Good day, Joe and STOers! In today’s F2P account update, I want to give a build that’s consistently getting at or around 20,000 Damage Per Second (“20k DPS”) in Advanced runs of Infected: The Conduit.
I’ll note right here and now for the critics: This isn’t the best build for a F2P account, I’m no build master, and I don’t pilot or manage cooldowns worth anything. I’m probably more like the average player who just wants to jump in, take names, and claim Reputation Marks. I don’t min/max, but I do try to keep things as synergistic as possible.
A few notes on this build:
- Nothing in this list cost more than 2 million EC individually at time of purchase. Likely, the roof on costs was ~1.5 million EC, but 2 million’s likely a safe bet in case something previously cheap took off since I recorded this video.
- 1 or 2 pieces of gear come from the Phoenix Prize Pack store, which will cost Dilithium, which will eat into your savings toward turning it into Zen for anything in the Z-Store. However, without a decent start, you won’t do well in combat to get those Marks and Dilithium back.
- Some things may ultimately not combo well, but I will try to point out where synergies do exist.
- I am no build master. This isn’t a perfect list…it likely isn’t much more than an “ok” build. But it’s a starting point for you should you need some direction into your first foray into modifying the default ship build without putting a ton of resources into it.
And now, the build!
THE BUILD VIDEO: Jem’Hadar Escort (T5-U) with a mixed armaments Polaron Energy build
THE EXPLANATIONS
You can view the video for exact gear and traits, so instead, I’ll point out why certain pieces of gear/traits/DOFFs are used.
- Polaron Dual Cannons/Dual Heavy Cannons: They hit hard in the front arc, harder than Beams would. Sometimes, you need that hard initial hit to either destroy weaker enemies or weaken some larger ones.
- Omni-Directional Beam/Morphogenic 360: As free/cheaply obtainableTier 5 ships generally aren’t 5/x setups (5 forward weapons, either 2 aft weapons + an Experimental Weapon or 3 aft weapons), I needed a bit more forward firepower. The “bug zapper” default Experimental Weapon isn’t exactly the strongest, so I kept the Omni-Directional Beam Array it came with and added the Morphogenic 360-degree weapon. This makes the ship essentially a 6/3 + Experimental Weapon, firing 7 weapons forward and 4 aft.
- Morphogenic Armaments Set: Recharge time reduction on needed firing modes, and stat boosts for damage, Critical Chance, and/or Critical Severity on use of those firing modes.
- Bellum Consoles: Since we’re also limited on Console Slots (11 total here vs. 14 on a fully-upgraded Miracle Worker ship), and I hadn’t progressed too far in Reputations at the time of that video, I took advantage of the Reputation reward boxes for doing the Daily (and/or Hourly, if you prefer) XP project toward getting the Discovery Reputation leveled up. While they’re basic consoles (no set pieces or special activatable abilities), they additionally provide some amount of Critical Chance (starting at 1.1% extra Critical Chance based on rarity and Mark level). As I don’t have much in the way of Fleet Credits for Vulnerability Locators yet, I have to get the Critical Chance where I can.
- “Go Fast“: As I don’t have my Endeavor perk points up too high yet, and this is supposed to be a fairly maneuverable ship, I felt I needed a bit of an extra speed and turn boost.
- “Whole Lotta X’s“: I love the Polarized Lattice-Optimized Tritanium Armor trait (which you’d get with the 10th Anniversary Bundle, which is this account’s Zen target). It’s a great defensive trait for newer characters, essentially acting as a reset button for your health. While “Whole Lotta X’s” isn’t quite as potent, it serves the same purpose, potentially getting in 1-2 more attacks before likely ultimately dying in a TFO.
- “Need-to-Know Basis“: Extra ships are always helpful, though in parses, the Section 31 ship that comes in doesn’t do much. Perhaps when I get another Starship Trait, it’ll go away, but for now any possible threat-grabbers are extremely helpful.
- “Sentient Starship“: Anything that can help boost healing in a sub-T6-X2 ship is very welcome! This ultimately likely get replaced with something for better damage output or does healing better, but for now it stays.
- As I’ve gotten more Perk Points since this video, here’s the updated breakdown for the Space points. (Ground isn’t quite as important as most of my focus is on Space combat. Ground’s managable between the Bridge Officers, AoE-style weapons/effects, and heals from those BOFFs).
- For the Duty Officers, there’s nothing special here because I just picked from the stuff I have what I’d most likely use. I don’t think I even have Neal Falconer or the Emergency Conn Hologram slotted as they seemed more useful as DOFFs for missions right now than for combat boosts.
HOW WELL DOES IT ACTUALLY DO?
Well…it’s gotten near 20k DPS a couple of times with 1 outing nearly at 30k. So I’ll show the best-case scenario and the more typical run. All runs are in Infected: The Conduit on Advanced difficulty.
Best-Case Run
Typical Run
As you can see, we’re contributing. And I feel for the level of gear in this build, that’s not a bad set of runs, either. When everyone’s on equal footing numbers-wise, I can push nearly 40k DPS. But that’s the rare case; usually, 1-2 players will just obliterate everything in their path, leaving very little DPS for everyone else. In those cases, I feel only doing half my optimal DPS isn’t so bad, considering.
“WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?”
Specifically? I don’t know if I’m sticking to a low budget.
If I aim higher, though?
- “A Good Day to Die” Personal Space Trait: This turns Go Down Fighting into essentially a nice BOFF ability rather than a once-in-a-while “maybe if I remember it” Captain Ability (technically it still is, but very few if any other Captain Abilities can get their specific cooldowns so low). That’ll likely be key for any future combat updates.
- I may go for the Chronometric Polaron Dual Heavy Cannon. The set doesn’t look too appealing for now (Tactical Console is weaker than a standard Polaron tactical console; set bonus doesn’t contribute directly to damage), but I have a Dual Cannon that needs replacing at minimum.
- I’ll start aiming for meta Reputation and Fleet gear, like an Elite Fleet Protomatter Deflector or Vulnerability Locators (because 7-digit EC spending per Isomagnetic Plasma Distribution Manifold [“Isomag”] is tough on a Dilithium-hungry budget where Contraband could go toward buying ships rather than EC for combat boosts).
- The stuff here is Mk XII at best (except one console at Mk XV). Upgrading items the next time a Phoenix Prize Pack event and/or Upgrade Weekend come up wouldn’t be terrible ideas.
- I’d likely refer to AllThingsTrek47‘s build below for further ideas in the budget range, otherwise I could go on and on and on with Personal Space Traits that would boost this build’s effectiveness a ton. He’s doing a series similar to mine, but he has different priorities in both currency grinding and combat effectiveness upgrades.
“WHAT COULD I DO IF I CAN’T GET THAT SPECIFIC GEAR?”
If you can’t get to this specific listing of gear/traits, take some general lessons and look at STOWiki.net for stuff that fills a similar role.
For example, I’m using the Bellum-named consoles because they offer Critical Chance outside the Tactical slots. So I’d look at the STO Wiki, search “Critical Chance,” and get this page.
Already on there, I see 4 Consoles that give Critical Chance as part of their passives, and those are just the free/low cost ones.
You can click on each Console to see what else you get, but you get the idea: to adapt your build from someone else’s, look for Consoles/Traits that fill similar roles.
BUGGING OUT
I hope this gives you some idea of what gear to aim for, or perhaps what can be replaced with something better or similar, so you can get a bit more performance out of your early-run F2P Jem’Hadar build.
Until next time, continue enjoying Star Trek Online.
Joe and STO 