KA, Is It Even Winnable Anymore?

3 hours running KA, and no where near bringing down a gate.

Now that both sides spawn constantly, it’s a major pain to control all the probe spam, but more serious are the gates, which seem to heal all the damage it takes between probe defenses.

If there is a strat for beating this thing now, I’d love to hear it.

Team Composition:

• Minimum of 3 appropriately-equipped (i.e. some combination of Cannons/Torps/DBB's) Escorts, preferably piloted by Tacticals, but as long as they are geared and spec'd appropriately, the team should be fine. (This is the single, most important consideration in a KA run, facing the current iteration of the instance.)
• Remaining 2 ships are 'ideally' 2 additional Escorts, but 2 Science Vessels with Gravity Wells/Scrambles can be effective in controlling the probes while the 3+ Escorts deal with the Probes. Cruisers can be moderately effective in controlling aggro from the Spheres, while the Escorts deal with the Probes. Many 'average' Cruiser builds, however, are a hindrance to teams, in the current format of KA, as they do not provide enough damage output to bring down most Borg ships in a timely fashion, or to provide sufficient additional damage on the gates.
• ALL of the ships on the team must be DPS-capable, any ship that cannot contribute effective damage to the fight is a painful liability. A heal-oriented Cruiser or a CC-oriented Sci ship can still contribute to damage, particularly by mounting torpedo launchers and Torpedo: Spread, and/or Tricobalts... Beam: Target Shields is also a useful addition.
• Even if un- or moderately-spec'd for them, each ship in the squadron needs to have at least 1 Polarize Hull and 1 Hazard Emitters slotted, to combat the Borg's 2 most effective powers for hindering the team (Tractor Beam and Shield Neutralizer, respectively).

Combat Strategy:

• 1.) Destroy the initial group of Borg, including the Tactical Cube. OPTIONAL: Destroy all of the group except the Tactical Cube, then kite the Tactical Cube into close proximity of either gate, then proceed to destroy the Tactical Cube, allowing the Cube's explosion to severely damage the gate. This can make the next phase go slightly faster, however, it is not mandatory.
• 2.) Once the Tactical Cube is destroyed, both gates will open briefly, spawning in a wave of Spheres and Probes. These must be destroyed, as quickly as possible, in a 3-minute window, before the gate will re-open, spawning in a new group.
• 3A.) If you destroyed the Tactical Cube near the middle of the map, 2 of your ships (preferably 2 Escorts) should focus on one group, while the other 3 ships (of any type, but including at least 1 Escort) will focus on the other group. Destroy both groups, then all 5 ships should go to a single gate.
• 3B.) If you kited the Tactical Cube to a gate, once the gate opens, focus all 5 ships' fire on the gate, until the shield goes back up, then follow the directions in step 3A.
• 4.) After 3 minutes, the gates' shields will drop, and all 5 ships should focus their fire on the gate, until the shield goes back up or the gate is destroyed.
• 5.) If the shield goes back up, follow step 3A, then all 5 ships should return to the attacked gate, then repeat steps 3A, 4, and 5, until the first gate is destroyed.
• 6.) As soon as the first gate is destroyed, its spawn-in group will disappear, and the second gate will add 2 Cubes to its spawn-ins. All 5 members of the squad should head to the second gate, then follow steps 3A, 4, and 5, until the second gate is also destroyed.
• 7.) Travel to the central gate and proceed with the mission.
• 8.) ?
• 9.) Profit.

Team composition (ships for the space portions, especially) and loadouts are the primary reason for KA failures. Overcoming that first step will lead to much more success and an enjoyable experience.

-BRJ

Fix is coming next patch, so just gotta hold tight for a few more days.

It's very winable. Maybe just bad teaming?

It's hard to get good players to do KA (RAdm). The PUGs almost always fail. Tried two weekends back-to-back and failed to get both gates down.

There is a report that the Redshirt server will get a patch that stops the gates from healing.

From what I can tell, you cannot let Borg ships pile up. Every wave really needs to be downed quickly or you cannot focus enough fire on the gate, or try doing both at the same time, which has to be incredibly difficult at this time with a PUG.

Watched a Youtube video of a team doing it last year and it looks like an utter cakewalk by comparison. I don't mind hard missions... but the Devs really needed to play test this out A LOT more, and by A LOT more I cannot express it strongly enough, before they released it -- especially considering most groups are PUGs now. The hardcore players are done, they may help a few people I'm sure, but they aren't going to run us all through KA.

Still a winnable instance but there are some bugs and it will be fixed.

A lot of your needs and musts there aren't actually needs and musts. It's all good advice, but throwing all those needs and musts in there makes it sound even harder than it already is.

Thing is that is why it is winnable.

You don't need n escorts and n scis, and polarize hull and hazard emitters on every ship, for it to be winnable. The only thing you 'need' is to be able to kill the ships before they can get through the portal. It's not a degree 0 equation with only one correct answer; implying that it is discourages people from using creative strategic thinking and finding their own way of doing it.