It's all theorycraft at the moment...wanted to get feedback from the fleet before putting any time in game.
http://skillplanner.stoacademy.com/b3aa1...b06e63d3d6
So we are always working to keep hull and shields healed with tanking taking up two power lines; Shield and Auxiliary. What if we could just push Shields to zero and max Weapons and Aux with the rest into Engines? We would just focus on hull healing and DPS.
Even more insane...operating as a tank with no shields. Thoughts? Ever seen it before or played with this idea yourself? Would torps still be too much to handle?
I picked hull over shields as it seems like NPCs always have a way to get past shields nowadays anyway.
A couple of things here:
First off, purposefully neglecting shields is bad for a number of reasons. Most high-end shields reduce energy weapon damage to shields in one form or another. The Counter-Command shield you're currently slotting, for example, reduces antiproton damage to shields by 20%. The Iconian Shield (which I'd recommend you start using) has a blanket 15% reduction to all energy weapon damage to shields. Furthermore, shields offer a large amount of resistance to kinetic damage done by Torpedos. A Torpedo Salvo in an Advanced/Elite PvE Queue can easily one-hit-kill newer players if their shields are not at full strength. Not slotting shields will also break-up set bonuses, which is also another no-no.
In regards to power-levels, most high-end players use the following (or some variant thereof): 100/25/25/50. There are subtle, but noticeable variations of this as well that many players use depending on their builds (e.g., 100/20/30/50, 100/15/25/60 etc.). The Plasmonic Leech provides a significant boost to your power-levels as well. In conjunction with what I mentioned in the above paragraph, it's a bad idea to drop your shield power levels to at or near zero because shields are essential for tanking purposes.
If you're having problems staying alive or healing, consider the following:
1.) Upgrading your gear to epic nets you some useful modifiers which improve hull/shield strength. Shields give you [Reg] and [Cp/Rg] at UR and Epic, Deflectors grant [SH/Hullcap] at epic, and Warp Cores give [W->S] at epic, all of which boosts shield and/or hull strength.
2.) Consoles such as the Bio-Neural Infusion Circuits (Lobi) and Sustained Radiant Field (Iconian rep, T1) offer boosts to hull capacity and hull/shield healing, respectively.
3.) There are a number of doffs available that offer defensive bonuses. My personal favorite atm is the Na'kuhl Warfare Specialist that adds a % of your outgoing damage as healing. There are also doffs that buff specific healing abilities (Hazard Emitters, etc.)
4.) Whenever a Combat Performance Boost is active (Fleet Research Lab T3) it provides a whopping +40 to all damage resistance. You'll see this in your "buffs" area if it's active.
As always, if you have any more questions regarding ship builds don't hesitate to ask,
Cheers,
Rev, it's just theorycraft right now. It's pushing atypical builds to an extreme to see if they have potential. And let's face it...people get popped in STFs from torp salvos with their shields down because they have almost nothing in their traits and modules to harden their hulls, it's all DPS focused. The game gives some of the best resists/defenses to the hull....which is why I'm digging deeper into that area...to see if we can min/max it Shields/Hulls at all. The ship/traits/modules are just a hypothetical example to show how extreme the hull build can go.
I appreciate the feedback though and the info on power levels is going to be useful to many that come through here as it is almost never discussed...it probably needs it's own thread.
(08-15-2016, 07:37 PM)kjfett Wrote: [ -> ]Rev, it's just theorycraft right now. It's pushing atypical builds to an extreme to see if they have potential.
Fair enough.
While it is possible to flesh out a build solely built for min/maxing shield/hull tanking, I would argue it wouldn't be ideal in PvE, but may have a niche in PvP. The reasoning for this is based on the fact this kind of build would have to compete for aggro with high-DPS builds which use Strategist & +Threat Embassy Consoles. Many of these can rip through Borg Cubes in less than a second while simultaneously being able to sustain AKTS-in% of 60%+. These builds also eliminate the enemy before it has a change to do significant, sustained damage. It would be difficult for a pure-tank build that sacrifices DPS for Tanking to compete with high-DPS Strategist builds. I'm no expert on PvP, but it's possible a build like this could have a niche there. Again, not an expert on PvP.
In short, it's possible to min/max a build solely focusing on shield/hull strength at the expense of DPS-potential, but not ideal. Just my $0.02
sure, I guess that gets into the realm of DPS being a type of tank in and of itself. Kill everything before it can damage you, in which case Shield and Hull are both pointless. Well, I suppose we can mothball this away until the day comes that Cryptic deals a blow to all out DPS and starts making us actively tank with Shield/Hull.
It is an interesting idea though, not necessarily a workable build, but an interesting idea. If you test it please post the results.
There are a number of ways you can boost this with consumables like the Reactive Armor Catalysts or the Jevonite Hardpoints also. I'd consider running A2SIF3 on a build like this along with Polarize Hull to boost your resists even more, although you do hit a severe diminishing returns on resist stacking.
I used to run A2SIF3/PH1 on my Jem'Hadar Dread carrier in PVP with Jevonite Hardpoints and could get my hull over 100K, and this was before the skill revamp. It was definitely a beast to kill and I could frequently take on a 2v1 or 3v1 with it, and I had enough hull that I could make Ramming Speed a viable tactic with the doff that prevents self-damage as I could pop my heals afterwards.