Hey guys,

I had a few games last night...I clearly dropped the ballt. I never really played any PvP after all the skill tree modifications; What I saw last night is a bit disheartening. In most games I could handle myself (and in one arena confrontation with Klingons, lost 14-1, I did actually get that one single kill), although in later stages I met a few better players that made mince meat of my shields.

Issues I saw:

- My shields would melt in a matter of seconds to some escorts;
- Gravity Well III seems to do nothing an to be incredibly easy to escape, especially for Defiants, even with 4 consoles and 125 AUX (and of course specc'd for it);
- My Feedback Pulse seems not to be affected by consoles: it always says "0.64 reflected damage" at AUX 125; In general, it seems to be much much much less effective than other ship's (even those that can't run FBP3);
- In order to hit AUX 125, I have to set my AUX baselevel at 100; I saw screens of somebody going around with AUX 125/90; I put maximum points in "Auxiliary Performance", where did I go wrong?
- Some Defiants run around with shields that seem to be damn invulnerable, I had a much easier time bringing down Intrepids and Cruisers' shields;

Things that seem to be OK:

- Tachyon Beam and CPB are still effective; Not as much as they were before, but still workable;
- Energy weapons damage is ok at 100 power; Not much, but what'd I expect, It's a science vessel afterall;
- Torpedoes go ok...they shouldn't really be completely stopped by a shield at 1% or so, but that's a different story;

In general, I seem to have a big problem against escorts. Put my ship against a cruiser or another science vessel, and I have no real issues; Escorts however seem to be able to kill everything in seconds and some are thougher than cruisers to crack; There's definitely something wrong I'm doing.

Consider that:

- I am still in Dinosaur age with the AEGIS set;
- I am still old fashioned, I prefer to run phasers and quantums on a fed vessel although everybody seem to be going for antiprotons or so;
- I was using the Luna class...but I can switch easily; Got both the Intrepid and the Galaxy - as much as I don't like the Intrepid design and small size, I reckon it's got a slight edge over the other two;

BUILD

Weapons: 2xPhaser Beam Array, 1xQauntum both AFT and FWD(all purple MKXI)
Shields, engines, deflector:AEGIS set;
Consoles: EN +35% shields capacity, PH/DIS armor (needs to change); SCI: 2xShields, 2xGrav Well; TC: 2xQuantums, 1xPhasers;
Devices: Engine, Shields and AUX batteries;

Powers
TC-LT: Tac Team, HYT2;
TC-ES: Beam Overload I;
EN-LT: EPtS I, EPtS II;
SC-LTC: Tractor Beam I, TSS II, TSS III;
SC-CMD (option 1): Science Team I, Hazard Emitters II, Hazard Emitters III, Gravity Well III;
SC-CMD(option 2): Science Team I, Hazard Emitters II, Tachyon Beam III, Charged Particle Burst III;

This build wasn't bad before Season 5, especially with the TBIII+CPBIII combination; It would make it up for the lack of firepower by stripping the opponent's shields (a nice Beam Overload I would take care of the last sliver if needed) for the quantums to hit hard.

In the case of using GWIII, it was less effective but still usable; I could also assist the team with a number of heals.

After season 5, I need all the heals for myself and the various power combinations seem to do next to nothing. I tried experimenting a bit around it, adding 4 consoles for GWIII, but it was still utterly ineffective.

What am I missing? Are there some "must have" science powers after Season 5?

Thanks

unless you were under some intense focus fire i dont see how you could have not survived a bit longer as that is a decent build. Im only going of of your BO powers i cant see your skill sheet. Ive had days in PvP where i was tearing it up and then ive had days in PvP where i was dust instantly. Good escort pilots are going to bust out of your grav well with whatever means they have. (impulse console/deuterium burn/evasives etc)

One Pointer about Gravity Well and PVP...because I have made some escort Pilots very very mad using this.

Note that I generally team up with 3-4 defiants and I fly an intrepid equipped with Gravity Well III, Tractor Beam II.

Enemy Escort Starts Straffing Run.
You Lock it in Tractor Beam and Fire Gravity Well or Tykens Rift while using Target Shields Subsystem.
Fire HY Torp II while your escort buddies start pounding on him (I've gotten excess of 30,000 Damage from my Quantum Mk XIIs doing this.)

If he is still alive fire Tachyon Beam at him

worked 15/15 times for me...

You seem to be flying a Recon Science Vessel. What works for me is playing the support / healer so I enjoy the Deep Space Science Vessel more. What's the difference? Well you gain 1 engineer power and lose 1 tactical power. It makes a big difference though!

Lt. Tactical: Tactical Team I - Beam Target Subsystems II

Lt. Commander Engineer: Emergency Power To Shields I - Extend Shields I

Engsin Engineer: Emergency Power To Shields I

Commander Science: Transfer Shields Strength I - Hazard Emitters II - Science Team III - Feedback Pulse III

Lt. Commander Science: Transfer Shield Strength I - Science Team II - Hazard Emitters III


This setup allows you to roll two emergency power to shields back to back so you have the shield resist buff up 100% of the time giving the enemy no window of opportunity. Hazard Emitters are needed and packing two copies allows you to heal your hull or allies hulls very well while providing a very nice resist buff to the hull of targets who are being focused on. Science team only has a 15 second shared cooldown with its other copy so you can use those whenever they are up and someone needs shields.

Note: Transfer Shield Strength provides additional resistance based upon Aux power. Hazard Emitters as well. Sensor Scan and your wonderful bubble also scale off of Aux. I've been told that running full Aux and then sliding shields up while leaving weapons and engines low is bad but I don't care. With this many abilities scaling off of Aux you need that sucker up most of the time due to heavy focus fire.

If you see an ally is taking HEAVY damage and you must use both science team as well as transfer shield strength always use the TSS first so that the resist is applied and can protect the science team heal. Extend Shields is to be used on 1 target and your other shield healing abilities on a different target. Players love to switch targets after seeing that blue beam go out and think "oh he just blew all his heals on this guy let's switch and get easy kill!" .

Try to get the duty officer that enhances Sensor Scan so that it also reduces the damage of the target ship. This way you can have some more utility in the ability and combine it along with SNB to strip the attack buffs off an escort to make it a limp noodle. A few people will say that's a waste of those powers but when you have all your heals on CD and an ally is about to die... well it's an easy choice for me. So many people look at the final stats and think that's all that happened during the game. Resists are not calculated nor does damage reduced by stripping buffs off escorts.

Try not to dwell on those final stats. A good Sci Captain heals his team but a Great Sci Captain has the skill to stop the damage from happening in the first place.


Edit: Oooops forgot consoles!

Engineer: +18 resist to all x2 - 35% increased shield cap
Science: Emitter Array x4 - This will buff up all those shield healing skills, you have alot with my build.
Tactical: Borg console - +phaser damage console

no feedback pulse.

just dont use it until they fix it.

its a good way to get an X on your name by good escort pilots. ones that are good at spiking in between cooldowns. grav wells and tractors are great, but that fbp has a stigma attatched to it right now.

have fun kill bad guys

horizon

If you're running in a pug, as I always do, FBP away imo. If you're in a team I'd say you should never have the need for the power since extend shields does the same effect ( gets enemy to switch target ). Ya, some people might call you lame and say you're bad at the game... but pre-made vs. pugs is just lame and you need something to balance the odds.

Agreed, FBP is way to broken try to avoid using it if you can.

Premade vs pug you can bring all the **** you like and against a good one you will still lose 100 times in 100, you'll just feel dirtier.
Don't use the crap.

Here's my current build. It's not the most effective, nor is it the worst. But it is fun to play

Power: 100 Weapons (123) and 50 Aux (95).

Lt Tac: TT1, FAW 2
Lt Eng: EPtS 1, Aux to SIF 1
Ens Sci: Polarize Hull 1
LtC Sci: SciTeam 1, TSS 2, HE 3
Cmdr Sci: Tractor Beam 1, TBR 1, TSS 3, GW 3

This has nothing to do with "premade vs PUG"; Of course I DO PUG and I know the limits of it; I fully expect to blow up in half a second with 4 or 5 ships firing on me.

What I am talking about is individual performance; Before Season 5, In an 1v1 situation I was able to stand up and more or less keep the situation under control, while now it seems not to be the case anymore.

To be fully honest, the real problem I have is against some Defiants...I had never seen that amount of damage being pumped out, at least not since Season 2 or so, and it seems that I'm unable to counter it or at least mitigate.

The point against FBP is a bit of a controversial one; I read all the comments, saw it in use (mostly, guess what, by escorts) and decided to try it out. I usually prefer more "active" powers such as GW or the shields stripping combo; I can understand how some see FBP as broken or overpowered, but what's the line between a power being too much and it being absolutely useless? FBP is meant to be a deterrent for your opponents from firing on you; If the returned damage was ridiculously low as it was before Season 5, it would be an useless power, it wouldn't serve its deterrent purpose. I can see it as being meant to pose a bit of a risk factor to escorts waiting to unload their alpha, which clearly received some damage increase in S5; something along the lines "you get more power but need to unleash it carefully". Combine it with the decreased effectiveness of TSS and I don't see it as being exceedingly broken.