire At Will in addition to Torp and Cannon abilities, but all your weapons function with Cannon abilities anyway. Drop that for Torp Spread 1, then drop Torp Spread 2 for Attack Pattern Beta 1. Tap APB before you fires off your CSV into a cluster of enemies you've gathered up with Grav Well so you debuff the group's Damage Resistance, then nuke their weakened hull with Torp Spread.

You have no shield or hull heals, how are you able to survive any aggro? (I assume you do enough damage that if there isn't a dedicated tank, you'll end up with aggro at some point. If you don't, then you're not contributing as much as you think, since even Grav Well can be a PitA in terms of getting aggro.) You should at least have Science Team and Hazard Emitters, both of which are Science abilities. EPtS is not a heal and I don't really see the point since it'll barely mitigate any incoming damage. Go with EPtW to make your weapons hit harder, or EPtE for bursts of speed to get things in position for your cannons. EPtA shouldn't be necessary since Aux power shouldn't drain, last I checked.

Thanks for your advice! There is a point for the FAW1 though. The morphogenic set has stacking bonuses to CritD, CritH and AllDam debending on what tactical powers you use. Also The morphogenic weapon can morph between an omni beam and a heavy turret as you trigger said powers. So FAW is required simply to colelct the Crit chance stacks for all your outgoing damage. All three types of bonuses stack individually of each other. So for a morphogenic build its required to mix those. I elected to use an ensign slot for that reason.



As for my thinking about heals. The Vanguard carrier has the Vanguard wingmen hull unique power. That comes with two triggered hull heal over time + resistance buff with a short 20 second cooldown each. Thats plus brace for impact is more than enough to keep me afloat, frees up BOF slots and triggers Traits and specialization that activates based on incoming heals. For situations where things gets out of hand the Temporal ability at tier 4 will usually work as a panic button.

Also picked the Iconian Shield for the auto debuff wiping. So that removes the need for both hazard emitters and science team. Emergency power to shields along with the Set bonus from Iconian Shield + Warpcore has been enough to keep shields up under fire. Ontop of this the two Intel abilities Intelligence team and evade target lock is plenty to help keep me from permanent aggro and they trigger the hangar pet ship trait that comes with the carrier ontop of that so they are rotated constantly. So far i have had little trouble under fire. For example holding a shield generator by myself in Dranuur TFO or the Phavan FTFO.

Iconian shield with debuff wiping + set bonus effect on shields.



As for the EPtS vs Science team then EPtS is actually, at least on paper, the superior heal as it also gives shield power levels and shield resists. So with no need to wipe debuffs due to Iconian shields, im not sure i see your point of why this would be a worse choice? Please elaborate if you can as i may be missing something!

EPtS

SciTeam



And heres the info about the heals from the Vanguard Wingmen. You can individually trigger two of those HoT + resist abilities individually and each has a 20 sec individual cooldown.

https://sto.gamepedia.com/Ability:_V...gmen#Maneuvers




So thats my thinking about those abilities you mentioned.

As i only have one engineering slot the two options i have for that as i see it is EPtS boosted by a Doff that gives 20% chance to give +25 to all power levels each use. This to strengthen shields when needed.
Second option is Engineering team boosted by a Doff that gives 20% chance to increase all power levels by 5 but for a health heal i dont really need more off and loosing a shield heal.

Out of that EPtS looks tastier.

EPtW is a viable option, but not sure the gain is worth the loss of what EPtS offers due to above. APtE isnt something i need i believe. The Vanguard is pretty much a whale. I use it as a sniper really. I move to 10K range of target and sit still and fire or reverse and fire if they are approaching to trigger the Ship trait Non linear progression. (filler trait as i own nothing better for that slot yet). The consoles i use and the choice of the Gamma two piece (impulse/deflector) offers enough turnrate to make it work and for those situations when targets gets too close for agility to be a problem then Evasive manouevers are enough to reposition. GW and Anchor console ability is usually enough to keep things locked down at a comfortable distance though.

Please let me know if my thinking is off somewhere or can be improved upon. Its all tied to the choice of modules and work fine so far but i have only a month back to the game and had many years off before that. So you guys will have way more experience with all these new game systems (to me) and the new meta than i do. So i want to learn.

[casualsto]

You're a science. You're best suited as an exotic space magician.

Trying to be an "everything" usually doesn't worth in the efforts of balancing out.

Since you've invested into cannons, I'd suggest switching to a scout ship. The fleet scout ship from colony is a good example, the t6 vulcan scout ship is also an option. Even the t5u nkaam is one.

Those are basically raiders with secondary deflectors.

That secondary deflector with an epg/ctrlx build could be a monster.

You can also use your cannons that way with csv/crf as you will be epg build with a hybrid tind of a raider, having incorporated flanking.

Specializations : Temporal + Strategist.

Gameplan - gravity well 3, subspace vortex 3, Charged particle burst 1 to spread the secondary deflector's radiation damage. Then hit csv and clear the targets.

As for the skilltree for this, you're gonna need some tweaking to make sure we can balance your aux bonuses with the high weapon power. Eptw 3 would help or any eptw. The auxiliary should be at max values on an epg build.

The real challenge here are resources and the willingness to commit to a build that really contributes, instead of flying a lazy-put-together space pony that shoots rainbows our of its undertail.

Key takeaways : big epg, big aux power, big ctrlx, weapon power mitigation to use cannons, careful hybrid tweaking.

[Dark]

I wasn't actually comparing EPtS to Sci Team, but looking at the former compared to other Eng abilities and the latter in a vacuum. Using FAW (or CSV on a beam build) purely to trigger a buff is something for ships with excess Tac seats, not one where you haven't managed to cover the core abilities.

I also didn't bother to consider equipment, generally they don't significantly influence a ship build. Your abilities are things that are constant and define what a ship does, while the equipment just adds to that.

I actually didn't notice you were in a Vanguard Carrier, or my reaction would have been "Why the heck are you using cannons?" That may possibly be why you're able to stay alive, you're just not hitting hard enough for things to hate you. My Jem'Hadar flew that while I was working on the Gamma Recruit objectives, using hand-me-down or otherwise free gear. With a standard FAW build, I'd always have enough aggro that I would never survive with just the things you listed. To put it another way - in ISA PUGs he'd unwillingly grab and hold the aggro of the Tac Cube when it was the sole remaining enemy, every single time. It was a PitA and once I had enough marks to get to T5 (for the Gamma Recruit objective) I stopped.

[Paran]

You're a science. You're best suited as an exotic space magician.

Trying to be an "everything" usually doesn't worth in the efforts of balancing out.

Since you've invested into cannons, I'd suggest switching to a scout ship. The fleet scout ship from colony is a good example, the t6 vulcan scout ship is also an option. Even the t5u nkaam is one.

Those are basically raiders with secondary deflectors.

That secondary deflector with an epg/ctrlx build could be a monster.

You can also use your cannons that way with csv/crf as you will be epg build with a hybrid tind of a raider, having incorporated flanking.

Specializations : Temporal + Strategist.

Gameplan - gravity well 3, subspace vortex 3, Charged particle burst 1 to spread the secondary deflector's radiation damage. Then hit csv and clear the targets.

As for the skilltree for this, you're gonna need some tweaking to make sure we can balance your aux bonuses with the high weapon power. Eptw 3 would help or any eptw. The auxiliary should be at max values on an epg build.

The real challenge here are resources and the willingness to commit to a build that really contributes, instead of flying a lazy-put-together space pony that shoots rainbows our of its undertail.

Key takeaways : big epg, big aux power, big ctrlx, weapon power mitigation to use cannons, careful hybrid tweaking.

Thanks for your suggestions!

As i stated in my original post, Im not chasing the DPS dragon and im not interested in the DPS league. So im not looking for a Meta build. Meta builds are easy to find. Google links to tons of them and then its just a matter of finding the items and traits to copy those builds and not screw up flying. Its more challenging to actually take something you enjoy flying and you believe looks cool and then make it work within those parameters, to make it yours.

We dont need 150k+ DPS for any form of content in this game. So people who do NOT have builds with 150k DPS and perhaps settle for half of that cant be considered "not contributing" as you called it. I actually think its a bit pompous and condescending to make such an insinuation. So i hope i misunderstood you there.

This "Lazy shoots rainbow Build " of mine, that you called it, that im currently polishing has the current performance on ISA Advanced on a very sloppy non optimal run. With non optimal gear, non optimal ship traits and terrible Doff setup.
SCM - Infected [LR] (S) - [05:42] DMG(DPS) - @Sorasil: 27.82M(85.67K) @Sagarixx: 9.64M(28.91K) @tiver#2425: 7.17M(21.75K) @attacko: 4.39M(18.22K) @verresa: 3.55M(10.64K)

So yes, it works. What im looking for is to learn the mechanics and to polish this build (and other future ones) as best as possible without loosing their unique characteristics. In such a context swapping to a different ship or totally changing focus of the ship towards Meta is not what im looking for. I'm looking for general advice to polish the build i have within said context.

Im going to take your suggestions with me for when i fit my Eternal next though as many of them will be a better fit for that hull

I wasn't actually comparing EPtS to Sci Team, but looking at the former compared to other Eng abilities and the latter in a vacuum. Using FAW (or CSV on a beam build) purely to trigger a buff is something for ships with excess Tac seats, not one where you haven't managed to cover the core abilities.

I also didn't bother to consider equipment, generally they don't significantly influence a ship build. Your abilities are things that are constant and define what a ship does, while the equipment just adds to that.

I actually didn't notice you were in a Vanguard Carrier, or my reaction would have been "Why the heck are you using cannons?" That may possibly be why you're able to stay alive, you're just not hitting hard enough for things to hate you. My Jem'Hadar flew that while I was working on the Gamma Recruit objectives, using hand-me-down or otherwise free gear. With a standard FAW build, I'd always have enough aggro that I would never survive with just the things you listed. To put it another way - in ISA PUGs he'd unwillingly grab and hold the aggro of the Tac Cube when it was the sole remaining enemy, every single time. It was a PitA and once I had enough marks to get to T5 (for the Gamma Recruit objective) I stopped.

Edit: @Dark Well i cant judge your Vanguard build as i dont know enough of it. But im confident i can push the current build over 100k DPS with proper polish as i get 85k now on a terrible run in a non optimised build. I dont think i need more than that. Its fun to fly and sufficiently effective and thats enough for me. Parse of said run in above text. Oh and no deaths on that run and massively out DPSed the other team mates. So plenty of aggro generated but also managed, including by the Tac cube. So i would be very interested in what build and strategy you are running that would never survive if you used the same things i listed.

[Dark]

My Jem'Hadar's build is generic FAW with random garbage (since he existed purely for Gamma Recruit and I spent nothing on him). Looks like you're able to survive because you're apparently carrying the team and killing everything via space wizardry. My Jem definitely can't do that, he doesn't output enough control/damage to carry. Think he only parsed around 50-60k when I checked to ensure I wasn't being a burden.

Now I'm really curious as to the parse to see where the damage is coming, I'll see if I can look it up if I remember when I get back home. I'm too lazy to ever actually engage in space wizardry, though.

[casualsto]

Yeah, a live parse with all the graphs would be edifying. The carrier is pretty well geared, plenty of stuff is gold.

On the other hand, if you wanna maintain the "I'm a jem'hadar in a jem'hadar ship using polaron gear", you should drop the drb for a cbp and replace the tyken's rift for a photonic officer 2.

No point in using crf in carriers like this one.
Use csv2, apb1, tt1, faw1, ts2 (triggers competitive prevailing engines, works well with morphogenic set 3 piece). Combined with po2, it should manage your cd well. Also use EptW1 instead of EptS1.

As for the space gear - intervention colony deflector rerolled to ctrlx, epg, prevailing engines (comp rep), temporal rep warpcore+shield array.

[Paran]

Yeah, a live parse with all the graphs would be edifying. The carrier is pretty well geared, plenty of stuff is gold.

On the other hand, if you wanna maintain the "I'm a jem'hadar in a jem'hadar ship using polaron gear", you should drop the drb for a cbp and replace the tyken's rift for a photonic officer 2.

No point in using crf in carriers like this one.
Use csv2, apb1, tt1, faw1, ts2 (triggers competitive prevailing engines, works well with morphogenic set 3 piece). Combined with po2, it should manage your cd well. Also use EptW1 instead of EptS1.

As for the space gear - intervention colony deflector rerolled to ctrlx, epg, prevailing engines (comp rep), temporal rep warpcore+shield array.

Is that short for Charged particle burst?

Is there a way to use STO combat meter to give you a live parse etc? I cant find anywhere to export that info.

[casualsto]

Yes, charged particle burst. You use it to trigger the secondary deflector deteriorating radiation dot and the drain infection electric type dot.

Your carrier should have a secondary deflector slot where you should have a deteriorating secondary deflector.

The drain infection dot is a 5000 electric damage that will strike all the targets hit by the cbp. Which could be many, so plenty of effect and dps.

[Paran]

Yes, charged particle burst. You use it to trigger the secondary deflector deteriorating radiation dot and the drain infection electric type dot.

Your carrier should have a secondary deflector slot where you should have a deteriorating secondary deflector.

The drain infection dot is a 5000 electric damage that will strike all the targets hit by the cbp. Which could be many, so plenty of effect and dps.

Unfortunately the Vanguard Carrier only retains the subsystem targeting science ship ability. It does not have a secondary deflector and no Sensor lock ability.

[casualsto]

Unfortunately the Vanguard Carrier only retains the subsystem targeting science ship ability. It does not have a secondary deflector and no Sensor lock ability.

Then you are strongly advised to switch to a scout ship. It's gonna yield far better results. The starship mastery, the secondary deflector and other things recommend the scout ships over that carrier. It's ultimately your choice, but scout ship beats carrier everytime in my book under these exotic settings.

[Paran]

Then you are strongly advised to switch to a scout ship. It's gonna yield far better results. The starship mastery, the secondary deflector and other things recommend the scout ships over that carrier. It's ultimately your choice, but scout ship beats carrier everytime in my book under these exotic settings.

Thanks for said advice. I dont agree that this ship is a lost cause though due to the lack of above capabilities. After some more parsed battles its pretty consistent that the pets alone do 45k -50k DPS. I have great fun flying it and it has yet to face anything it cant accomplish. It will never be a 150k+ DPS ship unless the focus changes but its not intended to be, as i have stated repeatedly.

I have done some Reading up on the Dranuur fleet scout ship (only one easily available) and it does look like an interesting ship to scratch the small raider itch with control abilities so ill be getting one of those as well for the collection down the line. But i have yet to see any reason to replace the VGC. Ill keep polishing on it to squeeze the most out of it as i can.

Edit: Another ship sitting in my hangar waiting for use is the Cardassian Intel Science Dreadnought. It has a 4/3 weapon layout and do have a secondary deflector and sensor scan ability. So it will be a fun ship to experiment with as well. I have seen people get 200k DPS of the Eternal, on DPS league, with cookie cutter EPG builds so i may do the Cardassian ship or the scout before the Eternal just because i dont fancy cookie cutter.

[Paran]

Tweaked my build some as i got more stuff available to me. I now reached my goal of reaching above 100K with this non meta pet/energy/control build:

SCM - Infected [LR] (S) - [03:57] DMG(DPS) - @Sorasil: 24.55M(103.29K) @RaptorKage: 15.21M(63.96K) @avirnig: 8.29M(44.74K) @gaz408: 2.29M(10.15K) @nightwolf1084: 2.18M(9.38K)

https://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/...7e335954fba621

I replaced and rearranged among the consoles a good deal. Getting the new Boronite laced weapons console in there as its rifts scale by EPG. I then added the Unconventional systems trait that boosts recharge on universal consoles on use of control powers to get it in play more often. I added two locators as the vanguard pets DPS scale with polaron damage bonuses and it helps my cannons as well. Rearranged boff powers to get better energy management and enough control powers to trigger above trait often. I added scramble fighters trait boosted with 3 hangars Doffs to keep scramble fighters on 100% uptime in the regular spacebar rotation. Added all hands on deck trait for science cooldowns that gets 100% effect as i rotate a lot of tactical boff abilities in this build to get the most out of the morphogenic set. Added the proper doffs to cooldown cannons and torpedoes. Added krenims for the Boff slots where i dont have the science potato or the three jem hadars.

I also replaced one of the gunboats with Aeon Timeships. This as the new hangar pet patch change made Aeons even more awesome. They do much higher damage than my gunboats even and have the subatomic disruptor that also debuffs damage reistances, which is important for pets. The high yield II torpedo ability gives them the same kind of punch as scorpions but with added bells and whistles. Their main drawback is that they are very squishy and will die to be repalced a lot on a non pet focused build so they wont reach high star rank (added dps). But due to my scramble fighters rotation they are kept alive constantly and benefits from the 25% extra damage (that stacks to 50% when it overlaps). Sometimes in more intense fights i may loose one or two, but due to Wing commander trait it will be at max star rank again shortly after being relaunched due to scramble fighters keeping them alive. The gunboats in the other slot has much higher survivability, has area damage due to FAW3, debuffs the targets due to Attack pattern lambda3, are even more manueverable than other frigates due to the burst ability and can Ram (seen Ram crit for 400k for example, but thats very luck based). So these two hangar pets complement each other very well.

I could replace Calm before the storm with another pet buffing aiblity like Dampen energy signatures for extra damage and suirvivablity. It would fit right into this rotation and trigger often due to the intel abilities. But i cant get myself to give up on CBTS yet. If i had Superior Area Denial i would do it for sure as that would give FAW to the Aeons and add more DRR debuff. Maybe i will be lucky with infinity boxes one of these days.

Edit: After some rotation testing i notice that pilfered power has an unadvertised and significant lockout period after trigger. It appears in form of a debuff icon. That makes it a poor chocie for this build so I replaced it with Dampen energy signatures for now for some extra pet damage and will hold that slot for Superior Area Denial in the future. Unless something else appears.

[Dark]

The Aeons are great, I'm almost tempted to build a Fed character around them. I already have a Romulan with similar performing drones though, and it's cheaper to not do so.

According to this poster's testing with 5 runs each:

JHAS: Avg 13.2k, Range 10.8k - 16.3k
Gunboats: Avg 13.4k, Range 10.2k - 15.5k
Rom Drones: Avg 19k, Range 14.7k - 20.8k
Aeon: Avg 18.1k, Range 16.5k - 20.2k

I haven't cared about DPS since I hit 141k ages ago, it's really interesting to see you work up there with space wizardy.