One's Tactical Officer Escort [CrtH] Build

[daBelgrave]

There are two primary means of increasing DPS in PvP. These are to increase Accuracy and increase Critical Hit Chance. The theory is that increasing Accuracy means you hit your target more often, while increasing Critical Hit chance means you get more big hits on your target even if you miss more often. It is hard to determine which method is best, but I would recommend Accuracy for generic builds and Critical Hit Chance for team-based builds. This build is based on increasing Critical Hit Chance. The theory can work with other escorts, so adjust this build as necessary to fit your ship.

SETUP

Weapons: I went with all Energy weapons so I do not have to waste skill points for Torpedoes. I have 3 Dual Heavy Cannons and a Dual Beam Bank up front, and three Turrets in back. All of these weapons have [CrtH]x3 (or x2 if I couldn't get x3).

Functional Equipment: All of my weapons are Polaron, so I am using the Jem'Hadar Engine and Deflector. These have a set 2-piece bonus that increases my Polaron base damage by ~13%. My shield is only a Covariant [Cap]x2 right now. This is a decent shield, although I am planning to eventually get the elite fleet shields with [ResA] or [ResB].

Devices: Always bring along a Subspace Modulator for increased hull resistance. I also use Aux Batteries since they will improve my shield and hull heals.

Engineering Consoles: I highly recommend using a Tachykinetic Converter obtained in the Lobi Store. This gives increased turn rate. I also have the Zero Point console from the Romulan Reputation system, which increases my Critical Hit Chance. After these two items, fill the rest of your slots with armor consoles of your choice.

Science Consoles: Toss in as many Field Generators as you can. These will increase your shield capacity, giving you a slightly longer time to survive and react in combat.

Tactical Consoles: These should all be for the specific damage type your weapons use. DO NOT mix and match damage types since that will make your ship less effective.

Reputation: There are two passives you absolutely should get in the Romulan Reputation. The first of these increases Critical Hit Chance, and the second gives a possible placate each time an opponent gets a Critical Hit on you. Together, these make you hit harder, and makes it harder for your enemies to hit you. The other reputation passives are your choice.

Duty Officers: This is probably the most expensive part of this escort build. Pay attention to the active duty roster abilities these duty officers provide, or you might end up buying the wrong duty officer on the exchange. I start out with two Conn Officers that reduce the recharge time for Attack Patterns. These let me get by with a minimal number of attack patterns. I then have two Damage Control Engineers that reduce the cooldown for Emergency Power to Subsystem abilities. This lets me get almost continuous uptime for two of these abilities. The final duty officer is variable based on your build. I will explain my choice to use Marion Frances Dulmur when I get down to explaining my ability tray.

Bridge Officers: The traits on bridge officers can go a long way toward improving a setup. In order to get my Critical Hit Chance up so high, I had to use two Romulan Bridge Officers with the Romulan Operative trait. One thing to keep in mind is that this trait not stack if both bridge officers are of the same rarity. Go with an uncommon and a rare Tactical Bridge Officer with the necessary trait.

ABILITIES

Organization: I organize my ability tray based on how I use my abilities. The bottom row contains abilities I use almost constantly or are necessary for hard-hitting attacks or emergency heals. The second row contains the abilities I use somewhat often, but am willing to click to activate (I do not take the time to do more than the bottom row with the keyboard numbers). The third row contains abilities I rarely use or only want to pay attention to their cooldowns. In this case, I also have a series of abilities on keybinds, but that is still so I can pay attention to the cooldowns. The fifth row contains abilities for my basic keybinds that I try to have on all my escorts regardless of character career.

Tactical Abilities: My commander-level ability is Attack Pattern: Omega. This gives me a damage boost, increased speed and turn, and protection from movement debuffs like Tractor Beam. My lt. commander-level abilities are both Beam: Overload III. I don't usually do this on escorts, but I am playing with an interesting duty officer, Marion Frances Dulmur. With proper timing and using one of my engineering abilities, I am able to shoot two of these overloads in a matter of seconds. If I can get critical hits on these shots, I can do impressive damage (40k+ each!). This is where I get the majority of my burst potential. My lieutenant-level abilities are Cannon: Scatter Volley I and Attack Pattern: Delta. The attack pattern gives a resistance buff, and debuffs a target's stealth. The cannon ability I tend to use mostly because it lets me get in some AoE spam clearing. The ensign-level abilities are both Tactical Team I. These are necessary for survival, and will direct shields to the facing that is taking the damage.

Engineering Abilities: I only have three engineering abilities. I use Emergency Power to Shields and Emergency Power to Weapons in conjunction with my Damage Control Engineer duty officers to have each of them active almost constantly. The other engineering ability, Directed Energy Modulation, is used with the Marion Frances Dulmur duty officer to shoot off my back-to-back Beam: Overload IIIs with minimal power drain.

Science Abilities: Hazard Emitters I and Transfer Shield Strength II are for heals. Both of these can be shared with teammates.

Keybinds: I use three keybind files. The first one holds the majority of my keybinds. The other two I can switch between with just the press of a button to switch my mousewheel between throttle control and camera zoom. One thing to notice is that I bind Distribute Shields to almost all of my keybinds. This helps me maintain my shield facings even when Tactical Team is still on cooldown.

Space1.txt

Windows
Control+f "FleetWindow"
Control+i "Inventory"
Control+k "Skills"
Control+u "CharacterStatus"
Control+o "People"
Control+j "Missions"
Control+l "Diary"
Control+m "Map"
Control+p "ShowTrayPowers"

Quick Messages
- ChannelSend Team Everyone target >> $target <<
equals ChannelSend Team Can I get a heal over here?

Power Presets
q "GenButtonClick PowerLevel_Preset_0"
w "GenButtonClick PowerLevel_Preset_1"
e "GenButtonClick PowerLevel_Preset_2"
r "GenButtonClick PowerLevel_Preset_3"

Cannon Chain *Not going to work well with my current one-cannon-ability setup*
y "trayexecbytraywithbackup 1 4 0 4 1 $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields"

Tactical Team Chain
t "trayexecbytraywithbackup 1 4 2 4 3 $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields"

EPtX Chain
h "trayexecbytraywithbackup 1 4 4 4 5 $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields"

Attack Patterns
g "trayexecbytraywithbackup 1 4 6 4 7 $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields"

Shoot with Fireworks
space "FireAll $$ +power_exec Distribute_Shields $$ +trayexec 0 9"

Middleclick "FireAll"

First Beam Overload
Numpad1 "+trayexec 2 2"
Directed Energy Modulation
Numpad2 "+trayexec 2 3"
Fire DBB
Numpad3 "+trayexec 2 4"
Second Beam Overload
Numpad5 "+trayexec 2 5"
Fire DBB
Numpad6 "+trayexec 2 6"

Space_Mouse1.txt

Camera Zoom
Wheelplus "AdjustCamDistance -15"
Wheelminus "AdjustCamDistance 15"

Add "bind_load_file Space_Mouse_2.txt $$ Playersay Switched to Mousewheel Throttle."

Space_Mouse2.txt

Throttle
Wheelplus "throttleadjust .25"
Wheelminus "throttleadjust -.25"

Add "bind_load_file Space_Mouse_1.txt $$ Playersay Switched to Mousewheel Zoom."

Additional Comments: In order to get the full benefit from using Marion Frances Dulmur, I need to fire off both Beam: Overload IIIs while I have Directed Energy Modulation active. This is an 8-second window of opportunity every two minutes. In order to get this to work, I have to preload my first BOIII, which gives me 30 seconds to fire my Dual Beam Bank (You will notice in the above screenshot that it is the only weapon I do not have set for autofire). Once I only have 8 seconds left to fire the BOIII, I activate Directed Energy Moduluation, fire, wait approximately 4 seconds, load the second BOIII, and fire again.

SKILLS

[urulf]

ty for the info