Ship Building - Part 1 Build Types - Dragon
I have been asked by a few in the fleet how I get the DPS I do and its a bit hard to explain how its done over chat given the breadth of what is required for a good build. So I'm hoping I can point them here as well as help others in the fleet with the information required to help improve. Since in game information is just non existent.
So back to basics of ship building in STO ( Warning - this is a very PVE point of view, while most if not all can be applied to PVP I tend to focus on PVE builds).
Engineering Abilities Build Types
There are 3 major types of build (and a few derivatives) in STO that you find just about everywhere and they are all focused on one thing - Maximum uptime of engineering abilities (I'll be covering Tac abilities in a later post). So the goal of these build types is to keep up (applied) Eng abilities (Emergency power to X) to increase our damage and / or defense abilities.
The Dragon Build
One of the oldest because it is so simple a build type uses duplicate abilities to keep up Emergency power to X (EptX) i.e. weapons (EptW) to boost power to our weapons subsystem (+15 Weapon Power Setting for 30 sec for EptW1) and increase damage output via an applied boost (+10% all Energy Damage for 30 sec for EptW1). Shields (EptS) to boost power to the shields subsystem and apply a resistance boost to the shields (Reduces damage to shields by 18% for 30 seconds for EptS1) and the same with Engines (EptE) (speed and turn rate boost) and Aux (EptA) (boost to Graviton Generators, Particle Generator and Subspace Decompiler) along with boosting their respective subsystems.
So how does it work? Well all that is required for a Dragon build is to slot 2x the engineering ability you want to keep up and cycle them every 15 seconds. i.e. 2x EptW. The beauty of this build type is you can choose any 2 EptX and have them constantly applied via slotting 2x 1type of EptX and 2x or another type (but only two types can be applied at any one time). You see this done a lot with EptW and EptS as you get a damage boost at the same time a shield resistance buff while EtpS is applied
As an example lets use the layout below in the image. We have and EptS1 and EptW2 in both rows.
We start by firing the first EptW (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Top row)
It sets the duplicate cool down on the other EptW to 30 secs and 15sec for each of the EptS
Then we fire the EptS, setting the duplicate cool down to 30 on the other EptS (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Top row)
Then the second EptW comes off cool down and we fire it (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Bottom row)
Then lastly we fire the second EptS once it comes off cool down (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Bottom row)
then we repeat.
This gives us the EptW and EptS buff up constantly on our ship providing a boost to damage and damage absorption from the resistance buff applied.
The 1/2 Dragon
The other form of this build type is what is called the 1/2 dragon.
This is where we only cycle one set of EptX, the reason for this is usually to save active doff slots for another purpose (the other 2 types all require doffs to work) and use those slots for other purposes (i.e. Tac team cool down).
The next build type we will look at in part 2 is the Aux to Bat (A2B)
So back to basics of ship building in STO ( Warning - this is a very PVE point of view, while most if not all can be applied to PVP I tend to focus on PVE builds).
Engineering Abilities Build Types
There are 3 major types of build (and a few derivatives) in STO that you find just about everywhere and they are all focused on one thing - Maximum uptime of engineering abilities (I'll be covering Tac abilities in a later post). So the goal of these build types is to keep up (applied) Eng abilities (Emergency power to X) to increase our damage and / or defense abilities.
The Dragon Build
One of the oldest because it is so simple a build type uses duplicate abilities to keep up Emergency power to X (EptX) i.e. weapons (EptW) to boost power to our weapons subsystem (+15 Weapon Power Setting for 30 sec for EptW1) and increase damage output via an applied boost (+10% all Energy Damage for 30 sec for EptW1). Shields (EptS) to boost power to the shields subsystem and apply a resistance boost to the shields (Reduces damage to shields by 18% for 30 seconds for EptS1) and the same with Engines (EptE) (speed and turn rate boost) and Aux (EptA) (boost to Graviton Generators, Particle Generator and Subspace Decompiler) along with boosting their respective subsystems.
So how does it work? Well all that is required for a Dragon build is to slot 2x the engineering ability you want to keep up and cycle them every 15 seconds. i.e. 2x EptW. The beauty of this build type is you can choose any 2 EptX and have them constantly applied via slotting 2x 1type of EptX and 2x or another type (but only two types can be applied at any one time). You see this done a lot with EptW and EptS as you get a damage boost at the same time a shield resistance buff while EtpS is applied
As an example lets use the layout below in the image. We have and EptS1 and EptW2 in both rows.
We start by firing the first EptW (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Top row)
It sets the duplicate cool down on the other EptW to 30 secs and 15sec for each of the EptS
Then we fire the EptS, setting the duplicate cool down to 30 on the other EptS (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Top row)
Then the second EptW comes off cool down and we fire it (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Bottom row)
Then lastly we fire the second EptS once it comes off cool down (setting its cool down to 45 secs - Bottom row)
then we repeat.
This gives us the EptW and EptS buff up constantly on our ship providing a boost to damage and damage absorption from the resistance buff applied.
The 1/2 Dragon
The other form of this build type is what is called the 1/2 dragon.
This is where we only cycle one set of EptX, the reason for this is usually to save active doff slots for another purpose (the other 2 types all require doffs to work) and use those slots for other purposes (i.e. Tac team cool down).
The next build type we will look at in part 2 is the Aux to Bat (A2B)