STO Academy Forum

Hi ya'll, and thanks for the great website and tools, STO clearly has a wonderful community =)

I'm a new F2P player who reached Lt Commander and I figured I would plan out long term (end game) goals to save myself the cost of re-speccing. The overall goal of this build is to be proficient in solo play and have some unique abilities for PvP. I consider it an Electronic Warfare build as the tier III abilities that it uses have to do with jamming or confusing enemy sensors or evading combat and striking only when needed.

It is a less defensive build, but if you can slip out of an enemies grasp, hide, confuse, then strike by disabling them and continue the strike-hide-strike tactic it should be quite fun. In game play terms, you stealth into a large group, open up with scramble sensors on a good target, run/stealth out. Open up with Jam sensors III on a single target without support, cut it to shreds, ... rinse repeat. The tier 1 slots are reserved for general evasive or support roles in case you find yourself with a bigger (more tactical) ally who could use a small boost. Overall though your main purpose is to confuse, shutdown, and draw the attention of the enemy or target away from the main group or target picking them off one by one.

Please click the imgur link bellow to see how I have planned out my skills.

http://i.imgur.com/IzZhB.png

Also a build share on the site.
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skillpla...dgame_1501

Let me start out by saying I am an almost exclusively PvE player, so I am not well versed in the finer points of PvP play, but I do have a couple of suggestions for what they're worth. Given your strategy (which I think is a sound one) the build you have looks good for the most part. I note that you left 6000 skill points unused and I would suggest that you go ahead and assign them to one of the skills that you have left with zero points. I would also suggest that you look closely at the skills you have set at nine and consider moving some of those into skill areas that you have left blank (other than Threat Control, which you definitely want leave at zero in order to keep your opponents from attacking you unnecessarily). Because of the way skills stack in the game, level one, two and three give you almost twice the benefit of level seven, eight and nine skills (18 points per level versus 10).

Also, if it makes a difference to you in terms of how you allocate your points, you don't need to worry about setting skills at six in order to train your BOFFs (unless you just want to). The fleet has BOFF training available in a wide range of advanced skill levels. See my posts in the Fleet Discussions forums under BOFF Training Available (or something like that) for more details or send me an ingame mail to request training. You can train your BOFFs as they level up, or you may have them trained in advanced skills before they reach the appropriate rank so that when you promote them you can immediately level them up in those skills rather than having to retrain them at that point.

Hopefully, some of our PvP mambers will have some suggestions for you based on their experience in that area.

Live long and prosper, and welcome to STOA

Victor [email protected]
Fleet Fabrication Officer

Thanks for the reply, its good to see my overall strategy is sound =)

Also the stuff about training BOFFs was very informative, I will look into that. Specifically in regards to getting the skills I want =)

**Update**

I reviewed my tables and further generalized the points so none were in the 'red' zone. I think overall the few points moved from early weapons tiers and put into the specialization end tiers will make the build a bit stronger overall due to the larger gains, but the jamming, and resistance to being jammed and tractord is down a bit. However the few extra yellow pips in auxiliary and warp systems (also boosting aux) may make up for the loss in the primary science sensor skills, at least as far as duration and magnitude are concerned, the defensive values against those specials is down still. But how much does 15 points really make? 2 seconds?

Also I swapped extend shields for tachyon beam I, better for hit and run tactics and solo play where I won't be in a prolonged position to provide support for an ally.

I could flip either way.

The new build is located at REDACTED

I am curious about the effectiveness of stealth, in the tactical tree. Is it viable for a science vessel? Should I focus on full points there to make it effective or will just 3 green or 6 to yellow do?

Anyway, thanks again for all your advice.

Live long and prosper to you as well.

One commit - If your going to use High Yield Torp and Fire at will then why six pips in Starship Attack Patterns? If your not going to assign your end game tac officer the skills then you get no gain from it. Other than that seems sound.

~Star Fleet Science Officer Medical Division Feyd Harkonnen

We are talking both PvE and PvP - Starship Power Insulators and Starship Inertial Dampeners have its uses in PvP environment.

Harkonnen Wrote:One commit - If your going to use High Yield Torp and Fire at will then why six pips in Starship Attack Patterns? If your not going to assign your end game tac officer the skills then you get no gain from it. Other than that seems sound.

~Star Fleet Science Officer Medical Division Feyd Harkonnen

Good to know =) I was a newb about this. I thought that skill gave a general buff to attack patterns your main char would eventually get.

@ChrisHerr, other then dropping power insulators and Dampers, I like the idea of your changes.

@All - I have run into a wall were I need to spend points in area's I'm not focusing on to unlock the last tiers, so they are pretty set in stone, unless I somehow refocus my points. I may just transfer the attack pattern points to shield battery and one other, maybe defensive skill like ship shield performance, it depends on how it works out, might buff up starship hull repair or structural integrity to unlock the higher tiers again.

Again, thanks all very much =) this has been a very informative post for me.

Link updated* REDACTED

I dropped starship attack patterns and particle generators completely (particle generators, were there in-case I wanted to play around with different abilities and keep the build flexible). I buffed up shield tanking capabilities, hull repair, and structural integrity.

**UPDATE I also figured out how to boost up starship armor reinforcements by dropping to 3 starship subspace decompiler. Although I feel like I should maybe drop those and one other ability to max starship countermeasure systems.

**haha, last update, and I think you guys will see this build as just about perfect for the role I described

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I maxed out the primary ability and specialized the ship towards more of a combat role, with strong disabling capabilities, and a decent level of defense in pvp. I removed points from skills that won't directly contribute to damage, sensor holds, or resistances to enemy support.

When looking at starship subspace decompiler it says:
This skill also improves subsystem disable duration from abilities which target subsystems (but not the power drain).

It also increases tractor duration (which is nice, but not critical). I would imagine the buff to subsystem damage duration would be nice in pvp, but also, not critical, and less so as my targets will mostly be disabled by my sensor jamming already. In the long run by Admiral rank I have the ability to not put the 3 red ranks into starship countermeasures and instead buff up subspace decompiler to 3 green. I think I may do this if it is an effective means of increasing subsystem damage duration (but I have until then to worry about it). All in all it looks better to focus away from subsystem damage as that is more synergistic with other science abilities then sensor jams and scrambles.

Lastly thanks all, I think your input has greatly aided me in creating a really nice build that will be very fun to play =)

Your new build looks stronger to me than your first one. I wish you much success with it.

Warburton1881

If you're keen on boosting up your bursty dps as much as possible (smashing your enemies whilst they drown in your disables), I suggest picking up a dual beam bank (or an array, I guess - either way, you need at least one beam for subsystem targeting), a single cannon and your choice of torpedo for the front, along with 3 turrets at the rear. When you tractor your enemies and blitz down their shields with your abilities, the extra front-arc damage is noticeable. On a similar note, beam fire at will is a bit lackluster unless you're going for a more aoe-based damage build, especially since it locks out subsystem targeting - I would take High Yield 1 (ensign) and Cannon Rapid Fire 1 (lieutenant) instead, since Rapid Fire affects your turrets as well, and the damage boose is very substantial.

Regarding Jam Sensors - I found it only of limited use, but then again I never got around to using the higher level one. I don't think it's really compatible with wanting to do lots of damage as you'll burn through that immediately, more for use in giving you a reprieve if you find yourself losing a one on one fight. I would suggest trading Jam Sensors 1 for Science Team 1, but that's just my own preference.