Thanks for another great video!!! I really learned a lot ! I am now using the armor that you suggest for science captains in this video and it is definitely a much better option that what I had been using. I wouldn’t have ever realized it’s value if I hadn’t watched this video. Also - thanks for the general explanations of the different professions - I now understand my science characters ground mode much better. I now focus on her kit abilities and it has made all the difference . When I do ground runs now and I hardly even got a chance to use my gun - most of the tholians were dead from my kit abilities before I ever got a chance aim
I love space and my ground is only so so. This video is really helpful. I can now tweak my ground builds with some worthwhile changes - perfect timing with upgrade weekend so close! Very happy with the OBS format. Thanks for the hard work.
I'm glad people are responding positively to it! Remember to check the comments section here periodically for what other players that are better dps experts than I think about strong ground builds for more advice.
@@TheTilitus I’d love to know what you use. My only decent ground build is on my sci. Mostly Risa 3 piece, a load of cold damage modules and ball lightning. I also have a fun melee build on a tac. I’d say none of my other 10 toons have a properly focused ground build and my knowledge on what kit modules are great is somewhat weak …
@@Retset I use the Risan or Starfleet Fronter Science as a kit and the moduls are: Anti time entagelment Science mod Ball lightning Univursal mod(Dont know how i lived without it) Neutronic Radiation Science mod Seismic agitation filed Science mod V´ger probes Universal Mod and new to me so im useing it. Kills most thing in a blink. Traits: Thecnophile Field researcher Creative Field Tech Rifel for my Sompek Pulsewave lots of fun Lucky Soldier Penetrating rounds Aggressive Rep traits: Stregnt of body Persenal enegy amp Deadly aim Neural network overload also becuse it synergises with my weapon Leathality. For the active traits its just what ever makes the most dps or fun for the moment. Try out new builds as the top builds can get boring. Its upgrade weekend so if you can upgrade new moduls and have fun =)
Since you seemed to focus on plasma for weapons I was hoping you'd mention those Romulan npc vendor specific plasma weapons like the: Repeater pistol, Piercing rifle, Wide Beam rifle, & the others. I had always wondered what made those different &/or better. I really like that you did a budget version then an A-Team version too. This was a longer video, but a good video full of useful information. Thanks, CounterYolo, well done!
TL;DR many of those weapons just seem to do more dps for plasma builds -- I'm not a dps captain, so I can't really tell you exactly why that is the case though.
@@CounterYoloGaming None of those weapons holds a real candle to the plasma repeater, especially if your a romulan captain to begin with. Corfeld plasma can be good on a single target cause it gains in strength the longer the beam is held on target. Long range plasma mini gun is also not bad, i would rate it #3. Leck's Throwing Knives are 100% shield piercing and have AOE, as well as high dps. Without going into lobi or super rare weapons, those are likely the best you will find.
The plasma wide beam rifle is one of the best in the game due to being able to hit five targets unlike any other widebeam type, this is probably the first weapon I'd choose for chasing dps outside lobi gear.
I just had to comment on this one. Love the vid, but ... you got engineers so ... suboptimal imo and you overlooked some options. The currently strongest kit module in the entire game is Equipment Diagnostics IF you got the 3 DOffs for 35% chance for +50% ranged damage for 30s for it. With those 3 DOffs Equipment Diagnostic gives you - with 100% uptime - about 40-50 all DRR, about 60-75% shield hardness and about 55% ranged damage - including for ranged kit modules. then the currently strongest aoe control kit module in the entire game is Anchor of Grethor (engineer, summer event store). It's basically an Exothermic Field that, while it lasts, keeps throwing out half a dozen chains (with fire dot) that pull enemies in, and mess with their AI in effect disabling their weapons and abilities since they just jump around instead of using them. these two kit modules plus bio-harmonic emitter effectively turn engineers into the strongest, toughest and most versatile ground captains. they can, with anchor + universals, do more aoe damage than science, do more aoe/team wide healing (bio-harmonic, shield/medical generators, drones, ...) and thanks to those 3 equipment diagnostics DOffs their weapon damage is usually about on par with tactical dps builds too ... and for universal stuff? there are currently two super-strong combos. antiproton weapons + Tenavik's Council (ideally with temporal spec for the -DRR on DOTs) rapid fire/multi-hit weapons + Covert Assault Drone. that drone fires every time you "hit" an enemy with a weapon on that target, e.g. 3x if you fire a 3-bolt burst from a full-auto rifle the strongest combination this allows for is: ba'ul full-auto rifle + tenavik's counsel (procs on the ba'ul refractions) + covert assault drone (also fires on the targets hit by the ba'ul refractions) that weapon easily outperforms even lobi options on its own, with the combo? ... its just ridiculous. I like to also throw in the Overload Powercell from the Miracle Worker Spec/Dillithium Store (which also procs on the ba'ul refractions) for +30% extra weapon damage as a 5m radius aoe a third of the time. (This works even better if you have a 'ground grav well' to make sure that the full-auto sweep hits as many targets as possible and that the overload power cell aoes overlap onto as many enemies as possible; note: afaik overload power cell is the same damage type as the weapon used... aka it SHOULD proc tenavik's counsel when used with an antiproton weapon). i also like the kentari kit frame from the colony. its a +30% damage for 1/3rd of the time point-blank aoe buff that stacks with itself (e.g. if multiple ppl use it) it is, imo, the strongest kit frame for non-damage type specific builds or ones that focus on damage types that don't have kit frames dedicated to them (e.g. fire, cold or electricity). there is also an ... interesting ... interaction between Mud's Time Device and the temporal specialization's 3rd tier Modular Momentum together those two effectively reduce the cooldown of any weapon's secondary attack to roughly 2-3 seconds, regardless of its base cooldown (yes, even 30+ second ones are down to 3 seconds, 4 at the very most). combined with the above ba'ul full-auto rifle + the other stuff ... this is some rather ridiculous damage that basically hits everything around you for insane amounts of damage. for a full build using the above ideas see here: pastebin.com/9dy205am
@@CounterYoloGaming PS: given your playstyle (based on what you said in your vids) I think there is another build of mine that would suit you significantly better. but first some numbers. in my experience players new to advanced content or that haven't fiddled with their ground builds at all are at roughly 100-20 DPS. ppl who regularly play advanced content and do well on ground tend to be around 300 DPS those that perform remarkably well and actually use well-thought out builds tend to be around 500 DPS. the Annihilation build I linked you is at 1000-1100 DPS, with peaks up to 1400-1500 DPS for some TFOs. this other build I'm linking you, the Immortal Thunder, is roughly at 800-900 in most cases, with peaks up to 1.2k DPS on some runs. I consider this to be the "tank" to the Annihilation builds "DPS" focus. but here the link: pastebin.com/57728Ndw note: both builds are in use by several streamers and seem to be rather satisfying for them to play with. I truly can't wait to hear your impression of them.
My staple go-to ground build is the Nakuhl Shield, Nakuhl weapon in offhand (from the temporal mission), Adv. fleet armour with CrtD, and then weapon of choice in mainhand. Gives insane CrtD for ground dps with those pieces.
The old Plasma Piercing Rifle is worth mentioning. Primary and secondary fire initially causes enemy to briefly recoil as they do when a grenade is thrown at them so an enemy isn't doing anything but dying for that first second. Secondary fire is a long continuous AoE fire and is especially devastating when target or groups are exposed. Paradox Bomb + weapon secondary is a fine thing to behold. However this gun does have some unfortunate hiccuping glitches like sometimes you're locked in one direction and weapon won't stop firing. Highly embarrassing but usually in my case the battle has been done. Also notice this old warhorse has no DPS numbers(shhhh...don't tell cryptic;)Love that plasma piercing rifle. My firehose of choice still to this day.
The plasma piercing rifle is easily one of the best weapons for boffs too, because they can shoot it continuously without the long delay between shots they have with other weapons. Also very easy/cheap to get a mkII at the dyson sphere and upgrade to epic. In my experience, that glitch where it keeps shooting forever can be stopped if you have auto-attack cancel on target change, which just means you need to keep pressing 1 to acquire a new target and resume shooting, but I do this anyway because I need auto-attack to cancel when I target friendlies to heal them, or else it instantly re-targets an enemy.
Really enjoy your vids, Yolo. You lay things out neatly and keep the explanations simple. The timestamps are a great bonus as well. A great resource for new and returning players. Thanks. :)
Gamma Rep 2-piece is quite good with the 20% Bonus All Damage when entering combat for 20 sec,, especially if you're using a Herald Kit boosting energy weapon flavor damage. The Tzenkethi Lobi set works quite well as well, the secondary fire on the minigun is great against larger mobs. Another great minigun i found is the Krieger Wave Disrupter Minigun, has a nice secondary fire mode and has a chance to boost Kperf I both modes as well. And the Gamma Rep Tactical Kit Module - Coordinated Synergies is quite good as well, with some team damage boosts, speed boosts and resistances.
and the set is good if your new to the game and can waste 40 000 dil on 10 pp boxes(you dont have to buy 10 at a time but it gets cheeper when you need upgrades for your new stuff). the shild is on the lvl 4 reard and the Sompek Pulsewave is on the 2lvl i think.
I personally would have added hypertonic Radiation to your offensive science build it's also AOE shares same cd reduction doff with exothermic reaction and combined with Starfleet frontier science kit you can get a free exothermic cast pretty frequently. Also using biochemist doff will get you -40 resistance for 5 secs with science.
I remember my first PVP match, some Level 50 (max level at the time) Tactical Vice Fleet Admiral challenged my Engineer Rear Admiral character to a ground PVP. I don't remember how many kills we were going to, but I killed him twice and he had not killed me a single time, after that 2nd kill he refused to respawn. The guy was 7 levels above me, and basically rage quit by simply not respawning. I can only imagine he thought, "oh, a level 43 Engineer, this will be an easy win." But he messed with the wrong Engineer, I'd already mastered my placement of the Chroniton Mine Barriers, and back then they hadn't been nerfed yet, so they did 100% shield penetration, that was also back when they were built into the kits and not separate kit modules. Even though the guy cheated by not respawning and taking the loss like an honorable player and I took the loss because with him not respawning I had to quit the game, I still feel pretty good that I made him resort to that level of cheating to get a win out of me. He must have felt extremely salty, getting his butt handed to him by an Engineer who's 7 levels lower than he was. :) I remember the first time I did space PVP too, my BF and I got our butts handed to us by a guy in a T5 Arbiter. It was a team game, my bf, me, and a couple others against the guy in the T5 Arbiter and a few others. The guy in the T5 Arbiter, I do remember his name, but won't put it out here, he was an honorable player, he didn't rub in how badly he'd beaten us, in fact when I asked him after the match how he was able to do some of the things he was doing he was very helpful, that's how I first learned about the Dilithium Surplus, and a few other things.
I've been using the Romulan Imperial Navy kit frame just because it showed up at the end of a mission and was part of a set. Turns out that I grabbed the wrong one though because it's a 3 piece set.
I don't get why you said expose/exploit only matters for melee. I'm in full epic omega 3 pieces and as a secondary weapon, I'm using a MK 15 elite fleet phaser split beam and in adv settings, on TFOs my exploit crits can go over 2,5k-3,2k+ very often. On 3 enemies at the time and since I'm using commando+Firearms specialist trait my secondary fire mode is up quite fast. I will give a try on that module to reduce even further the cd on the secondary mode of my Omega Carbine, that thing is a beast. Besides that nice vid.
Yep, I messed that up there... It took about 12x as long to upload this video with the different way I recorded it (which was suggested by a viewer a few days ago -- the audio quality seems to have improved but I won't be as timely on the channel now as a result). Mudd's Market is an interesting concept, and after I see it in action myself I'll talk about my thoughts on it and how Cryptic can make it better.
Instead of sweeping strikes you can try lunge, you should also look at the bio essence transfer kit module. I happen to like ground combat more than space combat, odd I know.
Where would you rate the Starfleet Frontier Kit Frames? I have and enjoy my Engineering one because of its chance to give me a free turret but what are your thoughts on that?
i found the borg kit frames with the borg turrets give me both more and stronger turrets - they are also more reliable since they trigger on every 7th ability (on average the frontier one triggers 1/8th of the time ... if you win the RNG lottery).
It's basically all the same now. Full points in weapons & kit modules. You can take one point away from the kit readiness one for a point in ground HP if you need it.
Spencer (CasualSAB on YT or u/startrekker on reddit) is the person with a lot of current STO current meta knowledge -- he's who to ask at this point (he'll either have an answer or direct you to someone who will). MC Stu on YT might respond quicker to you. I made this video 3.5 years ago to get people ideas on how to have a workable ground setup. Although a lot has changed in the ground meta, from what I hear these builds are still workable. Nowadays, when I do play STO for a limited-time FOMO event (when there is something I want), I just play science and spam powers & just ignore the weapons altogether honestly; otherwise, I don't play STO actively anymore.
@@MinionmancerOfficial I mostly "play" Solasta: Crown of the Magister nowadays (mostly playtesting new features/spells/feats & overall power/strategies vs "properly" playing the game). I have discussions with the community generally on reddit & discord & have one of the highest referenced resource documents out there (The Subjective Guide to Solasta, still a WIP) -- especially for those wanting to play with the community-made Unfinished Business mod to the game. www.reddit.com/user/CounterYolo I do occasionally chime in on STO stuff on reddit, but it is much less frequent now. I have noted several times over there, I am not seriously returning to STO until we get either (1) a Legendary Bortasqu', or (2) the return of the Foundry. I do plan to eventually make a video about how to fix the DilEx & EC inflation issue, but that will likely be my last STO video -- and that doesn't require me to go into the game to make it. I'll be making another Solasta video when I feel I am in a finished state for the Subjective Guide & give my overall insights on the game (as the final DLC is coming out in May).
Ty for that video, as always a solid piece of good quality information and a few ideas to consider :) First of all sorry for that wall of text, those are some of my experiences from playing ground TFO's on normal or advance lvl and I'm definetly not an expert on that matter but those few informations may be usefull : From what I’ve observed very usefull weapon on ground is Tommy from this year first contact day event ( sto.gamepedia.com/Replica_Thompson_Submachine_Gun ). On TAC toon works well with trajectory bending, photonic overcharge (from Iconian rep) and paradox bomb. I hope that they add this item to next Phoenix event because its second firing mode (even on mk X) is a deadly barrage of physical dmg - except captains, only enemy that withstanding it relatively good are Tzenkethi. Another weapon that I use as a budget long range (or for fun) and when I’m not fighting against Borg is Adv Fleet Federation type 3 phaser rifle mk XII from K-13 fleet holding (gamepedia page is not updated beyond general information sto.gamepedia.com/23rd_Century_Ground_Weapons ). For further boosting of plasma dmg there is also Kentari ground set from ‘Mirror and Smoke’ episode of ‘New Frontiers’ campaign. 2 pcs grants additional +20% plasma dmg and +12.5% chance for shield to generate temporary HP on taking damage (sto.gamepedia.com/Excessive_Development#Kentari_Fortified_Combat_Armor ) but I don’t think if its wise to loose bonuses from Romulan or Nakhul set (I’m usually using it on Romulan mission reward boffs like Thovan Khev to further boost their ground plasma dmg trait). Last but not least there are some doffs that can boost some of the modules (if you have still some free slots on roster). From what I know for example Risian geologist can add chance for root to Exothermic Induction Field ( sto.gamepedia.com/Charol ), Voth explosive expert (exchange) can add a chance to to fire a molten projectile on enemies that are beyond the range of exothermic induction field ( sto.gamepedia.com/Halla_Vuk or sto.gamepedia.com/Vun_Kralla ) and there are also geologists with cooldown variant ( sto.gamepedia.com/Specialization:_Geologist ) For general boosting of ground dmg there are also few interesting doff’s from phoenix event: Automated Personnel Unit - double chance to expose targets ( sto.gamepedia.com/Automated_Personnel_Unit_(Fed) ); Neal Falconer +5% dmg against Borg ( sto.gamepedia.com/Neal_Falconer ) or Ang the Vicious +10% dmg against Tholians ( sto.gamepedia.com/Ang_the_Vicious ) Also worth to consider are Assault Squad Officers that grants stacking crth or crtd on ground but they may cost a bit on exchange: blue quality was quite cheap - about 750k of EC but purple quality can cost around 11 or more milions of EC alternatively they are available from Delta Alliance Duty Officer Pack in Zen store ( sto.gamepedia.com/Specialization:_Assault_Squad_Officer sto.gamepedia.com/Delta_Alliance_Duty_Officer_Pack )
It's a lot of great info here, no problems from me on the wall of text personally -- I'm not a dps captain so I'm super happy to see more of that community here to assist players that have more insight than I do on it. Good point as well on duty officers, I did forget to mention them in this video -- thanks for adding many of those. I only didn't mention the Tommygun just because many of my viewers may not have access to it.
@@CounterYoloGaming He he I'm also not feeling like totally dps oriented, more like do the damage and survive ;) I just hope that Tommygun will be available in next Phoenix event (and not on ultra rare or epic token claim) instead of Mudd's Shop beacuse imo it's probably most versatile weapon I ever encounter in STO so far. To be honest I've also got that problem with forgeting to equip doffs on active duty and they tend to make significant difference if slotted properly...
We've received a few kit modules and a fun borg armor (and the subpar angel suit), but no new ground sets in 2020 yet. If I was going to do an update video, it would largely remain the same -- except to actually discuss duty officer options the next time :) Edit: Also adding in the Risian Tribble and the Risian Kit Frame as strong contenders to use.
That would depend on what you consider playing STO. With my time constraints, my STO time is normally limited to doing whatever current FOMO event is going on, answering questions online and looking at community discussions to keep up with the evolving meta (to continue answering questions accordingly). I spend in the ballpark of about 5 hours on STO outside of the game for every hour in-game (around 30 min/day). If spending around 20-30 hrs/week on STO-related things in/out of the game is to be considered still playing STO, then I still do. I'll leave that opinion up to you on that judgment.
@@CounterYoloGaming lol I see I see, seems I too spend more time outside the game trying to learn it then I do playing it. But I asked because I consider you a great informational STO source for what I need. Ty!
For tactical, you can get the Versatile Kit Frame for your fleet with the [VascReg] mod to get the Vascular Regenerator ability for your tactical captain. sto.gamepedia.com/Versatile_Kit_Frames_and_Profession-Specific_Modules#Tactical_Kit_Frames
Their kit frames were super OP and best-in-slot upon initial release. After the BIG nerf, I think they are still good and serviceable to use (especially for fun on a borg-themed character); I'm not a dps captain, and haven't kept up with the ground meta, so I can't tell you if they are still the true best-in-slot or if the classics are better.
Any plasma weapon is fine -- a few others in the comments here have noted better plasma weapons available in the game to use instead of what I list in the video.
Here's the 3 common ones mentioned in the comments here; I'm not a dps expert to be able to tell you which one really is the best: (1) Corfeld Mining Plasma Cutter -- Storm Clouds Gather mission reward. sto.gamepedia.com/Corfeld_Mining_Plasma_Cutter (2) Plasma Repeater -- Uneasy Allies mission reward. sto.gamepedia.com/Plasma_Repeater_Pistol (3) Plasma Piercing Beam Rifle -- Available from vendors for just energy credits at New Romulus Command, Dyson Joint Command, and Delta Quadrant Command. Apparently also one of the best weapons to put on bridge officers. sto.gamepedia.com/Plasma_Piercing_Beam_Rifle
Uh.....melee is no longer that complicated anymore. Im not really hearing anyone saying they are having issues with ground. Uneasy Allies: Step one, Get yourself Romulan Imperial Navy Armor and the Class specific kit that goes with it. Re-run the mission and get the Plasma Repeater. Do the Na Kulh mission for the invulnerabilty shield....Done.
If that's the case for you, then your social circle of people you are talking to is relatively small. It is quite a common problem for newer players as well as for veteran players that only focus on space combat (as that is the main place where Cryptic makes it money). There isn't a lot of ground build discussion anymore in this game, and even fewer when talking about tackling elite ground TFO's (like Into the Hive), so I added a video to at least give a place of discussion for those struggling players some ideas to start with.
@@CounterYoloGaming NoPpublicservice. And Sentinals has a fleet score of mm..~720. Armada has almost all slots filled. Theres not a lot of focus on ground because its relatively simple now, compared to the old days. Ground combat starting off for new captains can be frustrating though yeah. It will take some time to get up to speed and is mostly disastrous until you can get to the Breen Mission, and get everyone cryo freezers. After that things become much easier. The "kit and module" system really needs a better tutorial.
you talk about tactical kits and dont label ambush as strong? but put in useless shut like containment field or graviton also: where is the disco armor (the best armor ingame) and misses like 90% of good traits aswell pls atleast try to make them up to date ^^ im open for questions ingame if you want some help with it
I did check actually right before recording, and the majority of the ground traits the DPS League mentioned are strong (as of Sep 2019) are included in the video, with the link to their website already included in the description when this video published: www.sto-league.com/traits-guide/. If there happen to be an extra 20+ traits that do more dps than those listed there nor in my video here (as you seem to claim in your comment), then a post from you on the DPS League is in order as to what is the current best meta for ground dps. They would definitely like to hear from you if that is the case, probably with an accompanying parse & video to prove your superiority. Since you feel the DPS League isn't up-to-date on the best builds for ground combat right now, where should dps players for ground combat be looking right now? (1) As for my devaluation of Ambush: As a *tank* player (not dps player), I value more crowd control and AoE abilities over the single-target ones (which ambush is designed to be a strong single-target ability). As I mentioned early on in the video, I have a tanking bias that will affect how I see & value abilities. My tanking builds do just fine in the ground elite TFO's I run, so I don't really need much advice/help personally. However, others that watch this video could use the help. Feel free to leave your in-game info so others watching can get more input into their ground dps builds. (2) The DSC Armor: it is mentioned in the video actually; it is a good armor, but it is stronger on melee builds than ranged ones vs the next closest competitor (other ranged builds generally seem to pop up more with the Herald or Fleet Armors more than that one -- especially after the nerf to the DSC armor). The next closest armors for melee are the Tzenkethi one from the lobi store and the Undine one from the Counter-Command rep; both are comparable individually to the DSC armor, but are inferior when considering its set bonuses (I remember the days when the undine armor used to increase the dps of the shotgun...). Complaining about why something wasn't included in a video (when it was) means you probably didn't watch the whole video -- or at least weren't paying attention to my commentary when I was talking about that armor in the melee section.
@@CounterYoloGaming 1 ambush is not a single target buff, it buffs all modules until you fire weapons ^^ and tanks on ground are remotely worth it ^^ 2 the disco armor is the best armor ingame (actually the ev suit is) regardless of class or build it simply gives the most dps and ye i cant watch 50 minutes explaining ground builds, simply cause most of it is dragged out without much reason ^^ feel free to add me/pm me @supertigar i am somewhat of a decent tank in space aswell ;)
Lol big mistake no hp no big shield capacity no counterattack skills in advanced or elite u Are permanently death just for u info 1 skill plasma feedback cascade
