“A2B” or “DPS So Easy A Pakled Could Do It”

[daBelgrave]

DISCLAIMER: This guide primarily sticks to the theory and how to get started with “A2B” builds. If you are looking for something specific to your ship without taking the time to apply this guide to your unique situation, you will have to look somewhere else.

So you’ve heard tales of the wonders of A2B, the solution to everything and the only real way to build a competitive ship. If you haven’t heard of it, stop hiding beneath your captain’s chair, and let yourself be immersed in the miracle that is A2B.

What is “A2B” anyway?
A2B is the acronym for Auxiliary to Battery, the bridge officer ability that makes it all possible. Most builds based on this ability use two copies. Hybrid builds would only use one copy.

What else do I need to get started on an “A2B” build?
When starting to make your A2B build, you need three things in addition to the ability. You need the right Duty Officers, Ship, Bridge Officers, and Weapons to make the setup work for you.

Duty Officers
Technician duty officers are the enabler for the A2B build. The very rare version of these give a 10% reduction to your bridge officer ability cooldowns every time you use Auxiliary to Battery. You want three of these on active duty. Since the reduction stacks, you can get up to a 30% reduction, which in many cases is the same as the global cooldown. If you try to find these on the Exchange, you can expect to pay 10 million energy credits or more. They are free, however, if you manage Critical Successes on the repeatable duty officer mission at the end of the Colonial chain in the B’Tran Exploration Cluster.

Ship and Bridge Officers
The ship you command determines if you can use A2B by the bridge officer stations it allows. In most cases, you need to be able to use a minimum of two Lieutenant Engineering Officer abilities so you can use two copies of Auxiliary to Battery I. It can be possible to use a single Lieutenant Commander Engineering Officer with Auxiliary to Battery I and II. Either way, you want to be sure your ship can allow you to use other Engineering abilities you might want, hence the recommendation for two Engineering Officers. You can do A2B on almost all cruisers, some science vessels, and a few escorts.

Weapon Considerations
Before you go much farther, you need to decide if you want to use Cannons or Beams on your ship. Most captains will choose to use Beam Arrays so they can have good fire in all directions, with a very strong broadside. Some escort captains choose Cannons so they can do strong forward damage. In between these two would be a combination of Beam Banks and Arrays, which does good forward damage with decent damage in other directions. If you have limited experience with Cannons, Beam Arrays are probably your best option.

Do I need certain Bridge Officer abilities?
Now that you have your three Technicians and two copies of Auxiliary to Battery, you should use several Bridge Officer abilities to get the most out of your A2B build. These are not mandatory, but are still highly recommended if you can fit them into your setup. Using them will increase your DPS.

Beam: Fire at Will (Tac): Also known as FAW, this is used on every A2B build that uses Beams.
Cannon: Scatter Volley (Tac): Also known as CSV, only use this if you use Cannons.
Attack Pattern: Beta (Tac): Also known as APB, this debuffs your target’s damage resistance.
Directed Energy Modulation (Eng): Also known as DEM, this allows a portion of your Energy Weapon attacks to bypass shields.

Are there other Duty Officers I need?
Once you have your three Technicians, you have room for two or three other Duty Officers. For the most part, you can choose what you want to augment other aspects of your build and make your ship unique. If you have a massive surplus of Energy Credits, you can consider:

Marion Frances Dulmur: This very rare Systems Engineer works specifically with DEM (see above). He reduces Weapon Subsystem Energy Drain for 8 seconds when DEM is activated, effectively making the overall attack stronger. Unfortunately, this Duty Officer is also quite pricy. If you cannot afford him, you will still do well with A2B.

Once I have all this stuff, how does it all work?
A2B builds work by reducing your Bridge Officer ability cooldowns. When you activate Auxiliary to Battery, any Bridge Officer abilities currently on cooldown will be reduced by 30%. It also directs all your Auxiliary Power into your Weapon, Shield, and Engine Subsystems, giving you stronger attacks, more shield regeneration, and faster movement. At the same time, your second copy of Auxiliary to Battery will go onto a global cooldown. When you finally activate that second copy, your first copy of Auxiliary to Battery gets reduced to its global cooldown.

Weapon Power Overcap: What makes A2B builds so strong on the DPS is the ability to “overcap” your Weapon Power, or have more power in reserve than the game actually shows you. Suppose that you set your Weapon Power level at 100. By the time you account for other bonuses, you probably end up closer to 120. When you activate A2B, the game will claim your weapon power is 135. However, you actually gained even more power from A2B, bringing your hidden total much higher than 135. What happens then when you fire is each weapon will still drain a certain amount of power every time it fires, but the power it drains is automatically filled by the extra power. This lets multiple weapons fire with the full benefit of 135 Weapon Power before your power level begins to be depleted. The result is stronger attacks.

Is there anything I am forgetting?
It is doubtful you are forgetting anything. However, there might be nuances of the A2B build you have not yet discovered.

Power Levels: To get the most from A2B, you need to setup your power levels in a way that lets you “overcap” your weapons, and gives you enough Auxiliary to boost everything else. A good start would be 100/15/15/70, or as near to that as you can get. Captains in the Romulan faction will have to make do with somewhat lower power levels, although there are ways to mitigate that loss.

Can I automate all these abilities?
Today is your lucky day! Not only have you discovered the basics of A2B, but now you get to learn how to keybind everything to make it easier to activate without needing to keep track of all your ability cooldowns. Plus, this is why some players now call the game “Spacebar Online.” This is done by making and using keybinds.

Keybinds: These are somewhat beyond the scope of this guide, but the general idea is to use one (novice) or just a few (advanced) buttons on your keyboard to activate everything you need. For simple instructions how to get started with this, visit http://hilbertguide.com/ and scroll down to the section about keybinds.

Are there any problems I will encounter?
Sometimes you will have problems. This is unavoidable. If you find yourself in any of these situations, it may not be a good time for you.

Low Aux: Because you pushed all your Auxiliary Power into your other subsystems, you are running on very limited Aux Power. Keep an eye on this. When you go to activate your second copy of A2B, you want to wait for your Aux Power to refill first. Otherwise you will push very little power into your other subsystems, and get very little power benefit from using it. You might be able to mitigate this by using Emergency Power to Auxiliary.

Weaker Heals: There are several commonly used heals that rely on Auxiliary Power. If you use them as part of your A2B setup, they will be very weak, and possibly have no noticeable benefit. Be sure to check the heals you bring, and choose ones that do not rely on Auxiliary Power. Specifically, you can use Science Team for shields and Engineering Team for hull.

What if I can only fit one A2B on my ship?
If you can only fit a single A2B on your ship, you will have to run a hybrid setup. These are beyond the scope of this guide, but one of the more common hybrids is A2B-A2D. This hybrid gives greater damage resistance with Auxiliary to Dampers during the portion of time when A2B is on cooldown.

Can it really be this easy?
Yes, using A2B is fairly simple. You might run into problems starting off, before you get the hang of how everything works together, but that is something everyone goes through. Give it a try. Go make Swiss cheese out of some Borg Cubes. Watch how your cooldowns vary, discover the oddities, and optimize what you can make better. You’re well on the way to having an effective A2B build. Pretty soon you can join others in bragging about your DPS and how OP you are in your A2B-FAW-APB-DEM-Marion build. Good luck. Have fun. Conquer the Quadrant.

More: You can find a Google Docs version at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Sou ... sp=sharing