Hi everyone, I'm looking for advice on my Fleet Escort build for my Science captain. I don't plan on getting too much into PvP or STFs anytime soon, so this will be used almost entirely for PvE. I'm pretty happy with it, but I'm sure it could be better.

Fore: 3x Tetryon Dual Heavy Cannon, 1x Quantum Torpedo
Aft: 3x Tetryon turret

Jem'Hadar Shield, Deflector, Engines

Tactical consoles: 3x Tetryon Pulse Generator, 1x Zero Point Quantum Chamber
Engineering consoles: 2x Neutronium, 1x SIF Generator
Science consoles: 1x Shield Emitter Amplifier, 1x Field Generator

BOffs:
Cmdr Tactical: Torpedo High Yield 1, Tactical Team 2, Attack Pattern Beta 2, Attack Pattern Omega 3
Lt Cmdr Tactical: Tactical Team 1, Cannon Rapid Fire 1, Cannon Scatter Volley 2
Lt Engineering: Emergency Power to Weapons 1, Engineering Team 2
Ens Engineering: Emergency Power to Shields 1
Lt Science: Hazard Emitters 1, Transfer Shield Strength 2

I also put the build here, along with my skills:
http://www.stoacademy.com/tools/skil...=jedi1734673_0

Specifically, I was wondering about the following:

1. I'm not so sure about my skill point allocations. I didn't really know what I was doing when I started out, and I don't know if it's worth a respec.

2. I was thinking about picking up a couple Phased Polaron Cannons from Boldly They Rode, that way I could take advantage of the Polaron bonus from the Jem'Hadar set and still get the shield drain from Tetryon.

3. Can I do better than the Jem'Hadar space set without grinding STFs?

4. Any suggestions for DOffs?

Any and all input is appreciated. Thanks!

If you are not planning on doing STF's at all, then your build honestly doesn't matter that much. You'll be fine with what you have right now. However, let's assume that you will try stf's "someday" and will want to be prepared. Here's my opinion in that case:

1) Check out this thread I made: http://forums.startrekonline.com/sho...d.php?t=263779 Don't worry about the gear, pay attention to the bridge officer abilities and the skill point builds discussed. Cygone made some great suggestions that I didn't totally follow, but the suggestions he gave helped my survivability in both STF's and PvE.

2) As far as gear goes, the real strength of the Jem'Hadar set in my opinion is the polaron weapon damage bonus. You need to replace all the tetryon's with polaron weapons. Keep the quantum torp, but lose the quantum console and got 4x polaron tac consoles. Your DPS will go up not down. If for some reason you want to keep your tetryon guns you might want to consider switching to the Breen set. Also do the Undine Advance episode "Assimilation", get the assimilated console as the reward and replace one of your neutronium alloys with it. Also replace the SIF Generator with an EPS console.

I first started STF's in that set up (breen set, tetryon weapons, etc) and I did just fine until I could grind out the antiproton borg weaponary I switched to. In general PvE that set up worked great against everything I went up against.

Thanks, I will definitely try out some of your suggestions. From the build you posted it looks like I will probably want to respec before I get into STFs. But it doesn't look like my current skill tree is THAT bad?

Also, I like tetryon weapons because of the shield drain proc. If I switched over to polaron weapons, would it be worth throwing in a few Phased Polaron Cannons for the extra shield drain?

And finally, this may seem like a silly question, but... what exactly is the advantage of the EPS console over the SIF generator?

If you decide to get into STF's, you will have to respec. STF's are less forgiving than general PvE.

I'd say Phased Polaron weapons are superior to regular Polaron weapons, so yes by all means if you can get them do so. Like I said before, if you stick with the Jem'Hadar set, you'd be better off with Polaron (phased or not) weapons. If you can't bear to part with Tetryon weapons, consider polarized tetryon weapons, they have a much higher chance of procing. Also if you stick with tetryons, I'd get the Breen set. It has a better shield in my opinion, and has 30% EPS transfer bonus. The Breen set also gives a transphasic damage bonus, so you could swap your quantum torp for a rapid reload transphasic torpedo launcher, or the transphasic cluster torpedo launcher.

In all honesty though, I think you'd be better off sticking with the Jem'Hadar set and going phased-polaron weapons.

EPS Console helps recover energy faster. This is useful when say changing from one mode (defense) to another (attack). Also it will recover your energy faster from the full impulse drain. I found it invaluable in STF's.

Great, thanks for the advice. I think I will switch to phased polaron cannons fore and polaron turrets aft (too bad there are no phased polaron turrets).

Also, I realize now that I never noticed the benefit of the EPS console because I rarely change my power levels from balanced, haha. I'll have to try doing that more now, especially since the Jem'Hadar engines are more efficient at lower power, which I didn't understand when I first started out.

many escort guides out there, just take a look. not everything you have is wrong but some things need improvement.

Sounds good. My last suggestion is to change your default power setting from balanced to attack.

Weapon power set to 50 means 100% energy weapon damage (those cannons and turrets). 100 Weapon power means 200% damage for energy weapons. As a rule in PvE, you should be in attack mode most of the time. You've got 4 settings, and each can be customized, so feel free to experiment!

I noticed that you are running three team skills. One will always be on cool down.

Also, Tac Team 2 isn't much better than Tac Team 1, but THY2 or TS2 is much better than THY1. I personally would lose TT2 and put TT1 where THY1 is, and put TS2 where TT2 is.

Instead of the Engineering Team 2, I would use Aux to SIF 1. That way you still have a hull heal that doesn't interfere with your Tac Teams, and is on a shorter cool down than Eng Team.

Yeah, I thought the cooldown was a problem but I wasn't sure, so thanks for clarifying that. How would it be affected if I made the changes you suggested, plus replaced one of my science skills with Science Team? Should I limit my build to one team skill?

Also is there an advantage to having 2 copies of Tactical Team? I don't fully understand the shared cooldowns, would that let me keep it running constantly?