[Soral]

People keep asking in chat what the "best" builds are for their ships. The answer, in my opinion, is that there really aren't any builds that are "the best." Rather, there are great builds, better builds, and good builds that are all effective and get the job done. I see many of us repeating time and again that it comes down to a few key factors:

1) Playing Style
2) Weapon Type
3) Gear Selection
4) Skill Points - Skill Tree Design
5) Bridge Officer (BOFF) Abilities
6) Duty Officer (DOFF) Abilities


1) Playing Style

This is an easy question...how do you like to play the game?

For myself, I like the idea of flying in with guns blazing and striking the almighty Alpha strike against my opponent. I'm a huge fan of the Defiant and the DS9 series, so that's what I try to make my escorts like with my builds. With my cruisers, I want to be able to stand there and take punishment, but also deal out a fair amount as well. I never saw the Enterprise-D flying circles around its opponents, so that's the style of gameplay I like when I'm in a cruiser. Broadsides 'R Fun!

Others have a different style of game play. Some prefer to disable an opponent's systems, making them defenseless (this can be done with any type of toon with effectiveness depending on the build, although Science tends to be the favored here). Others still like the idea of a healer and being in the fight, but not drawing the main focus of their enemies. And yet there are a few other styles that people have; these are just the main ones that you see the most.

So how do you like to play? Answer that and the rest is a matter of putting all the pieces together to make that style of play the most effective and enjoyable it can be.


2) Weapon Type

Our fleetmate, Dark, put together an excellent thread on weapon types. I'm not going to try and re-invent the wheel, so here is a link to his post on weapon types.

The key here it to pick the types of weapons that you want to play with. This is all about personal preference. Some prefer to keep their ships canon (Feds = Phasers, etc.), which is personally how I like to equip my ships. Others want the highest DPS, some want the abilities that different weapons offer, etc. It all comes back to how you answered the question in #1.


3) Gear Selection

There are a lot of helpful tools out there regarding what types of gear are better for certain situations. Dark also has a great thread on Shields and Armor, so I'm going to reference that here. I'm also going to point out that there is some good information on the STO Wiki site that gives you the stats on each option as well.

Again, think back to how you answered the question in #1. Look at what you're trying to accomplish and compare the different options to see which fit your style the best.


4) Skill Points - Skill Tree Design

This part truly emphasizes the theme of "how do you play?" because of the way in which skill points affect your abilities. Do you want to have fast speed in Sector Space cause Warp 10 just isn't fast enough? Do you want to have as much DPS power as possible? Do you want to be more of a tank with a mix of DPS and survivability? Well, skill points make a huge difference in your ability to play your style effectively.

STO Wiki has a pretty basic site with some good information on how skill points fundamentally work, including some good information on diminishing returns. There's also a site I found that someone named Amicus@Folcwin has recently updated that gives you a more "indepth" look at how those points affect abilities, too. Including the points you put into each bridge officer abilities. Check out the site here.


5) Bridge Officer (BOFF) Abilities

Depending on the ship you're flying, you're either going to have a lot of Tactical abilities (Escorts), Engineering abilities (Cruisers) or Science abilities (Science Vessels). You may even have a few crosses that result from Carriers or even Escort Carriers. So the question is, what abilities should you use?

That is a question that I continue to ask and my answers change as I play the game. It's a constant experiment to determine what abilities seem to fit your ship build the best. As an example, some abilities are specific only to beam weapons (i.e. targeting systems) while others only to cannons (rapid fire or scatter volley). I recommend using the STO Wiki site's information on bridge officer abilities to help you figure out what skills will help you get the most out of your build.


6) Duty Officers (DOFF) Abilities

The introduction of the DOFF System a few seasons ago gave us an additional way to tweak our builds and get a little more out of our abilities. Like the ship gear, as you level up from Common, Uncommon, Rare, and finally to Ultra Rare, the abilities of your DOFF increase and give you that much more advantage in a firefight. STO Wiki has a pretty respectable site that offers an explanation and a listing of the abilities available in the doff system.



Build Examples:

The last thing I'd like to do is offer some examples of builds that can be used as starting points. These are my builds and, although I don't consider them to be "the best" or even necessarily "great," they are pretty effective at making sure I'm carrying my share of the load in STFs and PVEs. I've had a lot of help getting these to where they are today as well, majority of which came from members of this fleet, so I feel they should be a good starting block for people to use. As always, I am ever appreciative of the help that I've received with my ships and I hope that these examples can help others in a similar manner.


Fleet Assault Cruiser - J-La (Tactical)

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skil...ugust2013fac_0

The skill points in my skill tree were designed with this ship in mind. I'm a huge fan of the Aux2Bat setup and feel I get much better use out of that energy section of my power levels. It doesn't turn fast, but the wide angle quantums help to make up for that. I also use this when I want to PVP and find it is fairly effective in fleet organized events.


Fleet Heavy Escort Carrier - J-La (Tactical)

http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?...ber2013fhec2_0

This is my "change of pace" escort that I purchased for J-La to fly when I feel the need to fly in circles instead of being circled in my cruiser. This is my first carrier ship and it remains a work in progress (although I consider all my ships a work in progress because there's always something new to try and improve upon). I alternate the hanger pets between Elite Scorpions and Elite Tholian Widows depending on what I'm trying to do. I'm told Elite Scorpion fighters have more DPS and I would believe that based on the description of their abilities.

Note: If you are going to have an escort on a Tactical, please review the skill tree I have. The threat generation skills should NOT be used and should be placed in other areas (i.e. Weapons or Shields). I don't want to spend a respect token everytime I switch ships, so it's a handicap I knowingly play with.


Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit - Soral (Engineer)

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

This is my pride and joy. This is the ship that I've learned the most on and continue to enjoy flying regardless of what new toys I bring into my personal shipyard.

I used to have an EptS ability in the Engineering Ensign slot with an Aux2SIF ability in the Lieutenant slot. I never felt like I got a lot of use out of the Lieutenant slot and switched it out with the current setup. Some of this also had to do with my boff usage as I have two (2) Damage Control Engineers I'm trying to make use out of.


Fleet Advanced Escort (Defiant) - Soral (Engineering)

http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skil...eetadvescort_0

You'll notice that the gearing of this ship is not all too different from that of the Fleet Tactical Escort Retrofit. That's by design. As another escort, and Soral's change of pace ship, the main idea is to keep flying an escort, but change up the game play with the MVAM console and the use of Gravity Well I. Whenever I am going to go into a STF where Gravity Well is handy (Cure or Khitomer Accord) I like to take this ship in whenever possible. Not much of a variation in what I have with the Defiant class, but still a nice ship to have for those few differences.


Those are the main ones I have right now. I have a Fleet Advanced Heavy Cruiser Retrofit (Excelsior) for Soral that I'm still tweaking with some similar items to the Fleet Assault Cruiser on J-La, but that one's still in the works a bit.


Closing Comments:

As always, I strongly recommend that as you start to put your build together that you check back in the forum for more helpful tips. Also, feel free to put your build here in the forum for us to review and offer advice on. You'll see that several members have already done so (myself included) and that's the best way to help fine tune your ship and get the most out of your STO experience.

Special thanks to {UFP}Dark for all the hard work he put into his posts. There's a wealth of information there that is worth the time to sit down and read. It took me some time to find them after having not looked at them for a few months, so this post is also aimed at putting the information back in front of the members. Also check out his posts on Cruisers, "Dark's Guide to Cruisers and You!" and on the use of Multiple Commands (aka keybinds), "Dark's Guide to Being Lazy - Multiple-Command Keybinds and You!"

I truly hopes this helps those of you that are new to the game or returning from a long absence. Remember, feel free to ask us questions. The only bad question is one that's never asked!

See you in-game!

[Timothy R Benton]

Thanks for this Soral - Great post.

[Sharien]

Very nice, good information its a good place to start as you said and as a returning player after a decent amount of time away from STO I found this enlightening. So thank you for your insights.

[Supergrover]

Nice post Soral, I'll try and post up some of my builds here this weekend.

[Sharien]

This is my current tactical VA build. http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tsunami_4875

It includes my skill tree and everything. Now any help would be appreciated but I only have Tier I Omega unlocked, and my funds are only at about 2mil EC and that's all i am working on it but i am a returning player so...

Also DoFFS
Active Space
Rare Projectile Weapons Officer x2
Vary Rare Warp Core Engineer x1
Uncommon Maintenance Engineer x1
Uncommon Development Lab Scientist

Again any help would be appreciated.

[Supergrover]

This is my current tactical VA build. http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/?build=tsunami_4875

It includes my skill tree and everything. Now any help would be appreciated but I only have Tier I Omega unlocked, and my funds are only at about 2mil EC and that's all i am working on it but i am a returning player so...

Also DoFFS
Active Space
Rare Projectile Weapons Officer x2
Vary Rare Warp Core Engineer x1
Uncommon Maintenance Engineer x1
Uncommon Development Lab Scientist

Again any help would be appreciated.

First off YMMV, not everyone likes my builds.

Weapons: Up front your good, 2x DHC 1- DBB and a torp, in back switch out for 3x AP turrets, when you get the Kinetic Cutting beam swap that for a turret.
TAc consoles Only use AP MAgs for your Tactical slots, since you run AP use all AP Mags. Side note here I have a bunch of spare AP MAgs, send me a in game PM or mail message and I will send you 4 ( Storm@supergroverohpc )

BO Wise: Drop the subsystem targeting wasted on a Cannon ship abd you have no flowcaps slotted so the drain just isnt worth it, For ensign skills I would take TTx2 and BO1. LT skills I would use APB, CSV1
LT Com:
Lots of nice skils to use here, TS3, CSV2, CRF2 up to you, Commander: Again up to you CSV3, CRF3 or my favourite APO3

Eng skills I might drop eng team for AtSIF. Sci wise drop sci team for TSS2.

So there you go a basic cannon build with aBO1 for spike damage/alpha striking.